A Book A Week

As October draws to a close (seriously, how is the month already over?), I’m wrapping up my annual attempt to cram in as many spooky reads as possible. Inevitably, my “to be read” stack is still taller than the list of books I’ve actually finished, but with one day left in the month, I was determined to squeeze in just one more. The perfect pick appeared in Ghosts of Grayhaven by Amy Newbold and Lark Wright. It’s a quick, ghostly novella tailor-made for the season. Even better, Lark Wright happens to be one of my most trusted book-blogging buddies. Knowing her taste, I had a feeling I was in for a treat.

Mariah has arrived in Grayhaven, a small Pacific Northwest town that feels like it was plucked straight from a Hallmark movie, with a singular focus. She’s been hired by an anonymous client to locate the grave of Bartholomew Krane, chip away at its inscription, and recite an ancient spell. It sounds absurd… if she actually believed in any of it. For Mariah, it’s simply another job.

But things change when she meets Zeb, a local who’s inherited his family’s long-standing duty to protect the very grave Mariah’s been sent to deface. When she carries out her assignment, Mariah unknowingly unleashes a vengeful spirit with centuries-old rage. Now, she and Zeb—along with his loyal dog, Moose—must find a way to put the spirit to rest before the entire town becomes its next victim.

Ghosts of Grayhaven is the perfect little novella to cap off spooky season. It’s a quick read with a clever plot that flows effortlessly from page to page. Sure, it leans on a few familiar tropes, but that’s part of its charm. Author duo Amy Newbold and Lark Wright, sisters who were inspired by their shared hobby of exploring old cemeteries, infuse the story with both heart and atmosphere. I was instantly drawn in and read the entire novella in a single sitting. Ghosts of Grayhaven delivers adventure, humor, a touch of will-they-won’t-they romance, and just the right amount of spooky to satisfy even the most cautious readers. It’s a reminder that sometimes the best stories to end spooky season aren’t the scariest ones, but the ones that make you smile when you turn the final page.

For more information, visit Amy Newbold's website, Lark Wright's blog, Amazon, and Goodreads.

(2025, 86)

Some authors are born to tell stories. Joe Hill practically had no choice. As the son of Stephen King, he could’ve coasted on a famous name, but instead, he built his own empire of horror and heartbreak. Over the years, he’s crafted sprawling, genre-bending novels like N0S4A2 and The Fireman that left a lasting impression on me. It’s been several years since his last release, so I’ve been not-so-patiently waiting for another. That wait finally ended this week with King Sorrow, a nearly 900-page behemoth that draws on Arthurian legend to thrill, haunt, and completely consume readers anew. 

To attempt to summarize the breadth of King Sorrow would be futile. It’s an epic in every sense, sprawling across twenty-five years and a cast of six central characters whose fates are bound by blood, guilt, and something far older than any of them can comprehend. But here’s the gist. Arthur is a student and aspiring author working in his university’s library when he crosses paths with a group of shady opportunists. Their plan? To steal from the library’s collection of rare and historic books and sell the treasures for a quick profit.

Desperate to free himself from the mess he’s been dragged into, Arthur turns to his closest friends for help. Together, they hatch a plan that blurs the line between legend and madness. They plot to use one of the stolen texts—a centuries-old volume known as the Crane Journal, said to be bound in the very skin of its author—to summon a dragon to protect them. But their wish comes with a cost. To keep the dragon’s loyalty, they must offer it a soul every year. Fail to pay the price, and the creature will simply feast on one of their own instead. 

King Sorrow finds Joe Hill doing what he does best, spinning a story rich with mythology, layered characters, and a truly terrifying dragon at its core. When Hill’s publisher offered me a copy to review, I was hesitant at first. For someone who reads a book a week, a novel clocking in at nearly 900 pages is no small commitment. But I trusted Hill, and for the first few hundred pages, that trust felt well placed. The story moved with energy and confidence, rewarding my patience with moments of pure awe.

But then it kept going. And going. Somewhere around the midpoint, my connection to the characters and the story began to wane. The highs of this book are undeniable—there are scenes that will absolutely take your breath away—but the sheer length dulled their impact for me. It’s an epic with an epic scale, and I suspect many readers will be completely swept away by it. I just wasn’t one of them.

Hill has said he plans to release a new book every year for the next decade, promising the next one will be shorter. As a longtime fan, I’ll be there for it. For now, King Sorrow was simply too much book for me to handle.

For more information, visit the author's website, Amazon, and Goodreads. 

