Synopsis:

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

“Pick up the novel everyone will be talking about.” —The Atlantic
“Dark, riveting, and accomplished.” —Washington Post
“Propulsive and powerful. . . A gripping roller coaster ride of escalating danger.” —New York Times Book Review

Award-winning, New York Times bestselling author S. A. Cosby returns with King of Ashes, a Godfather-inspired Southern crime epic and dazzling family drama.

When eldest son Roman Carruthers is summoned home after his father’s car accident, he finds his younger brother, Dante, in debt to dangerous criminals and his sister, Neveah, exhausted from holding the family—and the family business—together. Neveah and their father, who run the Carruthers Crematorium in the run-down central Virginia town of Jefferson Run, see death up close every day. But mortality draws even closer when it becomes clear that the crash that landed their father in a coma was no accident and Dante’s recklessness has placed them all in real danger.

Roman, a financial whiz with a head for numbers and a talent for making his clients rich, has some money to help buy his brother out of trouble. But in his work with wannabe tough guys, he’s forgotten that there are real gangsters out there. As his bargaining chips go up in smoke, Roman realizes that he has only one thing left to offer to save his brother: himself, and his own particular set of skills.

Roman begins his work for the criminals while Neveah tries to uncover the long-ago mystery of what happened to their mother, who disappeared when they were teenagers. But Roman is far less of a pushover than the gangsters realize. He is willing to do anything to save his family. Anything.

Because everything burns.

“A fast-paced thriller that will have readers asking whether the ends justify the means if there is no end in sight. . . Reminiscent of the great tragedies, this is Cosby at his best.”
—Library Journal, starred review

Review:

After his father is attacked and left comatose, Roman Carruthers returns home to discover his brother is deep in debt to local gangsters and his sister on the brink, obsessed with finding out the truth about their mother’s disappearance when they were teens and carrying on with a crooked cop, all while trying to keep their family business up and running. Roman tries to square Dante’s debt with the BBB gang, but it soon becomes clear that no matter how much they paid they’ll never be free, and soon he finds himself embroiled with the vicious and sociopathic Tranquil and Torrent, and hellbent on destroying the gang from the inside.

S.A. Cosby flew into the crime scene like a bat out of hell with his Big Publishing debut, Blacktop Wasteland, back in the summer of 2020 and he hasn’t slowed down a bit. Five books and five years later, he’s quickly earned his place as one of the crime genre’s absolute best, not to mention becoming a favorite author of mine in short order, thanks to consistently turning out gritty, character-rich Southern crime epics. His latest, King of Ashes, is his best one yet, and that’s saying an awful lot considering just how damn good his previous books are. This one is an absolute powder keg.

Sprawling and dark, King of Ashes is also the kind of book that only gets better and more rewarding with each turn of the page. Much of this is down to Roman himself. He’s a financial advisor to Atlanta’s biggest hip-hop stars and has made his bread getting them rich. He’s smart and savvy with money, and when he first meets Tranquil and Torrent he mistakes their street gangster ethos for the fake, recording studio-ready gangstas he’s been working with. It’s a lesson that costs dearly, and a mistake he won’t soon repeat. As his plans for dealing with these two psychotics evolve, he finds himself sinking deeper into the muck, while readers are left to wonder just how far Roman is willing to go to protect his family and exact his vengeance.

Cosby takes his time building up, while simultaneously degrading, Roman over the course of numerous bloody and fire-fueled events. We’re given a front-row seat to witness the ways in which money and power can corrupt a man’s soul. Raised by his father and educated by way of bon mots like “Everything burns,” and “To be a king, you have to think like one. You have to do king shit,” Roman’s fall from grace is stunningly potent, and what makes it all the more fascinating is Roman’s own disconnect from himself and the way he blames Dante for everything. While true to a certain extent, there comes a point where Roman can’t blame anybody but himself but is pathologically incapable of it. Cosby’s turned out a brilliant and compelling character study here, bringing with it shades of Breaking Bad‘s Walter White and The Godfather‘s Michael Corleone. In some ways, I couldn’t help but imagine Roman bemoaning, “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in,” as he throws yet another body into the crematorium.

For as rich as the character work is, Cosby goes the extra mile to ensure that the setting is equally vivid. Jefferson Run may be a fictional Virginia town, but it feels real. It’s seedy and run-down, with Carruthers Crematorium, a bar and seafood joint, and a weed dispensary among the few viable businesses left in an area run down by urban flight, economic despair, political corruption, the proliferation of drugs, murder, and gang violence. Jefferson Run is a character in its own right, and a stark reflection of Roman and what he can become. Cosby encapsulates the nature of Jefferson Run in a single sentence when he writes, “A light rain moved across the city like it was crying over the blood on its streets.” We come to know this city as intimately as we do Roman himself, and in doing so we know the rain won’t ever wash it clean, certainly not for long.

