Carrying by Samantha Josephs

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Carrying is a body horror novel about a stealth trans woman who becomes pregnant and finds herself with a mysterious illness that requires experimental treatments. Martha has it all: the house, the husband, a lovely stepdaughter. Nobody in her life now–except one old friend–knows she is trans. She finds herself faking pregnancy, trying to appease her husband’s desire for another child, when suddenly she starts feeling unwell, and then discovers she is actually pregnant. As her baby develops, her strange illness leads her to even stranger treatment, and she has to build lie upon lie to get her dream of motherhood.

This book is a take on trans body horror that I’ve never seen before. I love how it goes down the route of a lot of recent body horror films like The Substance and Love Lies Bleeding in not feeling the need to actually explain the ins and outs of the weird physical stuff going on, but instead is more focused on its characters and what it is saying about the body. Whilst there’s some disgusting body horror, there’s also some emotional moments, particularly as Martha finds herself getting something she never thought she would, but everything still not going smoothly. It is also purposefully ridiculous, never quite asking you to take it seriously or believe that someone like Martha doing these things would actually exist.

I love how this book subverts some of the expectations you might have about trans body horror and find new ways to play with those ideas, whilst also creating some quite tender moments about a woman finding different forms of motherhood and trying to survive them.

Newbourne Park by Jennifer Thorne

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Newbourne Park is a horror novel about a woman whose weekend getaway changes her life in a completely unexpected way. Martha is stuck, unable to move on with her life after the death of her mother, but when her brother invites her to a weekend at the country house his friend works at, she takes him up as a chance to do something. Their weekend starts well, but when the owner returns along with a whole load of other people, it turns out that the house has secrets, and Martha is about to be drawn into them.

Like Thorne’s Diavola, this is a horror novel that explores class and privilege, but Newbourne Park is also a werewolf novel in a similar way to Rachel Harrison’s Such Sharp Teeth. That means that instead of scares and creepy stuff, the focus is much more on the horrors of being a werewolf and the power dynamics between the characters. The first part of the book is a tense unfolding of Martha and the others spending an illicit weekend at the house, and then from there is becomes more about Martha dealing with the consequences in a slower, more drawn out way.

There’s some great ridiculous moments—like having to be approved to join the werewolf pack via a Whatsapp vote—and generally this fits into the fun horror genre that I’d categorise Rachel Harrison’s books as, in which there’s some gore and a supernatural concept, but nothing scary. I liked all the commentary on the British class system and how that was interlinked with werewolfism. This isn’t a subtle book, but it’s a fun ride.

Until the Last Light Goes Out by Courtney Gould

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Until the Last Light Goes Out is a horror novel about a mysterious Florida resort where almost an entire high school class was massacred. It is twenty five years since most of the Ripley Memorial High School senior class were killed at the Kaleidoscope. Paige’s mother was one of the survivors, but Paige has tried to put that behind her, even as her best friend KJ obsessed over the place. However, when Paige returns for the anniversary of the massacre, she discovers KJ is missing, and it is time for the survivors’ children to face the Kaleidoscope and what happened there.

This is a very atmospheric horror novel that creates a very vivid Backrooms-esque resort that feels like the images of the poolrooms you see online. I loved that sense of the Kaleidoscope as something unknowable, whilst its labyrinthine structure allows for questions about the price you pay to get out. The character relationships were also good, with the two generations offering space for parallels and building good structural tension as it cut between then and now. I also liked the romantic tension between Paige and KJ and how that compared to the treatment of another character from the parents’ generation.

I was really picturing the events and the resort as I was reading this book and I think it would be great adapted into a film. It was described as YA on Netgalley, but I honestly think this book is good for any age if you like its style of horror, which is more existential and survival-based rather than anything scary. If you’re a fan of cursed vibes in horror and the idea of something bad lingering across generations, Until the Last Light Goes Out is one to try.

This Movie Doesn’t End The Way We Want by Hailey Piper

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This Movie Doesn’t End The Way We Want is a horror novel about a woman whose sister and best friend disappeared at a movie theater as children. Val is estranged from her parents who blame her for her sister and lives haunted by the strange film she watched all those years ago. After Val stumbles across someone dead, she finds herself facing the memories of the past as she tries to work out how the film works, helped by a former classmate who hunts down lost media as a job.

This book is a fun take on the cursed media genre, quite self-aware of how that genre is centred around online video these days and the fact that there’s actually a lot of work (and people) that go into making a film. There’s also a lot around character, particularly Val’s relationships with other people and how her parents let her down after the disappearance of her sister. There were some elements that could have maybe done with a bit more detail, particularly during the climax of the plot, but I liked how the story ended up hazy and surreal in places (a style which ironically often works better in horror films than books).

We Turn Gruesome At Night by Eric LaRocca

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We Turn Gruesome at Night is the second book in LaRocca’s Burnt Sparrow trilogy, a horror series about a New England town with nightmarish goings on. This instalment comes ten years after the massacre from the first book, following two characters trapped in a house who find a potential way to escape and a strange secret society.

