Unquiet
Things

Note: These brief impressions are just the surface layer of what each fragrance evokes for me. Over on my Midnight Stinks Patreon, you’ll find the full stories behind these scents—where Xinū VetiVerde becomes a complete botanical horror narrative about zombie apocalypses and colonial privilege, or how Mischief Academy’s Hansel & Gretel transforms into a meditation on Instagram envy and curated domesticity complete with $400 balayage and Williams Sonoma measuring cups.

You’ll get the atmospheric deep dives, cultural rabbit holes, and personal tangents that turn a simple fragrance review into something closer to creative nonfiction. Plus behind-the-scenes glimpses into my creative process, archival reviews from two decades of fragrance writing, and the kind of deeply personal observations that don’t quite fit in public blog posts. The free tier disappears August 1st, so if you’ve ever been curious about how a scent can become a fairy tale retelling or why certain fragrances remind me of mean girls with MBAs in witch she-devilry, now’s your last chance to peek behind the curtain before these musings become members-only territory.

 BPAL x bloodmilk Dreaming Mandragora Baptismal linen, lavender-pressed and yellowed, moth-eaten sweetness. Fae changeling cradled in lace and linen, ruffled sack of secrets. Mound of dirt spiced and sweet, loam and leaf, twig and root. Old earth magic’s powder-soft pretense, Lacunae of child, empty rosewood coffin, pile of dust and twisted hay. The pores of the earth opening, breathing, exhaling; mulberry-stained fingers emerge. Blinking in the light. Tiny, grasping, changed. Crawling home to hollow hills.

Aesop Rōzu A rose I immediately enjoy is a rare creature indeed, and this one conjures the fierce tenderness of Yosano Akiko’s verse. I don’t know how this extraordinary poet would feel about this fragrance, but we are channeling her today for these impressions.

Ancient wood smoke
drifts between scattered fog.
Morning bell echoes—
I taste metal on my tongue,
spring’s sharp, necessary cut.

Green leaf floating in
the temple’s shallow puddle
reflects my true face.
A mantis waves its thin arms
in mock benediction.

Thorn-pricked finger traces
rose oil, crimson poems
on sleep-soft limbs,
bitter sutras cannot wash
this sweetness from memory.

Villa Erbatium is a Korean brand I’m not familiar with, but their romantic gothic aesthetic suggested something …different? than what Allegria delivers. With its airy powdery vanilla, cloying sweetness and “clean” conformity, Allegria is the fragrance embodiment of weaponized beige, Christian girl autumn energy in a bottle (there’s nothing autumnal about it, it’s just aggressively calling to mind this “Christian girl autumn” photo that I remembered seeing on reddit.) It’s the olfactory equivalent of overpriced artisanal laundry powder and “fresh linen” candles lit for LuLaRoe parties or some shit, the sort of aroma designed to be so universally appealing it becomes suffocating in its blandness. This is the scent of people who insist on “clean” makeup and chemical-free foods, that elitist purity obsession wrapped in aggressively neutral vanilla that clings to your skin and sinuses like the slimy feeling you get about that shady spiritual cleansing program your friend wants you to join but you’re pretty sure it’s a weirdo sex cult with a side of pyramid scheme. There’s something about this that smells like enforced wholesomeness and suburban respectability that almost immediately becomes that predatory wellness-to-exploitation pipeline that’s so specific and creepy. The combination of spiritual manipulation, financial scamming, and sexual predation really nails that particular kind of modern cult operation. Wow, this escalated. But I smell what I smell.

Heretic Midnight Toker Peak pixie dream girl Peter-Pan collared Zooey Deschanel ModCloth dress, honey-apricot-jasmine preciousness, infantile heliotrope Alice & Olivia floral babydoll cast-offs set alight, smoldering in the gutter. It wasn’t a cleansing fire, not a redemptive flame. Sort of like a nasty garbage bin blaze, destroying evidence of your cutesy, kitchsy crimes. Embezzling from a cupcake boutique, or stealing someone’s vintage typewriter collection, or you did an identity theft or two to afford your overpriced mason jar cocktail with artisan bitters obsession. Some real twee shit. A burnt-out, acrid sweetness “like ew gross” scratch-n-sniff sticker layered atop already barfy one, something bad compounding something worse.

One Day Thai Soda  Limey effervescence, lacto-fermented tang. Enzymes and culture, whey-sharp brightness, ginger root and sugar, bacterial starter. Lemongrass stalk steeped in Rose’s lime juice. Makrut lime leaves crushed between fingers. Raffia tote discarded, sandals kicked off. Umbrella shade, cold citrus fizz, slow whirring ceiling fans. Paperback novel pages soft from humidity, airport-bought and quickly abandoned. Cafe corner, afternoon nowhere. Electric effervescent amnesia. Fleeting fizzy forgetfulness fun Fun FUN.

Régime des Fleurs Green Vanille Cold, coiled, calculating. A soupçon of weaponized sweetness. Wilhelmina Slater corner office with floor-to-ceiling glass walls, fashion dungeon once her interior decorator works their dark magic. Absinthe-laced champagne vanilla, green and subtly herbaceous, aromatic poison in crystal stemware. Dusty-woody-musky shadows, slithery spice as hissed threats between bathroom stalls. Mean girls who devoured high school bones and all used losers’ broken phalanges to pick their teeth; earned their MBAs in rancid witch she-devilry and leveled up into the cuntiest of lady bosses; perfected the art of smiling while sliding knives between ribs and stabbing square in the middle of the back while smiling with their perfect veneers. Creamy almond undertones, just enough sweetness to mask bitter herbs. Fake pleasantries/ menacing undercurrent, espionage in every conversation, veiled threats disguised as small talk. How’s business this quarter? How are your kids? I’ll cut a bitch. I’ll strike when you least expect it. More canapés?

Xinū VetiVerde Bubble bath in the heart of the tropics. An army of the undead approaches. Pink satin negligee, frayed lace, damp skin. Powder, rouge, perfume, genteel botanicals dabbed behind the ears, an ornate imported mirror’s humid surface reflects palms and liana and strangler figs pressed against swollen shutters. Lush growth, wild abundance, birds of paradise fills every window; just inside the steamed glass, a pale, wilting orchid of a woman, a fragile, cultivated existence inside that’s already starting to decay. Rosy citronella, refined for cocktail parties instead of protection. Grassy twigs distilled into cut glass crystal atomisers rather than bundled for kindling. Bamboo like the idea of bamboo, clean and serene and watery-green, nothing left of the sharp-edged, invasive reality splitting the foundation outside. The whisper of bodies that no longer remember their names, thronging with un-life, powdered pollen dusting limbs, numbing nerves, severing synapses, only a mindless floral directive: bloom, spread, consume; crawling corpses crowding at the threshold. The tub fills, overflows, she’s sinking beneath the flowery froth, a strange sluggishness creeping through her body, a sweet lethargy replacing thought, an ecstasy of subsummation as awareness dims, a blissful relinquishing to the blooming collective as the door splinters inward.

Mischief Academy Hansel & Gretel isn’t the fairy tale witch’s honest death trap, it’s the modern bougie kitchen witch with her artisanal wooden spoons and Williams Sonoma measuring cups, making traditional German Christmas cookies in a kitchen that costs more than most people’s annual salary. This fragrance captures the amber-patchouli sophistication of expensive cashmere and gingery-warm spices, Pfeffernüsse cardamom, Lebkuchen honey and almonds, Spekulatius cinnamon, but it doesn’t smell like food. Instead, it smells like the memory of those scents clinging to someone who can afford to live that perfectly curated Instagram life. You’re pressed against the phone screen at 2am, desperately wanting to be the person in that sweater, living in that snow-globe perfection where baking feels like meditation rather than labor. As it dries down to woods, ambroxan, and synthetic musk, the cozy fantasy fades into something sophisticated but hollow: the olfactory equivalent of lifestyle porn that leaves you with that gnawing inadequacy that follows every scroll session. This has nothing to do with candy houses or literal hunger; it’s about manufactured desire, the trap of wanting a life that exists primarily in filtered light and carefully staged moments. The scent itself is genuinely lovely, but smelling it feels like window shopping for an existence you can’t afford.

If you enjoy posts like these or if you have ever enjoyed or been inspired by something I have written, and you would like to support this blog, consider buying the author a coffee?

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I have finally done the thing. You know, that thing I’ve been promising to do for approximately forever? The bookshelf tour. It’s happened. It exists. On YouTube. Right now, as we speak.

Filming in 97-degree Florida heat required a mid-filming costume change. I had to ditch my regular shirt for a midriff top from Reve Brewing (their trippy Feed Your Head IPA design) and put my hair up in a little sprout like a goth radish because I was literally melting. I was weirdly excited about finally owning a midriff shirt at almost 50, thinking, “who gives a fart if anyone sees my belly?” But then came the sad trombone: turns out I have a real short torso, so no one was going to see my belly anyway.

A little preview of what awaits:

You’ll get to see the books I gift most often (spoiler: it’s always Salt is for Curing by Sonia Vatomsky), my collection of Time Life Enchanted World books that shaped my entire aesthetic sensibility as a child, and the gothic romance novels I bought purely for their cover art and have never actually read because the print is too small.

There are art books, folklore, and mythology, my witchy business shelf (that’s the technical term), and the three shelves of books I’m currently selling. I’m keeping mostly nonfiction, art books, science, esoteric studies, philosophy, memoirs, and essays. Things for reference and research. I don’t typically reread fiction (I can think of three examples: Dracula, Rebecca, and Harriet the Spy, and I haven’t reread those in years). I want new stories. My time on earth is limited, so those fiction books are just taking up space and collecting dust. Some of those are brand new, never read…which represents an opportunity for someone else to discover them properly.