King of Ashes is among the few books that, upon reading through its very last page and absorbing its implications, I couldn’t help but breath out one single word: “Wow.” The tour through Jefferson Run, and through the mind and deeds of Roman, was messy, violent, complicated, and oh so satisfying. Story-wise, it was like sitting down for a five-course meal, and by book’s end I was positively stuffed. I ate good with this one, even if certain moments and character’s decisions were stomach-turning. Now… when’s the next book come out?

Synopsis:

While investigating the kidnappings of young, impoverished girls, Arianell Acraea uncovers a sinister conspiracy involving rogue Champions of Ares and forbidden sacrificial rituals fuelled by a magic that defies the laws of the Supreme Goddess herself.

Ellis, a nomad with an aversion towards divinity, wants nothing but the peace of a quiet life, away from the Gods and their glorified slaves. But a deadly encounter with Arianell pulls both women into a web of mysteries that connects all the way back to the heart of Aphrodite’s Vengeance and how she created her World Without Love.

Review:

Garden of Rotten Roses is technically book two in Hidalgo’s dark fantasy sapphic romance World Without Love series. But really, it is more of a prequel to one of my top reads last year, This is How Immortals Die, as it takes place canonically before TiHID, and the two main characters in GoRR are the parents of the main in TiHID. Buuuuut you need to read TiHID first as GoRR doesn’t make as much sense without doing so. Got all that? Good, away we go!

In this world, which is based on the Greek Pantheon (albeit more pre-industrial UK time period, in this story, Wales), an apocalypse happens after Aphrodite outlaws Capital ‘L’ Love. In a twist, people are immortal and can die, but they rejuvenate in a very Deadpool-esque manner in a few days depending on how gruesome a death. However, if two people fall in Love, they lose their immortality, and Aphrodite’s priestesses hunt these lovebirds down and brutally kill them. There’s cults, other God/Goddess devotees, blood magic, and death galore.

I want to start with the magic system because it was definitely one of my favorite things about TiHID. Because blood magic is just something I love a lot, I really enjoy when there are twists on it. In book one, the blood magic allows the two potential Lovers to join their hearts, giving them a very telepathic bond; they can feel what each other feels. This bond is used in some really fun ways, including a hilarious sex toy during a massive battle escapade. GoRR adds another layer to the blood magic, one more endearing: conception. Aside from this being a sapphic romance, I really liked the idea that Aphrodite’s priestesses are not just used to murder Lovers, but to help bring babies into this world when BFFs just want to have a baby together. There’s a ritual to bond/conceive, and this is just super neat.

‘True Love was ruthless. To accept it, you must first accept your own imperfect heart.’

I know I know, this is a dark fantasy romance, so their has to be romance right? There is, but it does start off as enemies to BFFs to lovers to Lovers, and this all balances delicately on the shoulders of Arianell and Ellis. Arianell is a Guardian of Hera, and she spends a lot of her time uncovering plots against her Goddess before spending her downtime on her family’s farm. Ellis is a heretic (meaning she doesn’t believe in the Pantheon for reasons), she’s brash, and after she kills Arianell (oh yeah, they were enemies first), does she finally slow her role. These two are polar opposites, but their relationship is excellent to watch blossom, thanks to Hidalgo’s deft prose. It was very refreshing to see them become friends before lovers, and finally Lovers. There is a tenderness in this progression you don’t always see in books.

Now, I will say that this story takes a different approach to its storytelling than TiHID. Book 1 is a literal journey drenched in blood (and one of the coolest shock/twists I’ve ever read halfway through), but GoRR is much slower paced, not as much blood (but don’t worry, there is still blood and action), and takes place over decades, mostly at Arianell’s farm. I really admire authors who take chances, and Hidalgo certainly does. But that doesn’t mean we don’t get fun battles and excellent voicey one-liners!

‘Waking up to the stink of rotten flesh was the indisputable sign that shit was about to hit you in the face.’

Oh, almost forgot, there are gryphons in this story too!

As a dude with a Classics degree, I fell in Capital ‘L’ Love with This is How Immortals Die, and Garden of Rotten Roses really solidified how much I enjoy this world Hidalgo created. I cannot wait for the big revelations promised to me in book 3! So if you need some antiquity, blood magic, brutal fights, and/or sapphic romance in your life, def check these books out!