I’ve read a lot of LaRocca’s books and generally find them to good, but not as good as I’d hoped from the premise. However, the first Burnt Sparrow book was one of my favourites of LaRocca’s, with some actually horrible stuff and a nice weaving in of shorter stories to the novel format to showcase LaRocca’s usual tendency towards short stories and novellas. For the sequel, I was concerned that I couldn’t remember any of the details of the first book, and to be honest for a lot of the start of the book I really wished I did remember more about the first one. However, as it went on, this second book felt like it wasn’t as connected to the overall town as the first one, so I didn’t worry as much about not remembering the first book very well.

The concept of the novel is simple—being unable to leave a house unless you offer it a sacrifice—and I liked how it offers space to explore human nature and desires, but I felt like the book didn’t quite delve as much into the darkness in its characters as I would’ve expected. Some of the book is taken up with other stories, one which interacts with the main narrative and the others are just like side stories, and particularly the latter felt like padding that didn’t really add anything to the novel. I wish that the other stories in the book brought more in terms of Burnt Sparrow lore by connecting to the town more clearly.

This novel is less horrible than the first in the series (though there are some deaths that may well upset readers) and is more of a gothic story with some splatterpunk elements. For me, it did feel like a concept that could’ve been any length of story and hadn’t quite been fully turned into a novel, and the interwoven stories didn’t quite feel like they brought more to the trilogy itself. I’ll have to wait until the final instalment to fully reflect on how the series comes together, as I can’t tell if this book is perhaps just a middle part that suffers from not having a conclusion to build to. Once again with LaRocca, it’s a decent story, but it didn’t quite hit as hard as I hoped.

Kiss Slay Replay by Rachel Harrison

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Kiss Slay Replay is a time loop horror novel about a woman who goes to her friend’s wedding, only to find herself replaying the day over and over, with a new nightmare each time. Willa is struggling, having recently broken up with her ex-fiancé, but when her best friends are getting married, she needs to put that behind her for the day, even though said ex will be at the wedding. When she gets there, she finds out he brought a date, but then Willa meets a charming friend of the groom, and maybe she’ll have a good time after all. That is, until a masked slasher appears and starts killing the wedding guests. Despite Willa’s best efforts, things don’t go well, but then she wakes up in her bed on the morning of the wedding, and it becomes apparent things aren’t going as expected.

Having read quite a few of Rachel Harrison’s other books, I was expecting light high concept horror, and that’s very much what this is. The concept is a great crossover between a time-loop story and a range of classic horror tropes, bringing something a bit different to a story that might initially seem like a time-loop romcom. I liked how each loop had a different ‘bad guy’, so it wasn’t about learning how to be good at the loop and had a lot more space for ridiculous scary things. There could have maybe been a few more loops just to play around with the potential for dark comedy, but I did like how the narrative wasn’t focused on her having to keep making the same mistakes to learn from. Nevertheless, due to the concept, there is some nice character development for Willa amongst all the silliness.

This is very much a book that does what it says on the tin, offering a fun time that still centres around a character with some depth as she attempts to imagine herself having a future after a break up. It isn’t full of explanations for why things are happening, but instead you just have to go along for the (repeating) ride.

Ship Happens by Mason Deaver

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Ship Happens is a romance novel about two exes who end up stuck on a cruise together and end up having to actually talk about their feelings. Owen broke up with his boyfriend Jacob a year ago, after Jacob got a job offer he couldn’t refuse and Owen wanted to stick with aiming towards his dream of opening his own tattoo shop. All of Owen’s friends seem to be moving forward with their lives, whilst he feels stuck. But when his best friend invites everyone on an Alaskan cruise and Jacob is going to be there, Owen panics. It is clear that both of them still have feelings for each other, but what do they really want for the future?

It’s so exciting to find T4T romance novels and this one has a fun premise, with the cruise offering a slightly different backdrop for the second chance romance and the focus being on them still loving each other, but needing to work out how that can fit into their lives. Owen has a lot going on as a character and it was nice to get such depth to him, bringing plenty of emotion to the story, and I liked how the side characters also got plenty going on for them. My favourite element of the book was how the banter between all of the characters, including between Owen and Jacob, was written, as I love good banter in a romance novel. There were also a lot of detail in the narrative, whether about Owen’s arthritis or just little things like the feel of a hoodie, and that brought a lot to the book too.

Overall, this book was a great trans queer romance novel that had a lot of things to enjoy, and a satisfyingly not magic ending that focuses on the characters having potential, but not everything on a plate. I devoured it in basically one sitting.

The House That Eats the Dead by Max Doty

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The House That Eats the Dead is a horror novel about a family who move into a dream home, only to find it has a special hunger. Claire feels like her family have made it when they move into a big house in the suburbs. Her two children love it, and and her lawyer husband Tom feels like it is the chance for him to move up the career ladder. As they unpack, they notice that things start to disappear. The house is hungry, and it can be fed. Can Claire, and anyone else who suspects the house’s secret, resist the temptation to make use of its powers?

