Bitter Is the Heart by Mina Hardy

Tamar Glass fled an abusive mother when she was eighteen, running away from home to find a better life elsewhere. She has lived in freedom from her mother, Ruth, for decades, until one night she wakes to find her now-elderly mother standing over her bed.

As Tamar takes in her mother, strange events start happening inside her the house is oppressively hot, lights flicker, and cupboards open and shut on their own. Whispers filter beneath her bedroom door. Tamar learns that Ruth has been kicked out of her assisted living home and other facilities refuse to house her and endanger their own residents. Tamar has spent years suppressing her childhood trauma, but it comes rushing back with each strange event in her home. As Tamar copes with their disturbing past which her mother stubbornly refuses to admit to, Tamar can’t shake the feeling that there’s something worse than her mother lurking in the shadows.

Perfect for fans of The Haunting of Hill House, this terrifying novel unravels one dark strand at a time.

Tamar Glass grew up in a house where she was neglected at best and physically and emotionally abused at worst. Or maybe that wasn't even the worst. Maybe the worst was the thing standing over her bed, the whispers coming from the drains, the complete and utter aloneness she felt in knowing that there was nowhere to turn, and nobody to believe her. Maybe the worst was seeing how her mother doted on her sister, while never sparing an ounce of love or kindness for Tamar. Or maybe the worst was yet to come.

After barely escaping with her life, she never looked back. She is close to her sister but has avoided her mother as much as possible for the past 3 decades. Until the night she awoke to her mother appearing in her bedroom, having left the elderly housing apartment in the middle of the night and walked barefoot all the way to Tamar's house. Now she is stuck with her. The elderly housing complex is kicking her out, for unspecified reasons although something sinister is implied. No other home will take her. Tamar feels duty-bound to care for her until other arrangements can be made, but the creepy happenings that plagued her childhood are starting again.

For me, the pacing was perfect. Secrets are gradually revealed, and disturbing incidents that at first appear to be the normal progression of dementia taking hold of a woman who was never particularly kind to begin with turn undeniably to supernatural evil. Mina Hardy has combined a dysfunctional family dynamic with Jewish Folklore for the win. I loved this book.

5 out of 5 stars.

My thanks to Crooked Lane Books

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Pale Blades of Moonlight by Joe Pawlowski

In a dark alley in St. Paul, Minnesota, a pair of boys think they’re breaking into an abandoned secondhand store, but what they’re really entering is a nightmare from which they may never escape.

Meanwhile, in a nearby city, a caped figure appears as it does every night on the sidewalk outside the house of that old woman who neighbors believe is really a witch.

And in a rural woodland, ghouls unearth the residents of an ancient graveyard and carry off the rotting remnants for sinister purposes.

All by the silvery light of the moon.

The nine tales in this collection by award-winning writer Joe Pawlowski feature a hapless real-estate agent driven to extreme measures by his love of a severely deformed woman; a trio of farmers who discover a presence from beyond lurking in the corn; a paraplegic miss who rides the supernatural into realities far from the confines of her hospital bed; the American tourist in Mexico City who discovers the deeper meaning of the Day of the Dead; and the wise guy who learns it’s not OK to shortchange a sin eater.

It’s surely looking like a bad moon is on the rise.

Pale Blades Of Moonlight is a collection of nine intriguing stories that range from horror to fantasy with a touch of sci-fi.

 Black magic, strange rituals, grave robbers, alien beings, and more, made for an entertaining read.

My favorites were as follows...
Shadow Man, in which a reclusive woman who guards a dangerous object lets her defenses down.

It Came Out Of The Sky- When a strange metal capsule crashes to the earth a couple of elderly men follow the trail of its occupant. They should have run the other way!

A young woman who has survived a traumatic and devastating injury that robbed her of the life she should have had travels the globe without leaving her bed in A world Apart.

A realtor becomes obsessed with a deformed client in Iris.

A man tries to cheat a sin eater out of his fee and learns that some things are far more dear than money in Elliot's Just Dessert.

If you're in the mood for shivery thrills and startling chills you'll find them here in Pale Blades Of Moonlight.

My thanks to Joe Pawlowski.

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More books by this author

 

Book Spotlight! Asunder by Kerstin Hall

 Book Spotlight

Here's a book that's on my radar. I haven't had time to read it yet, but it sounds good and I wanted to share it with you. 

