August Read: The September House by Carissa Orlando

 

I haven't read a knock down, in-your-face horror novel in a very long time. Wowza. Horror fans will inhale this novel and come out the other side with a few choice words. I read it over the space of the weekend in between cooking and running errands. Thankful for a steaming hot day today that--oh darn--kept me inside reading. I'm not one for always reading horror novels, but when it comes to haunted houses, I am in it! 

September House is about a beautiful Victorian home where married couple Hal and Margaret live. Finally, they have the home of their dreams. Doesn't matter the basement is creepy and smelly, and they got it super cheap. 

Now it's been a few years, and it's September again. The month where the moans start softly, then build to piercing screams. Where blood begins to drip down the walls, slowly oozing all the way down the stairs. And there's the pranksters, all the little children who clearly died horrible deaths, hanging around the house, pointing at the basement. I can't stress enough--if you are squeamish, pass this novel by. If you, like myself, have the ability to see the dark humor in all of this, you'll be able to wince, but keep on reading. 

It seems Hal and Margaret have a haunted house. Sure, it's nice to have a housekeeper (Fredricka) who makes you tea and cooks you supper--don't mind the horrible ax wound she has on her face. And in September, well, Fredricka goes on a bender and moves things all around the house. Once September ends, things quiet down. But no way do you go in the basement. Master Vale lives there. 

Hal is done. He can't take anymore, and leaves. Margaret--well, she's lived with Hal and rules their whole marriage, so if she just follows the rules in the house, she'll be okay and get through another September. After all, it's her house and she's not leaving. 

Katherine, Hal and Margaret's adult daughter, is concerned her Dad is gone and won't respond to phone calls and seems to have disappeared. Katherine decides she's going to come to the home (she's never been) and get to the bottom of her father's disappearance. Margaret is distressed--after all, it is September. How will she manage cleaning up the blood, and how will Katherine sleep with all the screaming every night? Not to mention the pranksters...

Dang, this was one heck of a novel. If you're squeamish, avoid this novel. If you like very dark humor mixed in with a heck of a haunted house and a really nasty evil presence, step right up! The end is AMAZING. 

There's also other stuff that's brought to light, along with the escalation of concern over Hal's disappearance and Katherine's concern for her mother's mental health. There's backstory about Margaret's marriage and Katherine's childhood that frames the story, and certainly fleshes out Margaret's character and the choices she makes. It also sets up the last thirty or so pages, where you're breathlessly turning the pages and cheering Margaret on as she battles Master Vale. It's a bloody, brutal fight. 

This novel will be out in the U.S. on September 5th in hardcover, audiobook, and e-book. Thanks to Edelweiss and Berkley for a chance to read before publication. It will definitely go on my Best of 2023 list!

Rating: 5/6 for one hell of a paranormal/haunting/horror novel that builds in tension and explodes in action the last 1/4th of the novel. Fall readers who like a spooky read will grab this up. Warning: harm to children and violence make up a large part of this horror novel. Dark humor--yes, there is plenty. 

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August Read: The September House by Carissa Orlando

Summer Reading 2022: The Hacienda by Isabel Cañas

 

I took a few days of vacation to make a long weekend and was determined to finish a few books in my summer TBR list. This novel has been in my pile for a few months. I started it in May, got distracted, and put it down. Yesterday I picked it back up and got swept away pretty immediately. 

Beatriz needs to get married to escape the awful life her and her mother are in after her father is taken away in the night and murdered for plotting against the Mexican government. It's 1823 and women have limited choices. She married Rodolfo Solórzano, a wealthy man who takes her to his home, the Hacienda San Isidro. 

Beatriz isn't greeted with much enthusiasm by the servants at San Isidro, nor Rodolfo's sister Juana. She's the second Doña Solórzano, and yikes it's not the welcome she was hoping for. The first wife of Rodolfo was a horrible woman who treated the servants terribly and made everyone's life miserable. She died from typhoid a few years before. 

However, the moment Beatriz steps into the hacienda, she feels something is terribly, terribly wrong. The house seethes with bad energy; cold air sweeps through in waves; doors slam, and there are those terrible red eyes peeking through the darkness. Rodolfo leaves for business in the capitol, and Beatriz is terrified to live in the house alone. She hears voices, sees terrible visions, and is afraid to sleep. 

She attends church, and asks for a blessing. Snubbed by the older, crabby Padre, she meets Padre Andrés, a young priest who grew up at San Isidro and has returned to take care of the village outside of the hacienda. He agrees to bless the hacienda, and oh boy, what he feels and sees when he visits is exactly what Beatriz experiences: an unholy, terrible, evil force. 