You’ll also hear about my recent writing adventures (my Rue Morgue column!) and my summer social media break that’s been gloriously freeing. Plus, I share some very exciting news about the new book I’m working on, which is in that same wonderfully weird vein as my other art books.

I forgot to include several things that probably should have been included in the tour. Like my Goodreads challenge progress (I’m at 92 out of 100 books for the year), or a screenshot of all my NetGalley ARCs, or the wheelie cart under my desk that houses the physical books I’m currently reading. That cart is where I keep my nonfiction books, which I read at my desk during the workday, because I find them easier on my eyes. Fiction reading happens in the early morning or evenings when I’m on the couch, the words at a different height and level from my eyes, with more dim lighting. Currently, the cart contains a biography of Hilma af Klint, a book of poetry by Lisa Marie Basile, The Transcendent Brain, How to Disappear: Notes on Invisibility in a Time of Transparency, and Scent & Subversion.

Since I mentioned a few books in passing during the video, I thought I’d share the full thoughts here as bonus content. I briefly discussed The Argonauts and Bird by Bird – here are my complete takes on both:

The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson: The Argonauts is like trying to understand a conversation happening in the next room if the room was underwater and the speakers were having a dialogue in a language you don’t know, and then you realized they were actually talking to themselves. This profound disorientation is exactly how Maggie Nelson weaves together musings on Barthes’ idea of love as a constant renewal, Judith Butler’s theories of gender performativity, and her own intimate experiences of partnering with Harry Dodge and becoming a parent. I didn’t recognize half the references, and there were moments when the academic language felt like an impenetrable wall. And yet. Nelson captures something true about the raw, uneven texture of human experience—the way love transforms us, how we struggle to articulate our most intimate experiences. She writes about pregnancy, partnership, and queer family-making with an honesty that cuts through academic jargon. I’m not sure I fully understood everything, but I felt like I was witnessing something important—a story that kept slipping between my fingers every time I thought I’d grabbed hold of it. What does it mean to love someone? To become a parent? To exist outside traditional stories? Nelson explores these questions by diving into everything from avant-garde film theory to psychoanalytic texts, scattering esoteric philosophical breadcrumbs that make you feel simultaneously incredibly brilliant and profoundly stupid. Something about the Argonauts and replacing ship planks, something about becoming—I’m not entirely sure I understood it, but it felt like she was asking: Who are we when we change? When we love? When we exist in ways that challenge how others see us? She doesn’t give you neat answers. Just more questions, more uncertainty.

Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Annie Lamott is a treasure trove of wisdom that transcends its categorization as a book on writing, offering a raw, honest, and often hilarious look at the creative process. Lamott’s self-deprecating humor and personal anecdotes create a work that’s as entertaining as it is insightful. Her unflinching acknowledgment of the neuroses and setbacks that plague writers resonated deeply with me – not as a soothing balm, but as a weirdly addicting, pricklingly poison ivy for my spirit. I cannot count the times I cackled whilst reading this book; equally, I lost track of the number of times it moved me to tears.

Also: Writing is hard. I want to hear about how hard it is! One reviewer complained that Lamott made writing sound as painful as passing a kidney stone, and while he disagreed with that takeaway, I sure don’t. So I appreciate having that struggle, that difficulty, validated, even (especially) in snarky, petty, but also really encouraging and inspirational ways.

I underlined the hell out of this book. So much of this advice is good for not just for the writing life, but just…navigating life, itself. Here are a few things she said that I am still thinking about…
Her assertion that “being enough was going to have to be an inside job” hit me like a revelation, echoing my own recent struggles with seeking external validation, particularly through social media. This idea resonated with me as I continue to grapple with building my self-worth, rather than relying on likes or followers.

The author’s emphasis on giving from the deepest part of yourself, and finding reward in that act of giving itself, felt revolutionary in our often results-driven world. As Lamott puts it, “You have to give from the deepest part of yourself, and you are going to have to go on giving, and the giving is going to have to be its own reward.” Publishing and recognition doesn’t solve everything. In fact, it hardly solves anything. It’s a reminder that I need to focus more on the (painful) joy of creating itself, rather than constantly worrying about how my work will be received. But I’ll admit, I often find myself wondering what the point is of writing something if I’m not sharing it. It’s a tension I’m still grappling with – the pull between creating for its own sake and the desire for my words to be read and acknowledged.

This metaphor of writing as a ‘little lighthouse’ really struck a chord with me. It made me think about how my own writing might impact others in ways I can’t predict or even imagine. It’s a comforting thought when I’m struggling with self-doubt – that even if I can’t see it, my words might be illuminating a path for someone out there.

Finally, and maybe most of all, I love how the book’s title comes from Lamott’s childhood memory of her brother struggling with a bird-watching report. It’s become a sort of mantra for me when I’m facing overwhelming tasks, not just in writing but in life generally. ‘Bird by bird’ reminds me to take things one small step at a time. When I’m staring down a daunting project, I try to remember this approach – break it into tiny, manageable pieces. It doesn’t always work, but when it does, it helps me feel like I’m making progress instead of drowning in the enormity of it all. This, and the crappy little elf advice, are probably the most helpful writing suggestions I know.

I also mentioned several artists whose work is featured in my space, and I’ve had the opportunity to interview all of them for the blog over the years. If you’re curious about their creative processes, you can check out my conversations with Alyssa, Lupe, Becky, Han, and author/poet Sonia Vatomsky.

So yeah, this is me, hot and cranky, giving you an authentic glimpse into my actual lived-in space where books exist alongside creepy dolls and commissioned art and the general chaos of someone who prioritizes interesting objects over organizational systems. Witness my heat-addled ramblings about folklore and poetry and books that fall apart from being loved too much. And if you see anything on those selling shelves that catches your eye, you can find it in my Pango bookshop. Seriously, please buy my old books! If I have to schlepp them across the country next time we move, it will kill my soul!

What are you reading lately? And what’s your own philosophy about keeping vs. letting go of books? Tell me in the comments.

Later, weirdos.

If you enjoy posts like these or if you have ever enjoyed or been inspired by something I have written, and you would like to support this blog, consider buying the author a coffee?

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I was extremely privileged to include two of Yuko Shimizu’s works in The Art of Fantasy: A Visual Sourcebook Of All That Is Unreal, and if you’re curious as to which pieces, you’ll have to pick up a copy! But I can tell you that I’ve been following Shimizu’s work for years, ever since I started sharing her illustrations on my own Tumblr during that platform’s golden age of art curation. From the first piece I posted, her work felt like discovering a secret garden where Japanese folklore grows wild alongside Western pop culture, where ancient spirits share space with modern anxieties, and where every illustration pulses with a kind of electric mythology.

Shimizu’s visual language makes the ancient feel urgently contemporary. Her linework shifts between delicate and bold, somewhere between neon calligraphy and elegant graffiti – fluid strokes that can transform a simple curve into a dragon’s spine or a woman’s hair into flowing water. Eastern and Western aesthetics collide in her work to create hybrid mythologies where traditional yokai rub shoulders with comic book heroes, cherry blossoms bloom alongside circuit boards, and every composition thrums with symbolic density that rewards closer inspection.

No doubt, this cultural fluency comes from living and working between worlds. Shimizu came from Japan to study at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena before settling in New York, where she made the leap from corporate design to freelance illustration. Now she balances creating work for major publications with teaching at the School of Visual Arts. Perhaps it’s this trajectory that allows her to make folklore feel at home in contemporary settings and inner demons take on epic proportions, the kind of visual bilingualism that comes from navigating multiple worlds simultaneously.

The breadth of Shimizu’s client list reads like a fabulous media survey of contemporary publishing, from The New York Times and Time Magazine to DC Comics and children’s book publishers, from Japanese folklore collections to Universal Pictures monster movie posters. Yet despite working across such varied editorial, commercial, and publishing contexts, certain motifs surface again and again in her work: the transformative power of flowing elements,  faces that carry both secret intensity and expressive restlessness; creatures caught in moments of metamorphosis where reality and legend converge.

In this limited variant cover art for Dracula, Motherfxxker, a figure free falls through a psychedelic fever dream, a splash of cool color against the swirling hot pinks and oranges that billow around him like cosmic cotton candy. But it’s Dracula’s brides who steal the scene, emerging from the swirling patterns like beautiful mirages, their faces adorned with stars and decorative flourishes – disco goddesses with a taste for blood.

Shimizu nails the comic’s pulpy California psych-horror vibe, where ancient evil meets the decade of excess. The composition pulses with 70s psychedelia – flowing curves and saturated colors seeming to move even when you’re looking straight at them. Floral motifs twist through the design alongside celestial stars; part concert poster, part tarot card, part bad trip.

Commissioned as a magazine cover portrait for New York Walker magazine #14 (targeted toward Japanese audiences in New York City), Shimizu captures Björk’s artistic identity through this portrait where the artist floats in impossible suspension, her face turned upside down while elaborate braids loop and cascade around her. Tiny golden bells nestle among the dark plaits, each tied with delicate blue ribbon bows, suggesting childhood fairy tales where each small tinkling sound summons strange sonic spells. The topsy-turvy positioning seems perfectly natural for someone who’s built a career on upending expectations.

For a New York Times science section article about estrogen’s role in brain health, Shimizu transforms complex endocrinology into something beautiful and organic. A blue brain blooms like an exotic flower, its neural pathways sprouting vibrant petals in purple, pink, and orange while butterflies and bees hover around this impossible garden. The brain grows from rich earth, its stem-like base suggesting that our most complex organ might be more connected to nature’s cycles than we ever imagined. Green leaves unfurl from the brain’s surface while tiny blue spores drift through the black background like microscopic messengers.

The pollinator connection is interesting – hormones carrying messages between different parts of the body, cross-fertilizing systems we once thought were separate. The flowers blooming directly from brain tissue capture the research: estrogen doesn’t visit the brain occasionally; it helps the brain grow and flourish. Here, the brain isn’t a computer humming away in isolation but a living system that blooms and withers with the hormonal seasons of our lives.