(2025, 85)

When I was a young reader in high school, struggling to slog through my required literature (looking at you, The Canterbury Tales), my mom encouraged me to pick up a book just for fun. She handed me a tattered paperback of one of John Grisham’s early legal thrillers, and I was instantly hooked. The rest, as they say, is history.

I’ve been a Grisham fan ever since, eagerly anticipating his annual release. As I grew into a book reviewer and blogger, I became even luckier when his publisher began sending me copies of his newest novels. This year’s release, The Widow, sees the seasoned author take on his first true mystery. I breezed through it easily, and I suspect you will too.

When you picture a lawyer, you probably imagine someone sharp in a tailored suit, working from a corner office high above the city—successful, confident, and well-paid. But for every wealthy attorney, there are a dozen small-town lawyers just scraping by. Simon Latch is one of them. His marriage is falling apart, he’s drowning in gambling debt, and his rural Virginia practice barely pays the bills.

So when elderly widow Eleanor Barnett walks into his office asking him to draft a will, Simon barely takes notice. It’s just another routine job. He'll have his secretary type it up, collect the $250 fee, and move on. But when Eleanor confides that she secretly holds a small fortune in Walmart and Coca-Cola stock, Simon’s ears perk up. She has no living relatives, and no one else knows about her wealth. For Simon, it feels like fate has just handed him a way out.

He begins charming the widow, taking her to lunch, and assuring her he’s the right man to help manage her affairs. Once the will is signed—with a generous sum left to him for his “trouble”—all he has to do is wait. But cracks soon start to form in his perfect plan. Eleanor’s fortune comes into question, she’s involved in a shocking car crash, and before long, Simon finds himself on trial for a crime he swears he didn’t commit. Did his greed finally catch up with him, or is an innocent man about to take the fall?

The Widow feels like classic John Grisham in all the right ways. There’s a morally conflicted lawyer at its center, sharp and fast-paced writing, and courtroom drama that keeps you perched on the edge of your seat. And for the first time, Grisham dives headfirst into a full-on murder mystery. This isn’t a whodunnit so much as a did he do it—think Presumed Innocent by Scott Turow.

The story takes its time setting up the central drama, but the slow build pays off. By the time Simon stands trial, we’re as uncertain of his guilt as the jury itself. That uncertainty fuels a tense, compulsive read that doesn’t loosen its grip until the very last page. The Widow is pure entertainment from a master storyteller still at the top of his game.

For more information, visit the author's website, Amazon, and Goodreads. 

(2025, 84)

Who is Alfie Logan? He’s sitting in an interrogation room in the Bahamas, accused of rigging a roulette game for a staggering two million dollars. After three winning spins in a row, there can be no other explanation. At least, that’s what veteran gambling-fraud detective Vincent LaPorta believes. But is the frail, elderly man across from him really a criminal mastermind? That’s what LaPorta intends to find out.

Instead of mounting a defense, Alfie slides a thick notebook across the table, a handwritten account of his life. “All the answers,” he insists, “are in there.”

Reluctantly, LaPorta begins to read, and what he discovers defies reason. Alfie claims he has a gift. He's bestowed with the ability to relive a moment simply by uttering one word—twice. But the power comes with two unbreakable rules. First, you only get one shot at a second chance. It sticks, for better or worse. Second, you can’t use it for love. Go back, and the person who once loved you will never love you again.

Even second chances, it seems, come at a price. How Alfie used his gift—and what brought him to that interrogation room—is a story you’ll have to read to believe.

When I first picked up Mitch Albom’s latest novel Twice, I couldn’t shake a sense of déjà vu. At first, I thought it was because the idea of getting a second chance at life echoed Matt Haig’s bestselling The Midnight Library. But then I realized Albom has explored similar territory before. His book,  For One More Day, asks, “What would you do if you could spend one more day with a person you've lost?”

In Twice, Albom expands that second-chance mythology, giving his protagonist the power to redo moments throughout his life. It’s an intriguing twist that pulled me in quickly. Albom doesn’t necessarily break new ground here, and that’s okay. His storytelling has always carried a sense of moral clarity and hope, and that’s on full display. Even if you’ve read variations of this story before, there’s comfort in the way he tells it. It’s the kind of book that invites you to pause and reflect on your own “what ifs,” reminding you that sometimes, once is enough.

For more information, visit the author's website, Amazon, and Goodreads. 

(2025, 83)

We’re deep into October now, and while the Texas heat refuses to loosen its grip, I’m not letting that stop me from sinking into some spooky reads. I first discovered Ania Ahlborn’s work last year with her deeply disturbing yet surprisingly moving novel, Brother. I was struck by the way she blended gruesome horror with emotionally complex characters, and I vowed to read more from her. Ahlborn's newest release, The Unseen, trades the slasher-style terror of Brother for something more insidious. It's a domestic horror story that festers in paranoia and the quiet unraveling of ordinary life.