Who's that force? Why, the first Doña, of course. Beatriz is frantic to fight the evil-she just isn't strong enough to do it herself. Andrés has a few surprises of his own that may just be enough to fight the evil that inhabits the hacienda. It may kill them first, though. 

There's a lot going on here with back story and the aftermath of the Mexican War of Independence. Generations of people working on the same land; generations of the same land owners treating those people poorly and taking advantage of them. People who can't get away because of the class system that keeps them down. A priest who is also a witch, and must be careful to not be exposed. A woman who thought she was marrying a man who would give her a home, only to realize the home, and her husband, are awful. Cut off from any help, she only had Andrés to turn to. The folks around the hacienda know something dark is there, but are too afraid to do anything about it. 

This was a spooky story--I could feel that numbing cold rolling down the hallways. Author Isabel Cañas does an excellent job building tension and terror and ramping it up. This is evil that is vicious and nasty. Can you imagine what this woman was like when she was alive?! I raced through this horror novel, and was tense every time Beatriz had to be in the hacienda alone. 

A horror novel of a different kind, set in 1823 Mexico. The setting was well drawn and I could picture it all in my mind. Beatriz was smart, tough, and stalwart in her belief that there was something very wrong in the hacienda. Padre Andrés was a complex character torn by guilt as a priest and the power he was born to use for good. 

Rating: 5/6 for a tense, atmospheric horror novel with a historical setting. Once I got into it, I was hooked. 

A big thanks to Berkley for an ARC of the novel. 

Available in hardcover, ebook, and audio. 

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Summer Reading 2022: The Hacienda by Isabel Cañas

The Fervor by Alma Katsu

 

This is such a stunning cover! Props to the designer of it--there's so much to see the more you look. It gives some hints as to the plot of The Fervor. Once again, Alma Katsu creates historical fiction with a tinge of horror that just might keep you up at night. It's also a commentary on today's America. 

It's World War 2, and America has taken Japanese Americans from their homes and moved them to internment camps, all in the name of protecting America from the enemy. Meiko Briggs and her daughter Aiko are in one such camp, tucked away in a remote area of Idaho. It doesn't matter that Meiko is married to a white American man who is an air force pilot fighting in the Pacific--she's Japanese, so she can't be trusted. 

The camp is, well, what it is; however things have been fairly stable, until a deadly disease starts making the rounds. It's a really odd disease-people fall into uncontrollable rages, capable of violence. What starts out as a seemingly natural cold is clearly not that. At first it's the Japanese in the internment camps, but it quickly spreads to guards and other workers at the camp. Suddenly Army officials are coming to the camp, doing their best to contain the outbreak and keep it from spreading to nearby towns. 

Could this be something from the mysterious balloon-like objects people are finding in the woods all over Oregon, Washington, and Idaho? Is it the work of the Japanese Government? Lots of people think so, and the anger against Japanese Americans grows even more into a dangerous angry mob mentality. 

Aiko, however, draws all sorts of Japanese demons and creatures, and tells her mother they are afoot--and there are reports of men seeing a Japanese woman in random, out of the way places, holding a baby. Is she part of Japanese mythology? Has evil come to roost? And oh--the spiders! EEK

There are more characters on the outside of the camp--there's Archie, a young minister who loses his pregnant wife in a horrible accident, and Fran, a young investigative reporter who senses a story is being buried by the government. Archie is also tied to Meiko-she's the wife of his best friend, Jamie. Archie betrayed Jamie's trust and sent Meiko to the internment camp. 

Lots of complex ties here, and even the government involvement is a twisty mess. It's an interesting mix of hysteria, aggression against people who aren't white, and a whole lot of false information whipping people up into a frenzy. Sound familiar?

These lines from the novel are pretty spot on: "The fervor would ebb and flow, but it would never fully die. It had been there since long before the first explosion. She knew someday, the fervor would be back. And when it came, they'd be no readier for it than they were today." 

This is a really interesting blend of Japanese mythology, history, and bizarre weapons of war. Alma Katsu talked to family members who were forced into internment camps during World War 2, and in her afterword speaks about the violence Asian Americans have experienced since the 1800's. It's nothing new, and sadly, something that never seems to stop. 

You'll find yourself being a little more cautious around spiders after reading this novel. A novel that will keep your interest, and maybe have you digging into U.S. history. Sadly, history does repeat itself over and over. 

Rating: 4/6 for a blend of mythology, supernatural, warfare, and hysteria, along with a dark period in U.S. history. Alma Katsu skillfully weaves all of these together in a story that keeps you guessing and brushing imaginary spiders off your face. 

Available in hardcover, ebook, and audio. 

