Genre: Suspense

Atmospheric, imaginative, but most importantly emotionally heartfelt, Don’t Let the Forest In is a stunning book that effortlessly mixes genres to tell its tale of teenage fears, longing, and pain. Blending dark fantasy, psychological horror, and romance wrapped up with a literary fiction touch, C.G. Drews’ novel takes the best elements of each genre and connects them to a grounded, character-centric story that’s as compelling as it is nuanced. Despite being classified as a YA book due to its characters’ ages and high school academy setting, this novel is a master class example of delivering a complex and impactful story without dumbing down its content for its intended readers. Ambitiously written, well-plotted, and featuring an ending that is both devastating and open to interpretation, Don’t Let the Forest In is easily one of the most impressive books I’ve read this year. Before breaking down the book’s more technical elements, there’s a few important points worth mentioning for those that are considering reading this book. Are you a sensitive reader that finds triggers upsetting? I’m not mentioning them specifically for spoilers here but do check your triggers as there are some difficult ones included. How about mild body horror and moderate…

The following review is based on a complimentary ARC provided by the author and Savage Realms Press in exchange for an honest review. A derelict grist mill off the beaten path, a string of grisly deaths with no known perpetrator, and an earth-shattering roar in the night. High school senior Jake and his fellow school newspaper club friends find themselves caught in the middle of a dangerous predicament following a local tragedy that has eerie similarities to a familiar scene of mass carnage twenty-five years ago. When their paths cross with a disheveled personal investigator, the tension and mystery of what’s out in the forest only grows as suspicious outside agents soon show up in town in full force. Dylan James’ novel Cedar Mills is an engaging suspenseful horror story that feels like a modernized take and ode to classic monster in the night horror tales. Featuring a diverse cast of characters with interwoven backstories, creative ideas mixed together in refreshing ways, and sharply pitched action scenes (pun fully intended), Cedar Mills is fast-paced and fun read akin to a Friday night stay-at-home horror movie marathon. With a strong opening chapter and a perfectly pitched introduction to the unknown out…

Like my reviews for other very well-known books and authors, I’m going to skip the usual introduction and pre-amble and get right into my impression and thoughts on Verity. Colleen Hoover is probably one of the most polarizing authors with such big-name recognition that I felt the need to try at least one of her books, picking Verity as the one that had the best match for my reading genre preference. Yet despite that, my feelings while reading Verity ranged from utter bafflement, to eye-rolling embarrassment, to irritation, and finally shock, but not in the way the novel hopes it to be. One of my earliest notes while reading this novel was “Verity reads like the literary equivalent to Stranger Danger, and I don’t like this at all.” Whether it was an early sign or not, the overall vibe of the novel just felt uncomfortably questionable which is something I very rarely experience, even extensively reading horror and serial-killer murder mystery works. I’ve read and watched a lot of dark series that explore the depths and shadows of the human mind so I had no problems with Verity‘s content on paper, but the tone and vibe felt all wrong. Paired…

What if you stumble across odd coincidences between seemingly unrelated incidents and your brain starts working overtime in the background to try to make sense of these odd occurrences? Random connections abound, that is the concept and world of Terry Miles’s novel Rabbits. Taking place in a realistically and authentically portrayed version of Seattle, Rabbits explores a mysterious hush hush game played in real-time that involves players following strange connections and coincidences that shape and alter the world and reality around them. A self-contained story taking place within the world of a 2017 pseudo-documentary podcast of the same name, no knowledge of the podcast is required to read and understand the novel, though it certainly enhances the read. Conceptually great and full of details and references that will make any internet junkie or video-game geek jump with glee (sorry the pun was too tempting), its actual execution is a bit of a mixed bag and one that many readers may find frustrating or disappointing to read. This is one of those novels that I appreciated the ambition and ideas while finding the actual reading experience less enjoyable. Easily the biggest highlight and strongest element of Rabbits is Terry Miles’s attention…

Continuing my reading journey through Riley Sager’s novels (completely out of order I may add), Final Girls is Sager’s first published thriller though technically not his first written novel as Sager is a nom de plume for Todd Ritter who had previously written a trilogy series and standalone book. The final girl is a common trope in various forms of slasher/horror media but Sager’s novel is an uncommon story that focuses on what happens to that said final girl after they experience one of the most traumatic moments of their life. Final Girls answers that question with Quincy Carpenter, a baking blogger who has put that traumatic event behind her until another mass slaying survivor Sam arrives at her apartment building’s front door. This is my fourth Sager thriller novel that I’ve read and despite it being published years before the other Sager novels, it showcases very similar hallmarks to what people have come to expect from his stories. Unfortunately this novel also has the same drawback as his other works, namely a slow beginning and a well-written, albeit uneventful first half. However like his other works, the strong and intelligent female main characters, twists on familiar narratives and scenarios,…