For the interior illustrations of Japanese Tales, a collector’s edition published by Folio Society, a parade of yokai streams across a crimson bridge, their procession both menacing and oddly festive. Protruding eyeballs and lolling tongues suggest barely contained chaos; this whole parade might dissolve into mayhem at any moment. Shimizu captures the spirit of Japanese folklore where the supernatural and mundane intersect daily. This bridge becomes a threshold between worlds, and the yokai crossing it are neither purely evil nor benevolent – they’re simply part of the fabric of a universe where the impossible happens every day.

For Catherynne M. Valente’s collection, The Melancholy of Mechagirl, a woman’s profile emerges from a tangle of colorful cables that wind through her long, black hair like digital veins, snaking toward a floating fox mask – kitsune meeting cyborg, downloading folklore directly into her neural networks. A yellow sun burns against the gray textured sky while stylized waves roll beneath, framing this moment where traditional Japanese imagery collides with cyberpunk possibility. Shimizu visualizes the central tension in Valente’s stories: the melancholy of beings caught between worlds, whether machine and human, ancient and futuristic, or dream and reality.

For the cover of Monstrous Affections, an anthology edited by Kelly Link and Gavin J. Grant, a black-winged creature crouches among towering red thistles, blood dripping from its fanged mouth while a ghostly white arms lies lifeless on the ground beneath its claws. The red thistles bloom impossibly large, their spiky petals matching the creature’s predatory nature. Blood and flowers create an unsettling combination – beauty and violence intertwined like the stories within the collection. Shimizu captures the anthology’s central premise, embodying the paradox these stories explore: creatures that should repel us but somehow fascinate instead.

For a University of Minnesota alumni magazine feature about neutrino research, Shimizu solves the impossible illustration challenge by making the invisible visible, turning abstract physics into cosmic poetr. A serene sun with human features radiates golden beams while countless white dots swirl through the cosmic darkness around it, each speck representing the billions of invisible neutrinos streaming through space and through our bodies every second. These “ghosts of the universe” flow in elegant spirals and streams, their paths traced in white against the infinite black. The neutrinos become star maps, their ghostly presence given form through flowing white currents that connect the sun’s nuclear heart to the underground detectors waiting 500 miles away in northern Minnesota.

For the frontispiece of Fairy Tales by Oscar Wilde, published by Beehive Books, Shimizu depicts the flamboyant literary figure emerging from a cascade of peacock feathers, his bow tie perfectly knotted while surrounded by theatrical plumage. The feathers fan out behind him in elaborate eye-spotted displays, both ornate and slightly overwhelming, with detailed linework capturing every curl of hair and feathered barb, creating a visual density that mirrors the richness of his fairy tales – stories where beauty and cruelty coexist in elaborate, sometimes uncomfortable displays.

Created for Matthew Sanborn Smith’s science fiction story “Beauty Belongs to the Flowers” published on TOR.com, Shimizu gives us a vision both lovely and unsettling where a serene face floats in darkness, while countless yellow tubes curve and spiral, connected to a glowing,  translucent, bubblinge. An oversized orange flower dominates the foreground, its petals rendered in intricate detail, while smaller petals drift through the composition like escaped fragments of vitality.  Here, beauty has become something to be administered rather than naturally occurring, raising questions about what we might lose in our pursuit of perfection.

As a limited edition wraparound variant cover for Batman Returns created in collaboration with Dark Hall Mansion and Warner Brothers, Christmas ornaments tumble through the air around Catwoman like an extremely fantastic snow globe – ruby red, emerald green, sapphire blue spheres, just out of reach of those wickedly curved silver talons. An army of sleek black cat silhouettes surrounds her, all glowing amber eyes and liquid shadows, practically vibrating with that universal feline thought: “Ooh, shiny things!” These aren’t just random cat shapes either – Shimizu crowdsourced reference photos from actual cat owners on social media, so somewhere in this midnight menagerie lurks Mrs. Whiskers from down the street. Here’s Catwoman in all her contradictory glory: part predator, part playmate, Christmas angel with claws that could shred wrapping paper or your face with equal enthusiasm.

As part of Universal Pictures’ “Out of the Shadows” art contest in 2021, where contemporary artists were invited to refresh classic monster movie posters, Shimizu reimagines The Wolf Man through botanical horror. A gnarled hand grows into a tree with blood-red leaves, its bark etched with intricate patterns where flesh becomes wood. The curse spreads like roots through the body, and that medallion face trapped within its star-pointed prison might be all that’s left of the human watching his own transformation, while the hand of glory folklore brings its own dark associations. Shimizu’s poster makes the wolfman’s curse feel organic and inevitable, something that grows from within rather than attacks from without.

Creating cover art for a collectors edition original 1950s Japanese kaiju motion picture Mothra soundtrack released from Waxwork Records, two priestesses in golden robes stand beneath their divine protector, faces grave with ceremonial purpose. Mothra spreads her wings above them, each wing decorated with intricate eye-patterns that seem to watch over her tiny human guardians. The moth’s body gleams with an otherworldly blue, while her wings shimmer in patterns of black, orange, and yellow that suggest both beauty and terrible power.

The twin fairies – Mothra’s earthly voices – stand close together in their matching robes and flower crowns, ready to translate between human and kaiju worlds. An orange sun burns behind them while oversized tropical leaves frame the scene like a shrine painting come to life. Shimizu captures the genuine mythology of Japan’s most benevolent monster, a protective deity who happens to have wings spanning several city blocks.

If you enjoy posts like these or if you have ever enjoyed or been inspired by something I have written, and you would like to support this blog, consider buying the author a coffee?

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I’m starting something new on my Patreon—digging into two decades of perfume reviews you may have missed. Kicking off with Mémoire d’une Odeur, the Gucci that taught me I could still be completely wrong about what I wanted from a fragrance. Come see why this quiet, melancholic beauty has become my companion for those betwixt-and-between moments.

As I transition away from free content on Midnight Stinks, I wanted to give everyone a taste of what’s coming. This kind of deep dive into my fragrant past, alongside fresh discoveries, scented correspondences, and the occasional delightful surprise, is exactly what subscribers can expect. If you’ve been on the fence about joining our little community of stinkers and weirdos, now’s the perfect time to see what you’ve been missing—and what you’ll continue to enjoy as a member of this strange, perfume-obsessed family.

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Hello there, weirdos and lovelies! To my longtime readers who’ve been following my musings for years—you know all this already, and I adore you for sticking around through every obsession and existential spiral. But for those who’ve recently discovered me through my Ghoul Next Door column in Rue Morgue magazine, found my Midnight Stinks perfume reviews on TikTok (no longer updated in that space, but I’ve been writing about perfume since before TikTok was born and continue to do so literally everywhere else), or stumbled across this blog through some strange artsy rabbit hole mystery revolving the lost and found cover artist of an iconic children’s fantasy book, let me introduce myself properly. I’m a published author. Three times over, in fact.

I’ve spent nearly two decades balancing corporate drudgery with creative pursuits that would make my HR department deeply uncomfortable. (If I had one, if I wasn’t, in fact, the HR department.) While documenting my obsessions with fragrance, fashion, and all things fantastically macabre here on this corner of the internet, I’ve also been working on a trilogy (soon to be a quartet!) of art books. Apparently, I decided that years of research into dead artists and occult symbolism would be a brilliant use of my free time. My bank account remains unconvinced.

The Art of the Occult: A Visual Sourcebook for the Modern Mystic was my first foray into published territory, a visual feast exploring how artists throughout history have been drawn to mystical realms. From theosophy and kabbalah to alchemy and sacred geometry, this book examines why creators are perpetually pulled toward the esoteric. If you’re the type who finds tarot cards aesthetically compelling even if you can’t tell a death card from a grocery list, who gets shivers from Hilma af Klint’s automatic drawings, or who’s ever wondered about the symbolic mysteries hidden in Pre-Raphaelite paintings, this one’s for you.

The Art of Darkness: A Treasury of the Morbid, Melancholic and Macabre followed two years later, diving headlong into humanity’s eternal fascination with mortality, fear, and the grotesque. This isn’t about glorifying death but rather examining why artists from Hieronymus Bosch to Francis Bacon, Frida Kahlo to Louise Bourgeois have found beauty in darkness, comfort in confronting our demons. If you’re someone who finds Victorian mourning jewelry beautiful, who appreciates the sublime terror in Goya’s black paintings, or who understands that sometimes the most profound art emerges from our deepest fears, this book speaks your language.

The Art of Fantasy: A Visual Sourcebook of All That is Unreal completed the trilogy in 2023, celebrating the impossible, the imaginary, the utterly fantastical. From Blake’s visions to contemporary illustrators conjuring digital dragons, this book asks why artists are compelled to create worlds that never existed. If you’re enchanted by myth and magic, if you’ve ever lost yourself in a museum gallery full of surrealist paintings, or if you believe impossible worlds can reveal unexpected insights about our own, this collection will bewitch you.

The links above will direct you to the Amazon page for each book. However, if you’re in the US and would like a signed copy (and a bookmark!) for your collection, you can order directly from me here.

Want to dive deeper before committing? I’ve written extensively about a handful of the artists and themes in each book—you can find behind-the-scenes stories and detailed features under the corresponding categories right here on my blog.

The Art of the Occult | The Art of Darkness | The Art of Fantasy

Here’s something you might not know about me: more than writing books, I’ve always dreamed of selling them. Picture me in some dusty, overstuffed used bookshop, surrounded by towering stacks of forgotten treasures, helping fellow bibliophiles discover their next obsession. While I don’t yet own that quaint little shop (my retirement plan, wheeee!) I’ve found the next best thing.

