Mad Mabel by Sally Hepworth

Meet Mad Mabel

Elsie Mabel Fitzpatrick is eighty-one years old. She's lived on her idyllic street, Kenny Lane, for sixty years--longer than anyone else. Aside from being a curmudgeon who minds everyone else's business, few would suspect that Elsie has a past that she has worked exceedingly hard at concealing. Because when it comes to murder, no one ever suspects little girls or old ladies. And Elsie Mabel Fitzpatrick, once a little girl and now an old lady, has a strange history of people in her life coming to a foul end.

When a new little girl (talkative, curious, nosy) moves into the neighborhood and stops at nothing to befriend Elsie, her carefully-constructed life threatens to come crashing down as the secrets in Elsie's past start coming to light. Who was "Mad Mabel" fifty years ago? Who is Elsie Fitzpatrick today? And if the past has a habit of repeating itself, who has the most to lose?

Told with Sally Hepworth's twists, humor, charm, and heart, MAD MABEL is a novel that weaves past and present together--through the power of justice and redemption, and all the way to its stunning conclusion.

I took a break from reading horror when I was invited to read the newest Sally Hepworth, because I have enjoyed the four books I have read by her previously. In my opinion, this is her best work so far. Elsie Mabel Fitzpatrick is 81 years old and living a quiet life on a peaceful street in a friendly neighborhood. She's also keeping a secret. When she was fifteen years old, she was tried and convicted of murder. Was she really guilty? Was the nickname Mad Mabel that the other kids tormented her with throughout her childhood valid? When one of her nosy neighbors starts trouble, it puts everyone's safety at risk.

The majority of the book is an amusing read full of Elsie's sarcastic wit and sardonic, biting humor, which is a welcome relief since it is interspersed with her tellings of the events of her traumatic past. Suddenly, around the 90% mark, I had my heart ripped out near the unexpected climax and conclusion. Everyone should be lucky enough to have a grandma like Elsie, and Elsie deserved far better than the childhood she got. Blamed by her father for a multitude of sins that were never her fault, he encouraged the cruelty and ridicule that she suffered. She felt so real to me I wanted to go back in time and give her a hug. This is a book with all the feels. 5 stars doesn't seem like enough for this well-crafted tale.

My thanks to St. Martin's Press for the e-ARC

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The Widows of Winding Gale by Kealan Patrick Burke

For the people on the rugged Irish island of Winding Gale, life has always been hard. Now in the wake of the second World War, the island is dying, the young taken away by death or the appeal of better lives elsewhere, leaving behind only a handful of adults.

But on the night the men of the island disappear while fishing in uncharted waters, the women of Winding Gale are forced into a conflict with something both new and unfathomably old.

A strange greenish mist rolls in, cutting the island off from the mainland. Spiral symbols appear in the sand, fashioned from dead fish and stones. Seductive voices lure people from their homes to walk into the sea. Ancient ships materialize in the fog. And specters of the past will rise to take their vengeance in blood.

Because this is Samhain, a time when the veil between the living and the dead is thinnest, and there is something rising from the deep that will thrust the women of Winding Gale into a war against an unspeakable evil few of them may survive.

I can always count on Kealan Patrick Burke to pull me out of a reading slump. When I opened The Widows of Winding Gale, it lifted me out of the slumpiest slump I've ever slumped before.

I loved everything about this book, from the isolated island setting to the 1940s time period and the impending spookiness of Halloween. Most of all, I loved the characters. A small group of tenacious women and their husbands who have endured the hardships of living on the island with only occasional deliveries of goods from the mainland. The men of the island are currently off on the fishing boat. This is not an unusual part of island life, except that this time they have ventured out farther than they have ever been, and they have caught more than fish. There is something in their net that is beyond belief, and there is something in the sea that wants revenge. As the women await their husbands' return long past the time they were expected back, the fog rolls in, bringing something sinister that the women will have to face on their own.

Fast-paced and expertly written in such a way that I could picture the island, smell the sea, and feel the terror. I was so heavily invested in this eerie and heartbreaking tale that it was as if  I experienced every dashed hope and tragedy that ever befell the current and past inhabitants of the island. 