Synopsis

Mystery and murder swirl around a dangerous doctor. One detective vows to unravel the truth.

A supernatural thriller blending history, mystery, and the unexplainable.

Liverpool, 1920. Detective Amelia Dei uncovers a string of unexplained comas in Liverpool’s most notorious workhouse infirmary. As she digs deeper, she faces a sinister psychiatrist and a truth darker than anything she’s imagined.

“‘Stranger in the Mind’ quickly draws you in and does not let you go till the last word.” Reader Views – ★★★★★ 5 stars

Review

First saw this in the Library section of the SFF Insiders Discord and really liked the cover. A huge thanks to James for the audible code! Liz May Brice did a great job with the narration. 

1920s Liverpool delivers a setting both familiar and different. Det. Amelia Dei must fight through gender roles, misogyny, and the supernatural in this murder mystery that feels both historical and fantastical. In a way it reminded me of Shadowseer: London by Morgan Rice in that it feels like a classic mystery meshed with an almost urban fantasy twist. Or Out on a Limb by Luis Paredes with its hints at a supernatural world beyond kind of a la Men in Black (although not alien). 

Amelia will stop at nothing to upend Dr. Knight and his string of mysterious coma patient deaths. Her superiors don’t believe in her, and are finding it hard to believe her when she says something suspect is going on, but she refuses to relent. Her partner, Det. Reed, is the only one to have her back as the mystery unfolds into swirling darkness. 

This is written well and feels cohesive. I found myself wondering where the two authors blended, becoming this unique voice. The two POVs (Amelia and Dr. Knight) worked well for me as I enjoy a glimpse into the dark and madness. The only hang up I had were the flashback memory scenes with young Knight. I understood their need, as it shows his coming into his power and experiencing his dark reality—the Umbra Mentis, but they also felt like attempting to humanize. As the story opens with him committing SA and reveling in it, I didn’t find him redeemable. 

This tackles themes of sexism, gender roles, mental illness, poverty, and sexual orientation rather well. Even in a reality that turns out to have an entirely exterior nightmarish world just beyond it, these things are still present and touched on throughout. The Umbra was creepy, intriguing in what the authors held back, and I wished to know more. The inspector finally backing Amelia, as well as hinting at his awareness of the supernatural, makes me feel like there could be an expansive series even beyond the Umbra!

I really liked the last names of Dei and Knight facing off against each other. I have to imagine it was purposeful, as they even chose spellings that were not so on the nose. As the Umbra is this kind of swirling mass of black and darkness, it really felt like Amelia was the day facing off against the night.

Synopsis:

Dark Lord Davi rules the kingdom, but she must now break the time loop that binds her in this hilariously bloody conclusion to the Dark Lord Davi duology.

Davi has left the horde behind her, hoping to find a peaceful solution to keep the Kingdom from being destroyed this time. But her plan to guide the Kingdom to peaceful prosperity is thwarted when she finds her usual love interest, Prince Johann, already married and the bloodthirsty Duke Aster running the government. Johann’s new husband is everything Davi is not, but he holds a key to the one mystery she can’t solve – the origins of the time loop that has entrapped her.

With restless armies at her doorstep, Duke Aster reaching for power, and an ancient magician hounding her every turn, Davi must scheme her way to peace and uncover the truth behind her curse if she is to break the spell that binds her once and for all.

Review:

Django Wexler’s first book in the Dark Lord Davi series, How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying (abbreviated HTBTDLADT from here on) was a phenomenally fun time loop fantasy. I read it right at the tailend of 2024 and put it on my Top Ten list for the year. The follow-up, Everybody Wants to Rule the World Except Me (EWTRTW ) is still loads of fun, but misses the mark at times for me. The ending works really well and the humor definitely puts the two books on a “Re-read in the Future” list for me. 

In my previous review of HTBTDLADT, (found here), I noted my love of time loop stories from Star Trek to Groundhog Day. Here, the “Time Loopiness” of the story is a key part, but kinda disappears for a while. In the first part of the book, it’s definitely hanging over Davi and her closest friends, but Wexler subverts Chekhov’s Gun a bit with how it plays out. In the final third of the book, Davi’s unique gifts come roaring back to the forefront of the story as the circumstances of her place in this world become clear. Sometimes in time loop stories, such as Groundhog Day, we don’t ever find out the nature of the loop and what forces are in control of it, but Wexler crafts the origins of the loop and its creator into the overall story. 