My Pango bookshop has become my virtual version of that dream. It’s where I sell my carefully curated collection of used books: horror novels with deliciously creepy covers, poetry collections that make your soul ache, esoteric volumes on tons of weird shit. These are books I’ve loved, books that have lived on my shelves until space demanded difficult decisions, books that deserve new homes with readers who will appreciate their particular magic. Also, I am running a 20% off sale right now!

Browsing my bookshop feels a bit like wandering through my personal library, which, in a way, it is. You’ll find first editions alongside well-loved paperbacks, academic texts on occult symbolism next to vintage horror paperbacks with lurid covers. These are books I’ve loved, books that have earned their place through great writing, beautiful design, or sheer oddball charm.

My day job is in jeopardy, which has me scrambling to shore up my side hustles. After nearly 20 years, losing that steady paycheck means these passion projects need to start paying actual bills. It’s terrifying and liberating in equal measure; my fight-or-flight response can’t decide if this is a disaster or an opportunity; I am simultaneously puking and turning ecstatic cartwheels. I’m a fucking mess.

Your support, whether through purchasing my books, browsing my virtual bookshop, or simply sharing a post that resonated with you, helps keep this strange little corner of the internet alive. It allows me to continue exploring the intersections of art and the occult, beauty and darkness, the real and the fantastical, without the pressure of advertising or sponsored content diluting our conversations.

Ways to Support This Work

Not sure which book might speak to you? Are you drawn to mysticism, spirituality, or the esoteric? Start with The Art of the Occult. Do you find beauty in melancholy, comfort in confronting mortality? The Art of Darkness is calling your name. Are you enchanted by myth, magic, and impossible worlds? The Art of Fantasy will transport you to realms beyond imagination.

Beyond purchasing books (though that’s always appreciated), there are many ways to help keep this creative work flourishing:

• Leave reviews if you’ve read my books—your words help others discover this work
• Share posts that resonate with you across social media
• Request my books at your local library
• Engage in the comments—your thoughts and reactions inspire new ideas
• Browse my Amazon affiliate links when you’re shopping anyway

Your engagement matters just as much as financial support. Every comment, every share, every moment you spend in this space contributes to keeping it alive and thriving.

Whether you decide to add one of my books to your collection, discover a treasure in my virtual bookshop, or simply continue reading these midnight musings about the beautiful, the dark, and the strange, know that you’re part of something special. You’re supporting not just me, but the entire ecosystem of independent creators who choose to work in the margins, who believe that art and beauty and weirdness matter.

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Hello, dear devotees of all things olfactory, I have some news about my Midnight Stinks Patreon. I shared it over there already, but since many of you found that space through this here blog, I thought it best to share the news here as well.

I need to have a heart-to-heart with you about some changes coming to our little fragrant corner of the internet. As of August 1st, I’ll be removing the free tier option from Midnight Stinks. I know change can feel jarring, especially when it affects something you’ve grown accustomed to, so I want to be completely transparent about why this decision feels necessary.

The numbers tell a story that’s become impossible to ignore: I currently have 40 paid members with a total 175 subscribers altogether, bringing in about $218 per month. Meanwhile, I’m about to lose my day job of nearly 20 years – the income that’s been allowing me to treat this passion project as exactly that, a project where financial sustainability took a backseat to creative freedom and community building.

For years, I’ve been essentially subsidizing Midnight Stinks out of my own pocket, which felt fine when I had the security of steady employment. I loved being able to offer free content because fragrance should be accessible, and some of my most treasured community members found me through that free tier. But as I face this major life transition, I need to be honest about the reality: I can’t afford to lose money on something that brings me, and hopefully you, so much joy.

This isn’t about getting rich off perfume reviews (clearly, given those numbers!). It’s about creating something sustainable that allows me to keep doing what I love: diving deep into the weird, wonderful world of fragrance and sharing those discoveries with people who understand that a single sniff can transport you to fabulous, fantastical realms.

I’ve agonized over this decision because I know it means some people who’ve been part of our community may not be able to continue the journey with us. That breaks my heart a little. But I also believe that what we’ve built here, this space for stinkers and weirdos to geek out over scent without judgment, has real value, both for me as a creator and for you as readers.

Moving forward, all of my fragrance content, reviews, musings, and olfactory obsessions will be available to paid subscribers. I’m committed to making sure that investment feels worthwhile, continuing to bring you the same blend of poetic reviews, dark humor, and genuine passion for all things smelly that drew you here in the first place.

If you’ve been considering upgrading to paid support, now would be a perfect time. If budget constraints make that impossible right now, I completely understand – we’ve all been there. And who knows? Maybe our paths will cross again when circumstances change.

Thank you for being part of this strange, beautiful community. Thank you for indulging my midnight musings about molecules and memories. Thank you for understanding that sometimes we have to make practical decisions to protect the things we love.

Here’s to sitting in the dark together, breathing deeply, and experiencing some v.

With gratitude and just a touch of melancholy, S. Elizabeth

P.S. – All existing free subscribers will continue to have access to previously published free posts, so nothing you’ve already enjoyed will disappear.

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Glenn Martens raided the crypts of Maison Margiela and reanimated everything he found there. In chambers lined with peeling wallpaper and mismatched furniture, models emerged like Silent Hill nurses wearing wasp nest masks, wrapped in what appeared to be the contents of a Flemish manor house estate sale curated by crafty ghosts. Figures draped in metallic duchess satin moved like molten church bells over antique embossed wallpaper, their faces hidden behind masks crafted from discarded boxes, battered metal, shattered crystals, sheer organza, and appliqué lace—Martens’s homage to Margiela’s iconic face coverings.

These were gowns that looked like Renaissance tapestries had been photocopied, crumpled, and then lovingly reconstructed into sculptural forms worthy of cathedral altars, each surface a palimpsest of Dutch still-life paintings layered with vintage costume jewelry reliquary. Among them moved ghostly grey spectres sleekly draped in dim muted tones, figures that glided like shadows along ancient parapets and through secret corridors, their forms pared down to pure haunted elegance. Martens conjured an elegantly decaying world where saintly stone figures had raided the attics of crumbling chateaux, emerging with armfuls of tarnished treasures transformed into an unholy hodgepodge of hypnotic drama.

It was quite the sepulchral estate sale séance!

If you enjoy posts like these or if you have ever enjoyed or been inspired by something I have written, and you would like to support this blog, consider buying the author a coffee?

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Over the years, I have created and posted on social media silly mashups of words and images that, as they say, “went viral.” People thought they were a hoot and a holler. The public’s pickle was tickled.

If I turned some of the public domain ones into postcards and sold variety packs of, say, three each, would that be something you would purchase from me? And how much would you be willing to pay for it? $12? $15?

In the meantime, I know how the internet is, so please don’t steal my very fun and exciting idea! If I see my little postcards here for sale at some wish.com level Redbubble equivalent, I will be very upset!

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I was recently watching something on YouTube with Yvan, something like “What it costs per week to live in the Japanese countryside.” It was a family of four, and the mother was narrating the video. We got to the part where she showed the week’s grocery tally, with the caveat that it wasn’t too much money because “we’re not big eaters.” What! I just wasted 15 minutes of my life on you, lady!

I am absolutely a big eater. I love food. I think about food. I plan meals and eat them and think about the next thing I want to eat before I have even finished. At the beginning of the year, my doctor wanted me to lose 25 pounds to help with my blood pressure, and while I hate that weight loss is the medical go-to, the truth is I haven’t felt comfortable in my body for several years. So here we are.

Twenty-two pounds down, doctor’s appointment in a week. The meal prepping isn’t new, but I’ve gotten more consistent with it. We haven’t had delivery in seven months, which I’m ridiculously proud of. I like to cook anyway, so this has made me more creative and consistent in the kitchen. This current fridge snapshot is full of vegetables that I have pre-chopped for soup or whatever else. There are leftovers from our Sunday family dinner (salmon and corn chowder and sour cream cucumber salad) and a cream of mushroom soup I made last week. There is homemade sauerkraut (!!) and watermelon rind kimchi. So many things! I spend a large portion of my Saturdays puttering around in the kitchen and most of this culinary menagerie is the result of those efforts. P.S. Yvan got me this Masontops fermenting kit, and for about a year it sat around untouched because I was a little scared of it, but I am off and running with it now!

Movement has helped a lot too. I’ve weaponized my pacing. I get between 15-20K steps per day, either starting with a 5am walk around the neighborhood, or if I’m being honest, it’s mostly me marching, trotting, and shuffling around the house for twelve hours. I’ve also started using my 5-pound weights for about five minutes of daily exercises. Plus some traditional Chinese morning exercises—fast arm movements to get energy flowing. I don’t know what to call them exactly, but they showed up on my TikTok as “ancient exercises.”

Anyway, that’s all I want to say about that. Literally everything in the world you could natter on about is better than listening to people talk about weight loss, I get it.

This is an admittedly kind of gross-looking picture, but it seems I haven’t taken many photos lately, and maybe I have just forgotten how. I’m realizing I mostly view things through a lens when I am trying to come up with an idea for social media, and I haven’t been on social media since early June, so I haven’t even thought about it.

Anyway, here’s that saurkraut and the watermelon rind kimchi, along with our breakfast soup. It’s a dashi broth with a little soy sauce, mirin, and sugar, along with the finely chopped cabbage core left over from the saurkraut, some eggplant, shimeji mushrooms, and a bit of egg. I made biscuits yesterday and anytime you do an egg wash on top of a bread before it goes in the oven, you’re only using like 10% of it, and I hate wasting the rest! So I just put it in a little container overnight and drizzled it over the hot soup just before I took it off the burner. It was so, so good.  This isn’t a meat soup, per se, but I usually do snip in a tiny bit of marinated pork when I make this, just to add some extra flavor. I am pretty sure this is not how you are meant to use this spicy marinated pork bulgogi, but it works for me.

Anytime I talk about breakfast soup now, I think about this meme that my best good friend sent me, something like “bro goes to Japan one time and won’t shut up about soup.”  I don’t even have an excuse, I have never been to Japan! Forgive me. I, too, am a bro who cannot shut up about breakfast soup.

This is a rose that only blooms once a year. I don’t know if that’s how it’s meant to do, but that’s how she does for us. These catch-up posts feel like they’re becoming a bit rarefied and infrequent, too. Anyway.

• I finally watched Sinners, and it was as fantastic as everyone said it would be. I loved how it added a little extra something to vampire lore without trying to reinvent the entire wheel. I would have loved more of Remmick’s backstory, but that’s probably a very white audience response that completely misses the point, even if it also feels like a natural story-lover reaction. (But that “Rocky Road to Dublin” scene was pretty incredible.) And so was the scene where Sammy’s song brought all the ancestors together! On a related note, I never did watch Nosferatu. I was pretty rabid to see it, but once I finally got the opportunity, it bored me to tears within 5 minutes. I think it’s because I’d seen the Werner Herzog Nosferatu a few months before and had already made up my mind that anything that came after was going to be redundant and would pale in comparison.
• Andrew Michael Hurley is fast becoming one of my favorite authors. If you’ve ever read Robert MacFarlane’s lyrical, deeply researched writing about ancient British landscapes and thought, “what this needs is some creeping dread, ghostly presence, and unexplained rural menace,” then you’ve found your writer. I just finished Devil’s Day, and this story about a Lancashire farming community’s annual sheep gathering and the folk rituals that keep ancient boundaries intact could have been co-written by MacFarlane with all of the quietly beautiful prose about bleak moorland, bitter winds, and wild, brutal landscapes. I don’t want to diminish either writer’s unique voice with comparisons, but they both capture how landscape becomes character.
• Speaking of books, I’m about halfway through writing my newest one! Three books in, and I still don’t know the rules about what to share before official announcements. Or even when to make those announcements, hahaha. At any rate, if you’ve been into my explorations of art’s stranger territories, this one continues that tradition.

• In other news, a friend told me people think Labubu dolls are cursed, and hearing that just made me feel ancient. For those equally out of the loop, these are collectible devil-grinned, rabbit-eared toys that became a massive trend, and now people are claiming they’re haunted. It all feels stupid and garbagey – I can’t explain it better than that, but I have zero patience for manufactured spookiness around what are basically expensive bag accessories.
• I bought carnivorous plants – a tiny pitcher plant and a small venus fly trap – and have somehow kept them alive on the back porch for a whole month. They like it boggy and bright, and apparently don’t actually need to eat bugs if they get enough sun, which seems like cheating but whatever works. Somewhat related: I have never seen Little Shop of Horrors. I know someone is going to ask.

• I am equally out of the loop because of this summer social media break, and it feels exactly like elementary school summer vacation. The relief from shedding obligations that were completely imaginary in the first place is indescribable. I never want to go back. I mean, I probably will. But as of right now, if social media all broke down and went away forever, I would not shed a single tear.

That said, I’m planning on getting my blood pressure situation sorted and becoming an immortal blogging vampire though, so rest assured, you can always find me here.

If you enjoy posts like these or if you have ever enjoyed or been inspired by something I have written, and you would like to support this blog, consider buying the author a coffee?

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We Love You, Bunny by Mona Awad follows Sam, now a published author, getting kidnapped by the Bunnies during her book tour so they can tell their side of the story from the original novel. What should have been a return to Awad’s brilliantly unhinged world instead felt like tedious Bunny fanfiction – all the surface elements are there, but the magic that made the first book so weirdly captivating is missing. The mystery and ambiguity that made Bunny so compelling gets replaced with heavy-handed explanations and lore that I never wanted or needed. When a second POV kicks in partway through (the bunny-turned-boy creation), it briefly livens things up with its childish, emoji-filled narration, but even that novelty wears thin across nearly 500 pages. I found myself wishing Awad had left the Bunny universe unexplained and perfect rather than giving us this tedious expansion that somehow manages to be both overlong and underwhelming. (September 23, 2025)

Oddbody by Rose Keating This short story collection lured me into a macabre carnival of bodily oddities that’s occasionally stomach-turning but magnetic in its strangeness. Women lay eggs during breakfast shifts, fathers become worms in bathtubs, and ghosts become unwelcome third wheels in relationships – all described in sparse, matter-of-fact prose that makes the bizarre feel strangely normal. I’m usually pretty oblivious to metaphors, so while other readers point out heavy-handed symbolism about depression, relationships, and societal pressures, I just enjoyed each story at face value, letting the visceral imagery of consumption, transformation and rupture burrow under my skin like a grotesque parasite I’m both repulsed and transfixed by. Keating creates these deeply uncomfortable scenarios where the women protagonists accept their bizarre circumstances with a shrug while continuing about their daily lives. The collection feels like witnessing ten different fever dreams where bodies betray, transform, and consume in ways that made my skin crawl but somehow left me hungry for more.

Root Rot by Saskia Nislow Nine children gather at their grandfather’s lake house, but instead of names, they have labels like “The Liar” and “The Secret Keeper.” This storytelling choice initially confused me, but soon I was pulled into Nislow’s hypnotic collective “we” narration as reality shifts around the children – mushrooms bleed, faces distort, and the landscape seems hungry. The book captures that disorienting childhood experience of being thrown together with cousins, creating a strange mythology while adults remain distant figures doing incomprehensible adult things.. The vacation setting transforms from familiar to alien in ways that feel both disturbing and fascinating. There’s no tidy resolution and I finished the book partly confused but strangely content with a story that perfectly scratched my itch for creative weirdness in the stories I consume.

El Dorado Drive by Megan Abbott Megan Abbott has this strange talent for pulling me into worlds I never expected to care about – first with The Turnout where I found myself invested in ballet despite my complete disinterest in dance, and now with three formerly privileged sisters in post-recession Detroit getting sucked into a pyramid scheme. Harper, Pam, and Debra carry decades of shared history and complicated loyalty as they chase financial salvation through “The Wheel,” an exclusive investment club where women pay thousands to join, recruit others, and supposedly watch their money multiply without selling a single product. The slow-burn story shifts when death enters the picture, casting suspicion across sisterly bonds that were already fragile. Abbott captures the acute anxiety of downward mobility – these women clinging to middle-class respectability while pretending everything’s fine. The ending makes perfect sense in hindsight, though I was too caught up in the sisters’ desperation to properly suss it out.

Party of Liars by Kelsey Cox Sophie’s ridiculously Texas-sized Sweet Sixteen becomes a crime scene when a body crashes onto the dance floor from a balcony above, transforming teenage revelry into small-town scandal. Cox structures this whodunit around multiple perspectives – the young stepmother Dani, the bitter ex-wife Kim, the Irish nanny Orlaith, and Sophie’s best friend Mikayla – each hiding their own secrets and resentments. The book plants subtle hints about certain relationships that completely misdirected me until a surprising revelation midway through changed my understanding of the characters and their motives. While there wasn’t anyone I was particularly rooting for and the ending felt a bit underwhelming after all the buildup, it was a quick, entertaining read for when you want rich people behaving badly, petty grudges, and murder all wrapped into one party disaster.

Shy Girl by Mia Ballard Broke and depressed thirty-year-old Gia accepts an unusual offer from Nathan, a man she meets on a sugar dating website – be his pet dog in exchange for paying off her debts. What begins as a strange but seemingly straightforward arrangement quickly turns into something darker, freakier, and more twisted as Nathan reveals his true intentions. As Gia’s bizarre arrangement morphs into captivity, her humanity is gradually stripped away and she evolves into something feral and vengeful, I found myself increasingly disconnected from both the character and the story. I’m honestly not sure if it was the writing style, the heavy-handed metaphors that others pointed out, or simply that this type of story doesn’t appeal to me. Maybe all of the above? This wasn’t terrible by any means – I didn’t connect with it the way others clearly did, and I can’t quite articulate exactly why. I picked up this book based solely on the beautiful cover art, knowing nothing about the story itself. Had I known about the frequent sexual violence throughout the narrative, I would’ve given this one a pass – the animal transformation premise itself wasn’t the issue, but rather the uncomfortable context it was presented in.

The Brood by Rebecca Baum Mary Whelton, a cutthroat NYC lawyer with questionable ethics, crashes her car while fleeing the press and wakes up captive in a remote cabin with a strange woman she only knows as “Girl.” What begins as a Misery-like hostage situation quickly turns bizarre when Mary discovers Girl mistakes her for her missing mother and has an unhealthy obsession with a local cicada population and something called “The Brood” which has disturbing (and that’s an understatement!!) plans for Mary. Baum’s uncomfortably and unpleasantly detailed descriptions of women’s bodies – their secretions, transformations, and functions – made this a challenging read that had me physically, squirmingly ill at times. The constant focus on breasts, feeding, and the grotesque manipulation of female biology created a visceral horror whether bugs freak you out or not. I found myself both repulsed and weirdly captivated by the twisted mother-daughter dynamics and the increasingly strange body transformations. A revolting read that I desperately wanted to put down, yet somehow could not. (October 28, 2025)

The Compound by Aisling Rawle Imagine waking up in a desert compound with nine other beautiful women, cameras tracking your every move for a reality TV show where contestants must couple up to avoid banishment while competing for increasingly lavish rewards – all while the outside world slowly burns. I’ve always felt smugly superior about not watching reality TV (what does that say about my cultural elitism?), but here I was completely hooked by this book from the first page. There’s something uncomfortable about my willingness to consume the exact same content when it comes packaged as literature rather than television – as if the medium somehow legitimizes my guilty pleasure. It was perfect airplane reading – I was both literally and figuratively a captive audience for this fraught, escapist fantasy. Lily isn’t particularly deep or likable, but I found myself weirdly invested in her journey as she navigates the show’s manipulations, forming strategic alliances and pursuing diamond earrings with single-minded determination. What made this work was how it used the addictive format to deliver an underlying critique of consumerism without ever getting preachy. The strange mix of boredom, forced intimacy, and manufactured drama created an oddly compelling world, while hints of environmental collapse and war in the background create an unsettling undercurrent. I blew through it in one sitting and finished feeling both thoroughly entertained and vaguely uncomfortable with how much I enjoyed it.

