Are You Enjoying? by Mira Sethi paints a fresh image of Pakistan that inverts traditional assumptions, offering a funny, complicated and nuanced portrayal of the country. There is a great challenge to breaking away from the past, which many of the characters encounter. The short story collection uses relationships (romantic and otherwise) to explore the
A masterclass in atmospheric and small town horror – welcome to Goblin. I love the use of the elements to elicit a reaction from my readers, Juniper was scorching heat, Tome was constant rain, my third book in my Juniper series will have plenty of… you’ll have to wait and see! The elements is an
It is now six years since the secret disaster at Jurassic Park, six years since the extraordinary dream of science and imagination came to a crashing end – the dinosaurs destroyed, the park dismantled, the island indefinitely closed to the public. There are rumors that something has survived…. When Folio Society announced that they had
Teetering on the eve of Covid, We Need to Talk by Jonathan Crane tells the story of a woefully average mundane English town, through the eyes of the various residents. Crane perfectly encapsulates the suffocation and claustrophobia of the environment with these short stories. The result is a distinguishable insight into small-town living, tied together
Bram Stoker’s Dracula is a book that every horror fan should read. Illustration ©Angela Barrett from The Folio Society edition of Dracula It’s a classic after all, and as a horror author I felt a slight bit of shame that I’d not read it before, but I’m glad that I rectified that with the Folio Society edition
Pushing the boundaries of the traditional whodunnit tale, I Know What I Saw by Imran Mahmood is a remarkable story of grief and memory. “When I remember my life before, I am really reimagining it, in flashes, in tiny abstract glimpses. And in that memory, I compose my own rhythm close enough to match the
Sinister Mix has every trigger warning / content warnings under the sun – but that’s to be expected from a master of extreme horror! I just wanted you to know that before you head in… because you might not come out the way you started. I’ve read four of Brian’s books now and this one,
So, another year, another Stephen King book – it’s become somewhat of a highlight for me, that oh so special time another book drops. Of course we get the usual folks bemoaning about how King isn’t scary anymore, how his writing sucks, how he’s just a cash cow for his publisher and churning out mediocre
‘Transgressive, dark and masterfully written – with ‘Spontaneous Human Combustion’ Thomas forces the reader to run the gamut of human emotions. With beguiling and devastating prose one can’t help but see the beauty in the macabre morsels Thomas has given us to consume. A truly breathtaking collection.’ Repent – I don’t know whether it’s because
An Invitation to Darkness was a beautifully written gothic romp of a book and I bloody loved it. The setting itself is truly magical and in Piper’s hand she turns that magic into black magic – the darkness swells in this story and it pretty much comes out of nowhere. Was I ready for the