Isla Hansen is trapped in the kind of grief only a mother who has lost a child can know. Her husband, Luke, and their five remaining children can do little to console her. Everything shifts when an orphaned boy appears on the outskirts of their secluded Colorado property. The child is strange. There’s no other word for it. His features are angular, almost otherworldly, and he’s completely mute, apparently traumatized by whatever horrors he faced before being found. At least, that’s what the social worker says.

Luke can’t shake the sense of unease the boy brings with him, but for grieving Isla, his arrival feels like an answer to her prayers. With no family of his own, she’s convinced they can offer him a home and make him the sixth child in their lives, completing their family once and for all.

But as the boy settles in, strange things begin to happen. Luke and the children notice unsettling details—small at first, then impossible to ignore—signs that something is deeply wrong inside their home. And the more the Hansens try to understand who the boy really is, the closer they edge toward a truth far darker than they ever imagined.

With The Unseen, Ania Ahlborn writes the kind of horror that seeps under your skin, unsettling you from somewhere deep within. It’s a deceptively simple setup. The story feels familiar. We’ve all read or watched versions of the “creepy child enters an unsuspecting family’s life” trope. But in Ahlborn’s hands, it becomes something more.

The Unseen isn’t just a horror story. It’s a meditation on grief, family, and the loss of innocence. It’s a slow burn, one that compels you forward through rich character work and a suffocating sense of paranoia that lurks beneath every page. By the time you grasp the full extent of the horror, it’s already too late. I didn’t love the way things wrapped up, but I absolutely loved the lead-up. Ahlborn proves once again that she can twist familiar fears into something deeply personal and profoundly disturbing. Go ahead and add The Unseen to your spooky season reading list. You’ll be glad (and maybe a little terrified) that you did.

For more information, visit the author's website, Amazon, and Goodreads. 

(2025, 82)

In the spring of 2011, I was the kind of reader who mostly read out of necessity. My mom, a teacher, had instilled in us the value of reading for pleasure, but at that point, I was buried in college textbooks. The idea of picking up a book just for fun felt impossible. Still, there was a nagging thought that I could—and should—be reading more. I’d always loved mysteries and crime novels, but even that tried-and-true genre was failing to hold my attention.

That’s when I first heard about Daniel H. Wilson’s soon-to-be-published science fiction novel, Robopocalypse. Steven Spielberg had already snapped up the film rights and was reportedly planning a blockbuster adaptation. Intrigued, I started searching online for more information and stumbled across the book’s page on Goodreads. I read the summary, created an account, and even entered a giveaway for a copy. To my surprise, I won—and before long, a shiny prerelease hardcover of Robopocalypse arrived on my doorstep. Imagine that: an entire hardcover book, free of charge, no library involved!

I devoured the novel in just a few sittings, drawn in by Wilson’s blend of scientific plausibility, a sprawling cast of characters, and fast-paced thrills. And then something remarkable happened…I started reading more. Just for fun. A few months later, my blog A Book A Week was born, and the rest is history.

These days, my only limitation on how many books I can take on is time (and, of course, shelf space). I even find myself turning down offers from publishers, something 2011 me would never have dreamed of. But looking back, it’s wild to think it all started with Daniel H. Wilson’s debut. So, it should come as no surprise that when his publisher offered me a copy of his latest novel, Hole in the Sky, I couldn’t help but say yes.

Wilson’s latest novel follows four main characters, each with their own stake in humanity’s survival. First, there’s Jim Hardgray, living in Osage territory in Oklahoma. He’s been mostly absent from his thirteen-year-old daughter’s life and is desperate to mend their frayed relationship. In Houston, Dr. Mikayla Johnson works for NASA, keeping tabs on the Voyager spacecraft—a mission that time, and most of her colleagues, seem to have forgotten. Gavin Clark has dedicated his career to identifying and preparing for emerging weapons threats for the U.S. government. And then there’s the Man Downstairs, a shadowy government official who forecasts global threats from his basement bunker and is never wrong.

The titular “hole in the sky” reveals itself as an alien anomaly that draws these four lives together, setting them on a collision course with a threat unlike anything humanity has ever faced. What follows is a high-stakes race against time, blending the grounded science of Robopocalypse with the eerie wonder of first contact.

Hole in the Sky sees Daniel H. Wilson bring his scientific background and sharp storytelling skills to a novel that reads like a full-throttle action thriller. He balances the high-stakes threat to humanity with deeper character exploration, making us care about the people tasked with confronting the unknown. I flew through this one, eager to see how everything would shake out.

