lauriereadslohf's reviews
1518 reviews

This book took a little while to get going for me. It features a woman suffering from chronic pain. She’s lost her dreams, her husband, most of her friends and her doctors and the people in her circle treat her abysmally. They don’t listen and they don’t seem to care about her pain. Miranda is doing her best to get through each day and bring to life a production of “All’s Well That Ends Well”. A production that no one but Miranda wants and her students fight her at every turn. It’s terrible and hard to read and it’s all done excellently but I was expecting something “bitingly funny and hilarious” as I’ve seen others say about the story and that simply wasn’t the case for me.

The plot takes a wild and strange turn eventually. I enjoyed it more once that happened but strangely it made me enjoy the main character less. She starts to become more like the people she despised. I’m sure it was all intentional but personally I can’t honestly say I enjoyed the personality that was exposed once “a thing” happened. I suppose it’s all a case of what you’re in the mood for and your particular taste. Lots of people find this all a laugh riot so it could be my mood.

I could mention a few more things here that I liked and disliked but I would be saying too much so I’m going to keep this short and am going with a 3 here. A 3 for me means I liked it but it’s not a book I’ll be screaming about for years to come. 

House of Lazarus continues the tale that started with River of Souls. You can *probably* read this one on its own but I’d recommend reading River of Souls first to get the entire backstory. It’s an excellent take on the zombie horror novel and I think you should be reading it anyway 😁

This book picks up right where the previous one ended. It follows Davin, his teen sister and Davin’s undead boyfriend Randy as they attempt to live their lives in a world turned upside down after the dead have risen. There is a lot going on here that our group is attempting to figure out at their own peril. There’s first of all the fact that the dead don’t stay dead (ahhh!) but they’re really the least of our groups worries, there’s also a whole mess going on with a drug created to supposedly keep the dead somewhat stable and non-killery but firsthand experience and reports from the media do not add up and there’s a shady corporation doing what shady corporations do so they have a lot to figure out! All of this puts a little strain on Davin and Randy’s brand new relationship as it will. You really feel for Davin in this book, just like the previous one, he’s such a decent person and has so much on his plate. 

The best thing about this story for me is that its characters are doing their best to do the right thing, even when that right thing is the hardest thing. They’re good at heart and they kept me turning the pages. There are many devious and sinister and terrible things afoot here and the end leaves on a bit of a cliffhanger but answers enough questions so I’m happy about it and will definitely be reading the next one.

 This story was delightful. I’ve been reading a lot of gloomier books because I love them but I needed a little break from the bleak and I’m so glad this one caught my eye. I thought it was the perfect mix of a developing romance, a character struggling to put aside past hurts and figure things out, a long-overdue revenge plan and also a fun witchy adventure. All great things. All done just right! This is one of those magical books featuring such a well-drawn warm and cozy setting you might want to move into the book and never leave.

Emmy fled her beloved magic filled hometown of Thistle Grove after her heart was shattered by a callous man and she never looked back. But now she’s been called back to fulfill something called the Gauntlet which is basically a magical-filled event that the four founding families participate in every fifty years. The winning family receives a LOT of power and of course the same family has been winning for far too many years and is using their power to take control of the town as power hungry villains will do. Villainous villains, all of them!

That’s the bones of the tale and I found it all enjoyable. There’s a good amount of time spent on friendships, family, new romances and the fun revenge plot line against the town heartbreaker Gareth Blackmoore. He of the power hungry Blackmoore’s. The brazen fool has spurned not only Emmy but her best-friend and even one of the town’s darker magic badasses, Talia, and they are not suffering his bullshittery any longer. During their planning and researching and bonding over their mutual disdain for Gareth, Emmy and Talia become more than friends but they have a lot of things to figure out here. The romance is a little angsty but it never gets out of control.

I thought Payback’s A Witch was an amusing, breezy tale with luscious fall atmosphere and just enough adventure for me. Admittedly I’m not a huge fan of too much action/adventure so if you have similar tastes you’ll likely enjoy this one as much as I did. I’m looking forward to the next one! Maybe I’ll even keep up with a series for once in my life 🙀 

 

I’ve been having such a struggle gathering my thoughts and putting them out into the world when it comes to this book. I feel most anything I have to say may spoil the experience for you and I don’t want to do that. I even restarted the book (I’m currently at 50% on the revisit) in order to put *something* out here into the ether but I’m still at a loss so I’m going to tell you to just Go Read It and don’t read anything about it until you finish. Go in blind for the best experience because some people are saying far too much (ahhhh! Why?! Omg, please stop!!). It is so incredibly well crafted that on the second listen I’m still spellbound by the story, the secrets, the surprises and it has managed to shock me even though I already know everything. You might figure out some of its secrets or you might be like me and get all smug thinking “hmmmm, I’ve figured you out book you can’t fool me” but you will probably be wrong and you will probably be very thankful for it! 