Overall, a good amount of what worked for me in the first book was either absent or positioned differently in the sequel, so for the first two-thirds of the book I found it a little harder to buy-in and engage with the story. In HTBTDLADT, the concept of found family sprung up organically as the book progressed. Soon after EWTRTW starts, Davi and Tsav leave their Wilder Army and infiltrate the human kingdom. It’s necessary for the story and where it eventually goes, but something just felt missing. Throughout the books we’re reminded that Davi has lived hundreds of years and countless lives among these people. She tells the audience over and over about her relationship with Prince Johann in previous iterations, but there’s still a little bit of “show, not tell” that hampers the story at times. 

For a little over the first half of the book, I was definitely enjoying it, but had some troubling vibing with it. But I’ll give Wexler a lot of credit — about two-thirds of the way through, EWTRTW turned it on. I could not put the book down, anxiously going from one page to the next to see what was happening and where Davi’s fate was taking her and her friends next. In the end, the final arc of the book paid off big time. I really enjoyed Davi’s humor, but also totally understood why the villain was annoyed to death (literally) by her throughout it all. 

If you enjoy humor with your fantasy and a little bit of time loop shenanigans, I recommend reading both books in Django Wexler’s Dark Lord Davi Duology. 

Thank you to Orbit for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

Synopsis:

When hometown horrors come back to haunt, friendship is salvation in a novel about childhood fears and buried secrets by #1 New York Times bestselling master of suspense Dean Koontz.

As kids, outcasts Rebecca, Bobby, Spencer, and Ernie were inseparable friends in the idyllic town of Maple Grove. Three left to pursue lofty dreams―and achieved them. Only Ernie never left. When he falls into a coma, his three amigos feel an urgent need to return home. Don’t they remember people lapsing into comas back then? And those people always awoke…didn’t they?

After two decades, not a lot has changed in Maple Grove, especially Ernie’s obnoxious, scary mother. But Rebecca, Bobby, and Spencer begin to remember a hulking, murderous figure and weirdness piled on mystery that they were made to forget. As Ernie sinks deeper into darkness, something strange awaits any friend who tries to save him.

For Rebecca, Bobby, and Spencer, time is running out to remember the terrors of the past in a perfect town where nothing is what it seems. For Maple Grove, it’s a chance to have the “four amigos,” as they once called themselves, back in its grasp.

Review:

Thinking back about all the Dean Koontz books I’ve read over the years, I feel like I’ve enjoyed about 85% of them. Many have been a cracking-good time, but a handful I’ve struggled to figure out how I felt about them. I’d say in general, that’s about how I felt about Going Home in the Dark, Koontz’ latest novel. I liked the three main protagonists and I did enjoy the narrative structure of the book (I’m sure this easily turned some people off), but overall, there were a few things that I didn’t quite love, but I’m really glad I read it. 

I still remember my first Koontz book. I was in high school and found Dragon Tears on the bookshelf at my local library. My mom tried to steer me away from those black, dark Stephen King covers, but this one was silvery and didn’t at all give away that it would be one of the scariest books I’d read up until that point. 

Koontz has published a lot of books since that 1993 thriller, but he still has the chops to craft a well-told story. I think some people would point to his 2019 book deal with Amazon (Thomas & Mercer imprint), as the point where Koontz could just turn out lazy writing for an easy paycheck and guaranteed readers through Amazon’s Kindle Marketplace. The guaranteed readers might be true — I borrowed the book through Kindle Unlimited and the audiobook automatically downloaded to Audible simultaneously — but I really enjoyed Going Home in the Dark. Is it as good as what he was publishing 20-30 years ago? Perhaps not, but I still had a great time with it. 

Enough about background — the story is about four friends who have a shared childhood trauma that none of them can remember. When Ernie falls into a coma, the other three — Bobby, Spencer, and Rebecca — all return to their hometown to deal with the aftermath. What happens next is a bit of a madcap combination of IT, Weekend at Bernie’s, The Stepford Wives, and Little Shop of Horrors. There is more than a little humor to the action as the three friends try to figure out what happened to their “Fourth Amigo” without letting him die. 

There are a few nitpicks. The omnipresent narrator breaks the fourth wall (maybe the fifth and sixth at times as well), and while I liked the different tone than you would find in most books, I know some people don’t like as much humor in their “serious” horror or sci-fi. Also, due to the narrator, there are a lot of explanations and info dumps. Now, the narrator points that out and fully acknowledges it when it happens, but it happens nonetheless. If you can put up with that, I think you may have a really good time with a book by a master in the genre. 

