demons | Diversity in Horror Fiction

These Bodies Ain’t Broken Edited by Madeline Dyer

Formats: Print, digital

Genre: Body Horror, Demon, Historic Horror, Monster, Myths and Folklore, Romance, Vampire

Audience: Young Adult

Diversity: Authors and characters with disabilities including ADHD, anxiety, agoraphobia, Autism, celiac disease, chronic pain, Crohn’s disease, diabetes, Down syndrome, Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, Fibromyalgia, mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS), neurofibromatosis, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), PTSD, and substance use disorder. Non-binary main character and author, agender main character, biracial Haitian side character, bisexual main character.

Content Warnings (Highlight to view): Ableism, Amputation, Animal Death, Body Shaming, Bullying, Cannibalism, Child Abuse, Child Death, Classism, Death, Drug Use/Abuse, Forced Captivity, Gore, Homophobia, Illness, Kidnapping, Medical Procedures, Oppression, Mental Illness, Physical Abuse, Self-Harm, Sexism, Slurs, Suicide, Verbal/Emotional Abuse, Victim Blaming, Violence

Blurb

A monstrous transformation within your own body.
A sacrificial imprisonment.
A fight to the death against an ancient evil.

These stories showcase disabled characters winning against all odds.

Outsmarting deadly video games, hunting the predatory monster in the woods, rooting out evil within their community, finding love and revenge with their newly turned vampire friend—this anthology upends expectations of the roles disabled people can play in horror. With visibly and invisibly disabled characters whose illnesses include Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, Crohn’s disease, diabetes, PTSD, and more, each entry also includes a short essay from the author about the conditions portrayed in their stories to further contextualize their characters’ perspectives. From breaking ancient curses to defying death itself, these 13 horror stories cast disabled characters as heroes we can all root for.

Contributors include bestselling and award-winning as well as emerging authors: Dana Mele, Lillie Lainoff, Soumi Roy, Anandi, Fin Leary, S.E. Anderson, K. Ancrum, Pintip Dunn, Lily Meade, Mo Netz, P.H. Low, and Carly Nugent.

I received this product for free in return for providing an honest and unbiased review. I received no other compensation. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

Horror isn’t exactly known for having good disability rep, so it was great having an anthology written by authors with disabilities because there was so much variety in representation. There was everything from Crohn’s disease to Ehlers-Danlos syndrome to PTSD. In some stories, a character’s disability played a huge role (Baby Teeth, Within the Walls, The Worst of It), and it’s only mentioned in passing in others (When the Night Calls, Kissed by Death). At the end of each story, the author would write about how they chose to represent disability in their work, and some even shared their experiences with their own disabilities and how they related to their stories.

I loved that both invisible and visible disabilities were featured. I have invisible disabilities myself (ADHD and mental illness), but for a long time I didn’t consider myself disabled because, like many people, I thought the only disabilities that existed were visible. This caused me a great deal of stress because I was always trying to compare myself to neurotypical people. It never occurred to me to ask for accommodations because I thought I should be able to “power through” any challenges on willpower alone. Engaging with the disability community online helped me be more accepting of my own disability. I learned that I wasn’t “broken,” the difficulties I had were not moral failings, and having a disability is not a “bad” thing. I discovered that the things I struggled with due to ADHD and mental illness were not my fault, it was just a difference in brain chemistry that I was born with. Accepting my disability meant I also accepted help and learned to function with my disability instead of always fighting against it. It was empowering. So, reading stories about ADHD and mental health in a disability anthology felt incredibly validating. Not only that, but these characters with disabilities got to be the heroes. It was awesome reading about a woman with ADHD get revenge on the men who wronged her and a non-binary person whose mental illness was not the source of horror in the story. Another great thing about These Bodies Ain’t Broken is the amount of intersectionality. There were queer characters, non-binary characters, Asian characters, etc.

This review would be unreasonably long if I examined every story in the collection I will focus on a few that stood out to me. When the Night Calls by Soumi Roy takes place in 19th century Bengal. Charu is a newly married 16-year-old girl whose best friend Malati, an educated city girl who is fiercely independent, has disappeared without a trace. Malati’s cold husband claims that his wife was lured into the forest and taken by the Nishi Daak for being so willful. He says it was Malati’s own fault she was taken, but Charu isn’t sure what to believe. Malati always told her the Nishi Daak was just a story told to keep women in line. Although Charu does her best to be an obedient wife and daughter-in-law her curiosity gets the better of her and she stumbles across the terrible secret kept by the village men; the reason women and girls of the village keep disappearing. This bloody story of feminine vengeance and Bengali monsters was an extremely satisfying read. I also enjoyed it as Charu and I share a disability, ADHD (although it’s not named it the story the author reveals that Charu is neurodiverse). I related to the frustration of making mistakes, even when you’re trying your hardest, and how painful it is when people around you attribute this to laziness or “just not paying attention.”

The first line of Thy Creature by Lillie Lainoff draws you in immediately. “The hardest thing about coming back to life is remembering how to breathe.” Told in the second person, this Frankenstein inspired tale tells the story of a girl brought back to life by her college boyfriend, Cal, after she dies in a hiking accident. Despite being a mediocre boyfriend at best, the protagonist seems perfectly happy to settle and set her expectations low when it comes to Cal, especially since she now owes him for bringing her back to life. The story reminded me so much of all the straight women who settle for awful men because they don’t think they deserve better. Hey, there’s a reason single women are happier.

Dating while disabled comes with its own set of challenges especially when dating someone without a disability. The non-disabled person may only date someone with a disability out of pity or because they fetishize their disability. This also applies to anyone who isn’t skinny, white, cisgender, etc. (aka has their own category on Pornhub), so heaven help you if you belong to more than one of those marginalized groups (intersectionality). Then there’s all the misconceptions, like the assumption that people with disabilities aren’t sexual (obviously Ace people with disabilities exist, but that’s a sexual orientation, and has nothing to do with their disabilities). As Lainoff’s protagonist slowly builds confidence, she also learns she doesn’t have to settle just because she has a disability and that maybe her boyfriend isn’t all that great.

In Ravenous by Carly Nugent, the protagonist, Linden, is struggling with depression and passive suicidal ideation. She refuses to monitor her blood sugar or manage her diabetes which has already landed her in the ER once. Linden has decided she’s just going not to accept her diabetes, forcing her mother to help her manage most of it, and she’d rather die from it than live with it. I like that Nugent wrote about the difficulty someone with a chronic illness goes through when they’re first diagnosed. Linden is still in the denial and depression stages of her grief after learning her life will never be the same. But over the course of the story, she learns to accept that she has diabetes, and it doesn’t mean her life is over. I love that the author didn’t portray disability in a negative light while also acknowledging that yes, finding out that you’re going to have to manage a chronic illness for the rest of your life can really suck.

Another story I really liked was House of Hades by Dana Mele. House of Hades is a virtual world filled with gamers and virtual replicas of the dead. The tech was originally funded by some billionaire who wanted to live forever. But when he learned that you can’t really become an immortal machine, he sold the program, which was used it to create House of Hades. They call the digital clones “ghosts,” which include historical figures like Shakespeare and Marie Antoinette. The game is so realistic that if you die in the game you can die in real life (so Matrix rules) unless you “wake up,” which is why the game requires a buddy system. The voice command “wake up” triggers the exit protocol. Unfortunately, you need someone else to trigger it for you, you can’t exit yourself, which seems like a serious design flaw.

Ode and Era are two gamers who like to hang out in House of Hades. Ode is currently grounded, and isn’t supposed to be playing the game because they’ve been abusing pills and recently had an overdose on a drug called V (aka Viper, the story’s fictional drug). Their parents recently got divorced and they’re struggling with it. When they go back to Hades with Era, Ode is shocked to discover they’ve been separated. Now Ode is all alone in a dark little town, seemingly empty, but something is watching them. They are forced to solve puzzles and play the town’s strange game to try and find Era and a way out.

I thought the setting was very creative, and I like that the protagonist was non-binary like me. In the story notes Mele explains how she didn’t like the way horror villains were always portrayed as mentally ill. As someone with my own mental illness and who has spent time inpatient at mental health hospitals (or as I like to call it “a grippy sock vacation”) it hurts when I hear people talk about the “dangerous crazies” in the psych ward or explain away a person’s terrible behavior (racism, violence, abuse, etc.) by saying “they’re crazy.” They’re not mentally ill, they’re just awful people! And mentally ill people are more likely to be the victims of violent crime than commit it. Only a very small percent of violent crimes (around 5%) are committed by people with mental illness. Yet the myth of the “crazed killer” prevails in horror. So, I appreciate that Mele made her protagonist mentally ill.

One of my favorite stories in the collection was The Weepers and Washer-Women of Lake Lomond by Madeline Dyer (the editor of the anthology), though I think the story would have worked better if it was a full-length novel. It was like I was being served this amazing meal, but I had to shove it in my mouth in five minutes when I really wanted to savor it. It didn’t necessarily feel rushed, I just think I would have enjoyed it more if I had had more time with the characters, the setting, and the lore because it was all so great! In the story the protagonist, Bianca, who has multiple disabilities including Ehlers-Danlos, POTS, and MCAS, is pretending to be her twin sister, Remi, so she can take part in the World Kickboxing Championship on the island of Loch Lomond. Bianca is convinced the island had something to do with the death or their cousin, Mari, who competed on Loch Lomond a ten years prior. Remi’s boyfriend, Blake, does not think this is a good idea, but Bianca, who hates being treated like she’s “broken,” is determined. She’s thought of everything; Remi faked an injury months ago to explain away Bianca’s crutches. The competition takes place in pitch dark, the organizers claiming that it’s to make it more fair for blind and low-vision competitors (a blind girl won the championship last time), so no one will see Bianca using a mobility aid. And she only needs to stay in the competition long enough to find out what happened to Mari, so Bianca doesn’t necessarily have to win her first match.

I can understand Blake’s hesitation to help Bianca go through with her plan, because at first, I thought Bianca was foolish to try and pretend to be her sister. While both sister’s have Ehlers-Danlos, Remi only got stretchy joints, while Bianca got the whole shebang that can come with the condition. How would Bianca be able to compete in such a physically demanding competition? And immediately after arriving on the island,things start to go wrong. There’s no food that Bianca can safely eat, and the training masters confiscate her medication and medical drinks claiming it will give her an “unfair advantage.” Dizzy with fatigue and illness she tries to bow out of the championship, but is forced to compete. And when she enters the dark arena, the training master takes Bianca’s crutches. Worst of all, her opponent doesn’t seem quite human. I thought she was guaranteed to be monster chow. But then her disability ends up being the reason she survives. *spoiler* Because Bianca’s crutches (presumably made of durable steel, which contains iron) can hurt her adversaries. As Bianca says at the end of the story “I’m Bianca. And that’s how I’m alive. Because I’m disabled. Because I need mobility aids. Because I fought with my crutch.” *spoiler ends* I absolutely love this twist. Disabilities are often to assumed to be a “weakness” but it ends up being Bianca’s strength.

Three of the stories used the second person point of view, which is when the story addresses the reader directly using the pronoun “you” when describing the protagonists’ actions (i.e. you shook in fear when faced with the monster from your dreams). This is a tricky to do, and doesn’t always work well, as you’re basically telling the reader what they’re doing and feeling. But it’s also more intimate and the reader gets a greater feel for what the protagonist is going through. I liked that some of the authors used this for their storytelling. It gives you more of a feel for what it’s was like living with a specific disability.

While not all the stories in the collection were as strong as others, I think this is a solid anthology. It was great to both see myself in characters and learn about different types of disabilities, as there’s so much variation. I also love that the stories defied stereotypes like disabled people not being worthy of love, or mentally ill people being dangerous. The only thing that surprised me was that there were no stories by authors who were blind, low vision, or Deaf/deaf, and there was only one story with a character who used a wheelchair. Perhaps Madeline Dyer wanted to focus on disabilities which don’t get as much media attention or she simply wasn’t able to get authors to represent those disabilities. This isn’t really a criticism, just something that surprised me. Perhaps I just need to reexamine my own biases when it comes to disabilities.

Tags: ADHD, Agender, agoraphobia, Anthology, Anxiety Disorder, Autism, BIPOC, Biracial, Bisexual, Body Horror, Book Review, Cane user, Celiac Disease, Chronic Pain, Crohn’s disease, Demon, diabetes, Disability, Down syndrome, Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, Fibromyalgia, Haitian, Historic Horror, LGBTQIA, MCAS, Monster, Myths and Folklore, Neurodiversity, neurofibromatosis, Non-binary, Own Voices, POTS, PTSD, Romance, Substance Use Disorder, Trans, vampire, Wheelchair user, Young Adult

The Devouring Light by Kat Ellis

The Devouring Light by Kat Ellis. Recommended. Read if you like found footage, isolation horror

Formats: Print, audio, digital

Publisher: HarperCollins

Genre: Body Horror, Demon

Audience: Young Adult

Diversity: Queer main character, Major character with substance use disorder, Biracial Japanese side character, Black major character

Takes Place in: Oregon

Content Warnings (Highlight to view): Animal Death, Death, Drug Use/Abuse, Forced Captivity, Gore, Illness, Medical Procedures, Sexism, Stalking, Verbal/Emotional Abuse, Vomit

Blurb

When Haden Romero and her rival, Deacon Rex—alongside their bands, including Haden’s ex, Cairo—are stranded on their way to a rock festival, she thinks missing the gig is the worst thing that could happen.

She’s wrong.

Marooned in treacherous swamplands with no way out, the group stumbles upon an eerie, decaying house. It seems like a safe haven, a place to wait out the storm.

The house, however, isn’t just abandoned—it’s been waiting for them.

Bodies begin to pile up. The walls start to close in. Twisted secrets come to light. And unless Haden and the others can survive long enough to escape, the house will claim them—forever.

When Haden Romero was 13 years old, she got kicked off the singing competition show Little Stars. As far as she’s concerned getting booted from the show is the reason she’s not famous, her parents are divorced, her dad wants nothing to do with her, and her life just generally sucks. And it’s entirely the fault of Deacon Rex, who went on to become famous after winning the singing competition. As far as she’s concerned, he’s the reason she was kicked off Little Stars. Years later, Haden still can’t let go of what happened. Now she’s in a struggling band called Phantomic with her best friend Kizi, still hoping to catch her big break.

The two girls are headed to Rock-o’-Lantern when Haden’s ancient 1968 Lincoln Continental breaks down. And just because the universe likes to kick her when she’s already down, Haden discovers the tour bus for Deacon Rex’s band, Rex Mori, is stopped at the same gas station they’ve pulled into. Awesome. But as much as she hates Deacon, Haden still feels the need to warn him about a creepy guy she saw muttering about bringing Deacon “to the Light” in the gas station bathroom. She hopes that’s the end of it until Kizi, who loves Rex Mori, convinces Deacon to give them a ride to Rock-o’-Lantern because their car broke down. And that’s when Haden learns that her ex-girlfriend, Cairo, is Rex Mori’s new drummer. The awkward meter is officially off the charts.

But wait, there’s more! Haden’s already bad day is about to get infinitely worse. The GPS takes the tour bus to a canyon in the middle of nowhere where they subsequently crash and fall into a creepy swamp. Haden wakes up alone on the crashed bus to find the driver dead, Rex alone in the swamp with an injured leg (which he won’t stop whining about), and Kizi, Cairo, and Deacon’s bandmate, Shane, all missing. And of course, their cellphones don’t work (because horror). As they stumble along a gravel pathway that glows with an eerie light (one of the few things visible in the foggy swamp) they eventually stumble upon a large house called The Light. It soon becomes apparent that they’re trapped in the swamp and the abandoned, creepy as fuck house is their only shelter.

Haden tends to be her own worse enemy and is terrified of messing everything up like she did on Little Stars. Even though she blames Deacon for what happened, she still thinks of herself as a failure and her stage parents have done nothing to help that impression. She can act like a spoiled brat at times and is obsessed with becoming a famous signer (yay for imperfect heroines!), but she’s also extremely loyal to her friends and is willing to put aside her grudge to help Deacon (although not without tons of snark). I like that even though Haden feels jealous that Cairo has a new girlfriend she pushes it down because survival is more important right now. I feel like in a lot of YA books the characters get pulled into petty relationship drama instead of focusing on trying to stay alive. I get that teen hormones often win out over rational thinking and teenagers will get upset for seemingly no reason (at least not one that adults can understand).

Hell, I remember crying in the bathroom at 16 because we were out of milk and my parents wouldn’t drive me to the store at 9:00 at night to get more (my undiagnosed mental illness may have also played a part in that). I also believed my parents were the worst parents in the entire world because they forced me to go to a school dance because I “need to at least see what it’s like, just give it a chance.” I spent the entire time sulking, refusing to have fun or socialize because I didn’t want my parents to be right. So yeah, teenagers aren’t the most logical creatures. But that doesn’t mean they’re stupid, and I feel like when survival mode kicks in no one is going to care who stole whose boyfriend. Unfortunately, a lot of YA authors seem to disagree with me and that’s always been a pet peeve of mine. So, I appreciate that Ellis didn’t do that.

I loved how Ellis was able to make the story feel atmospheric and build suspense without letting the plot feel like it was dragging. Every time I felt myself starting to get bored, bam, something new and exciting happened that would only deepen the mystery. The Light was a genuinely creepy setting, it kind of reminded me of those old point-and-click adventure horror games like Scratches or Sanitarium where you had a limited space to explore for clues (usually by clicking randomly on everything) and couldn’t leave the area for plot reasons (limited memory and budgets). Weird stuff keeps happening, like footprints leading to nowhere in the hallway, strange white leeches that feed on flesh instead of blood, and mysterious breathing coming from the walls. Deacon believes it’s ghosts, but Haden thinks there’s a more logical, non-supernatural explanation and Ellis takes her time revealing which it is. The police interviews, video transcripts, and internet comments sprinkled throughout the book gave the story a kind of a found footage vibe while revealing more of The Light’s backstory, which I enjoyed as a narrative device.

In terms of representation, the cast is pretty diverse. Haden is a lesbian, Cairo is Black and queer, and Kizi is half Japanese. And for the most part, it’s not problematic. When the author mentioned Dean’s sister, Sam, had Down syndrome my first thought was “oh no” because I was worried she’d be written in an ableist way because of her disability. But she’s not, Haden just mentions it offhand and then moves on to how Sam is so supportive of Deacon and how he blames himself for her having to quit a job she loved because she was being harassed by the paparazzi. We don’t learn much about Sam, but when she is described it’s not in an infantilizing or pitying (at least in terms of her disability, it sucks that she has to quit her job) way, which I appreciated. I wish we could have learned more about her relationship with Deacon. The only thing that made me side eye was Kizi’s blue hair, which felt too much like the rebellious East Asian woman with colorful hair trope which is so overused it’s become problematic.

The Devouring Light is about the downsides of fame, and what people will do achieve it. The book’s prologue is a police interview with a Youtuber who went to the mysterious swamp looking for The Light with his friend, in an attempt to garner more views. It does not go well for them. All the characters trapped in the swamp want to make it big (not just Haden), even Deacon who’s already pretty popular. He admits that while leaving his family to pursue a music career hurt, and he sometimes questions if he made the right choice, he would do it again in a heartbeat. This makes Haden think about what she’d be willing to give up for fame. I won’t spoil the ending but I will say it was definitely not what I was expecting. But that’s the great thing about horror, it does surprise endings so well.

Tags: Asian, Asian American, BIPOC, Biracial, Black, Body Horror, Book Review, Demon, Disability, Japanese, Lesbian, LGBTQIA, Queer, Substance Use Disorder, Young Adult

The Unfinished by Cheryl Isaacs

The Unfinished by Cheryl Isaacs. Recommended. Read if you like atmospheric, slow burn horror

Formats: Print, audio, digital

Publisher: HarperCollins

Genre: Demon, Eco Horror, Folk Horror

Audience: Young Adult

Diversity: Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) main character and author, Jamacian-American side character

Content Warnings (Highlight to view): Child Endangerment, Forced Captivity, Gaslighting, Kidnapping

Blurb

In this debut YA horror novel by Cheryl Isaacs (Mohawk), small-town athlete Avery is haunted by the black water and Unfinished beings of Kanyen’kehá:ka stories and must turn to the culture she hasn’t felt connected to in order to save her town.

The black water has been waiting. Watching. Hungry for the souls it needs to survive.

When small-town athlete Avery’s morning run leads her to a strange pond in the middle of the forest, she awakens a horror the townspeople of Crook’s Falls have long forgotten.

Avery can smell the water, see it flooding everywhere; she thinks she’s losing her mind. And as the black water haunts Avery—taking a new form each time—people in town begin to go missing.

Though Avery had heard whispers of monsters from her Kanyen’kehá:ka (Mohawk) relatives, she’s never really connected to her Indigenous culture or understood the stories. But the Elders she has distanced herself from now may have the answers she needs.

When Key, her best friend and longtime crush, is the next to disappear, Avery is faced with a choice: listen to the Kanyen’kehá:ka and save the town but lose her friend forever…or listen to her heart and risk everything to get Key back.

In her stunning debut, Cheryl Isaacs pulls the reader down into an unsettling tale of monsters, mystery, and secrets that refuse to stay submerged.

The story begins with Avery, a Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) teenager living in Crook’s Falls, going on her morning run through the forest. She’s trying to get a cross-country scholarship to afford university as she and her mother struggle financially, especially after her parents’ divorce. Avery did her first run for cancer research at age 7 and immediately fell in love. She explains “[Running] had been and still was the closest thing I could imagine to flying.” It also helps still her mind of racing thoughts. Her mother, along with everyone else, has told Avery to never leave the forest path for her own safety (though they don’t elaborate as to why). But apparently, Avery’s never heard the story of Red Riding Hood and decides to do just that. While she doesn’t encounter any wolves, Avery does come across a hidden meadow with a strange, black pond that gives her a sense of unease. When she peers into it, her reflection smiles at her. Thoroughly freaked out Avery manages to stumble her way back to the path and runs home.

Her overprotective mother, Violet, was worried about her daughter going on an early morning excursion without leaving a note, but Avery blows off her concern (something she does frequently with her friends as well). At first, Avery doesn’t treat her–or her friends, Key and Stella– that well, mostly because she’s so reserved and pushes them away when things get too emotionally heavy for her. But her friends accept these aspects of her and are supportive (Avery is essentially an introvert who was adopted by two extroverts, which is usually how introverts like me make friends). She even admits “And here it was—the maddening part of my personality that just couldn’t deal with Serious Feelings Talk. Sharing. Vulnerability. I couldn’t do any of it, even when I wanted to… But just like my mom, I found sharing scary. Unlike her, I was basically a coward.” Avery does get better as the story progresses though.

Avery finds that the black water seems to have followed her home, showing up in her dreams, her shower, her coffee, and even flooding a bus she’s riding. She has strange visions no one else can see that get progressively worse as time passes. Sleep deprived with frayed nerves Avery tries to open up about what’s happening to others, but people either don’t believe her or tell her to just ignore it. Avery is beginning to question her sanity when folks start to disappear, and she realizes it’s all connected to the Black water and a strange pale figure called “The Ragged Man.”

I found the most interesting part of the story to be Avery’s character development. She starts the book feeling disconnected from her culture and holding the world at arm’s length. Avery just can’t deal with her emotions or opening up to others. Part of this is because Avery thinks that if she speaks something, that makes it real, but if she just suppresses it then it will go away. This is based on her belief that she caused her parents divorce by asking them if they were getting divorced: her question made it happen. Although she understands intellectually that can’t be true, it doesn’t stop her from believing it. As Avery explains, “…saying things can make them real, and when they’re real, they can be taken away.” But as the story progresses Avery finds her strength by connecting to others.

Part of Avery’s disconnect from her Kanien’kehá:ka heritage is because her mother refused to teach her about it growing up. Avery explains “I think Mom was afraid it might do me more harm than good, marking me as different in a world that only claimed to value diversity.” This also may be a remanent of the lasting damage done by residential schools. As Noetta, an Osage, Mvskoke Creek, and Seminole woman explained in an interview with PBS “There are some Natives that were so affected by their boarding school experiences that they chose not to raise their children in the traditional ways” resulting in a loss of culture between the generations. As is perfectly summarized by the website Native Hope “All of these current challenges—lack of educational opportunity, physical and mental health disparities, the intense impact of historical trauma, lack of economic independence—are part of the great tragedy facing Native Americans: the loss of Native American culture and identity.”

For example, Avery’s can’t understand when her Ihstá (aunt), Lily, tries to speak Kanyen’kéha (the Kanien’kehá:ka language) to her, only knowing a few words because her mother never taught Avery their language. This loss of culture and community may be part of the reason Avery struggles so much with her mental health and feels like she must be independent, never relying on others for help. Unlike the traditional western approach to Wellness which focuses primarily on the body, Native communities often have a more holistic approach. According to the Canadian Health Justice website “There is immense diversity in approaches to wellness among different Indigenous communities however, a core concept of health and wellness common to First Nations, Métis, and Inuit people is that people, earth, and everything around us are deeply interconnected and that wellness comes from holistic internal and external balance that goes beyond the absence of illness.” Without these important connections Avery’s mental health suffers.

Obviously, I can never understand the struggles American Indians go through, nor what it feels like to have your culture erased by residential schools (amongst other forms of cultural genocide), and I won’t pretend to. But I still found myself relating to Avery’s longing for a culture erased by colonialism. As some of you are aware, I’m half Black (though white passing), and while Black Americans do have their own rich culture, it doesn’t hurt any less knowing that generations worth of culture and knowledge have been erased by the enslavement of Africans by Euro-Westerners. While some remnants of African cultures still remain (like in music, food, religion, and even speech) it’s not the same thing as knowing how to speak the language of my ancestors or follow their spiritual beliefs because I don’t know what those were, and there’s really no way of finding out what specific region of Africa my family came from (genetic testing can narrow it down to a general area, but not a culture).

I know it’s not the same, but Avery’s despair over feeling like she was losing her roots stirred up grief and frustration in me. It was the same feeling I get when my white mother talks about the genealogy research she does for her side of the family (who are horrible people I don’t like) that she can trace back hundred of years. I would love to do that with the Black side of my family (who I’m much closer to), because that information was erased when they were enslaved. Again, I can’t really know how Avery feels, but I know how she made me feel. I guess what I’m saying is this book stirred up a lot of deep-rooted feelings for me. Avery feeling like she wasn’t part of her culture, or had a right to tell their stories really resonated with me as a biracial person who sometimes feel like an intruder in both my parent’s cultures. For Avery, reconnecting to her family and culture, and learning to rely on her friends, is the best way for her to heal and holds the key to defeating the black water.

The black water reminded me of MMIW and Native children taken from their families by the government. It’s supernatural metaphor for very real problems destroying Native communities today. When the black water steals someone the community finds reasons to excuse their absence, like “they ran away from home” and the police show little to no interest in their disappearance. I found the black water to be especially creepy, and at first, I believed it had to be based on some real-world legend. But no, it was entirely Isaac’s own invention, which I found impressive. The black water felt like a story passed down as a warning from generation to generation, and not something the author just invented for the book. However, Isaac does use some traditional stories in her narrative. Avery reflects on Haudenosaunee (the six Iroquois Nations) creation story of Sky Woman, at first believing Sky Woman’s fall from the Sky World is something terrifying, a punishment for being too curious. But a Kanien’kehá:ka elder makes her realize that if Sky Woman hadn’t fallen, we wouldn’t have Turtle Island (the name used by some American Indians for what Euro-Westerners call North and Central America) or the Haudenosaunee people. So, although change can be scary, good things can come from it.

This made it the antagonist of the story even creepier, and this was definitely a creepy book, filled with a general sense of unease. But it wasn’t scary per se, so perfect for people who want to dip their toes in the shallow end of the horror pool. Your personal experience may vary, but I think this will appeal to fans who don’t usually read horror. You’ll also notice there aren’t a lot of trigger warnings for this book. The Unfinished feels very approachable, but if you’re a hardened horror fan, you may be disappointed at the lack of scares. I liked how the story centers around a teenage girl trying to save the boy she’s crushing on, a nice inversion of the “damsel in distress” trope, and the message about building community and relationships.

I personally feel that The Unfinished would have worked better as a novella, as the story really dragged for me. The pacing is much slower than I usually prefer, focusing more on atmosphere, emotion, and building suspense than action. Which is fine, it just didn’t grab my attention as much as other books. Keep in mind however, I do struggle with ADHD so I tend to prefer a fast pace with a lot going on over atmospheric reads. Those who do like a slow buildup of suspense and in-depth character studies will probably have no issue with the lack of action. I also found that the story was very repetitive; Avery sees something creepy, gets scared, goes to someone for help but then has trouble actually asking for help then runs away, lather, rinse, repeat. I understand this was probably to give Avery more time to develop her character, but to me it came off as unnecessary padding, which just reinforced my opinion that this would have worked better as a shorter story. The only other fault I found is something that’s admittedly, very nitpicky. I just really wished that Avery and Key could have just been friends instead of having an awkward crush get in the way, but that’s just my queer aversion to hetero romance tropes and I feel like most readers won’t care about that. Even though I had some issues with the length of the book I still enjoyed the story and its message, and I think it will be relatable to many BIPOC people who feel disconnected from their culture.

*If you want to learn more about the Haudenosaunee confederacy, I highly recommend the Iroquois Museum in Howes Cave, NY. I visited it years ago and found the museum highly informative and had great conversations with the staff and an elder who had painted the mural in the museum. If you’re not near New York the museum’s website has virtual tours and an online gift shop that sells educational books.

Tags: American Indian, BIPOC, Book Review, Demon, Folk Horror, Mohawk, Own Voices, Recommended, Young Adult

Malicia by Steven dos Santos

Formats: Print, audio, digital

Publisher: Page Street Publishing

Genre: Blood & Guts, Demon, Monster, Mystery, Myth and Folklore, Occult

Audience: Young Adult

Diversity: Gay and bisexual man characters, Dominican Americans, character with anxiety disorder

Takes Place in: The Dominican Republic

Content Warnings (Highlight to view): Ableism, Child Death, Death, Forced Captivity, Gaslighting, Gore, Medical Torture/Abuse, Mental Illness, Suicide, Torture, Verbal/Emotional Abuse, Violence, Vomit

Blurb

Four friends, three days, two lovers, and one very haunted theme park.

On a stormy Halloween weekend, Ray enlists his best friends Joaquin, Sofia, and Isabella to help him make a documentary of Malicia, the abandoned theme park off the coast of the Dominican Republic where his mother and brother died in a mass killing thirteen years ago.

But what should be an easy weekend trip quickly turns into something darker because all four friends have come to Malicia for their own.

Ray has come to Malicia to find out the truth of the massacre that destroyed his family. Isabella has come to make art out of Ray’s tragedy for her own personal gain. Sofia has come to support her friends in one last adventure before she goes to med school. Joaquin already knows the truth of the Malicia Massacre and he has come to betray his crush Ray to the evil that made the park possible.

With an impending hurricane and horrors around every corner, they all struggle to face the deadly storm and their own inner demons. But the deadliest evil of all is the ancient malignant presence on the island.

The story is told through alternating first-person perspectives between the four main characters; Raymundo, Joaquin, Sofia, and Isabella. The friends are traveling to spend Halloween weekend in Raymundo’s family’s abandoned, horror-themed amusement park, Malicia. The park was closed after a mysterious mass murder took place, claiming the lives of Raymundo’s mother and brother. The island on which Malicia was built is only accessible by boat, and there’s a massive hurricane headed right toward them, so good luck trying to escape if anything goes wrong. You may question the teens’ decision to go to what is very obviously a cursed murder island during a hurricane, but each of the four have their own reason for being there. Raymundo wants to try and summon his brother’s spirit, Isabella wants to film a documentary about the island, and Joaquin wants to sacrifice Raymundo because the cult he belongs to told him to. (Don’t worry, that’s revealed early in the story, so it’s hardly a spoiler.) Sofia is there because her friends are, and because she very firmly doesn’t believe in the supernatural or scare easily.

I think the characters were somewhat underdeveloped and one-note, and the exposition felt awkward at times. But honestly, the characters were just an excuse to explore the super cool setting. I mean, an abandoned, horror-themed, cursed, amusement park? Could there be a more perfect location for a horror story? And Santos clearly put a lot of thought into describing Malicia in loving detail. There’s an entire map in the beginning of the book (and I’m a sucker for maps) showing the different areas of the park, like Serial Springs, Paranormal Place, and Creature Canyon. I also liked the ride descriptions, which all sounded like tons of fun.

Malicia strongly reminded meof the island setting in Umineko When They Cry, where the characters are trapped by a typhoon on a remote island that is slowly overtaken by the supernatural (and everyone there dies horrible deaths). As both stories progress, the scares move from strange shadows and murders that could’ve been committed by a human to horror that’s clearly the work of demonic forces.

I enjoyed how the author not only used Spanish frequently throughout the book (which I appreciate that the publisher did not italicize) but words and phrases specific to the Dominican. The friends name their little group the Quisqueya Club, a word of Taíno origin that refers to the inhabitants of Hispaniola. Raymundo and Joaquin refer to each other as pana and tiguere, the friends informally greet each other with “Qué lo que” (what’s up?), Raymundo calls his parents Mai and Pai, and he admits to himself that he’s a Jablador (liar). Many of the monsters are also specific to the Dominican like Los Biembiens and La Jupia. The four friends also prepare Dominican food like mangú and yaniqueques.

Malicia an incrediblya spooky, gory, fun read. Even though it’s a 300+ page book, it felt like a quick read because the chapters are short and the suspense was able to grab my attention, although, admittedly, the story did drag a bit in the middle. The shifting viewpoints throughout the book helped build the suspense as the characters all started to become suspicious of each other. Because it was written for teens, it felt like a PG-13 horror movie with R-rated violence, which, of course, you can get away with in a book. The descriptions of mutilated bodies and rotting flesh are very graphic so this one is definitely not for the squeamish horror fan.

Tags: Anxiety Disorder, BIPOC, Bisexual, Blood & Guts, Book Review, Demon, Disability, Dominican, Gay, Latine/Latino, LGBTQIA, Monster, Mystery, Myths and Folklore, Occult, Own Voices, Young Adult

Portrait of Lysbeth : A Gothic Novella by Rama Santa Mansa

Formats: digital

Publisher: Lingeer Press

Genre: Demon, Gothic, Historic Horror

Audience: Adult/Mature

Diversity: Black (African American) main character and author, minor gay character

Takes Place in: Sleepy Hollow, NY

Content Warnings (Highlight to view): Antisemitism, Child Abuse, Child Sexual Abuse, Childbirth, Death, Forced Captivity, Homophobia, Kidnapping, Medical Procedures, Oppression, Pedophilia, Physical Abuse, Racism, Rape/Sexual Assault, Sexism, Sexual Abuse, Slurs, Slut-Shaming, Verbal/Emotional Abuse, Xenophobia

Blurb

The year is 1676. We meet Lysbeth Luanda, a second-generation African freedwoman in New York, the former Dutch colony seized by the English, who, in a mere decade, have passed more cruel and oppressive restrictions on the free African community already living in the colony.After being orphaned at age 13, Lysbeth is forced to restart life all on her own––while working as a tavern waitress in Dutch and German-owned taverns along the banks of the Delaware and Hudson rivers. In this multinational milieu, she learns cosmopolitan skills and street philosophy from lovable lowlifes, brash buccaneers, African dreamers, indigenous heroines, and globetrotting Scandinavians. Lysbeth eventually finds a mentor in a Sephardi Jewish medical doctor from Curaçao, under whom she studies surgery and anatomy.

As the gloomy autumn season begins in 1676, the gruesome murders of three European women, by an unknown assailant in the isolated village of Sleepy Hollow, shocks the whole of New York.

Lysbeth’s mentor convinces the New York High Sheriff to appoint Lysbeth to go investigate the victims’ inexplicable cause of death and bring back a written coroner’s report. After an initial frosty reception by the villagers of Sleepy Hollow, Lysbeth gains new allies who assist her in her investigation

The Portrait of Lysbeth is set in Sleepy Hollow, but don’t expect mentions of the Headless Horseman or Ichabod Crane in this book. This story takes place about 100 years before the Revolutionary War and centers around Lysbeth, a free born Black woman, sent to investigate a serial killer (although that term wasn’t coined until the 20^th century) in Sleepy Hollow, New York.

Lisbeth Anthonijsen, was a real person born around 1650 into the free Black community of New Amsterdam (what is now New York City). She started working as a servant for white colonists at a young age. In June 1661 she was accused of stealing wampum from the house where she was employed and the court ordered her to be beaten with a rod as punishment. In the winter of 1663, Lisbeth was spotted running away from a housefire at the Cregier household where she was employed. She was blamed for starting the fire and the court sentenced her to be enslaved by the Cregier family. Young Lisbeth was never given a chance. Mansa’s mission, as she puts it, was to get justice for Lisbeth by writing The Portrait of Lysbeth. She did a ton of research for this book, and it really adds to the story. I appreciate the time and effort Mansa put in to creating the setting and her main character, Lysbeth.

The fictional Lysbeth Luanda is an educated freed woman who becomes an indentured servant at the age of 13, after the death or her parents. She’s forced to work as a tavern waitress for the next 22 years, where she learns about the world from her diverse clientele. Eventually, Lysbeth makes her way back to New Amsterdam where she apprentices for a Sephardic Jewish doctor, who sends her to Sleepy Hollow to act as coroner.

Some parts of the book are written in third person present perfect tense, which I felt was an interesting, if uncommon, choice. It’s fine, it just took a little while to get used to. It also jumps around quite a bit, from Lysbeth’s childhood to her time studying under the physician then back to the murder investigation. It can get a little confusing. But once I got used to it, the story flowed much more smoothly. I found the more fanciful elements genuinely creepy, like when a maid becomes possessed and chases Lysbeth through the house. The entire murder investigation has an eerie feeling, and not just because of the way the townsfolk stare at her. There seem to be things lurking in the woods, things Lysbeth, as a woman of science, refuses to believe in.

I appreciated how Mansa not only avoids common racist literary tropes but makes a point to subvert them. In the beginning of the book, Mansa describes an unpleasant white man’s complexion as “milk cream.” I was amused to see, for the first time, a white person’s skin compared to food, something that routinely happens to Black characters written by white authors. It was also a nice change of pace to not have the color black associated with evil, but with spiritual strength and protection from evil. This is seen both is Lysbeth’s horse and the spirit wolf that protects her. Instead, Lysbeth believes that it is white animals that are to feared as they lack the spiritual protection of blackness. I also liked that the enslaved Africans were referred to as “enslaved,” rather than “slaves.” A seemingly small change, but to me a powerful one. By calling someone a slave, their identity is reduced to their circumstance. It dehumanizes them. An enslaved person is a person first, who has had slavery forced upon them.

In the book, both Native and African characters were referred to by their nations and not all lumped into the same group. For example, Lisbeth’s father is Kongolese, a people originally found in what is modern day northern Angola. The man who gave Lysbeth her witch gun is Mbundu. It was also refreshing to see Native history, which is often erased, acknowledged in the story, such as the Wampanoag leader Metacom (also known by the English name King Philip) defending his lands from the Puritans and the Moravian massacre. However, the Native representation did leave me questioning some of the author’s choices. There’s a rather brutal description of the 1643 Pavonia massacre, where the Dutch invaded what is now called Manhattan and massacred scores of Lenape people. I appreciate that it’s made clear that the settlers are living on stolen land (Lenapehoking) and that attention is brought to Native history, however, I felt weird about having a non-Native author write about Native trauma. If this were a white author doing it, it would be a more clear-cut example of exploitation of a marginalized group’s suffering. White people have been stealing from and exploiting Natives for hundreds of years, even though it’s not always done maliciously. As Debbie Reese, a Nambé Owingeh Pueblo scholar and educator, explains on her blog American Indians in Children’s Literature:

“…the history of White people taking from Native people is also filled with White people who befriend us because they have found themselves living in or near our communities.

Of that latter group, I wish they could form those friendships without saying “look at me and my Native friend.” Or, “look at the good I do for my Native friends!” Or, “I worked with them and they asked me to write this story about them.” Or, “I taught their kids and I learned from them and so, I am able to write books about them that you should buy because I know what I’m talking about.” Or, “Look! My book has a note inside from my Native friend or colleague. You can trust what you read in my book.”

They mean well. But I wish they could see past their good intentions. What they’re doing is exploitation.”

But Rama Santa Mansa isn’t white. She is a Black woman who wants to use her book to honor the untold stories of marginalized groups in what is now called the United States, but is that enough to give her a pass? Does her race make the story less problematic? It’s clear that Mansa did her best to portray the Lenape’s plight with respect, and wanted to include them as the first inhabitants of what is now called New York. There’s no colonialism being enforced, as Mansa is a Black author. She also did a significant amount of research for her book, but it left me wondering if she had reached out to Lenape or other Native scholars when writing it. There are certainly no Native books listed in her bibliography, no Native professors that she thanks in the acknowledgement, not even a reference to Indian 101 for writers.

I feel like at the very least a Native sensitivity reader would have been warranted. As Debbie Reese writes in her criticism of Justina Ireland’s book Dread Nation (another historic novel by a Black author), “It became clear to me that the reason her book fails in its representations of Native peoples is because she relied heavily on archival research. The “primary sources” she used are items in government archives–that are heavily biased.” This underlines the importance of using Native sources when discussing Native issues in addition to actually speaking to Native people. It’s also serves as a good reminder that just because a writer belongs to one marginalized group, it doesn’t mean they are qualified to write about another.

Despite the issues mentioned above I found the book overall enjoyable, with a highly detailed and well-researched setting and a strong Black woman protagonist.

Tags: African American, American Indian, Black, Book Review, Demon, Gay, Gothic, Historic Horror, LGBTQIA, Own Voices, Recommended

Carousel by Sarah McKnight

Formats: Print, digital

Publisher: Kindle Scribe

Genre: Demon, Occult, Romance

Audience: Young Adult

Diversity: Main characters and author are queer women, main character has anxiety disorder

Takes Place in: LA, California

Content Warnings (Highlight to view): Ableism, Alcohol Abuse, Cannibalism, Child Death, Child Endangerment, Death, Forced Captivity, Gore, Kidnapping, Mental Illness (anxiety), Suicide

Blurb

Ladies and gentlemen, the show is about to begin…

All Laura Fitzpatrick wanted to do was tell her lab partner, Maddie, how she really feels about her, but when a perfect opportunity falls into her lap, Laura does what she does best – chickens out.

Then, Laura is dared to check out the abandoned carnival grounds outside of town, and she seizes the opportunity to prove to herself and others that she can be brave after all. To her surprise, Maddie isn’t about to let her go alone.

As they explore the eerie property, they’re thrust into an endless night of terror, where danger lurks around every corner. With a century-old mystery waiting to be uncovered, Laura must learn what true bravery means if she hopes to get herself – and Maddie – out of the Plum Creek Carnival alive.

Whatever you do, don’t let the Carnival Man see you…

Oh Sarah McKnight, you had me at sapphic horror set in a creepy carnival.

Laura is an introverted highschooler riddled with anxiety and self-doubt. Instead of staying home watching horror movies (a girl after my own heart) she forces herself out of her comfort zone and attends a Halloween party hoping to run into her crush, Maddie. Even with her social battery almost completely depleted, Laura ends up staying for a game of Truth or Dare and a chance to confess her feelings. But when she’s dared to make out with Maddie in front of her classmates, Laura chickens out and instead chooses to go to the town’s old, abandoned carnival grounds for her dare. Maddie, a fan of urbex, volunteers to go with her. Will this be Laura’s chance to confess? Well, it’s a horror story, so of course it goes badly. The moment the two share a kiss on the carousel, they’re ripped into a reality outside of time where they, along with the other teens trapped there, are continuously hunted by the enigmatic Carnival Man.

Maddie is Laura’s opposite. She’s outgoing, adventurous, and is perfectly happy to visit a creepy, abandoned park, despite Laura’s misgivings. Interestingly, while initially appearing to be the braver of the two, Maddie is the first to give up when the two girls are trapped in the carnival, and Laura is forced to take charge. Laura does her best to find solutions that will allow them to escape their magical prison, while Maddie does her best to be supportive while not truly believing they’ll ever escape. The other teens trapped there are also hesitant to encourage Laura, as most of them have already lost all hope of escape. Some have even given into their grief and despair which causes them to behave desperately. But despite the odds, and everyone telling her it’s impossible, Laura refuses to give up.

I liked how Laura was terrified but still did what needed to be done, or as she says “feel the fear and do it anyway.” Brave characters conquering their fears are always more relatable than fearless ones. I found Laura’s undying hope endearing rather than irritating, as, despite her optimism, she was still practical and cautious. Her determination was inspiring and I absolutely loved her character growth as the story unfolded. My only complaint is I wish we had gotten to know the other characters a little better so their deaths would have more impact, but this is not uncommon in horror. Luckily, Laura and Maddie were extremely likable and relatable. As an anxiety-ridden, introverted, horror fan myself, it felt like Laura was written just for me. Meanwhile, I found Maddie’s adventurous spirit admirable because I’m often the one egging friends into exploring abandoned locations (and I would totally visit a creepy old carnival if I could). But once they were actually in danger, Maddie turned out to be the more practical of the two, discouraging Laura from taking unnecessary risks.

This was a particularly fun, creepy read. The pacing was perfect; the tension never let up and the story never dragged. The entire experience was like riding one of the carnival’s decrepit roller coasters, even when you weren’t screaming as you sped down a perilous drop or took a bank turn, you felt the dread of going up a lift hill, waiting for the inevitable fall. I read the entire book in one sitting, unable to put it down because I was so desperate to know how the Carnival Man’s prisoners escaped. (Would they escape??) Plus, it had the perfect horror story setting.

Tags: Anxiety Disorder, Book Review, Demon, Lesbian, LGBTQIA, Occult, Own Voices, Recommended, Romance, Young Adult

A Haunting in Hialeah Gardens by Raul Palma

Formats: Print, audio, digital

Publisher: Dutton

Genre: Demon, Ghosts/Haunting, Myth and Folklore

Audience: Adult/Mature

Diversity: Cuban characters and author, Bolivian character

Takes Place in: Miami, Florida

Content Warnings (Highlight to view): Alcohol Abuse, Animal Death, Child Abuse, Child Death, Child Endangerment, Death, Illness, Medical Procedures, Oppression, Mental Illness, Racism, Suicide, Violence, Xenophobia

Blurb

A genre-bending debut with a fiercely political heart, A Haunting in Hialeah Gardens explores the weight of the devil’s bargain, following the lengths one man will go to for the promise of freedom.

Hugo Contreras’s world in Miami has shrunk. Since his wife died, Hugo’s debt from her medical bills has become insurmountable. He shuffles between his efficiency apartment, La Carreta (his favorite place for a cafecito), and a botanica in a strip mall where he works as the resident babaláwo.

One day, Hugo’s nemesis calls. Alexi Ramirez is a debt collector who has been hounding Hugo for years, and Hugo assumes this call is just more of the same. Except this time Alexi is calling because he needs spiritual help. His house is haunted. Alexi proposes a deal: If Hugo can successfully cleanse his home before Noche Buena, Alexi will forgive Hugo’s debt. Hugo reluctantly accepts, but there’s one issue: Despite being a babaláwo, he doesn’t believe in spirits.

Hugo plans to do what he’s done with dozens of clients before: use sleight of hand and amateur psychology to convince Alexi the spirits have departed. But when the job turns out to be more than Hugo bargained for, Hugo’s old tricks don’t work. Memories of his past—his childhood in the Bolivian silver mines and a fraught crossing into the United States as a boy—collide with Alexi’s demons in an explosive climax.

Equal parts hilarious and heartbreaking, A Haunting in Hialeah Gardens explores questions of visibility, migration, and what we owe—to ourselves, our families, and our histories.

It’s Christmas time in Miami and Hugo is anything but merry. His wife, Meli, recently passed away and Hugo wasn’t even able to pay for her funeral. Like most Americans he’s been drowning in debt most of his adult life, and Meli’s medical bills have only added to that. His indebtedness feels like a physical weight, crushing the life out of him, following him wherever he goes. Debt collectors hound him every day and garnish his wages. Hugo may not be a perfect person but he doesn’t deserve the hand he’s been dealt. All of Hugo’s life has been hard. He never knew his father, a white Spainard, and his mother abandoned them when he was young. During his childhood in Bolivia, Hugo and his brother worked in the mines after school. His brother would pray and offer sacrifices to El Tío, the god of the mountain, but the mountain still took his life. Hugo was always a non-believer, but his brother’s death shook his faith even further. Ironically, Hugo now works at a Botanica and is a practicing Babalawo. Although he has great respect for Lourdes, his boss, and even has a knack for knowing what people need, he still thinks it’s all hokum. He is especially talented at ridding people’s homes of ghosts, using both psychology and showmanship to make them believe their specters have vanished. Hugo may not believe in what he does, but the result is the same: his customers are happy and the “hauntings” end.

The attorney in charge of Hugo’s debt, Alexi, calls out of the blue and asks for his help. At first, Hugo is hesitant to help the devil who’s made his life miserable, but when Alexi promises to clear his debt, he acquiesces. We learn that Alexi, the son of Cuban immigrant parents (part of the Cuban exodus when affluent Cubans were fleeing Castro), is obsessed with money. Instead of following his passion of becoming a painter he chose a field that would make him wealthy because money is more important to him. He loves to show off his wealth, but as Hugo notes, he lacks taste and his choices in home décor are gaudy. Alexi is also a racist, as is evident by the “All Lives Matter” sign in his yard and the way he speaks about his Haitian laborers. Hugo is conflicted about helping the awful man, but the promise of being debt-free is too good to pass up. Of course, Hugo is hardly perfect himself, and we learn of the many mistakes he’s made that still haunt him. With each chapter, the mystery of Hugo’s life is revealed, and the reader gains an increased understanding of the deeply flawed protagonist. Hugo is a well-developed, complicated character. He isn’t perfect and makes lots of mistakes, but he loves his wife and does his best, making him relatable. I couldn’t help but be drawn to Hugo. I just felt sorry for the poor guy. Even as I was horrified by some of the things he did, I still wanted him to win.

A Haunting in Hialeah Gardens is a unique take on ghosts and haunting. While Alexi seems to be plagued by a literal ghost, Hugo is haunted by the ghosts of his past and his debt which keep him from happiness and living his life. As the story unfolds, we learn that Hugo is also indebted in ways that aren’t financial that have haunted him since childhood. Underneath the ghost story is a horror tale about Capitalism and its exploitative nature. While the ways in which it hurts Hugo are obvious, Alexi’s unchecked greed has caused him to give up on his dreams because he was raised to belief happiness can only be earned through the accumulation of wealth.

Palma’s descriptions of Miami make the city feel like its own character, a place filled with both beauty and pain and even a little bit of magic. While the story is filled with grief and suffering, it does end on a hopeful note. It reminds me of the Latin phrase “dum spiro spero,” or “while I breathe, I hope.” It may be too late for his wife and brother, but as long as Hugo is still alive there’s always the chance for things to get better for him, even when things are at their worse. While it’s not your typical horror story, the descriptions of hopelessness and grief still left me with a sense of dread. Overall, A Haunting in Hialeah is a strong debut from a talented new horror author.

Tags: Adult, Book Review, Demon, Ghosts/Haunting, Latine/Latino, Myths and Folklore, Recommended

The Haunting of Alejandra by V. Castro

Formats: Print, audio, digital

Publisher: Penguin Random House

Genre: Body Horror, Demon, Ghosts/Haunting

Audience: Adult/Mature

Diversity: Chicana characters and author, bisexual main character

Takes Place in: Philadelphia, PA

Content Warnings (Highlight to view): Child Abuse, Child Death, Child Endangerment, Childbirth, Death, Forced Captivity, Gaslighting, Gore, Illness, Miscarriage, Racism, Rape/Sexual Assault, Self-Harm, Suicide, Verbal/Emotional Abuse, Violence, Xenophobia

Blurb

Alejandra no longer knows who she is. To her husband, she is a wife, and to her children, a mother. To her own adoptive mother, she is a daughter. But they cannot see who Alejandra has become: a woman struggling with a darkness that threatens to consume her.

When Alejandra visits a therapist, she begins exploring her family’s history, starting with the biological mother she never knew. As she goes deeper into the lives of the women in her family, she learns that heartbreak and tragedy are not the only things she has in common with her ancestors.

Because the crying woman was with them, too. She is La Llorona, the vengeful and murderous mother of Mexican legend. And she will not leave until Alejandra follows her mother, her grandmother, and all the women who came before her into the darkness.

But Alejandra has inherited more than just pain. She has inherited the strength and the courage of her foremothers—and she will have to summon everything they have given her to banish La Llorona forever.

The Haunting of Alejandra is about the horrors of being a mother, wife, and woman, and the sacrifices that come with it.

We first meet Alejandra when she’s hiding from her family in the shower, crying and feeling overwhelmed by their many demands. Her husband Matthew is unsupportive and as needy and demanding as her three children. On the rare occasions when Alejandra asks him to help her with the housework, Matthew uses a combination of weaponized incompetence and guilt-tripping to get out of it. He’s made Alejandra move away from her support network in Texas, and the birth mother she’d just reconnected with. He’s also convinced her to quit her job and raise their children full time, meaning she no longer has money of her own. Matthew owns everything, Alejandra’s name isn’t even on the bills. He makes all the decisions for the family; where they live, what they buy, and even where they travel on vacation. If Alejandra’s needs don’t align with what he wants in the moment Matthew will make his displeasure known. She feels like a shadow, barely existing.

Alejandra’s situation will be familiar to many married women. Like most heterosexual couples she takes on the majority of the housework and mental load. Matthew provides little to no help with chores, child raising, or managing the household. This is, sadly, not uncommon as according to the BBC “When it comes to household responsibilities, women perform far more cognitive and emotional labour than men.” Alejandra has been trapped in this pattern since childhood, when, as the eldest daughter, her religious, adoptive parents forced her to do the bulk of the household chores and take care of her younger siblings. They also cut her off from her history and culture, refusing to let her read anything about Mexico that went against their fundamentalist Christian beliefs. Alejandra is surrounded by White people who don’t understand her. When she tries to tell her eldest daughter the story of La Llorona, something to connect her to her heritage, she’s scolded by her daughter’s teacher for telling her child scary stories.

Bar graph showing the roles of men and women in US society.

When Alejandra expresses dissatisfaction with her situation, her concerns aren’t taken seriously. Even when she admits to feeling suicidal she’s met with shame and “I’m sorry you feel that way” from her husband who frequently points out she has everything material she could ever want, so why should she be unhappy? Worse still, something that resembles la Llorona, the ghostly woman from Mexican folklore who drowned her two children, is haunting Alejandra, telling her she’s a terrible mother. Throughout the course of the story we learn that Alejandra is not the only mother the creature has haunted. Each of the women in Alejandra’s matrilineal line had their own struggles with motherhood and a lack of autonomy. Miscarriage, feeling unworthy of love, carrying an unwanted child, forced marriage, teenage pregnancy, the list goes on. And each woman was haunted by the specter of la Llorona who fed off their pain and sorrow, resulting in generational trauma that goes back centuries.

Eventually Alejandra decides to take back the power her husband, parents, and the monster took from her by getting help. I really appreciated that unlike most fictional characters Alejandra actually has the self-awareness to go to therapy when she realizes how bad things have gotten. Even better, her therapist, Melanie, is competent, and culturally informed. She is a Chicana woman, like Alejandra, who practices both modern psychotherapy as a doctor and traditional medicine as a curandera. She believes Alejandra when the stressed mom tells her that she’s being stalked by some kind of monster and is able to advise her on how to protect herself from the evil sprit and cleanse her home. Melanie helps Alejandra reconnect to the cultural roots her adoptive parents sought to destroy, encouraging her to read up on this history of Chicana women and advising her to build an altar to her ancestors in her home. While we’ve all heard horror stories of bad therapists, I found it refreshing to see a therapist in fiction who’s actually good at her job and not a White man. Having had some incredibly helpful queer therapists myself I know the importance of having culturally competent care, and what a difference it makes when your provider isn’t basing their care on a White, heteronormative, Capitalist model. I loved Melanie, and I wish there were more doctors like her in the world.

Photo of Felicia Cocotzin Ruiz, a modern curandera. Photography by Laura Segall.

Alejandra also reaches out to her birth mother, who may not have been meant to raise a child but is more than ready to provide emotional support to her adult daughter. Melanie teaches her how to call upon the strength of her female ancestors who appear to her in her dreams. With all these strong women standing behind her Alejandra is able to find her own inner strength to stand up to both Matthew and her monster, as she fights to keep the generational curse from passing down to her own daughter. I really loved the theme of women supporting and healing other women. When Alejandra is finally able to ask for help without feeling guilty or like a burden the women in her life are there the minute she needs them. They believe her stories of a monster and are ready to offer their help in whatever for Alejandra needs it.

Overall The Haunting of Alejandra is an emotional and painful, but ultimately rewarding read about women, Mexican culture, and generational trauma. It’s a slow burn horror, and while I usually don’t have the patience for those I was so enraptured with the story that it felt like it flew by. While not a parent myself, I know women who are, and the book rang true of their more difficult experiences with motherhood like feeling overwhelmed and isolated. I’ve been following V. Castro’s books for a while now and I have to say, she just gets better and better with each piece she rights. It’s truly impressive and I can’t wait to read what she writes next.

Tags: BIPOC, Bisexual, Body Horror, Book Review, Chicana, Demon, Ghosts/Haunting, Highly Recommended, LGBTQIA, Mexican, Own Voices

8:59:29 by Polly Schattel

Formats: Print, digital

Publisher: Trepidatio Publishing

Genre: Demon, Occult

Audience: Adult/Mature

Diversity: Trans author

Content Warnings (Highlight to view): Child Death, Death, Drug Use/Abuse, Gore

Blurb

When a disgruntled adjunct faculty teacher decides to get revenge on the head of her department, she begins a dark (and darkly comic) journey into the cracks between modern society and the secret depravity that lies underneath. She has to navigate the demons of technology, creativity, and Hell itself, but soon she must face the deepest, darkest horror of them all: her own personal failures.

“Film, of course, is traditionally shown at 24 frames per second, while video’s electronic fields are refreshed at 23.98, 29.97, or even 59.94 times a second… This microscopic slowdown of frames naturally causes a disparity between the measurement of real time and video time… To keep it playing at full speed, there’s a tiny blip in there—two frames every minute get eaten, dropped, overlooked.”

Hetta Salter teaches film studies for non-majors, and she hates it. She hates her low-paying adjunct professor job where she barely makes enough to scrape by, she hates her stultified students, and she especially hates the head of her department, Hensley. Hensley is the very definition of privilege. He’s a White, cishet male who comes from a wealthy background with a perfect family and a perfect home, completely unaware of how lucky he is. To Hetta, Hensley represents everything that stands in the way of her happiness. If only he were gone she could get a better paying position, better students, a better apartment, and a better life. But then her best student, a townie named Tanner, gives her a way out. He sends her a dark web site called Voodoo Glam where Hetta discovers instructions on creating a video: a video that must filmed on a 1980s camcorder and last exactly 8 minutes, 59 seconds, and 29 frames. Whomever watches the video will be dragged to hell by the demon Andras, a great Marquis of Hell who sows discord among humans and is known to kill his summoners if they’re not extremely careful. What could possibly go wrong?

Hetta is not an entirely likeable character, but neither is she entirely unlikeable. She can be an insufferable film snob, but she’s also a woman from a low-income family who’s been beaten down by the system. Her anger is justified, but it’s also twisting her into a bitter person. At the same time, her anger has also made her sympathetic and willing to fight for those who are marginalized. Not that Hetta recognizes the drawbacks to being angry all the time. She is a villain protagonist who believes herself to be the hero fighting against an unjust world. She is as convinced of her own righteousness as she is of her genius. In short, Hetta is a fascinating character who is both repulsive and relatable. I found myself cheering for her one moment and horrified the next.

Schattel has a razor-sharp wit which she uses to poke fun at film snobs and critique the inequality inherent in academia. An adjunct professor earns between $20,000 and $25,000 annually, according to NPR. That’s less than I made working retail in college. For comparison, notoriously low-paid fast-food workers earn a mean income of $26,060 per year according the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But fast food doesn’t require an advanced degree, whereas being a professor does. Their income is so low that many adjunct professors are on some kind of public assistance. No wonder Hetta is pissed. She probably doesn’t even get benefits. Meanwhile adjunct professors like Hensley earn an annual salary starting at around $80,000 a year and can go as high as $174,000. But even tenured, Hetta would likely earn less than her male counterpart.

While Hetta is at least partially the butt of the joke (she assumes a horror film will be easy to make, ha!) Schattel, a filmmaker herself, also writes 8:59:29 as a love letter to filmmaking. Cleverly combing analog horror with more modern fears like the dark web and social media, Scahttel manages to make the whole “cursed video” plot feel new and unique instead of a Ringu rip-off. 8:59:29 is fun, twisted read perfect for film fans and anyone else who loves a good horror movie.

Tags: Adult, Book Review, Demon, Highly Recommended, LGBTQIA, Occult, Trans

The Final Women by Pardeep Aujla

Formats: digital

Publisher: Self-Published

Genre: Demon, Killer/Slasher, Occult

Audience: Adult/Mature

Diversity: Black main character, Latina main character, Vietnamese main character, lesbian main character

Takes Place in: type here

Content Warnings (Highlight to view): Alcohol Abuse, Amputation, Bullying, Death, Drug Use/Abuse, Gore, Homophobia, Mental Illness, Racism, Self-Harm, Sexism, Suicide, Verbal/Emotional Abuse, Violence

Blurb

The mass murdering Phantom of Haven Cove is dead. For the one who killed him, however, life has never been the same.

How do you return to normality after facing such a monster? How do you live when consumed by guilt, anger, fear, and denial? How do you connect with others when no one understands what you’ve been through?

But there are others… Final girls of their own Haven Cove massacres. And now, thirty years later, they must all face a new question…

What do you do when the killer returns?

What happens when final girls grow up? It depends how they deal with the trauma of what happened to them the night they faced off with the masked killer, Silas Crowe. If you’re Nell James, you grow up to become a lonely and agoraphobic author who tries to turn the worst thing that ever happened to her– watching her friends get murdered one by one–into financial gain. If you’re Josie Jedford, you numb your fear with drugs. Or you could become a paranoid survivalist like Ana Gómez who transforms her badly burned body into a living weapon. Even Cassie Phong, who seems to have the perfect life what with her wealthy husband and two children, can’t escape the PTSD she developed the night she faced off with Silas Crowe. Each woman has done her best to put the past behind them, believing Crowe to be dead once and for all. That is until Camp Haven Cove reopens and a new group of teenagers goes missing. Nell realizes that Silas Crowe never died, and never will unless she, and the other three former final girls find a way to deal with him once and for all. Now well into their forties the four final woman team up to put a stop to the killings once and for all.

Slasher heroines are almost exclusively young women: teens and twenty somethings with bare breasts and flat stomachs (they’re always conventionally attractive) enjoying the prime of their lives through sex, drugs and drinking. Any woman above the age of thirty is either a mother or a side character, and if she has a few gray hairs she’s relegated to the role of a frightful hag. But as nostalgia for horror of the 80’s and 90’s breathes new life into horror franchises, Hollywood is doing something new. Instead of rebooting and recasting their heroines, they’re allowing them to grow up from Final Girls into Final Women. Sidney Prescott (Scream), Laurie Strode (Halloween), and Sally Hardesty (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) all recently reprised their roles in their respective franchises as badass heroines over the age of forty. And as someone who will soon be saying goodbye to my thirties, it’s refreshing to see older women get their time in the slasher spotlight, and that’s one of the things I liked best about The Final Women. Nell, Josie, Ana, and Cassie are all approaching fifty, but they all get to be the heroes of the story, and I found them much more relatable then horny, drunk teens in the woods. They’re also not written for the male gaze, which is refreshing.

Another thing I liked about the book was Aujla’s realistic depiction of PTSD. None of the women escaped Silas unscathed, they each bear their own physical and mental scars, as one would expect from anyone going up against a slasher. Nell displays avoidance of people and places that remind her of her traumatic event and might trigger a flashback. Cassie and Josie both develop substance abuse problems, alcohol and drugs respectively, a common comorbidity for people with PTSD. Ana is prone to angry outbursts and aggressive behavior and is hypervigilant. All the women struggle with nightmares and flashbacks. It’s refreshing to see a slasher actually deal with mental health and the aftermath of a traumatic event (something we’re starting to see in more recent film sequels). I genuinely cared about all the main characters, something that rarely happens in horror fiction, and I was scared to see any of them get hurt or killed. Aujla just writes them so well! It’s sweet to see these women from different walks of life bond and draw strength from each other.

The Final Women was fun in a way the best 80’s slashers are. Gory, over the top, and wickedly funny. I absolutely devoured it as I found both the story and the characters enthralling. It draws on classic horror tropes while still being wholly unique. If you’re a fan of slashers you’ll definitely want to check this one out.

Tags: Adult, Asian American, BIPOC, Book Review, Demon, Highly Recommended, Killer/Slasher, Latine/Latino, Lesbian, LGBTQIA, Occult, Vietnamese

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These Bodies Ain’t Broken Edited by Madeline Dyer

Formats: Print, digital

Publisher: Page Street Publishing

Genre: Body Horror, Demon, Historic Horror, Monster, Myths and Folklore, Romance, Vampire

Audience: Young Adult

Blurb

A monstrous transformation within your own body.
A sacrificial imprisonment.
A fight to the death against an ancient evil.

These stories showcase disabled characters winning against all odds.

The Devouring Light by Kat Ellis

The Devouring Light by Kat Ellis. Recommended. Read if you like found footage, isolation horror

Formats: Print, audio, digital

Publisher: HarperCollins

Genre: Body Horror, Demon

Audience: Young Adult

Diversity: Queer main character, Major character with substance use disorder, Biracial Japanese side character, Black major character

Takes Place in: Oregon

Content Warnings (Highlight to view): Animal Death, Death, Drug Use/Abuse, Forced Captivity, Gore, Illness, Medical Procedures, Sexism, Stalking, Verbal/Emotional Abuse, Vomit

Blurb

She’s wrong.

Marooned in treacherous swamplands with no way out, the group stumbles upon an eerie, decaying house. It seems like a safe haven, a place to wait out the storm.

The house, however, isn’t just abandoned—it’s been waiting for them.

Bodies begin to pile up. The walls start to close in. Twisted secrets come to light. And unless Haden and the others can survive long enough to escape, the house will claim them—forever.

Tags: Asian, Asian American, BIPOC, Biracial, Black, Body Horror, Book Review, Demon, Disability, Japanese, Lesbian, LGBTQIA, Queer, Substance Use Disorder, Young Adult

The Unfinished by Cheryl Isaacs

The Unfinished by Cheryl Isaacs. Recommended. Read if you like atmospheric, slow burn horror

Formats: Print, audio, digital

Publisher: HarperCollins

Genre: Demon, Eco Horror, Folk Horror

Audience: Young Adult

Diversity: Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) main character and author, Jamacian-American side character

Content Warnings (Highlight to view): Child Endangerment, Forced Captivity, Gaslighting, Kidnapping

Blurb

The black water has been waiting. Watching. Hungry for the souls it needs to survive.

When small-town athlete Avery’s morning run leads her to a strange pond in the middle of the forest, she awakens a horror the townspeople of Crook’s Falls have long forgotten.

Avery can smell the water, see it flooding everywhere; she thinks she’s losing her mind. And as the black water haunts Avery—taking a new form each time—people in town begin to go missing.

In her stunning debut, Cheryl Isaacs pulls the reader down into an unsettling tale of monsters, mystery, and secrets that refuse to stay submerged.

Tags: American Indian, BIPOC, Book Review, Demon, Folk Horror, Mohawk, Own Voices, Recommended, Young Adult

Malicia by Steven dos Santos

Formats: Print, audio, digital

Publisher: Page Street Publishing

Genre: Blood & Guts, Demon, Monster, Mystery, Myth and Folklore, Occult

Audience: Young Adult

Diversity: Gay and bisexual man characters, Dominican Americans, character with anxiety disorder

Takes Place in: The Dominican Republic

Blurb

Four friends, three days, two lovers, and one very haunted theme park.

But what should be an easy weekend trip quickly turns into something darker because all four friends have come to Malicia for their own.

Tags: Anxiety Disorder, BIPOC, Bisexual, Blood & Guts, Book Review, Demon, Disability, Dominican, Gay, Latine/Latino, LGBTQIA, Monster, Mystery, Myths and Folklore, Occult, Own Voices, Young Adult

Portrait of Lysbeth : A Gothic Novella by Rama Santa Mansa

Formats: digital

Publisher: Lingeer Press

Genre: Demon, Gothic, Historic Horror

Audience: Adult/Mature

Diversity: Black (African American) main character and author, minor gay character

Takes Place in: Sleepy Hollow, NY

Blurb

As the gloomy autumn season begins in 1676, the gruesome murders of three European women, by an unknown assailant in the isolated village of Sleepy Hollow, shocks the whole of New York.

“…the history of White people taking from Native people is also filled with White people who befriend us because they have found themselves living in or near our communities.

They mean well. But I wish they could see past their good intentions. What they’re doing is exploitation.”

Despite the issues mentioned above I found the book overall enjoyable, with a highly detailed and well-researched setting and a strong Black woman protagonist.

Tags: African American, American Indian, Black, Book Review, Demon, Gay, Gothic, Historic Horror, LGBTQIA, Own Voices, Recommended

Carousel by Sarah McKnight

Formats: Print, digital

Publisher: Kindle Scribe

Genre: Demon, Occult, Romance

Audience: Young Adult

Diversity: Main characters and author are queer women, main character has anxiety disorder

Takes Place in: LA, California

Content Warnings (Highlight to view): Ableism, Alcohol Abuse, Cannibalism, Child Death, Child Endangerment, Death, Forced Captivity, Gore, Kidnapping, Mental Illness (anxiety), Suicide

Blurb

Ladies and gentlemen, the show is about to begin…

Whatever you do, don’t let the Carnival Man see you…

Oh Sarah McKnight, you had me at sapphic horror set in a creepy carnival.

Tags: Anxiety Disorder, Book Review, Demon, Lesbian, LGBTQIA, Occult, Own Voices, Recommended, Romance, Young Adult

A Haunting in Hialeah Gardens by Raul Palma

Formats: Print, audio, digital

Publisher: Dutton

Genre: Demon, Ghosts/Haunting, Myth and Folklore

Audience: Adult/Mature

Diversity: Cuban characters and author, Bolivian character

Takes Place in: Miami, Florida

Blurb

Equal parts hilarious and heartbreaking, A Haunting in Hialeah Gardens explores questions of visibility, migration, and what we owe—to ourselves, our families, and our histories.