If you’re an audiobook person I recommend giving it a listen. The narrator Christopher Ragland  is incredible. He nails the performances of all of the characters and brings them to life in the most vivid, entrancing way and you won’t want to stop listening until all is revealed. 

This is a story of dark fiction and thusly it is filled with pain and horror and all things awful and terrible and heart-crushing but it also has a sweet, delightful and sometimes humorous side that I adored. The blend and the contrast was simply perfection and that is all that I am willing to say. GO READ IT!

 

 

I’ve always been a fan of horrorotica? Horrorromance? Monterporn?  I don’t know what it’s called on this particular day but I know I like to read it even though I probably shouldn’t. The good, the bad, even the  “meh” because we have had slim pickings in this genre until recently. Do you remember those Hot Blood books from back in the late ’80s & ’90s? Yeah, those were filled with lots of gratuitous sex and scary scenarios and monsters, and I remember they were sometimes pretty darn icky when it came to the sex and I ate them up so I clearly cannot be trusted. I loved those books even though if I reread them now I might be a little horrified at myself. Or maybe not. My tastes are strange. 

So with that said, I find the intimacy, romance, and sensuality of this collection are much preferred by me now. These stories aren’t shocking you with rape, or pedos, nasty one-sided sex, or gross Humanoid Creatures From the Deep (although that can be fun too, not me judging anyone here because, ugh I think I liked that terrible movie!)  But none of that is needed here. Women can desire intimacy without always having to become a victim of pervs or beasts and horror readers deserve more of this, please and thank you! 

In this collection love sometimes goes wrong, it blossoms when it’s least expected and sometimes a lady just wants sexy times for the sake of sexy times, you know? Desire is a strong motivator for many of the stories and if someone ends up dead, well, that’s the chance you gotta take for love, haha! I highly recommend all of the books I’ve read by Sonora Taylor and this one is no exception. Here’s a little bit but hopefully not too much about the stories:

Someone To Share My Nightmares

Kristen is grieving over the recent death of her favorite movie producer. She visits a bar to drown her sorrows and meets a handsome guy who tempts her into the woods with his sexiness. But honestly, it didn’t take much tempting! Heeehee. These woods are so seductive and the bugs are the least of your worries. I wish my woods were more like these here woods, tbh, and you’ll have to read the story to find out why!

Petal, Page, Piel

This one is short and gets right to the point. Fellas better beware of she who loves to caress her . . . book! Us book people aren’t playing around with you fools.

Bump In The Night

Tasha’s just trying to have a little fun with a late-night visit from a sexy plumber but the clanging and banging pipes aren’t having any of it. Sexy times interruptus are the absolute worst! This was light-hearted fun. You should all read it if you want a laugh.

Metal Meticulous 

A dark and Iovely poem about a man who gets more than he bargained for!

The Parrot

Ooooh, all the stars. This one is magic. Read it! Charles, a real loathsome fella as we soon discover, is now a widower. His wife has left him to fend for himself but fortunately for him, she’s also left The Parrot, a smart device programmed to make his life easier because he’s a temperamental baby-man. Ooops, that’s just my opinion. Sorry, that snuck out. Anyhow, this one is gleefully Evil and I adored it and you probably will too.

Candy

Ummm, I think Sonora Taylor snuck into my head when she was writing this one. A man should not come between a woman and her truffles if he knows what’s good for him and that’s all I’m saying about that 😳

The Sharps 

This one is sexy and romantic and also freaking terrifying in a B monster movie sort of way. It has mutant sea creatures and new love and, come on already, what else do you need?

You Promised Me Forever

One woman discovers forever is a very long time. This man of hers is getting on her last nerve and even sexy gets old when he’s annoying the hell out of you. 

‘Tis Better To Want

I read this story in January of this year when it was released on its own but I did not mind revisiting sexy Krampus again! This story is the most explicit but it’s not super scandalous and I don’t think you’ll be needing a fainting couch but don’t yell at me if you do. It’s tons of fun. Here’s my original review that still stands:

Well, this was the story we all needed this long dreary winter Lydia is a naughty child when she’s first visited by Krampus. She really can’t get him out of her head once she’s set eyes on the beast. As she grows into a naughty teen and later a naughty college student she longs for the day he’ll show up again to mete out a little punishment and does her best to seduce him. Even Hell’s servant has his limits, lol!