Dean Koontz will be turning 80 years old this year, but he still understands horror and pop culture. No matter his age or who his publisher is, I still really enjoy picking up a book from him like I did this week with Going Home in the Dark.  

Synopsis:
In this sumptuous, atmospheric historical fantasy set in post-World War One Appalachia, three outcasts with misunderstood magical gifts search for their place in the world while battling the dark forces that circle their community.
Kate Mayer has always been troubled by visions of the future. No matter what she does, her disturbing premonitions come to pass—often with terrible consequences. But Kate has a secret: swirling, romantic dreams of a strange boy, and a chance meeting in the woods.
Oliver Chadwick Jr. returned from the Great War disabled, disillusioned, and able to see the dead. Haunted by the death of his best friend, Oliver realizes that his ability to communicate with spirits may offer the chance of closure he desperately seeks.
Nora Jo Barker’s mother and grandmother were witches, but she has never nurtured her own power. Always an outsider, she has made a place for herself as the town’s schoolteacher, clinging to the independence the job affords her. When her unorthodox ideas lead to her dismissal, salvation comes in the form of a witch from the mountains, who offers her a magical apprenticeship. Yet as she begins to fall for another woman in town, her loyalties pull her in disparate directions.
Rumors of a dark force stalking the town only push Kate, Oliver, and Nora Jo onwards in their quest to determine their own destinies. But there are powers in the world stronger and stranger than their own, and not all magic is used for good…

Review:

Hello again dear reader or listener, I need you to picture the terrified child holding a cross meme and, instead of the cross, to picture a box of antihistamines, and that is me currently with everything blooming all around me. I love spring, I do. My hay fever however, oh she chuckles maniacally. Why should you care about all this? No reason whatsoever!

With thanks to the team at Titan for offering an eARC of Nicole Jarvis’ latest book, let’s get to my honest thoughts that are actually relevant, shall we?

I was fresh off watching Ryan Coogler’s Sinners (and Loving it – seriously go watch that movie it is incredible) when this book came to my attention and to say the timing was excellent is an understatement. Supernatural happenings in a 1920s southern American town? Gimme. Also, having read Jarvis’ debut The Lights of Prague and greatly enjoying it, I knew this was an author I wanted to read more from. The final decider in me picking this up was the byline “For fans of Katherine Arden”, which I am, most ardently.

I’ll see myself out. Blame the Zirtec.

With Jarvis’ story set right after the first World War, I could see the connection to Arden’s The Warm Hands of Ghosts, a book I deeply loved and still think about. As well as for the ghostly happenings of course. But that’s not all A Spell for Change was!

Told through three POVs that I liked each for the own merits, Jarvis navigates the fraught lives of three individuals who are about to learn how far they are willing to go to fight against the injustices of their society. For truly if you were disabled, a woman, Black, or queer, in Tennessee of the ‘20s you were definitely not having a roarin’ time. Jarvis does not shy away from showing the realities of racism, classism, and overall lack of rights for anyone that wasn’t an abled white man. But she does so in ways that are so deceptively simple and to the point, and yet to visceral and evocative that you can’t help but feel everything the characters do, or at the very least easily relate to them in one way or another. The helplessness of it all truly hits hard. The author takes her time to build up tensions and foreshadow what is to come so well that you always find yourself intrigued and needing to know more but also unable to shake off a sense of wrongness that permeates everything.

Jarvis also renders ambience so well, from the deceptive warmth but not quite of Spring, to the stifling summer heat, or the chill that offers relief from it but also brings goosebumps on your skin typical of deep caves. Moreover, she presents us with more horror elements than I was expecting, which was a delightful and welcome surprise. They created the right juxtapositions to all the soft and tender moments that really make you care for the characters and their budding – yet forbidden – relationships. By weaving the natural beauty of the land into the lives of the protagonists, while also underscoring it with the horrific echoes of the past she rendered a deeply layered canvas of a story that resonates with the modern reader. Even her tackling of PTSD, and how it was viewed/understood at the time, was done very well, which is something I always keep an eye on.