This is the kind of straightforward horror book that does what it says in the title. Some haunted house books have more twists when it comes to the house itself, but this one doesn’t: the house eats the dead. It isn’t a scary book, but any horror elements come more from people and what they would do with that concept than the house itself, which never feels malevolent, just doing what it does. The twists and turns of characters’ plots are fairly predictable too, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t work for a fun read that hits the expected plot moments. I can imagine this book working well adapted into a film, and the house’s “eating” would probably be more horrifying onscreen than it can be when reading it.

The main frustration with this book is that, other than Claire (and her sister) to some extent, there isn’t much backstory for anyone, including the house. It feels like a bit like a horror story for people who don’t like the amount of backstory that characters get from writers like Stephen King, if you find that there’s too much information and not enough plot. The blurb I read compared this book to Grady Hendrix, but I think that in Hendrix’s best works (including How to Sell a Haunted House), there is both emotional depth to the characters and more to the concept than the title. The concept at the heart of this book, and the realities that Claire faces, are dark and interesting (especially the idea that all of the serial killers and creeps want the house), but it could’ve gone deeper, even without making it a darker kind of horror.

I feel like this book is probably ideal for people taking their first steps into the horror genre or who don’t like things that are too scary or disgusting. I think it does feel similar to Rachel Harrison’s books, so it fits into that kind of fun horror with a supernatural concept and looking at what regular people do with that. However, for people who read a lot of horror, it can feel a bit one note, not really delving enough into the house itself.

Indie Game Works by Nathan P. Gibson

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Indie Game Works is a book exploring fifty recent indie games and the stories behind their creation. Each game’s entry features stills and concept art, interviews with creators, and discussions of influences and how the game came to be created. The focus is on how these games are made in terms of their art, styles, and worldbuilding, meaning that it offers a great insight into the variety of ways that people conceive of game plots, art styles, and mechanics.

If, like me, you play games but often stick to those you know, this book is both expansive (showing some of the potential out there to play) and dangerous (adding to your wishlist of games you’d like to play). For people who are perhaps more familiar with many of the games included, it offers potential for looking under the hood of these games, as well as creative inspiration for people wondering if their idea is a game. I’ve run game design workshops before and I think this book would be a great one to have on hand when people are in the early stages of thinking about game creation, as shows a variety of art styles and directorial decisions that help shape indie games into their own specific experiences.

Whether you like to play games, make games, or just learn about the creative process, Indie Game Works is the sort of book you can dip in and out of, looking for ideas or just wanting to take in the beautiful art of the games inside it.

(Thanks to Thames & Hudson for the review copy.)

Taipei Story by R.F. Kuang

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Taipei Story is a literary fiction novel about a Yale student who goes to Taiwan for a summer-long intensive language programme. Lily Chen goes to Taipei hoping for a connection to the language she wishes she knew better, but when she gets there, she realises how much hard work everything is going to be. Her classes are difficult, she struggles with her roommate and others on her programme, and she’s not having the revelations she hoped for. Then her grandfather in China dies and she is forced to think more about her family and her relationship to people and to learning Chinese.

This book is quite different to the other books I’ve read by Kuang, as those (Babel, Katabasis, and Yellowface) all have quite a lot of plot, whereas Taipei Story is a literary version of someone’s study abroad blog, so is much more focused on the details of Lily’s day to day life than much actually happening. I think if you’re a fan of that kind of literary fiction—broadly similar to Sally Rooney—then Taipei Story will work well for you, but if you’re not, it might be more hit or miss. For me, I liked all the detail about food and what Lily was and wasn’t getting used to, as that felt like it was building up a picture of what she was actually focused on, but I did find the book slow and difficult to get into as I was waiting to see if anything was going to happen.

Once her grandfather dies, there’s more about Lily’s family and their past, but I expected this element to go deeper than it did, and the short chapter near the end that focuses on her grandfather felt a bit forced as it didn’t quite fit with the rest of the novel. The book has a lot of ideas around culture, language, and colonialism, but I don’t think how they were presented through Lily’s perspective always worked (for example, I think it means that the book can never properly engage with the mentions of genocide that come up). By the end of the book, Lily is still disconnected from the other characters, to the extent that we as the readers know very little about any of the other characters, and it doesn’t really feel like even Lily gets much change or character development.

Overall, this is a book that combines some deep ideas with a superficial narrative that for me was just a bit too predictable and similar to other literary fiction in this kind of ‘lost protagonist coming of age’ genre. I really enjoyed Katabasis because it was so fun and I think Taipei Story is just quite different to that. After reading it, I saw that Kuang had similar experiences to Lily with studying abroad and it did perhaps feel more like someone’s nonfiction account of travel and struggling with cultural change than a novel (so I can see why the blurb I read compared it to Patricia Lockwood). As someone who is more of a literary fiction person than a fantasy person by a long way, I have to admit that I prefer Babel and Katabasis.