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The Fervor by Alma Katsu

When the Reckoning Comes by LaTanya McQueen

 

This is a short novel, but it packs a wallop. When the Reckoning Comes takes place in a small Southern town where Mia has returned reluctantly to attend her childhood best friend's wedding. Mia had escaped Kipsen ten years before, along with the horrifying memory of a trip to Woodsman, an abandoned plantation deep in the woods. 

Mia doesn't want to return but Celine, her only white friend growing up, calls and begs her to attend. Celine, Mia, and Jesse all grew up poor and on the outs with the kids of Kipsen. Celine and Jesse stayed, and now Celine is marrying a rich man at the newly renovated Woodsman plantation. 

Mia arrives, and is horrified by what she sees at the plantation: all black servers, reenactments of slave labor, and a basic white-washing of all the terrible history of Woodsman Plantation. Rumors of ghosts of the slaves still abound, and it's definitely a place that looks beautiful but is rotten at the core. There have been a few weird deaths on or near the plantation over the years, and rumors that the slaves have returned from the dead to exact revenge on townspeople who are descended from the white people who worked and lived at the plantation. Can they be true? And what does Mia believe?

As the wedding morning arrives, Celine is missing from her room and no one can find her. Tensions start to rise, and Jesse and Mia frantically try to figure out what happened to Celine, all the while conscious of supernatural activities ramping up. It appears the ghosts have arrived, and they are angry.

This was truly a spooky read. The horrors of the plantation and the absolute depravity of plantation owner Roman Woodsman made me cringe a few times. The anger of the dead slaves is palpable, and wow I'd be bent on revenge, too. After all, it is said their blood soaked into the soil and has remained there all this time. Not even graves for those who died. 

It's short, brutal, and oh so good. Wow. A powerful novel about slavery, the attempts we have today to gloss over the horror of it; the way it decays a town and poisons generations. The tension in this novel slowly bumps up until your heart just about leaps out of your chest. 

I haven't read horror for a bit, and this was a great way to dip my toe back into this genre. History and horror are an interesting mix. 

Rating: 5/6 for a terrifying novel about revenge, racism, the afterlife, and how true history will always comes out. Some things should be left to rot in the woods. 

Available in paperback, ebook, and audio. 

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When the Reckoning Comes by LaTanya McQueen

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Well, I tried unsuccessfully to put my facebook video on this here blog, but it wouldn't play nice. So, I'm writing my review. If you're interested in my video review of Mexican Gothic, head on over to @Bookaliciousbabe on Facebook to watch it. 

So, Silvia Moreno-Garcia's previous novel, Gods of Jade and Shadow, was one of my top reads of 2019. I'm always up for a tale of mythology; I loved mythology as a child, and that love has never faded! Now I'm enjoying the plethora of new novels about so many different cultures and their mythology.

Moreno-Garcia takes gothic and puts one heck of a spin on it; I tell people this is gothic horror. And not slasher movie horror, but that horror that seeps into your bones and makes it a little hard to sleep at night. 

So, onto a brief plot summary: Noemi is a smart, beautiful, upper class Mexican living the good life in 1950 Mexico City. She's finishing college and having fun attending parties. Her cousin Catalina sends a letter to Noemi's father that causes some concern: she claims her husband and his family are keeping her locked up, she's seeing things in their home, and she's afraid. So Noemi's father makes a deal with her-if she'll travel to High Place (Catalina's home) and check on her cousin, her father will pay for her to go to school for a Master's degree. Noemi packs her bags and heads to the mountains and High Place. 

High Place is one weird place. Catalina's new family are English, and own silver mines in the region. Those mines are closed down due to the revolution, and the family is hurting financially. Their home--High Place is one dank, damp, moldy and dark place. Definitely gothic. And the family; well, Virgil is coldly handsome (Catalina's husband), Francis is Virgil's cousin and a nice young man; Florence is Francis' mother and the daughter of Howard, the head of the family. Howard is also dying, and quite frankly a hot mess physically. Repulsive would be an understatement. Noemi settles in for a visit, and immediately knows there's something just not right about the place or the people. She also is shocked by Catalina's appearance and behavior. 

Noemi starts having nightmares--they feel completely real, and she wakes up wandering around the house. As she digs into the family history, everything becomes more unsettling and weird--but you have no idea just how unsettling and weird until the last 50 pages or so. 

I can't tell you more, because this is definitely a novel you have to read and discover for yourself. It's also one that you should discuss with others. This is an author to watch--she's on my list of authors I'll immediately read without hesitation. 

Rating: 5/6 for a truly out of bounds novel that combines the best of gothic with a twisty horror story that truly is imaginative. And yes, there is a little bit of ick, so be prepared. 

Available in hardcover ebook, and audio. 

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Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia