Looking for a fantastically creepy book to start off October? The Apartment by S. L. Grey may be just what you need. It is a haunting tale told through alternating perspectives from husband and wife, Marc and Steph. Both have been traumatized and then things start to get …. creepy. I’ve read Sarah Lotz’s The Three and Day Four and loved them both. This is the first time I’ve read one of the books she co-authors with Louis Greenberg under the pen name S. L. Grey. It definitely did not disappointed and makes me think twice about house swapping for vacation. Marc and Steph’s relationship is definitely in need of work. In addition to dealing with the house invasion, Marc also has a traumatic history involving his first family, before he met Steph. So, when the opportunity arises to “get away” and take the honeymoon they never had, they leave their young daughter behind and head to Paris hoping this will get them back in touch with each other, make everything good again. Unfortunately, once they get to Paris, they encounter one problem after another, and their romantic, relaxing time away  starts to feel more like hell. The apartment is nothing as advertised, in a virtually abandoned…

As its title implies, this novel is a bit of an oddball. Even the style of it reminds me a little of a children’s storybook, complete with its own whimsical fairy tale message: Your eyes only see what your mind wants to see, so sometimes all it takes is a change of perspective. Or, if you’d like: Magic is real, if you just look for it. The book starts with an introduction to the saddest protagonist ever. Wil Morgan is literally the kind of guy who has dreams about coming in second in a World’s Biggest Failure competition. He’s crotchety, cynical and unimaginative—but that didn’t used to be the case. His childhood was filled with hopes and dreams, and his mother the brilliant jet propulsion scientist Melinda Morgan always encouraged him to reach for the stars and believe in the possibility of magic. But the year he turned ten, Melinda died in a laboratory accident, leaving young Wil in the sole care of his father who is as different from his mother as can be. Barry Morgan, who was never an outside-of-the-box kind of man to begin with, became even more paranoid and set in his ways after the death…

This is my first Sarah Pinborough book, and ironically it’s not the type of story she usually writes. But it demonstrates just how good a writer she is, so no matter what the subject matter, I know I’ll be picking up her other books in the future. The Language of Dying is a short novella, but within these pages is a very powerful story about loss in all its many forms. I knew going into it that it was about a woman caring for her dying father, but this story turned out to be about so much more. The narrator, an unnamed woman who is about to turn forty, cares for her father who has been living with her for the past year, slowly dying of cancer. The story focuses on his last days, as his doctors have told her the end is near. She reluctantly contacts her four siblings and asks them to visit, and as they arrive one by one, we get to know the fraught and volatile family relationships among this group of brothers and sisters. Peter, the eldest, has led a life of womanizing and has had many ups and downs in his high-powered career. Elder…

I wish I had enjoyed this more, but when a novel of just a smidgen over two hundred pages takes me more than a week to read, something’s definitely not working for me, and I think I know what it is. While the premise behind The Kind Folk is certainly compelling, and horror novelist Ramsey Campbell sure knows his stuff when it comes to creating dread and suspense, I nevertheless had a difficult time getting used to his writing style and technique, which ultimately affected my overall enjoyment of the story and its characters. Of course when it comes down to an author’s writing style, each individual reader’s mileage may vary, so you may still wish to give this book a try if the story sounds like something that would interest you. Imagine finding out you are not who you’ve always thought you were, and for the moment to play out on television in front of a nationwide audience. Luke is a 30-year-old standup comedian who along with his parents Maurice and Freda are called up to appear on Brittan’s Resolutions, a fictional Maury-like British daytime talk show which specializes in paternity tests. Maurice has long held suspicions that his…

In my “old” book collecting days, F. Paul Wilson was one of the authors whose books I bought and read, but it’s been years since I’ve even thought about him, until Tor asked me if I’d like to read his latest. He’s one of Stephen King’s contemporaries and published his first book in 1976, and I was curious to see what he was up to. Most authors don’t have that kind of staying power, but F. Paul Wilson, like King, has proven he’s a born storyteller, and I can attest to the fact that he hasn’t lost his edge. If anything, he’s better than I remember. Panacea was a wild adventure ride across several continents, as our characters search for the elusive “panacea” that may or may not be real, which can cure any disease. Wilson combines all the elements I love in just under 400 pages—adventure, action, humor, danger, mystery, fantastic characters and perfect pacing. If there was ever a “summer read,” then Panacea is it. I love my thoughtful literary science fiction and complex fantasy, but honestly, nothing beats a down-and-dirty adventure story. Laura Fanning is a medical examiner who is routinely called to murder sites to investigate bodies, but…