Wilson’s writing is reminiscent of the late Michael Crichton. He never lets the science get in the way of telling an entertaining story. Sure, things go a bit off the rails toward the end, but I was having so much fun that I didn’t really mind. Hole in the Sky is fast, cinematic, and thought-provoking in all the right ways. Revisiting an author who reignited my passion for reading felt a bit like coming full circle. It's a reminder of the thrill of losing yourself in a great story. Hole in the Sky is both a return to form and a celebration of everything that makes Wilson such a compelling storyteller.

For more information, visit the author's website, Amazon, and Goodreads. 

(2025, 81)

For 35 years, Patricia Cornwell has thrilled, educated, and horrified readers with her bestselling series featuring forensic pathologist Kay Scarpetta. I’ve been along for the ride through many of those books, always eager to check in with her familiar cast of characters. One of the things I’ve always admired about Cornwell is the way she grounds her stories in the present day, leaning into new technologies and finding fresh, believable ways to terrify her readers. Sharp Force, the 29th novel in the series, is no exception. It blends cutting-edge science, an intriguing mystery, and a cast that’s hard to resist. When the publisher offered me a copy, I jumped at the chance to see where Scarpetta’s latest case would lead.

There’s no rest for the weary, even on Christmas Eve, and Kay Scarpetta has long accepted that as fact. As the chief medical examiner for the state of Virginia, she’s used to being called in at inconvenient times. Her husband, Benton Wesley, is a secret agent, so the pair are accustomed to last-minute emergencies upending their plans. This year, though, they’ve vowed to finally take a vacation. It’s Christmas, after all. Kay just needs to finish one final autopsy, deliver the victim’s personal effects to the family, and she’ll be ready to relax. Benton has already called, delayed but not deterred by the winter storm hammering the city.

As she prepares to leave the office, Kay realizes the weather is far worse than she expected. And of course, she’s already promised to personally deliver the victim’s belongings to the family. It's a small act of compassion that reminds her that the people on her table are more than just bodies beneath her scalpel. Thankfully, Marino, the gruff former homicide detective turned investigator for the medical examiner’s office—and, awkwardly, Kay’s brother-in-law—arrives in his truck to chauffeur her across the city. He’s worked up, as usual, this time about the latest sighting of the “Phantom Slasher,” a figure who’s been terrorizing the city for months.

The slasher’s MO is chilling. He disables the victims’ Wi-Fi before attacking them in bed, brutally stabbing and biting them to death. Each scene is meticulously bleached to erase DNA evidence, and witnesses report seeing a ghostly figure in black levitating through the fog. Now, the phantom has been spotted at the home of TV journalist and eternal thorn in Kay’s side, Dana Deletti. Could Dana be the killer’s next victim? Kay isn’t sure, but she knows the media frenzy surrounding this case is about to explode. With the threat of another murder looming and a storm closing in, it’s clear her long-awaited vacation may be slipping further out of reach.

Sharp Force sees Patricia Cornwell firing on all cylinders, and it’s no wonder why. The 29th installment in the Kay Scarpetta series brings together everything longtime readers love, while still working perfectly as a standalone. That accessibility is what makes this series so enduring. You don’t have to read every book to follow along, but no matter where you dip in, you’re guaranteed to be entertained.

Cornwell has always been at the forefront of technology, treating each new innovation as an opportunity to elevate her mysteries and anchor them firmly in the present. In a world where any question can be answered with a quick search on the phone in our pocket, her ability to craft genuine enigmas feels especially impressive. In Sharp Force, the central threat—a seemingly ghostly apparition—is chilling. Kay knows, rationally, that ghosts aren’t real, but that doesn’t make facing one any easier. It’s that interplay between logic and raw human fear that fuels much of the story’s tension.

Cornwell ties it all together with an unsettling gothic setting at a psychiatric hospital and a cast of characters whose tangled relationships and emotions give the novel real depth. The result is a story as strong as any of the best in this long-running series. And with a TV adaptation of Scarpetta set to debut early next year, Sharp Force is a thrilling reminder of why I can’t get enough of this character.

For more information, visit the author's website, Amazon, and Goodreads. 

(2025, 80)

Richard Chizmar’s Chasing the Boogeyman has been sitting on my TBR for years. I first discovered Chizmar’s work through his collaboration with Stephen King on Gwendy’s Button Box. And while those books are still waiting for me too (anyone sensing a theme here?), I knew I wanted to start with Boogeyman. October felt like the perfect time to finally dive in. The novel is a kind of metafiction that draws on nostalgia for both the past and the childhood fears that never quite let us go. It seemed like the perfect book to read during spooky season.

