Tantrum by Rachel Eve Moulton

 In this electric horror novel from the author of The Insatiable Volt Sisters, an exhausted mother thinks her newborn might be a monster. She’s right.

Thea’s third pregnancy was her easiest. She wasn’t consumed with anxiety about the baby. She wasn’t convinced it was going to be born green, or have a third eye, or have tentacles sprouting from its torso. Thea was fine. Her baby would be fine. 

But when the nurses handed Lucia to her, Thea just knew. Her baby girl was a monster. Not only was Lucia born with a full set of teeth and a devilish glint in her eye, but she’s always hungry. Indiscriminately so. One day Lucia pointed at her baby brother, looked Thea dead in the eye and said, “I eat.”

Thea doesn’t know whether to be terrified or proud of her rapacious baby girl. And as Lucia starts growing faster and talking more, dark memories bubble to the surface--flashes from Thea’s childhood that won’t release their hooks from her heart. Lucia wants to eat the world. Thea might just let her. Crackling with originality and dark humor, Rachel Eve Moulton’s Tantrum is a provocative exploration of familial debt, duty, and the darker side of motherhood.

Thea never wanted children until she met and married Dillon, but once she did she was determined to be a better mother than the one she had. She worried herself sick over her first two pregnancies, but her beautiful, healthy boys are the light of her life. The third time, however, was not the charm. She didn't worry at all. Everything was fine until they put her baby girl in her arms. That was when she knew she had birthed a monster.

Exhausted and struggling to cope with a baby who is developing a mean streak and a miraculous growth spurt, Thea begins to uncover blocked out memories from her traumatic childhood and the disturbing details of her forgotten past with her own mother.

Motherhood is probably the only experience that millions of women can share while still having nothing in common. Each experience is as unique as every child. Tantrum is a supernatural story about trauma and abuse and the darker side of motherhood—those uncomfortable thoughts we may punish ourselves for when one child is harder to cope with than the others.

5 out of 5 stars

My thanks to G.P. Putnam's Sons for the advance e-ARC

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Eerie Exhibits - Five Macabre Museum Tales by Victoria Williamson

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

A room full of screaming butterflies.

An unsettling smile on the face of a carved sarcophagus.

A painting that draws its viewer into the disturbing past.

A stuffed bear that growls in the dead of night.

And a shell that whispers more sinister sounds than the sigh of the sea…

Dare you cross the threshold of the old Museum and view its eerie exhibits?

Eerie Exibits contains five spooky stories that are heavy on atmosphere without relying on gore.

Each story shares a museum theme, where either visitors or workers can fall victim to the exhibits.

In the first story, a man who is grieving the loss of his mother has a startling experience with a butterfly display.

Next up, much like an episode of Night Gallery, an unusual painting sparks a memory and takes a museum worker into his past.

The last three stories were my favorites.  A little girl who wishes her cold and selfish father would be a more loving dad like all the other kids have, is fascinated by the smile on a sarcophagus. I felt awful for this child who would have been so appreciative of the least bit of attention from her self-absorbed father. Maybe things will get better for her once he meets The Grinning Man.

Thelma is a bitter, envious woman who believes she is owed a better lot in life. She sets out to achieve what she feels she deserves, in The Shape Of The Beast with some help from one of the museum exhibits where she works as a cleaner. Her life and the lives of those she feels have wronged her are about to change.

Children who have suffered a loss are targeted by The Whispering Shell while on a class trip to the museum. This was the most chilling of all the tales and succeeds in giving a ghostly scare without the need for gore.

If you like supernatural tales that don't have buckets of blood you will enjoy Eerie Exhibits.

My thanks to Silver Thistle Press for the gifted paperback.

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We Are Always Tender with Our Dead by Eric LaRocca

Michael McDowell's Blackwater meets Clive Barker's The Great and Secret Show in the disturbing first installment of a new trilogy of intense, visceral, beautifully written queer horror set in a small New England town.

A chilling supernatural tale of transgressive literary horror from the Bram Stoker Award® finalist and Splatterpunk Award-winning author of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke.

The lives of those residing in the isolated town of Burnt Sparrow, New Hampshire, are forever altered after three faceless entities arrive on Christmas morning to perform a brutal act of violence—a senseless tragedy that can never be undone. While the townspeople grieve their losses and grapple with the aftermath of the attack, a young teenage boy named Rupert Cromwell is forced to confront the painful realities of his family situation. Once relationships become intertwined and more carnage ensues as a result of the massacre, the town residents quickly learn that true retribution is futile, cruelty is earned, and certain thresholds must never be crossed no matter what.

Engrossing, atmospheric, and unsettling, this is a devastating story of a small New England community rocked by an unforgivable act of violence. Writing with visceral intensity and profound eloquence, LaRocca journeys deep into the dark heart of Burnt Sparrow, leaving you chilled to the bone and wanting more.

 

There are stories within the main story but mostly it is about a mass murder of town residents at a Christmas event. For some reason, the elders of the town have decided the dead bodies of the victims should not be buried and instead remain as they are, splattered all over the place. The perpetrators of this heinous act are a faceless family of three. Literally faceless that is. Just blank and empty where a face should be. Why? I don't know. Don't ask me. Did they even really commit these murders? I don't know. They don't speak and there was no trial or evidence. Maybe it was just decided that they were murderers because they are different.

I'm going to have to file this one under the category of what in the hell did I just read? 

That being said, I will also be anxiously awaiting the next book in the trilogy.

I'm at a loss for how to review this book. I can only say that it's a good thing the town of Burnt Sparrow is fictional because it is not a nice place to visit and you would not want to live there. This is a disturbing tale of depravity, sadism, abuse, neglect and a great deal of sadness. There is a long list of trigger warnings at the start of this book so proceed with caution. 

My thanks to Titan Books and Eric LaRocca

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October by Gregory Bastianelli

 

A magician and a dark evil at Halloween come together in an intriguing coming-of-age thriller.

Readers of Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes and All Hallows by Christopher Golden will love this. In 1970, four boys on the cusp of becoming teenagers notice strange events occurring in Maplewood, NH, timed with the late-night arrival of an old magician who has taken up residence in a boarding house in their neighborhood, where one of the tenants is a reclusive pulp horror writer. The writer’s fears have kept him from venturing outside in over forty years, fears linked to the magician’s previous visit. As children go missing in town, the four boys try to piece together seemingly unrelated phenomena and realize dark forces are at work, but no one will believe them. 

It's October 1970 in the small New England town of Maplewood New Hampshire when a freight train that never carries passengers or stops there comes to a halt. A boy watches an elderly man in a top hat and cape disembark. What does his arrival have to do with a shut in who has not left the boarding house where he has resided for these past four decades? Why are children going missing? And what is in those pumpkins? You will have to read to find out!

Four boys coming of age in 1970 are going to have the most memorable October of their lives. Strange happenings, bizarre deaths and mysterious disappearances will plague the town. Even if they can figure out the cause, with the help of a retired horror writer who has been afraid to go outside in 40 years who would possibly believe them?

This is a story that simmers slowly at first as we are introduced to the unusual characters of the town, including the former side show fat lady, the boys from the wrong side of the tracks, and even a poor unloved dog who has lost his boy.  I love small-town horror so this was a huge hit with me. The setting was perfect!  The 70's vibe was complete with Hammer House films and Dark Shadows. The closer we get to Halloween the scarier it gets. I couldn't have loved it more!

5 out of 5 stars

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