Strange Houses by Uketsu A nameless narrator gets roped into examining floor plans for his friend’s potential house purchase, only to discover bizarre “dead spaces” hidden between the walls. With his architect buddy, he embarks on a puzzling investigation where they stare at diagrams and somehow leap to wild conclusions from almost nothing. The prose has that mechanical quality I’ve come to expect from Japanese translations – not unpleasant, just that distinctive flat-affect style I’ve noticed over years of reading translated works. The characters possess about as much personality as the floor plans they’re analyzing, serving mainly as vehicles for the puzzle-solving. Their eye-rolling, far-fetched deductions in the face of minimal evidence was utterly ridiculous, but the sheer absurdity of it all kept me turning pages. I’d honestly be more interested in checking out the manga adaptation, which probably makes the diagram-heavy mystery solving more visually engaging than reading conversations about floor plans.

How To Survive A Horror Story by Mallory Arnold Seven strangers, including six horror authors and one random aspiring writer, get invited to a dead horror author’s mansion for a will reading, only to be trapped in a “deadly” game where they must face their past misdeeds or die trying. The dialogue was as painful, the inner monologue was cringy (OMG, that one quote about Jennifer Aniston…lordy), and what was supposed to be scary or mysterious came across more like a mediocre Halloween haunted house where the employees are required to stay six feet away from the guests. I kept waiting for the characters to develop personalities beyond “selfish jerk” or “slutty blonde,” but no such luck. This seemed like it wanted to be a clever horror-comedy mashup of Clue and House on Haunted Hill, but somehow managed to suck the fun out of both concepts while adding nothing of its own.

The Ghost Woods by C.J. Cooke Set in the 1950s and 60s, this gothic tale follows two unwed mothers – Pearl and Mabel – who end up at Lichen Hall, a crumbling manor surrounded by eerie woods where pregnant women are sent away to give birth in secrecy. The dual timeline structure creates a nice back-and-forth rhythm as we gradually discover the house’s dark secrets through both women’s experiences with the strange proprietors, the Whitlocks, and their bizarre grandson Wulfric. Despite the mushroom angle (add this to the growing pile of fungal horror novels colonizing my shelves), I found myself drawn in by the genuinely atmospheric setting of the decaying manor and the heartfelt relationships that form between the women as they navigate their shared trauma. Oddly enough, this is the second book I’ve read in two months about unwed mothers’ homes, though the villain reveal felt a bit silly and undercut the otherwise creepy vibes.

The Manor of Dreams by Christina Li follows the aftermath of Hollywood starlet Vivian Yin’s death, when her daughters Lucille and Rennie expect to inherit her sprawling California mansion but discover she’s left it to Elaine, whose family once worked for Vivian decades ago. Both families end up living in the house together while they sort things out, which goes about as well as you’d expect – especially when supernatural occurrences start plaguing everyone and the overgrown garden literally begins creeping toward the house. The story jumps between different time periods, revealing Vivian’s rise to fame and the secrets that tore these families apart, though I found myself wondering why it took so many scenes to establish that certain characters were genuinely terrible people – it felt like beating a dead horse. The exploration of Chinese American identity in old Hollywood felt authentic and added a real sense of depth beyond the gothic atmosphere, and I appreciated how the mansion itself becomes a rotting symbol of broken dreams. By the time everything finally came together in the last chunk of the book, at least the pieces fit, even if I’m still puzzling over some of the earlier hauntings that seemed to drift away unresolved.

Dark Sisters by Kristi DeMeester spans three centuries in the cursed town of Hawthorne Springs, following women who fall prey to a mysterious illness when they step out of line—boils in their mouths, teeth falling out, the whole gruesome package. The setup has potential: Anne Bolton makes a dark bargain in the 1700s, Mary Shephard has a forbidden affair in the 1950s, and Camilla Burson questions her preacher father’s congregation in 2007, all connected by this sinister legacy. DeMeester clearly knows her way around body horror and feminist rage, and the concept of generational curses tied to female rebellion should have been right up my alley. But despite all the right ingredients—witch trials, religious hypocrisy, queer longing—the execution felt sluggish and overly heavy-handed with its themes. The multiple timelines never quite clicked for me, and by the time the big revelations arrived, I was more relieved to be done than genuinely surprised. (December 9, 2025)

Y/N by Esther Yi was part of my challenge to read all the library books whose holds I let lapse in the past few years, and I’m so glad I didn’t let this one slip away. A Korean-American woman living in Berlin becomes obsessed with Moon, a member of a K-pop boy band, and abandons her entire life to fly to Seoul and track him down after he mysteriously retires from the group. It takes exactly three pages for her to go from sneering anti-fandom intellectual (“my spiritual sphincter stayed clenched to keep out the cheap and stupid”) to completely, absurdly fanatic, and she begins writing Y/N fanfiction -where “Your Name” gets inserted so readers can pretend they’re dating Moon- to cope with these emotions too enormous for her body to hold. The story unfolds like a bizarre dream, where random people appear precisely when the narrator needs them, and Yi’s strange, dense writing makes you feel like you’re sinking into someone else’s fixation. I adored this cynical snob narrator even though she made me remember exactly why I find intense fandom so insufferable, but Yi transforms it into something gorgeous rather than just sad.

The Dead of Summer by Ryan La Sala follows Ollie Veltman returning to the queer vacation island of Anchor’s Mercy after a year away caring for his dying mother, only to find himself in the middle of a supernatural plague rising from the ocean. The setup is solid – an eccentric drag queen-run paradise off the Maine coast suddenly overrun by mysterious contagions and sea monsters – and La Sala structures it as a mix of Ollie’s story and friendships and scattered documents trying to piece together what went wrong. I appreciate La Sala’s writing and characters even when his plots don’t totally land for me (I suspect that I, like many readers, read La Sala through The Honeys-tinted glasses, and even when it’s not perfect, it’s still more Ryan La Sala which is better than the alternative of no Ryan La Sala) and this one kept me reading despite some jarring timeline jumps between past and present. The horror elements work well, especially the genuinely grotesque creatures, but I wanted more time to actually experience this island and its fabulous before everything went to hell. The cliffhanger ending feels a bit manipulative but also makes sense, given how much story is clearly left to tell. (September 16, 2025)

The Myth Maker by Alie Dumas Heidt promised Greek mythology meets serial killer thriller, but what I got was elaborate murder scenes based on the most surface-level goddess details—I kept thinking it would be more fascinating if the killer had tapped into their more esoteric aspects instead of just the obvious stuff. Detective Cassidy Cantwell’s investigation follows a predictable cycle of murder, mythological explanation from a convenient professor, suspect interviews, repeat, and I lost track of the dozens of characters pretty quickly. The video game-influenced killer reveal felt overwrought, and honestly, I’ve already forgotten most of the details despite finishing it just two days ago. I’ll probably read the sequel anyway since Cassidy’s cold case about her murdered best friend seems infinitely more interesting than this by-the-numbers procedural.

When the Wolf Comes Home by Nat Cassidy turns into something much stranger than the werewolf story the title suggests. Struggling actress Jess finds a terrified five-year-old hiding outside her apartment, and after an incredibly violent and extremely bizarre encounter with the boy’s naked father, they’re on the run together. The horror that follows them is more imaginative than I expected, and much closer than Jess realizes, with Cassidy crafting genuinely unsettling body horror while exploring how fear and trauma can literally transform us. Even if you go in expecting some weirdness, it spirals far beyond that into territory I didn’t see coming, all while developing the sweet, unlikely friendship between Jess and this damaged kid.

Blob: A Love Story by Maggie Su delivers exactly the kind of messy, ridiculous protagonist I’m weirdly drawn to. Vi is a 23-year-old college dropout working hotel reception, avoiding her bubbly coworker Rachel, and generally making terrible decisions when she finds a sentient blob outside a drag club and decides to take it home. What starts as a drunken impulse becomes an attempt to mold the blob into her perfect boyfriend, feeding it cereal and pop culture until it transforms into a conventionally attractive man. The premise is absurd, but Su uses it to dig into Vi’s loneliness and self-sabotage and maybe the ways we try to control the people we claim to love.Vi is genuinely awful at times—selfish, avoidant, cruel to people who care about her—which somehow makes her both insufferable and disgustingly compelling. There’s something uncomfortably familiar about watching someone so stuck and stagnating make such spectacularly bad choices, even if you tell yourself you were never quite that terrible.

John Green’s The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet is a collection of essays adapted from Green’s podcast where he reviews random aspects of human existence – everything from air conditioning to cave paintings – on a five-star scale, weaving in stories about his own struggles with mental health and finding hope during dark times. To be honest, I never listened to the podcast, so I didn’t actually know the conceit before I started reading, but what could have been a gimmicky concept becomes something genuinely moving about how we find meaning in small things. The reviews that work best are the ones where Green stops trying to be clever about the rating system and just lets himself be vulnerable – the chapter on googling strangers made me cry because it’s less about the topic and more about how desperately we all want to understand each other. As Green writes, quoting Harvey, “In this world, you must be oh so smart, or oh so pleasant. Well, for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant,” and that shift from smart to pleasant is exactly what makes this book work. So many of his insights, connections, and observations resonated with me on such an immediate and deeply fundamental level that I bought myself a used copy after finishing the library loan.