Sonora Taylor has written some of my favorite dark horror stories and this Krampus story was a delightful surprise 😈. This was the most explicit-saucy-sexy whatever.

So that’s that. If this sounds like fun to you (and how could it not?), you should give it a read! 

 

 I first read Cassandra Khaw in COME JOIN US BY THE FIRE, a free audio collection put out by Tor Nightfire. It’s still free as far as I know on Spotify and you should grab it! Khaw’s story THESE DEATHLESS BONES was one of my favorite stories of the collection. It read like a dark fairytale and was beautifully written. It felt more like an experience than simply reading a story (or having one read to me!). So I was very much looking forward to this novella and tell me that cover isn’t the stuff of nightmares! I’m keeping it around to spook my child because I am nothing if not mother of the year material, ha.

So what’s it about? I’ll tell you a little bit but hopefully not too much because it’s a novella and I think you should discover its secrets on your own. A group of friends head out to a destination wedding. But it’s not your typical wedding venue. The bride wants to get married in a haunted house so they’re all gathered in a Heian-era mansion in Japan where, if rumors are true, a bride asked to be buried alive when her groom didn’t make it for the nuptials and now she demands a little company each year in the form of a warm body while she eternally waits for her man to show. Being a ghost sounds like lonesome work so who can blame her?

This is probably not the best of ideas but a bride wants what she wants. However, this is a particularly not-so-great plan because this group of friends is a hot mess. Along with the gorgeous descriptions of the decaying mansion, it’s soon apparent that these “friends” have some mighty unfriendly history, including messy past relationships with each other, jealousies, and unresolved hurt. All that is sitting there simmering below the surface waiting to spill over. It makes me wonder why any of them agreed to go to this thing in the first place. Their interactions are strained and fraught with tension but the reader is never told exactly who did what to who or why and I was left floundering a little bit because I am nosy and I want all the backstory when it comes to relationship messes. The reader gets little tantalizing dribs and drabs as the characters argue and verbally stab each other so you’re left to fill in the blanks. I love novellas but I do wish this book had been a little longer to flesh out all of that stuff. This won’t bother you if you’re not as nosy as I am and you’re probably not!

The rest of the story is a beautifully written visit inside a haunted, crumbling mansion, filled with creepy-ass dolls, and what’s not to like about that? Nothing. There is nothing not to like about that if you’re asking me! I loved the imagery and the beauty of the writing, the folklore, the anger, the frayed nerves, and the brutally shocking moments.

Khaw’s novella is as creepy and darkly poetic as I was expecting and it was also exquisitely vicious so don’t let the atmospheric writing fool you into thinking this is a quieter horror novel. It’s not. I think it’s a great choice for a cool autumn night during this spooky season. Or any season when you want some eerie feelings creeping under your skin. I can’t wait to see what Khaw writes next! 

I remember a few years back when every blog I follow seemed to be talking about Certain Dark Things and all the reviews were tempting so I put it on my to-buy list and then I got distracted and I never read it. Ugh. I hate and I love that there are always so many tempting books coming at me. Anyhow, it’s been re-released by Tor Nightfire so if you’re like me and missed it the first time around now is the time to grab it for yourself (and maybe even read it, ha!)

I started this out by reading the print copy at night and listening to the audiobook from Netgalley (thank you Netgalley!) during the day. If you’re a fan of audiobooks I’d say go for it that way because the narrator does an excellent job of bringing the story and characters to life. About ¼ of the way through I put the paperback down and switched completely to audio because I found myself more engaged that way but YMMV.

The storyline, to be completely honest, isn’t one that thrills me. It’s set in an alternate universe in Mexico City and is about a young vampire named Atl who is on the run from another killer clan of vampires who want her dead for <I>reasons.</i> I’m not a super fan of vampire clan wars and vampire politics make me sleepy, likely because I read way too many of them as a youngling, but that’s totally on me. But Atl is interesting. She’s prickly and cold and embodies some of the vampire qualities that have mostly been wiped clean from so many vampire novels in the last decade or so (I said MOSTLY so please don’t come at me with your but what abouts . . .  I know there are exceptions but I’m all about those Near Dark bloodsuckers). I also loved the folklore and Aztec mythology weaved into the story and, of course, I was a sucker for Atl’s beautiful, modified dog and Atl’s human servant Domingo. If you need to latch on to a character in order to become engrossed in a story, Domingo is that character. He’s sweet, a little innocent and so loyal it’s almost painful.