Dark Matter is a science fiction thriller that hooks you instantaneously and just doesn’t let go. Addictive, to say the least. I ripped through it in about a day in a half, and happily found it to be one of those books that pretty much demands you neglect all other aspects of your life because it refuses to get to a point where you feel you can set it down. But I certainly wasn’t complaining. I love getting so into a story that I can’t/won’t do anything else. Thankfully not all the books I enjoy are like this as I do have a life that needs tending to, but when a book grabs me like this, I have to say I love leaving the real world behind for a bit. The concept of this book is fascinating as well. It examines the questions, what would you do differently in your life if you were given a chance? How would that one decision impact the rest of your life? What would you do if one day your entire life has changed with no explanation of how or why? We get a brief picture of our protagonist, Jason, in his current life…

Last year I picked up Prudence, the first book of a new series starring the daughter of Alexia Tarabotti and Lord Conall Maccon from Gail Carriger’s celebrated Parasol Protectorate novels. I never did get into Alexia’s series after I dipped my toes into Soulless and realized it was not to my tastes, but the story of Prudence Alessandra Maccon Akeldama AKA “Rue” was entirely a different matter. My first outing with her and the crew of The Spotted Custard was an adventure of courage, comedy, and discovery which I enjoyed a lot more than I expected. And so, craving more of the same from this sequel, I dove into Imprudence with enthusiasm. This book takes place in the aftermath of Rue’s return to London from India. The entire country is still reeling from knowledge she and her friends brought back from deep in the mysterious jungles, and our protagonist has even gotten a severe dressing-down from the Queen herself. Rue, however, is unperturbed, excited to finally reach her majority and to enjoy all the freedoms that will no doubt come with it. What she doesn’t realize though, is how much her life is about to change. Lord Maccon, Rue’s werewolf…

Julia Verne St. John’s fantasy steampunk alternate history novel The Transference Engine became one of my most anticipated releases of 2016 when The BiblioSanctum hosted the cover reveal for it earlier this year. The first time I glimpsed that beautiful cover was also the first time I’d heard of this book, and both the protagonist and the world sounded fascinating to me. A mystery involving necromancy, set in an alternate 1830s London that’s run on magic and machines? No way I wasn’t going to love this. In spite of my excitement though, by the time I was through the first few chapters, I realized I was probably going to have to adjust my expectations. These first few dozen pages or so introduced us to Madame Magdala, the proprietress of the Book View Café, a magical library where patrons can sit and read while enjoying a cup of coffee and freshly baked pastries. However, the café’s centerpiece is a magical book sorting contraption designed by Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage, a literal search engine that can find any book you ask for in the library’s collection. Magdala and Lovelace—the woman who will one day become the world’s first computer programmer—go way…

I must confess, I only finished The Rook last month when the surprise arrival of a Stiletto ARC prompted me to do some quick catching up with the series, so I can’t claim to have waited for this sequel for as long as others. That said though, I was no less excited to jump right in! I loved the first book, and practically dove into this next one straight away. The first thing you should know about Stiletto is that even though it picks up where The Rook left off, it’s also not your typical conventional follow-up. For one thing, Myfanwy Thomas is no longer the main protagonist. Instead, we get two new leading ladies: a Checquy Pawn named Felicity Clements, and a Grafter surgeon named Odette Leliefeld. After centuries of being on opposite sides, the two young women are suddenly thrown together when their respective organizations are forced to make peace in a new alliance. However, putting aside their differences is easier said than done. The enmity between the two groups runs deep, and not everyone is happy about the new partnership. Almost immediately after arriving in Great Britain with the Grafter delegation, Odette becomes targeted by an angry…

If you enjoy gritty and dark, violent futuristic sci-fi mystery thrillers, then The Dark Side by Anthony O’Neill will be just the book for you. O’Neill works crime, sex, drugs, and a psychotic murdering android into a full-on non-stop plot, and that’s just to name a handful of the topics covered in this book. In The Dark Side, two key narrative threads can be discerned, but even though they are fundamentally related to each other, the connections won’t become clear until later on. In one storyline, Lieutenant Damien Justus has come to Purgatory, a lunar territory founded by megalomaniac billionaire-in-exile Fletcher Brass. Its capital, appropriately called Sin, has been turned into a haven for fugitives and other undesirables from Earth who have come to the moon to escape their old lives. It is the only place where the shadier your record is, the better the chance you’ll be let in. Even the police here have dodgy backgrounds. Justus, however, is the patently incorruptible good cop who has just arrived from Earth, and he’s just the kind of guy Purgatory needs to clean things up. To him, no one is above the law—and no exceptions. He is immediately given the lead…