Keeping Up With The Lutzes: Home Before Dark by Riley Sager

I love Riley Sager.  Dude knows how to twist an ending and let me tell you, I am hard to surprise but he can pull it off.  I'd been waiting for months on his newest novel and hoovered it up in about 12 hours. God bless the Brooklyn Public Library.  If you want to get a look at his previous stuff, I'm including a handy link over here.  Please note I'm switching to Goodreads pages for links now.  They have links to various other sites where you can check out or buy the book.

Home Before Dark is a mixed bag of mystery, a big old Gothic house with a history of deaths and disappearances, and sort of an homage to Amityville.  If you're the type that yawns and says "but haunted houses and murder mysteries have been done to *death*", then I suggest you either give up now or accept that you haven't read Riley Sager's version and come enjoy the ambiance.  I love a good old-school ghost story, myself.  No buckets of gore or people picking which body part has to be stapled to a ceiling fan or somesuch.

Our heroine is one Maggie Holt, an interior designer who flips houses and who, by the way, fled her home in the middle of the night when she was five because her family was attacked by vicious ghosts.  At least, that's what her dad's "I didn't make this #@*& up, I promise" tell-all book says, anyway.  This infamous book has followed Maggie her whole life, though she can't remember anything from the few short weeks her family spent in Baneberry Manor.

What do you do when your parents try to one-up the Lutzes? Call them on their b.s., that's what.  But all of Maggie's questions about her missing days and the supernatural smorgasbord of a novel go unanswered.  Her parents divorced after the book came out.  People followed her around, asking if she really saw ghosts, can she talk to ghosts, can she maybe get a message to Uncle Rick about their missing cat, ad nauseum.

Then her dad dies and Maggie gets a very disturbing inheritance:  the home they abandoned all those years ago is still owned by her father.  And he's been going back, every year on the anniversary of their "escape."  Ignoring his final words of warning, she heads back to the house to start making it ready to sell.  But the town is still pissed about the stain their father left on its reputation, her neighbors don't believe she's quite as amnesiac as she says and suddenly the strange events from her father's book are weaving into memories.  The record player turning itself on upstairs.  Servants' bells in the kitchen ringing on their own. And the creepiest thing - her armoire opening to eject ghosts, including Mister Shadow (I pictured a shorter Babadook), a ghost girl (presumably the former owner's daughter who died under mysterious circumstances) and most disturbingly, a dead woman whose eyes are nailed shut with coins placed over them.

Basically, stand this upright, make it mobile and tuck it into that pile of stuffed animals.

The voices alternate between chapters of her father's book and Maggie's present experiences as she tries to reconcile the terrifyingly real crap happening now with the book she's completely dismissed as a hoax for her whole life. Why was her father hanging onto a house he was adamant his own family should never live in again?  Are her night terrors actually memories that she'd been repressing? And what kind of ghost is this attached to a damn record of "Sixteen, Going On Seventeen"? (Really, I'd have expected Springsteen at the least.) 
Every time I thought I'd made up my mind that the answer to everything was right there, it turned up about six feet to the left and three miles away.  I was constantly on edge reading her dad's chapters, even though I didn't know if he was just trying to make bank or if there really was some kind of DeFeo house level of crazy going on.  The ending completely threw me, but it was nicely tied up (always appreciate that) and I can say this was the most interesting haunted house I've read about in a very long time.  Climb in and see if you can figure out who's telling the truth - just make sure that closet's closed over there, would you?

2019's In-Lieu List

Hello, readers.   I could give a lot of reasons I haven't updated in a long time - some of them are reasons we all share for not being particularly motivated right now - but I'm going to get right to it.


I read some very good stuff last year that I need to pass on, so in (temporary) lieu of full reviews, I wanted to share a list of my top reads from 2019.  Each one has a handy link to its Goodreads page instead of Amazon, since I don't presume everybody wants or has the means to make purchases right now.  I love Goodreads and I often use my to-read list to look for books I can borrow from various libraries.  Here's the list - I've noted a few things, such as format and audience if it's not adult fiction.  Please comment if you have something (spoiler-free) to add about any of the books or would like to recommend to me and the other viewers.  Here's hoping for a more productive season - stay safe and keep reading.