"There is no doubt in my mind that Kerstin Hall is one of the great imaginative minds writing fantasy today."—Isabel Cañas, USA Today Bestselling author of Vampires of El Norte

Sabriel meets Witch King in Nommo Award finalist Kerstin Hall's beguiling new standalone novel. A LitHub most anticipated book of 2024.

We choose our own gods here.

Karys Eska is a deathspeaker, locked into an irrevocable compact with Sabaster, a terrifying eldritch being—three-faced, hundred-winged, unforgiving—who has granted her the ability to communicate with the newly departed. She pays the rent by using her abilities to investigate suspicious deaths around the troubled city she calls home. When a job goes sideways and connects her to a dying stranger with some very dangerous secrets, her entire world is upended.

Ferain is willing to pay a ludicrous sum of money for her help. To save him, Karys inadvertently binds him to her shadow, an act that may doom them both. If they want to survive, they will need to learn to trust one another. Together, they must journey to the heart of a faded empire, all the while haunted by arcane horrors, and the unquiet ghosts of their pasts.

And all too soon, Karys knows her debts will come due.

Available for Pre-order

My thanks to Tordotcom for the gifted copy

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Tordotcom (August 20, 2024)

Publication date ‏ : ‎ August 20, 2024

Print length ‏ : ‎ 427 pages

Fantasy Action & Adventure

Creatures of the Night: Vicious Vampire Tales

 Immerse yourself in a world of terror and darkness with three vampire horror novellas.

“Return of the Blood-Feeders” by Simon Clark

Viking vampires, and their latest vicious recruits, swarm through tunnels beneath the present-day town of Leppington. The Norse gods have created a Vampyrrhic army to wreak vengeance on people that turned their backs on Odin. Just two fragile humans stand in their way—a down-at-heel drifter who is struggling to recover from a severe head injury, and a dreamer with a drink problem. Together, they must become extraordinary. Together, they must defeat something that is much, much worse than vampires.

‘Return of the Blood-Feeders’ is set in the world of Simon’s Vampyrrhic series of novels.

“Perspective” by Kevin J. Kennedy-

This is a story of my re-awakening, and vampires. A couple's lives are thrown into turmoil when a body is dumped at their door. The vampires are catapulted into a blood-drenched journey to the gates of hell. Fortunately, they have some werewolf friends who want to come along for the ride.

“Beneath Still Waters” by Gord Rollo On May 16, 2020, disaster struck the small Canadian mining town of Beckley, Nova Scotia. An explosion deep in Shaft 3 unleashed a massive torrent of water from an underground stream, quickly flooding the lower levels and dooming the workers below. Sixty-five people lost their lives that night, the tragedy one of the worst mining disasters in the province’s history. The Red Spruce Gypsum Mine would never reopen.

The town tried to turn the heartbreak into something positive, converting the flooded quarry into a natural swimming hole for people to cool off in during the hot summer months. But something has awakened from within the abandoned mine shafts and staked its territory in the deepest part of the lake. Something ancient. Something savage. Something hungry…

If you're a fan of extreme horror books, gothic suspense, and supernatural terror, this collection is your gateway to fear. Dive into these suspenseful gothic horror novellas and discover why this horror anthology is a must-read for lovers of vampire fiction.

Creatures of the Night contains three bloodthirsty novellas sure to satisfy the cravings of any fan of vampires who do not glitter and are most definitely not looking for love.

In Return of the Blood-Feeders a man who has suffered a traumatic brain injury when vampires stole the woman he loves, will risk his life to save her. Traveling deep underground through claustrophobic tunnels won't be the scariest part of this mission. This was a pulse-pounding story with lots of gory action.

Perspective- When a vampire couple befriends a werewolf couple, demons are no match for them. 

Last but not least, my favorite novella was Beneath Still Waters.

At first I had no idea what this deadly creature even was. Who ever heard of a vampire that lives in a lake? How terrifying! This is a story of Indigenous folklore. This man like creature is more horrifying than a vampire. It's not just drinking the blood of its victims, it's eating their souls. 

These novellas are perfect for anyone looking for unique vampire tales.

My thanks to Crystal Lake Publishing.

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