Although the first half of the book is fairly slow going, which in my opinion was not a bad thing as it was not a slog, the second half ramps up onto an action-packed final act that shifts several gears and delivers more than one gut punch, but also offers super satisfying resolutions that I was glad to see. In fact, Jarvis does such a good job of building it all up, enriching it with folklore and stories passed down through generations, and thus making you care for all the things that are at stake if the protagonists don’t succeed at getting to the bottom of the mysteries even more. And yet that sense of wrongness, of something coming to ruin everything they have fought so hard for, would not leave me. I was ready to get hurt, dear reader. And I kinda was, not gonna lie to you, but it all made so much sense for the story and where each character was with their life that I was not even mad about it in the end. Did I want to shake the characters a bit from time to time? Sure. But that to me is a sign of good writing because I was invested rather than indifferent and just waiting to see where the story would go!

A Spell for Change is everything you want in a leisurely weekend read: it is a heartfelt, intriguing, and at times eerie tale of defiant people trying to carve out space for themselves to peacefully exist true to themselves, in a world that tries to tell them they have no right to. It presents us with food for thought while also granting escapism, wonder, and supernatural phenomena that I will not spoil the exact nature of. Ultimately it is a story about love, both familial and romantic, that pushes us to be better and fight for more.

The book comes out tomorrow May 6^th through Titan Books and if anything I mentioned has you curious, dear reader, I suggest you run to grab a copy!

Until next time,
Eleni A.E.

Synopsis

For fans of The Silent Patient and Gone Girl, a razor-sharp and Hitchcock-inspired psychological thriller about two ordinary women who make a dangerous pact to take revenge for each other after being pushed to the brink.

One dark evening on New York City’s Upper West Side, two strangers meet by chance. Over drinks, Amanda and Wendy realize they have much in common, especially loneliness and an intense desire for revenge against the men who destroyed their families. As they talk into the night, they come up with the perfect if you kill for me, I’ll kill for you.

In another part of the city, Ruth is home alone when the beautiful brownstone she shares with her husband, Scott, is invaded. She’s attacked by a man with piercing blue eyes, who disappears into the night. Will she ever be able to feel safe again while the blue-eyed stranger is out there?

Review

This was pretty neat. I don’t read a lot of thrillers so sometimes it’s harder for me to guess what’s going to happen in them than in other genres. This book had a pretty satisfying mixture of WTF moments (I literally said it out loud three times within five chapters at one point), unexpected reveals, and satisfying expected reveals.

The characters were all pretty interesting and I immediately started guessing what might happen to them later on. Sometimes I was right, sometimes I was completely wrong. In a good way though, since I don’t want everything to be super predictable.

It took me a little bit to really get into it at first. The crimes that this book started out with are really sad and fed into my intrusive thoughts in an uncomfortable way. That’s why I could only do a couple of chapters a day at first, which made it hard for me to get fully invested right away. That also fueled my support for the revenge plot though. And once the drama really started to unfold, I was all in. The WTF moments just kept happening and twists were revealed that threw all my theories to the wind so I had to continue as quickly as possible to find out what would happen next.

The ending was pretty satisfying to me overall. I wasn’t sure how all the POVs would converge eventually but once that was revealed, I was so intrigued. I liked how the story ended for each character, though I did wish to have a little more info on one specifically. That one’s development shocked me the most and while I really enjoyed how that POV ended, I also wanted to know more about their motivations.

While I don’t think thrillers will be a super regular addition to my TBR, I do want to have more here and there to shake things up. A fellow reviewer is reading one by this same author right now so I’ll be keeping an eye out for their review!

Inside a luxury housing complex, two misfit teenagers sneak around and get drunk. Franco Andrade, lonely, overweight, and addicted to porn, obsessively fantasizes about seducing his neighbor―an attractive married woman and mother―while Polo dreams about quitting his grueling job as a gardener within the gated community and fleeing his overbearing mother and their narco-controlled village. Each facing the impossibility of getting what he thinks he deserves, Franco and Polo hatch a mindless and macabre scheme. Written in a chilling torrent of prose by one of our most thrilling new writers, Paradais explores the explosive fragility of Mexican society―with its racist, classist, hyper violent tendencies―and how the myths, desires, and hardships of teenagers can tear life apart at the seams.

Fernanda Melchor’s “Paradais,” translated by Sophie Hughes is an unsavoury little book that burrows its way under the skin and settles. Commenting upon class disparities, misogyny and a whole host of other societal failings and rancid aspects of humanity “Paradais,” is grim and gritty, and claustrophobic- a read that will have you tugging at your collar and unable to tear yourself from its sticky pages and breathless prose. Stylistically literary, but wholly horrifying in its content, “Paradais,” will make the reader uncomfortable in the same way that Alissa Nutting’s “Tampa,” or Brian Evenson’s “Father of Lies,” does- well aware that its particular, urban brand of horror is tangible, local -shit that actually happens all the time- and all the more unsettling for it. 

