Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories ReviewsLeave a comment on Review: The House At Black Tooth Pond by Stephen Mark Rainey Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories ReviewsLeave a comment on Review: Victorian Psycho by Virginia Feito 
Victorian Psycho by Virginia Feito
Liveright (February 2025)
Reviewed by Haley Newlin
Victorian Psycho is soon to be a feature film from the horror fan-favorite A24, starring Margaret Qualley (The Substance). I heard the news before picking up Virginia Feito’s psychological and gothic horror debut, so I enjoyed envisioning Qualley as the bloodthirsty Ensor governess, Winifred Notty. This read was one of those rare instances where every responsibility of life feels like an interruption. I could not get back to it quickly enough. Continue Reading
Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories ReviewsLeave a comment on Review: Alex’s Escape by L. Andrew Cooper 
Alex’s Escape by L. Andrew Cooper
Horrific Scribblings (February 2025)
Reviewed by Chandra Claypool (Instagram) (TikTok)
“Fourteen-year-old psychopath Alex Packard has his own house, a shadow version of his parents’ house that THEY help him build.” That alone caught my attention immediately. Alex takes his victims there to kill them in the most entertaining of ways with his final victims in his hometown being his own parents. Police can’t catch him because there’s no physical evidence to tie him to the crimes. What happens in his house, doesn’t happen the exact same way in the real world.Continue Reading
Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories ReviewsLeave a comment on Review: Bury Your Gays by Chuck Tingle 
Bury Your Gays by Chuck Tingle
Tor Nightfire (July 2024)
Reviewed by Haley Newlin
Bury Your Gays was my first Chuck Tingle read. The cover features Hollywood’s bright colors, palm trees, and a bloodied sledgehammer to break apart the pretense of glamor. The imagery reminds me of Ti West’s characters, Maxine and Pearl, and their fierce fight for fame.Continue Reading
Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories ReviewsLeave a comment on Review: American Rapture by C.J. Leede 
American Rapture by C.J. Leede
Tor Nightfire (October 2024)
Reviewed by Chandra Claypool (Instagram) (TikTok)
A virus is spreading across America, transforming the infected and making them feral with lust. Sophie, a good Catholic girl, must traverse the hellscape of the midwest to try to find her family while the world around her burns. Along the way she discovers there are far worse fates than dying a virgin.
Let me just say that I’ve heard about C.J. Leede from just about everyone I know who reads the same genres that I do. First, it was about Maeve Fly (which is on my to-be-read list) and then this beautifully covered read, American Rapture. After turning the last page, not knowing my breath had been held for so long, I can certainly see why this book has become so popular, so quickly.Continue Reading
Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories ReviewsLeave a comment on Review: Wake Up And Open Your Eyes by Clay McLeod Chapman 
Wake Up And Open Your Eyes by Clay McLeod Chapman
Quirk Books (January 2025)
Reviewed by Chandra Claypool (Instagram) (TikTok)
Holy smokes, folks! What did I just read?! Readers, oh readers. This is a hard review to write because there is just so much to say but I’ll keep it as simple as possible. Let’s take a look at this “fast-paced supernatural horror novel about a mass demonic possession epidemic that spreads through the internet.”Continue Reading
Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories ReviewsLeave a comment on Review: Grim Root by Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam 
Grim Root by Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam
Dark Matter INK (October 2024)
Reviewed by Chandra Claypool (Instagram) (TikTok)
Touted as a “humorous gothic horror novel pitched as The Bachelor meets The Haunting of Hill House,” this novel definitely delivered on the first part and somewhat on the latter. In this novel, a “group of women on a reality TV dating show must compete for the hand of an eligible bachelor by spending a week in a haunted house.” Sign me up! I absolutely love this idea for a plot. Reality shows are a great setting for some devious and illicit things to occur. Continue Reading
Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories ReviewsLeave a comment on Review: Shadowplay (Book 1): Midnight School by Samuel Fonseca 
Shadowplay (Book 1): Midnight School by Samuel Fonseca
Top Shelf Productions (February 11, 2025)
Reviewed by Joshua Gage
Sam Fonseca has been drawing comics since he discovered that the anime he watched on TV as a child came from manga — and that it was possible to create all that stuff by himself using paper and pencil (still his tools of choice). Nowadays, he alternates duties between art direction, storyboard art, script writing for animation and TV projects, and creating comics. His comic project Age of Rust was nominated three times for the HQMix Prize, and his other title, Dynamite & Laser Beam, won in the “best webcomic” category. Sam also has the strange hobby of creating soundtracks for his comics. His newest collection is the dystopian nightmare, Shadowplay. Continue Reading
Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories ReviewsLeave a comment on Review: The Ill-Fitting Skin by Shannon Robinson 
The Ill-Fitting Skin by Shannon Robinson
Press 53 (May 2024)
Reviewed by Chandra Claypool (Instagram) (TikTok)
Twelve stories about women navigating their everyday situations, each a unique story covering different areas of a woman’s life. We get tales of a mother whose baby bites a lot and how she tries to handle the situation. A woman who gives birth to rabbits and instead of this being a strange thing, it’s a tale of misunderstanding. There’s even a story that gives you that “choose your own adventure” feel where you have to shuffle through pages to see what may come up. The best part of this is where the author sometimes chastises you for making a decision — or at least it feels this way. I found this to be very humorous and a lot of fun. Continue Reading
Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories ReviewsLeave a comment on Review: Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix 
Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix
Berkley (January 14, 2025)
Reviewed by Haley Newlin
Great horror reflects the societal fears of its time. In the 1950s, fear of the unknown and the atomic age inspired classics like Richard Matherson’s I Am Legend and Invasion of the Body Snatchers by Jack Finney. In the 1960s, distrust in the government worsened, and many feared mental illness and occultism, giving birth to Robert Bloch’s Psycho and Ira Levin’s Rosemary’s Baby. In Witchcraft For Wayward Girls, Grady Hendrix speaks to the evolution of these social anxieties and unrest but prioritizes an often suppressed point of view: women’s.Continue Reading
Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories ReviewsLeave a comment on Review: The Axe Remembers: A Redwood Ripper Story by Marcus Hawke 
The Axe Remembers: A Redwood Ripper Story by Marcus Hawk
Hawke Haus Books (July 2024)
Reviewed by Chandra Claypool (Instagram) (TikTok)
Welcome to Vancouver Island, where the crew of a timber mill gathers. Unbeknownst to them, the urban legend of The Redwood Ripper is all too real and they’re about to get the sharp end of the axe. The legend is that this vengeful spirit “haunts the wild and hunts those that take more from it than they give.” The trees remember, and so does The Redwood Ripper’s axe.Continue Reading
Six O’Clock House & Other Strange Tales by Rebecca Cuthbert
Watertower Hill Publishing (January 21, 2025)
Reviewed by Joshua Gage
Rebecca Cuthbert is a dark fiction and poetry writer living in western New York. She loves ghost stories, folklore, witchy women, and anything that involves nature getting revenge. Her debut poetry collection, In Memory of Exoskeletons (Alien Buddha Press, 2023) won a 2024 Imadjinn Award for Best Poetry Collection; the poems “Still Love” and “Bloodthirsty” were nominated for the Pushcart Prize, and “Still Love” was also nominated for a Best of the Net Award. CREEP THIS WAY: How to Become a Horror Writer With 24 Steps to Get You Ghouling (Seamus & Nunzio Productions, 2024) was nominated for a Golden Scoop Award. Her hybrid fiction and poetry collection of feminist horrors, Self-Made Monsters, is out from Alien Buddha Press. Her newest collection is a book of literary-speculative stories, Six O’Clock House & Other Strange Tales.Continue Reading
Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories ReviewsLeave a comment on Review: Midnight Lullabies by Jonathan Maberry 
Midnight Lullabies by Jonathan Maberry
WordFire Press LLC (September 2024)
Reviewed by Joshua Gage
The name Jonathan Maberry is known to horror and speculative readers far and wide. He is a New York Times bestselling author, 5-time Bram Stoker Award-winner, 3-time Scribe Award winner, Inkpot Award winner, anthology editor, writing teacher, and comic book writer. He writes in multiple genres including suspense, thriller, horror, science fiction, epic fantasy, and action; and he writes for adults, teens and middle grade. His newest collection is Midnight Lullabies.Continue Reading
Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories ReviewsLeave a comment on Review: A Mask of Flies by Matthew Lyons 
A Mask of Flies by Matthew Lyons
Tor Nightfire (August 2024)
Reviewed by Chandra Claypool (Instagram) (TikTok)
Let’s meet Anne Heller. The opening of this book places her in a bank heist gone wrong. She is caught literally in the crossfire. But Anne isn’t quite the killer and instead injures a police officer who she then takes hostage because hey, witnesses and all that. From here we get thrust into a crazy world that starts at her family’s cabin that she decides to hole up in. We soon learn that this abode isn’t quite as deserted as she thought it would be and the presence that also resides there is not to be messed with.Continue Reading
Thunderstruck: A Dark Poetry Collection by Sandy DeLuca, Alex S. Johnson, and Alea Celeste Williams
Independently Published (October 2024)
Reviewed by Joshua Gage
Thunderstruck describes itself as “A witchy, pagan, erotic, just right for Halloween poetry collection by critically acclaimed authors, artists and poets.” This is a very appropriate description as the bulk of the poems are witchy and pagan in origin.Continue Reading
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