1. Doctor Who: Nothing O'Clock (Doctor Who 50th Anniversary E-Shorts #11)    Neil Gaiman
2. Harrow County Volume 1: Countless Haints    Cullen Bunn *graphic novel*
3. Recursion    Blake Crouch
4. The Last Time I Lied    Riley Sager
5. Hangman    Jack Heath
6. Just One Bite   Jack Heath *sequel to Hangman*
7. Jacaranda (The Clockwork Century, #6)    Cherie Priest  *short, ok to read alone if you haven't read the series*
8. This Body's Not Big Enough for Both of Us    Edgar Cantero
9. The Cape    Jason Ciaramella  *graphic novel*
10. The Guild Volume 1    Felicia Day  *graphic novel*
11. Elevation    Stephen King  *short*
12. Yesterday    Felicia Yap
13. Nyctophobia    Christopher Fowler
14. Ghosts of Gotham    Craig Schaefer
15. Cold Spectrum (Harmony Black, #4)    Craig Schaefer
16. Glass Predator (Harmony Black, #3)    Craig Schaefer
17. Red Knight Falling (Harmony Black, #2)    Craig Schaefer
18. Harmony Black (Harmony Black, #1)    Craig Schaefer
19. Cari Mora    Thomas  Harris
20. The Accident Season    Moira Fowley-Doyle  *YA lit*
21. Small Spaces (Small Spaces, #1)    Katherine Arden  *kids lit*
22. Invasive    Chuck Wendig
23. Zeroes    Chuck Wendig
24. Someone Like Me    M.R. Carey
25. Jane Steele    Lyndsay Faye
26. Truly Devious (Truly Devious, #1)    Maureen Johnson
27. Alice Isn't Dead    Joseph Fink
28. The Suicide Motor Club    Christopher Buehlman

Slasher Girls & Monster Boys, stories chosen by April Genevieve Tucholke

I almost never recommend short story collections.  It's usually because I can't justify telling someone to watch a dozen little mind-movies when half of them seem pointless or hackneyed.  I'm writing this review because I just got punched by one of the best YA collections I've found in years.  YEARS.  Good horror and good short stories make my day.  This book just slammed them together in the best way and I could not find a bad story in the bunch.  Not one.  This is not a book, it's a frigging unicorn.  A really creepy unicorn.  Maybe this one:

I'm guessing this one isn't powered by giggles and joy.

 Anyway, the YA genre has certainly come a long way and gets a lot more gruesome than it did back in my day (sorry, Mr. Pike), but it seems paranormal romance (aka "my boyfriend is hot and toothy") has gotten spread around like hybrid herpes and the horror genre itself hasn't really been properly bringing its kid sibling along.  I decided to give this one a chance because of, well, the cover alone:

 Even if YA's not your prime choice, SGMB has *chops*, with everything from shapeshifting vigilantes to mountain legends to zombie comedy and while some of it wasn't especially brand-new subjects, all of it gave me some creeps, some new authors to look for and, in places, a longing for the good old horror that swept in before torture and remakes took over. Some of the stories may be what you consider typical fare for a collection.  A Lewis Carroll-inspired story is almost par for the horror course, I think, but Carrie Ryan's "In The Forest Dark and Deep" made my skin crawl and I now desperately need to avoid teacups.   The very last story, a revenge piece called "On The I-5" by Kendare Blake, felt so clear and cold to me that I wanted to see it on a screen, to see if the diner lights and desert grave were that vivid *outside* my head. (I just received a reply from Ms. Blake saying this story is being adapted to film, so buckle up and keep an eye out.)


A feature that made my day as well was the bit of info at the end of each story, written upside down:  the film, book or song that inspired the author.  There's a bit of everything in here, from slasher movies to classic novels to a Nirvana song that I had to actually Google.  Some of the stories' inspirations are easy to spot, others not so much.

TL:DR Tucholke knows how to pick 'em and this book has a flight of tastes that kept me reading.

A Taste For Monsters by Matthew J. Kirby

London, circa 1888.  A would-be nurse disfigured by phosphorus.  A dude with a head so big he would snap his neck by lying down.  An infamous killer and the ghosts of his victims.  Welcome to Matthew Kirby's 19th century.  I was today years old when I realized this is the most aptly-named book I’ve met lately; a person with a taste for monsters of any sort, spectral or alarmingly human or just misunderstood, is the ideal reader here.

Our heroine Evelyn is homeless after losing her job in a match factory.  A match that will strike anywhere was deemed worthy of a few missing jaws, and she is gobsmacked (pun intended) with a rowdy case of phossy-jaw (phosphorus jaw).  The doctor was able to save part of her jawbone and some teeth, so she feels lucky.  The simple fact that *that* is considered lucky should tell you where this is going. Just go with me when I say the condition is horrifying and it’s unlikely she would be able to chew gum or stop scaring small children anytime soon.  I of course Googled the term and promptly lost my appetite for several hours, but if you feel the need, go for it. 

She wears a shawl draped over part of her face and wants to find somewhere to hide away so she can stop feeling like nightmare fuel.  After scraping by on the streets for some time, she’s off to London Hospital to apply for a nursing job.  With no credentials and a face that only a butterknife would love, it’s no surprise she is turned down.  What is surprising is the job she is offered – attendant to a special reclusive patient.  This is generally when people say “uhhhh, no” but the jawless can’t be chewers – I mean choosers, sorry - and Evelyn accepted.  Her patient? Joseph Merrick, also known as the Elephant Man. I presumed the matron’s idea was that they will either accept each other as equally disturbing and be cool with the arrangement, or they will feel even worse together and perhaps form a suicide pact.  Either way, he finally has someone willing to come attend to him all day and she has a hiding place.