I’m going to rate the story a three (I know, I know, I’m THE WORST - no need to tell me again) but because of the excellent narration, I’m bumping it up to a four. It’s a bloody and brutal tale which I love and though it took a little while for it to get going for me, once I fell into it I enjoyed the audio experience so much I didn’t want to shut it off to do actual life stuff.

 If you follow the bookish people on social media, I bet you’ve seen people praising this book here, there, and everywhere. There’s a reason for all of the praise. This book isn’t one you finish and forget. It’ll stick with ya whether you want it to or not and that is the mark of an excellent read if you ask me.

Flowers for the Sea is a gorgeously told tale of rage, isolation, and all the unearthly hells that the sea and sky have up for offer in this bleak universe created by author Zin E. Rockland. The sea is angry, the sky is angry but most of all the heroine of this tale is angry. And justifiably so. 

She is stuck on a godforsaken sea vessel as the world dies. She is heavily pregnant with a child that she fears may not be 100% human. Who knows? This world has been turned upside down. At any rate, she doesn’t want it and she has no say in the matter. She is surrounded by people she despises, people who despise her, people who have made her an outcast time and time again. They may live what’s left of their miserable lives on this horrible ship. But her rage simmers and she keeps going out of pure spite. She is an incredibly written character. 

There is a lot packed into this thin novella. The prose is filled with suffocating anger and descriptions of the dank, disgusting, rotting ship and the people who inhabit it. There’s a lot left to the imagination as the author never spells it all out for the reader and this made me eager to keep turning the pages, to attempt to soak it all in and figure it out. 

I don’t want to say too much about this novella and honestly, I can’t spill out the words without spoiling the things that every reader should discover on their own. If you’re a fan of nightmarish worlds and powerfully strong women who persevere despite the odds, and a killer ending this is one you’ll want to add to your reading pile. 

CW:

mention of miscarriages

 

 

This is the third book I’ve read by author C.J. Tudor and it’s my favorite so far. I had some crabby complaints about The Chalk Man’s characters being dull and humorless and I remember only enjoying the dog but that’s all been fixed here so, yay, here’s a crab-free review!

An untraditional vicar named Jack and her teen daughter are relocated to a remote village because the last vicar perished in a very bad way but he oh-so-kindly left Jack an exorcism kit! Wait, what?! There’s quite the story behind all of it but I absolutely will not spoil it for you. There are many mysteries and secrets here to unravel and let me tell ya, one of them really got me! I was genuinely taken aback, and left a little stunned at the turn of events and in need of a breather and I loved it and that’s all I’m saying about that. 

The atmosphere is ultra-creepy and done extremely well. I love stories where the setting is as much a character as the actual characters themselves and that’s the case here. Their new church/home is decrepit and neglected as it should be in a book like this. Grimy and old and a little bit dangerous. The cemetery hangouts, dismembered burning ghost girls, cagey and suspicious new neighbors, awkward new friends, all of it done so incredibly well that I couldn’t put the book down. Sometimes when a book has this much going on I start to tune out, get confused or aggravated because my brain screams “stop, it’s too much!” but not this time. The characters are vivid and compelling, Jack and her daughter are down to earth and have a great sense of humor. I love to see that. I adored the mother/daughter relationship here especially. It’s full of love and trust and honesty and though the situation is very less than ideal neither one of them are resentful and simply go with the flow instead of having conflicts that fill so many books like these. Their relationship really grounded the book for me and I never felt lost or irritated by the “what the heck?” of it all. It is a fantastic thriller/mystery/creepfest. 

There is so much evil happening here, you gotta love it! I hope you get to read it and that you love the pure evil of it all as much as I did.

CW

implied death by suicide, bullying

 

 A horrible thing happens once a year in this book. Some sort of affliction has infected the population and it turns all the straight people into rage demons who attack and murder all of those who are not. But now that there's a vaccine (that *some*, ahem, may or may not have taken for, *ahem* reasons) a group of friends assume things will be ok when they head out to a deserted area to ride it out but they are woefully unprepared for what awaits them.

This book is some gory fun and also exposes some painful truths about allies and what it means to be one when the going gets hard and not just give some lip service that makes you sound good. Stand by your friends and fellow humans when things are bad and help them when they most need it.

Anyhow, I picked this up because Chuck Tingle is known for writing some of the wildest titles I've ever seen and because his social media presence is such a joy and he is a very unique personality. I was very curious to see what he'd do with a horror novel and he did good stuff. It was one of those books that was a pure joy to read, filled with interesting people and horrible deeds. lots of action and some gooey and gruesome scenes.