We follow Polo, just turned 16 who is continuously berated by his mother, and really rather annoyed at having to give up his bed for his cousin Zorayda. Having “signed away his soul,” he works as a gardener with Urquiza, working ridiculous hours tidying up after upper-middle class residents of Paradais, and further lambasted by his mother should he dare even show a hint of frustration or exhaustion. Forced to donate his wage to his Mum, to help pay off loans, and discourage his mounting problem with alcoholism, he earns little more than scorn. During a particularly rough shift, and having found an almost pristine cigarette butt to bum, he meets Franco Andrade, and it’s that night, when the two pass a bottle of whiskey between them that he effectively seals his fate.

Franco Andrade is a lonely, overweight, idly entitled porn addict who relentlessly fantasises over his neighbour Señora Marián, tabloid star, wife and mother. In return for the booze Franco, or fatboy as he’s referred to throughout, can supply with his grandparent’s cash, Polo spends his evenings listening to his lurid and fantastical monologues- and for a while, that’s enough. However, with Franco expelled, and his grandparents planning to send him away and whip him into shape, the tone shifts and he decides the time to act is now, and ropes Polo into a vile scheme. 

Classics like “It,” and “Boy’s Life,” would not be the masterpieces they are without that coming-of-age element. The often teenage protagonists are strengthened and uplifted by one another in the face of adversity, and that scrappy, kids-on-bikes, companionship often defines adolescence within the genre. This is a trope that Melchor turns inside out and wears as a crude sock puppet in “Paradais.” Polo and Franco aren’t characters I think we’re ever intended to feel sympathy for (although Franco is decidedly a nastier piece of work) but are made worse still by one another’s company. They’re accelerants. It’s an un-coming of age story if such a thing is possible, in which companionship, pacts and friendship is swapped out for hormones, vices and influences, and the only things growing are rot, tensions and a hole that neither of them are able to claw their way out of.

Melchor writes not from the safe narrative distance of the third person, but from deep within the heads of her characters. Not nice places to be. Her prose is deliberately suffocating, long, winding, even aggressive, not just in an effort to shock (although shock it does) but to allow the reader to even glimpse what on earth is going on in Franco and Polo’s overheated brains.

The fact that our two young men are from incredibly different homes and social backgrounds, goes to show that class alone is not what corrupts. Despite being insulated by wealth and privilege, Franco is every bit as misogynistic and violent as Polo, who is so poverty stricken that he sees joining the Narcos as a viable way out. This behaviour is not always born out of deprivation, desperation or a lack of- sometimes it’s just allowed to exist ambiently, unchallenged, before surfacing in the form of entitlement and a need for domination. With no moral cushioning Melchor shows that bad behaviour can’t be attributed wholly to any factor, social, geographic or otherwise, and that we can quite easily become monsters when we’re not asked to be anything else.

It feels strange to say that I liked “Paradais,” because that implies a level of enjoyment, and this book is not one designed for comfort. It left me somewhere between nausea and awe, and frankly I’m hesitant to recommend it to just anyone. God it’s good though. With searing writing and important, timely and masterfully handled themes regardless of whether you devoured or DNF’d “Paradais,” it is undeniably a book of extraordinary merit. Before you pick it up though, I implore you to consider whether the minds of Polo and Franco are places you want to spend time in… if yes, I’ll see you on the other side.

Synopsis

Set in rural Armenia in the aftermath of war, Narine Abgaryan’s haunting short stories show people finding hope and purpose again.

Named “one of Europe’s most exciting authors” by the Guardian, Narine Abgaryan has written a dozen books which have collectively sold over 1.35 million copies. To Go On Living comes directly from her experiences coming of age during the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan in the early 1990s.

Set in an Armenian mountain village, thirty-one linked short stories trace the interconnected lives of villagers tending to their everyday tasks, engaging in quotidian squabbles, and celebrating small joys against a breathtaking landscape. Yet the setting, suspended in time and space, belies unspeakable tragedy: every character contends with an unbearable burden of loss. The war rages largely off the book’s pages, appearing only in fragmented flashbacks. Abgaryan’s stories focus on how the survivors work, both as individuals and as a community, to find a way forward. Written in Abgaryan’s signature style that weaves elements of Armenian folk tradition into her prose, these stories of community, courage, and resilience celebrate human life, where humor, love and hope prevail in unthinkable circumstances.