Fiend by Alma Katsu follows the uber-wealthy Berisha family, whose thousand-year-old import-export empire seems impossibly blessed – their rivals suffer convenient strokes, buildings catch fire at opportune moments, and whistleblowers end up dead. The story alternates between present-day chaos and childhood flashbacks as three siblings, reluctant heir Dardan, power-hungry Maris, and idealistic Nora, discover the ancient evil that’s been fueling their family’s success for generations. This is Katsu’s first contemporary horror after her historical novels, and honestly, it was fine – a quick read that somehow also managed to be a slow burn. The complicated family dynamics – all the backstabbing and competing for power while trying to keep their supernatural secret – work well enough with the horror elements, but I’ve been liking each of Katsu’s books a little less than the one before, with The Hunger still being my favorite. This one continues that trend without being actively disappointing, but it never quite grabbed me the way her earlier work did. (September 16, 2025)

How Bad Things Can Get by Darcy Coates drops Ruth, the sole survivor of a childhood cult, onto Prosperity Island for what’s supposed to be an influencer’s dream party with hundreds of his most devoted fans. When the island’s dark history connects to Ruth’s past and the elaborate games turn deadly, guests start disappearing in increasingly violent ways. I usually love Coates’ work, but this one felt pretty absurd to me – the over-the-top influencer premise, the characters making the most ridiculous decisions, the elaborate scenarios that somehow everyone just goes along with. The cult backstory had potential but got overshadowed by all the island chaos, and while the blood and violence ramp up considerably in the second half, I couldn’t shake the feeling that this would work so much better as a movie. I’d absolutely watch the hell out of this on the big screen with a tub of overpriced popcorn, but on the page it just didn’t quite work for me the way her other books do. (August 26, 2025)

Don’t Let Him In by Lisa Jewell opens when Nina receives an unexpected gift from Nick Radcliffe, claiming to be an old friend of her recently deceased husband Paddy. As Nina falls for Nick’s charm, her daughter Ash grows suspicious and starts investigating his past, while across town florist Martha struggles with her frequently absent husband Alistair’s increasingly suspicious behavior. Maybe it sounds smugly naive to say this, but I genuinely do not get how all these smart women got taken in by this man who manages to be both incandescently diabolical and audaciously mediocre at the same time. The manipulation tactics were so transparent and the red flags so abundant that I spent most of the book wanting to shake sense into everyone involved. That said, I love Lisa Jewell’s work, so I had to see where this story was going, and she does deliver her signature twisty plotting and satisfying resolution. Even if I couldn’t buy into the premise, my affection for Jewell kept me reading through to the end.

I absolutely adored Happy People Don’t Live Here by Amber Sparks, even though it was maybe a bit twee and precious at times – but just the right amount of twee and precious for me. Alice and her young daughter Fern move into a creaky former sanatorium turned apartment building, where Fern discovers a dead body and starts investigating despite her paranoid mother’s warnings. Alice has secrets of her own – there’s a reason they’re always moving and she’s so paranoid – and she’s also a miniaturist, which adds to the book’s precious quality but also speaks to her need to keep things small and controllable. The story unfolds in this wonderfully weird world populated by the kind of people you’d expect to live in a converted sanatorium: there’s someone who performs as a mermaid, a neighbor who communes with spirits, a professor specializing in obscure medieval topics. The writing itself is lovely, but there’s something about the whole story that has this magical, kooky, almost childlike sense of charm to it – not undeveloped or simplistic, just delightfully earnest in a way that feels younger than typical adult fiction. As someone who’s not usually drawn to YA, this hit exactly the right balance of whimsical gothic mystery with enough substance to satisfy, and I found myself not wanting to leave this strange little community Sparks created. (October 14, 2025)

Ghost Music by An Yu was another in my challenge to finally read my lapsed-hold books. Song Yan gave up her concert piano career to become a wife, but her husband Bowen refuses to have children and grows increasingly distant, especially after his mother moves in and starts blaming Song Yan for the lack of grandchildren. When mysterious packages of mushrooms start arriving at their Beijing apartment, Song Yan discovers they’re from Bai Yu, a famous pianist who disappeared a decade ago, and she gets drawn into a surreal world where she talks to an orange mushroom in her dreams. This is one of those spare, eerie books where you’re never quite sure what’s real and what’s metaphor, and honestly I didn’t understand half of what was happening, but something about the dreamlike atmosphere and Song Yan’s quiet desperation had me strangely invested.

Endling by Maria Reva follows Yeva, a malacologist who funds her snail research by participating in Ukraine’s romance tour industry, entertaining Western men seeking “traditional” brides. When she teams up with sisters Nastia and Solomiya to kidnap a group of bachelors as a protest stunt, their plans are disrupted by Russia’s invasion in early 2022. At first, this setup feels almost absurd – a scientist obsessed with endangered snails, romance tourism, a kidnapping scheme involving a mobile lab – but it quickly becomes clear this isn’t some kind of quirky romp at all. The connection between the three women felt genuine and compelling, watching how they were transformed by this brief but intense shared experience gave the story real emotional weight, and I found myself completely absorbed by Yeva’s passion for saving endangered snail species. The sections where Reva breaks the fourth wall and inserts herself as author pulled me out of the fictional world, though I realize how spoiled and selfish that sounds when she’s grappling with how to tell a story while real war unfolds around her relatives and homeland. While I wished those meta elements could have been handled differently – perhaps as an afterword or in a separate section – I also recognize this as essential reading that forces us to confront our own ignorance about what’s happening in the world. This review feels intimidating to write because the work is several layers smarter than me in every regard, and I’m sure there were nuances and historical context I simply don’t grasp, but if nothing else, I appreciated how Reva forces readers into a necessary reckoning with our own limited understanding of the world.

When Noah finds his parents locked in a violent trance in front of the TV, he discovers it’s not just them – it’s happening nationwide in Wake Up and Open Your Eyes by Clay McLeod Chapman. What he uncovers is an epidemic where people become possessed through certain media channels and websites, turning families into literal enemies who tear each other apart. This was…something, and I’m honestly not sure how I feel about it. Chapman’s writing is undeniably skilled – he builds tension expertly and creates genuinely nightmarish scenarios – but I felt bludgeoned to death by the political commentary, and I say this as someone who agrees with his politics completely. I know that was the point, but still – maybe we’ve reached a moment where subtlety just isn’t cutting it anymore. Yes, it was grotesque and extreme and revolting, and okay almost obnoxiously nasty but that’s clearly the territory Chapman is working in here. The social horror metaphor felt both obvious and necessary, even if I’m still not entirely sure what Chapman was trying to accomplish beyond making us all feel terrible about the state of things. And maybe also trying to make us barf.

More fool am I for picking up Nobody’s Fool by Harlan Coben. Former detective Sami Kierce has spent twenty-two years haunted by waking up next to his dead girlfriend Anna in a Spanish hotel room, covered in blood with a knife in his hand, until he spots her very much alive in his private investigation night class. Harlan Coben maybe has okay ideas for stories, but I don’t think he’s a great writer – the plotting felt convoluted and the character motivations never quite made sense, especially Tad Grayson’s, which I still don’t understand. The timeline was completely off, the technology references felt like an old guy trying to sound current, and don’t even get me started on the moment when Sami walks into his kitchen to find his wife talking to Anna and thinks “wow, I have made love to both of these beautiful women.” Oh my god, so fucking gross, Jesus Christ. I kept reading because Coben does know how to keep pages turning, but by the end I was mostly just annoyed at myself for expecting anything better from someone whose writing consistently feels several notches below the premises he comes up with.

The Rotting Room by Viggy Parr Hampton sets up an intriguing premise: Sister Rafaela joins the cloistered Sisters of Divine Innocence, where nuns tend to decomposing corpses in a sacred burial ritual, but she begins to suspect something sinister when a mysterious stranger’s body resists decomposition. This had some fascinating ideas and the concept of the rotting room itself was genuinely disturbing, but Sister Rafaela was as dumb as a box of rocks – insipid and wishy-washy in a way that made me want to shake her. Father Bruno was equally useless, a complete ding dong who spent most of his time being inexplicably horny for Rafaela instead of actually helping solve anything. The worst part was the tiresome amount of time spent on mundane details – “first I went here then I went there then I sat down for lunch but I had no appetite” – rinse and repeat for what felt like endless pages. Hampton clearly did her research on historical burial practices and created an effectively creepy atmosphere, but the repetitive internal monologue and flat characterization made this feel much longer than it needed to be. I kept waiting for either character to do something, anything, decisive, but instead got stuck in their endless hand-wringing until an abrupt and unsatisfying ending.

Colored Television by Danzy Senna Jane is a biracial writer desperately trying to support her family, including her artist husband Lenny whose work doesn’t sell, while they bounce between house-sitting gigs and perpetually unstable housing situations. When her decade-long novel – her “mulatto War and Peace,” as she calls it – gets rejected, she pivots to television writing by stealing an idea from a friend…which is bad enough, but the friend owns the house they are living in! Jane is the worst friend ever. I actually liked this one despite never wanting to be friends with Jane, because Senna pulls no punches about any of it, the financial desperation, the racial dynamics, the creative sellouts, and that kind of unsparing observation is what makes it work. And also Senna lets her characters make jokes and observations that would be completely unacceptable coming from anyone outside their community – it’s the kind of risky writing that only works when you’re writing from the inside.

Wicked Things by John Allison I adore John Allison, and while this wasn’t my favorite thing he’s done, any John Allison is good John Allison. Charlotte Grote gets framed for murder at a teen detective awards ceremony and ends up working with the London police to solve other cases, but the fact that she’s not particularly motivated to clear her own name struck me as genuinely weird for this character whose whole thing is sleuthing and detectivation! Max Sarin’s art is wonderful as always, and Lottie’s character is still that fun combination of charming and Very A Lot even when her priorities seem baffling.