As you might expect, Evelyn sees this dude in various states of undress and goes off her feed for a while, but eventually the two become good friends.  Just as things are getting about as normal as you can get in this situation, strange apparitions start popping up every night and scaring the living trunk off Joseph.  Given that it’s the late summer and early fall of 1888 in London, it’s not hard to put two and two together in an alley with a uterus and see Jack the Ripper’s handiwork.  But why are the ghosts throwing themselves at a shut-in who can’t even get around town? He recruits Evelyn to help put the spirits to rest.

The reason I liked this book – despite some nauseating descriptive bits – is that it does not just twirl around advising readers “look beyond physical form because scary people are cool” with nothing substantial underneath.  That’s good advice but it’s not exactly protein for a reader who loves historical fiction with ghosts and mysteries.

A note:  I confess I’m a big fan of Ripper-related fiction and I loved that he was part of the story without turning it into a gore-fest.  If you need the whole story to turn around him, give this a pass and try Mike Resnick’s Redchapel.  If you’re cool with him being a large piece of the kidney pie but not the whole pan, A Taste for Monsters should do the trick.

Frances Hardinge's A Face Like Glass

You know you look great. Great. Painfully stunning. Then the person waiting for you looks up and their face says you are the last thing they want to see and possibly you also have half a biscuit stuck in your teeth.

It sucks to see disappointment, fear (unless you are trying to scare someone) or disgust (maybe you picked that nose on purpose, who knows) on a face, but it's still information to help us process the situation.

We need people's faces - nonverbal communication typically counting for more than half of the information exchanged in our conversations to give us clues.  Now imagine a society where everyone just has a series of learned configurations to represent everything they are feeling or thinking.  It's somewhere between this at birth:

or maybe these guys later, depending on your financial state because learning new expressions actually costs money.

   In A Face Like Glass, we meet Neverfell, a preteen orphan with a past she can't remember, who is growing up in Caverna, a sprawling underground civilisation that was created after horrible things devastated the cities on the surface.  Many generations later, the inhabitants still don't believe it is safe to leave so they party/drudge/court eyesight problems and asthma in their city below.  It's a very hierarchical scene with drudges doing all the dirty work, tradesmen making delicacies just to keep their ruler The Steward from getting bored and nobility playing mind games.

   Of course there's a statement about injustice and entitlement, but the part of the book that just kept fascinating me and creeping me right the hell out was the facial thing. Caverna infants come out "blank as eggs" and are taught a few expressions during their time in massive crèches. Lower-class babies are taught about what you'd expect for a servant (i.e., automaton who can't complain), usually amounting to only 3 or 4 expressions.  No matter if they are sick, dying, furious, joyful or what; they can only make the "I'm eager to serve" or "I understand your need to punish me" or "I'm happy that I sleep on rocks" faces. Upper-class kids are given more and can buy lessons from Facesmiths ("Face 57, the Willow Bows Before the Gale" is an actual thing) as they get older.

   The unique Neverfell has a 'face like glass,' in that it allows you to see through to whatever she is thinking or feeling. No Facesmiths required, lots of suspicions raised. Of course this makes her very special and very upsetting to the status quo.  When she gets caught up in a rich girl's scheme, Neverfell starts seeing things she can't unsee and finding out more about who she is - and why it's so important that nobody rocks The Steward's boat.

   Her story was frustrating at times but that actually worked to make it more believable. Of course someone's going to get busted half a dozen times when they have no Face 372, Dawn Breaking Over Ohio or whatever to cover up their intentions. Hardinge does a good job of building a world that is sprawling and vivid - it startled me all over again when someone's carriage was hoisted from cave to cave or people fed the lamps hanging over everything. I felt like I was right there (and then remembered I was also claustrophobic.  Maybe don't read this in a small, enclosed space.)

   Usually I refuse to recommend post-apocalyptic stories but this was so far post and the scenario was so strange that I just have to tell people to read it. Also there's no teen romance, vampires or boarding schools, so if you're inundated with all three, this is a nice break.  Hope you enjoy the book, try Hardinge's other work or, at the very least, feel relieved that all those cringeworthy selfie faces didn't have to be paid for.

Dreadful Skin

I love books that take a real-life mysterious event and give it a much cooler explanation.  Cherie Priest pulls that off

John Dies @ The End - the title with the cool "at" sign - by David Wong

Thank you to my friend Jolie for mentioning this book with the cryptic warning "weeeiirrrrd stuff, that one."  That got me motoring to the library and I've never regretted it.  I haven't read anything this funny since my serendipitous meeting with Christopher Moore's You Suck: A Love Story a few years ago.

Mapping Cherie Priest's Chattanooga: the Eden Moore trilogy

After reading Cherie's most recent work, Boneshaker, I was completely caught up in the north Pacific coast.

So I picked up her first book about Eden Moore and was completely blindsided that it was set in Chattanooga, Tennessee.  (Ha, I hear my friend Joe groaning.)