5 out of 5 stars

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Morsel by Carter Keane

The Blair Witch Project meets The Ritual, with a generous helping of The Menu, in Morsel, a delicious folk horror novella perfect for fans of T. Kingfisher, Cassandra Khaw, and Paul Tremblay.

Lou did what the children of parents with back-breaking, poor paying jobs are supposed to do; pulled up her bootstraps, went to college, and got an office job with coworkers who won’t stop talking about their multi-level marketing scheme disguised as self-betterment.

Determined to lift her ill mother out of poverty before it's too late, and in the spirit of climbing the corporate ladder, Lou accepts an assignment in the rural hills of Ohio. She quickly finds herself stranded in the middle of nowhere with a sabotaged truck, a dog she’s determined to keep safe, and something stalking her through the ancient Appalachian woods.

If she can’t escape the woods in time, she’ll come face to face with the fact that her job isn’t the only thing that wants to eat her alive.

Morsel is a chilling testament to the burden of generational poverty and the all-consuming nature of capitalism, where the monster and the monstrous, in the end, are not the same.

 First, I have to say that it was the cover and the comparison to The Ritual that made me accept the invitation to read this book. I loved The Ritual, but I hated Blair Witch. Still, I don't get the comparison. I guess they took that liberty because something happens in the woods. Oh well.

Morsel gets off to a very slow start. So much so that I was just about to decide that this book may not be a good fit for me. I was wavering around the 30% mark when it suddenly got downright scary, and I was hooked.

There is a lot going on in this story all at once, sometimes a bit too much. The gist of it is that Lou is struggling to pay bills and wants to help out her overworked mom. She accepts an assignment to go out in the middle of nowhere to survey a home. Once she gets there, her life is in danger, but is it really the monster we were expecting from the synopsis or something else? It's hard to tell because Lou has some memory gaps and is an unreliable narrator. The story is frequently interrupted by a "podcast" concerning others who have gone missing in the woods. The ending was confusing to say the least. I mostly enjoyed the middle third of this book, but the slow start and crazy ending made this just an ok read for me.

My thanks to Tor Nightfire for the gorgeous paperback.

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Truly, Madly, Weirdly: Four Strange Tales of Love Turned Sour by Victoria Williamson

Four unnerving tales of the weird and uncanny from award-winning author Victoria Williamson.

A mother afraid of the rot eating away at her perfect family.

A son who’ll do anything to bring the woman of his dreams into being.

An ex-husband whose acceptance of his exploitation comes back to haunt him.

And a fiancée who suspects her partner’s miniature model is hiding a terrible secret in plain sight.

Turn the pages of this anthology to discover just how far they’ll go for a chance at love, no matter how tainted it might prove to be.

Truly, Madly, Weirdly contains four stories of obsession and desperation. Whether that is desperation to hold on to what they already have or to possess what they have never had, these characters are all suffering one way or another from choices they made against their own better judgment.

In the first story, "Shrink Wrap," a woman is enjoying her second chance at a peaceful family life. Her adoring husband and well-behaved children are everything she ever wanted, but her domestic bliss is threatened by the return of her estranged daughter from her first marriage. All she wants is to protect her family, but her compulsion takes a dangerous turn. 

The next story, "Lilac and Old Lace," finds twin siblings hoping their recent inheritance will free them from their overbearing mother's clutches. Alas, the dilapidated property left to them by their uncle is not the path to the freedom they hoped for.

In "The Picture of Happiness," a recently divorced man whose wife took everything, including his self-respect, moves into a small apartment with a dark past, where he begins to suffer what he thinks is sleep paralysis.

In the last story, "The Model Partner," a middle-aged woman believes she has finally found her first and only chance at love with a recently widowed man from her church. At first, she is willing to overlook a frightening coincidence or two, but will she see the truth before it's too late?

 I've never been one for love stories, but there are no happy sappy romances to be found in Truly Madly Weirdly. Tales of love turned sour are definitely something I can get behind, especially when they turn dark and deadly with spine-chilling consequences. I enjoyed every story, and they should all serve as a reminder that if you feel like something is wrong, it probably is.

My thanks to Silver Thistle Press for the paperback.

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