The Sirens by Emilia Hart Lucy wakes up with her hands around some guy’s throat after he shared intimate photos of her, so she flees to her estranged sister Jess’s coastal house where men keep mysteriously disappearing into the sea – except Jess has vanished too, leaving behind only her diary and an unlocked door. Through the diary and her dreams about Mary and Eliza (twin convict sisters from 1800 whose bodies are changing as their ship sails to Australia), Lucy discovers her family’s supernatural heritage as sirens who lure abusive men to their deaths for generations. This was such a letdown after Weyward, Hart basically swapped witches for mermaids, and Lucy is so maddeningly passive that she spends 200 pages wandering around doing a bunch of nothing while her sister is missing!  

A Killing Cold by Alice Kate Marshall Theo gets engaged to wealthy Connor after six months and heads to his family’s isolated winter retreat to meet the skeptical relatives, only to discover a childhood photo of herself taken at the very same place. Ugh with the totally convenient coincidences! There’s so many of them in this book! Through recovered memories, Theo realizes she lived there as a small child when something terrible happened that the Dalton family has been covering up ever since. The coincidence of them meeting and falling in love without recognizing each other is absolutely wildly stupid, but Marshall somehow kept me reading anyway with short chapters and enough genuine mystery about what happened to Theo’s mother. I found myself genuinely curious despite knowing the whole setup was completely ridiculous.

The Great British Bump Off by John Allison Shauna enters the beloved UK Bakery Tent baking competition hoping to charm the judges and make friends, but when a fellow contestant gets poisoned during filming, she volunteers to solve the mystery while still competing in the challenges. I don’t actually love GBBO (even though it’s cozy and gentle, it’s still a game show and I find that stressful), but this was such a neat way to enjoy the concept of the show without the stress. Allison basically created a murder mystery version of The Great British Bake Off with all the expected contestant types and a Paul Hollywood knockoff. The mystery isn’t particularly great (you can’t solve it yourself because important clues seem to come out of nowhere) but honestly I’m not here for that anyway – John Allison writes fantastic friendships with quirky character dynamics and excellent hi-jinks, so I didn’t care because the whole thing was just ridiculous fun.

Ladykiller by Katherine Wood Gia, a wealthy heiress, goes missing from her Greek estate, leaving behind only a manuscript detailing the events leading up to her disappearance, including her hasty marriage to a suspicious new husband and the bizarre guests they entertained that summer. Her childhood best friend Abby and brother Benny rush to find her, but the manuscript raises more questions than it answers about what’s real and what’s fiction. This had all the elements I usually love – rich people behaving badly, Greek island setting, messy friendships – but I honestly can’t remember much about how it all wrapped up, which probably tells you everything you need to know about how memorable it was.

The Dollhouse Academy by Margarita Montimore Ramona and her best friend Grace get accepted to the ultra-exclusive Dollhouse Academy, a secretive boarding school that churns out entertainment industry superstars, where they meet their idol Ivy Gordon who’s been trapped there for eighteen years. The first half drew me in completely with its creepy dark academia vibes and the slow revelation that something sinister is going on behind all the glamour and talent training. But my loan expired right when things were getting good, so I bought the book and waited a week or two to pick it up again, which totally killed the momentum – by the second half I just wasn’t as invested and felt like I wasted my money on what turned out to be a pretty predictable “evil entertainment industry conspiracy” story.

Strange Pictures by Uketsu I’m sure there’s an audience for Uketsu’s gimmicky sketchbook picture-puzzle mysteries, but I’m clearly not it. This one is a collection of seemingly unconnected mysteries – from a pregnant woman’s disturbing blog sketches to a child’s drawing of his home that contains a dark secret – that all connect through nine childlike pictures containing hidden clues to various crimes including murders and suspicious deaths. The book starts with a child psychologist explaining how she uses patients’ drawings to understand their mental state, then jumps between different cases where amateur sleuths analyze these creepy pictures to solve the mysteries. Like in Strange Houses, the characters have all the personality of calculators and somehow divine elaborate theories from the flimsiest clues imaginable.

The Unraveling of Julia by Lisa Scottoline After Julia’s husband is murdered, she retreats into isolation until a mysterious letter arrives offering her an inherited villa in Tuscany, prompting her to travel to Italy where she starts having visions about a Renaissance duchess and gets caught up in family history and astrology. The supernatural elements had potential but felt more like YA than a proper thriller. A few things that took me out of the story: there’s some casual poisoning that never gets satisfactorily resolved, Julia’s relationship with her best friend is inconsistent and all over the place, and most bewildering is how this woman who became a fearful recluse after her husband’s death suddenly has no problem navigating a foreign country with impossible ease. (July 15, 2025)

The Party by Natasha Preston A group of teenagers throw a party at a remote English castle that’s about to be demolished, but when a storm traps them there and people start dying, they realize there’s a killer among them. I don’t know if this was actually marketed as YA but it sure read like it – the writing feels like it was done by an actual teenager, the characters make zero logical decisions, and the ending is so ridiculous and unmotivated that I actually laughed out loud when the killer was revealed.

I had a good time with Breathe In, Bleed Out by Brian McAuley, even though something about the main character, Hannah, bothered me in a way I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Hannah and her friends head to a spiritual retreat in Joshua Tree where she’s hoping to heal from the trauma of her fiancé Ben’s death during a wilderness trip, but someone starts picking off attendees in increasingly gruesome ways instead, so no healing for Hannah I guess. McAuley clearly knows his slasher tropes and the kills are absurd and creative in that stomach-turning way slasher fans want, plus his satire of wellness culture hits the right notes without being too heavy-handed. But Hannah just never clicked for me – she seemed weirdly assertive and confrontational for someone who’s supposedly been isolating herself and falling apart, like she had zero problem getting in people’s faces or standing up for herself. (This could be just me; traumatized and at my lowest or even on a day I am feeling 100% amazing I could never be as combative as Hannah.) Also, these friends genuinely seemed to hate each other, which made me wonder why they’d vacation together in the first place. The book works as a fun, bloody romp through familiar territory, but I kept wishing I could actually root for the final girl instead of just waiting for the next ridiculous death scene. (September 2, 2025)

The Break-In by Katherine Faulkner turned out to be one of the most enjoyable domestic thrillers I’ve ever read, even though Alice made some brazenly, outrageously stupid decisions that had me wanting to shake her. Also, I hate the term “domestic thriller,” it feels dismissive somehow? But I am not sure what else to call this genre? Anyway. When Alice kills an intruder in self-defense during a playdate at her London home, she can’t let go of the incident despite everyone telling her to move on, especially after strange phone calls and online comments suggest there’s more to the story than a random break-in. This hooked me from the first page and I found myself very resentful and grumpy every time I had to put it down! The plot twists did get a little convoluted as Alice digs deeper into who the intruder really was and why he targeted her house, but nothing that didn’t make sense, which I really appreciated. Sometimes I’ll finish a mystery with a dazed sense of “what just happened here?” but I never got that from The Break-In. Faulkner manages to keep all the threads coherent even as the revelations pile up, and while Alice’s choices often made me cringe, I was too wrapped up in the mystery to get derailed by her mind-boggling behavior. (August 26, 2025)

I liked It Was Her House First by Cherie Priest okay enough, though, is it me, or do a lot of this author’s books involve house restoration? Ronnie buys a run-down mansion sight unseen, unaware that it was once owned by silent film star Venita Rost, whose vindictive spirit still haunts it, along with the trapped ghost of guilt-stricken Inspector Bartholomew Sloan. Ronnie narrates every bit of daily minutiae – brushing teeth, calling contractors, texting her sister-in-law, eating sandwiches – in a way that felt extraneous, maybe meant to ground the story but mostly just slowing things down. This struck me as more of a slice-of-life comedy than horror; these aren’t scary ghosts, they’re just chatty ones. (July 22, 2025)

Rental House by Weike Wang was the third in my challenge to read lapsed holds. Keru and Nate are a married couple dealing with the uphill battle of trying to blend their completely incompatible families – her strict Chinese immigrant parents and his rural white working-class family who have nothing in common except mutual bewilderment. We see this unfold over two vacation rental disasters where everyone’s worst tendencies come out, and you watch this couple slowly realize that maybe love isn’t enough to bridge every cultural divide. I enjoyed Wang’s wry take on how exhausting it is to constantly translate between worlds that will never understand each other, and as many reviewers remarked, it’s a perfect illustration that you aren’t just marrying your partner – you’re marrying their whole family.

William by Mason Coile Henry is a reclusive engineer with agoraphobia who’s been hiding in his attic working on an AI robot called William, while his pregnant wife Lily has no idea what he’s been up to. When Lily’s coworkers Adam (with whom Lily may be having an affair) and Paige, a tactless oddball with no concept of appropriate conversation, come over for brunch and want to meet the mysterious husband, Henry decides to show off his creation, which turns out to be a spectacularly bad idea when William starts getting violent. This was pretty corny in that B-horror movie way, but despite all the silliness I did find it genuinely creepy at times, and the twist actually caught me off guard. It wasn’t an amazing book, but I’m not mad about spending time with it – I think I would have enjoyed it more as a film, or even as a Twilight Zone-esque episode of some horror anthology series.

The Night of Baba Yaga by Akira Otani Badass, streetwise fighter Yoriko Shindo gets kidnapped by yakuza and becomes reluctant bodyguard to crime boss’s sheltered but sharp-tongued daughter Shoko, sparking a violent story where every male character seems committed to being as over-the-top vile as possible. Despite being crass, vulgar, and packed with misogynistic threats, I found myself weirdly riveted by this blood-soaked grindhouse-style tale of female rage and the unexpectedly tender bond that develops between the two women. Comes with major content warnings for sexual violence, but if you can handle that, it’s an entertaining revenge fantasy that left me unexpectedly moved and more than a little heartbroken.

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