Narine Abgaryan’s stories shed fresh light on this forgotten corner of the world. “Humanity is in dire need of hope, of kind stories,” she told the Guardian. She’s given them to us here.

Review

To Go On Living took me a little while to get into due to some formatting issues with the original ARC, but thankfully the publisher was kind enough to send me a second copy that worked much better and allowed me to enjoy the interconnectedness of these stories more. On their own, each story showcased the tragedies that war can inflict on people, both instantly and longterm. At times, it was a very depressing book (naturally for that theme) and reading too many of its stories at once sometimes felt like it took away from each individual one, making it feel like monotone and repetitive here and there, but I still am really glad I read it. It’s easy to live in a country that isn’t directly affected by war in such a visceral way and I find it important to remind people (including myself) that not everyone enjoys that privilege.

I honestly thought this was a nonfiction book until right before writing this review. I probably was aware of it being fiction when I first accepted it, but it must’ve flown my mind by the time I got started reading. The characters felt so real to me that I still struggle to believe they are fictional. This wasn’t the story of one person and how their life changed or how they learned something important. It wasn’t a self-help book that taught me one of life’s big secrets (though it still contained multiple lessons we could all learn from). No, this was a collection of short stories that were all connected through the people they were about and the struggles that the war ravaging through their homes caused. It wasn’t a story about a big adventure where the protagonist vanquished the big evil and returned home a hero. It was about villagers that had come to this town or left it, some to return while others could not, before, during, and after the atrocities that occurred in their area. It was about how they turned towards each other or into themselves, what they were willing to do to continue on, to go on living.

While this might’ve been a fictional short story collection, you can feel that the author has personal experience with such tragedy in the way she made these characters come alive. She was named one of Europe’s most exciting authors by the Guardian, and I am definitely interested in reading more from her.

Synopsis

An electrifying thriller about species re-engineering run amok, Scales is a great, fast-paced read perfect for fans of Jurassic Park.

A secret corporate-military project enhances four men with dinosaur traits to sell the public on a next-gen army of super-soldiers. But weeks before the big media unveiling, Eddie Boka, leader of the dino-prototypes, falls victim to a dark compulsion. His desperate overseers call in Dr. Adelaide LaTour, a therapist rejected by mainstream psychiatry for her wildly unorthodox methods. Sparks fly from the moment the ill-matched pair meet. But Eddie and Adelaide’s mutual antagonism soon takes a back seat to threats from deadly mercenaries and from something far worse, the monstrous byproducts of genetic engineering gone horribly wrong.

Review

Thank you to Angry Robot for the physical review copy!

A group of four have been genetically and surgically modified with traits and scales from our prehistoric apex predators. This is meant to be the next step in warfare, a way to up the ante, but also a way to ultimately protect lives. Naturally, there are some rather strange side effects when you attempt to turn humans into something else. 

As the blurb mentions, the novel opens up with a bit of a mishap. Eddie Boka, the poster boy for Project Saurian, has accidentally given into his T-Rex-infused DNA and cannibalized an enemy solider during his first live mission. In the fear of the information leaking, or the project missing its launch date, extreme therapist Addi LaTour is brought in. The hope is that her method of shock therapy will be enough to train Eddie out of it. But Eddie’s upbeat, overcome-it-all attitude has created a spark that transcends typically patient-doctor transference. There’s something more between them, and although romance isn’t the focal point, it does propel this journey. 

To be honest, other than the use of dino DNA, I think the “perfect for fans of Jurassic Park” may be a bit out there for some readers. It doesn’t go so heavy on the actual science it took to get the dino-humans to the stage they’re at, so this falls more into the realm of thriller. Although the later fights definitely have the vibe. But also, how do you even classify something like this? It doesn’t even really follow the natural flow of a novel at times either, and yet I found it works. It is intriguing enough that even when it isn’t fast it’s good, and when it took off it didn’t stop until it ended. Fast, brutal, and with intriguing deception I really was not expecting. 

A military thriller meets science fiction. A blend of billionaire gone wrong and medical/scientific advancement. I really wondered how the science would make it all work. Like wouldn’t their bodies refuse the foreign changes? Never a bad job when a book intrigues you! 

This novel also opened up the debate of cannibalism. The dino-humans started as naturally born human males, but since the transfusions and surgeries, they are kind of classified as something other. That includes in the public eye, with many labeling them as freaks. So it just kept standing out every time I read the word—if they aren’t being considered humans anymore, is it even really cannibalism? While it remains disturbing and unacceptable regardless, I wondered what it would be called otherwise. Where does science take that step past alteration and actual end up making something new?