It’s the summer of 1988, and recent college graduate Richard Chizmar has returned to his small Maryland hometown. The streets are familiar, but something feels different this time. A chill has settled over the quiet community. A killer is on the loose, targeting young women and sending waves of fear through the town. Chizmar arrives just as a curfew goes into effect and a neighborhood watch begins to form. He’s standing at a crossroads in life, preparing for marriage and trying to carve out his place as a fiction writer. But as the details of the murders emerge, the young journalism grad finds himself unable to look away. His curiosity turns to obsession as he begins documenting the terror around him.

Rumors soon swirl that the evil stalking local teens might not be entirely human. While law enforcement insists the killer is flesh and blood, the townspeople aren’t so sure. Whispers of something darker echo through the streets. Chizmar’s investigation blurs the line between reality and myth, and the deeper he digs, the more he questions what’s real. How much of the horror is born from the town’s fear, and how much from within himself? He’ll soon learn that the story he’s chasing may be far more personal than he ever imagined, and one that will haunt him for the rest of his life.

I have vivid childhood memories of the nightmares I used to have, figures moving through my house that were never actually there. But gosh, I was certain they were. It’s that very fear and paranoia that makes Chasing the Boogeyman so deeply unsettling. Chizmar casts himself as the main character in this piece of metafiction, giving the novel a sense of lived-in authenticity. It’s a haunting blend of nostalgia, horror, and true crime that compels readers to imagine the unimaginable. I couldn’t help but think, what if this happened in my own town? Chizmar blurs the line between reality and imagination, grounding his horror in a place that feels real—because it is. This is his hometown, his life. Only the murders and the monster are fiction. And maybe that’s why this story scares like no other. Chasing the Boogeyman is a triumph of originality, a book that lures us in with comfort and nostalgia before preying on our most primal fears.

For more information, visit the author's website, Amazon, and Goodreads. 

(2025, 79)

If ever there were an award for the most unexpected author–director pairing, Nicholas Sparks and M. Night Shyamalan might take the cake. Sparks is best known for his sweeping romantic dramas like The Notebook and A Walk to Remember, while Shyamalan built his career on eerie, twist-filled films like The Sixth Sense and Signs. On paper, they’re an unlikely duo. But according to Shyamalan, he’s long wanted to tell a romance story, and Sparks seemed like the perfect partner. Shyamalan conceived the story and wrote the screenplay, while Sparks developed the novel adaptation. The result is Remain, a supernatural love story that attempts to merge the sensibilities of both creators into one seamless, hauntingly heartfelt tale.

Architect Tate Donovan has traded the bustle of New York City for the quiet shores of Cape Cod. The move isn’t meant to be permanent, just a chance to reset after his release from an upscale psychiatric facility where he was treated for depression. Still reeling from the death of his sister, Sylvia, Tate can’t shake the weight of her final words. She claimed to see spirits tethered to the earth, a gift she insisted ran in their family. Tate doesn’t believe in such things, but her revelation lingers like a shadow he can’t quite escape.

Officially, Tate is on the Cape to design a home for an old friend. Unofficially, he’s searching for peace. He rents a room in a historic bed-and-breakfast, where he meets a mysterious young woman named Wren. Though he’s told he’s the only guest, Wren’s presence feels disarmingly natural. Soon, though, he begins to sense that something isn’t quite right. Beneath the charm of the seaside town, jealousy, greed, and buried secrets begin to surface, threatening to destroy their fragile connection. As Tate digs into Wren’s past, he finds himself questioning everything he knows about life, death, and love itself.

Although I’m familiar with the films of M. Night Shyamalan, this was my first encounter with the writing of Nicholas Sparks. Remain feels like a story caught between its two creators. It never fully commits to either the romance or the supernatural, and as a result, it comes across as half-baked. The novel touches on themes of grief, healing, and love, but not in ways that feel particularly fresh. It’s all just a little too familiar. And that’s a shame. Sparks has long excelled at crafting emotionally resonant characters, while Shyamalan has built a career on character-driven stories with clever twists. There are glimpses of that careful character work here, but the twists are easy to see coming. In the end, Remain feels like a missed opportunity. It's a story that aims for emotional depth and mystery but lands somewhere in between.

For more information, visit the author's website, Amazon, and Goodreads. 

(2025, 78)

It’s the 1990s, and video rental stores are king. In a small Iowa town, the mom-and-pop Video Hut holds its own against the threat of a shiny new Hollywood Video in the next city over. For Jeremy, who mans the counter, it’s not a bad gig. It's steady enough business to keep the lights on, and the owner, Sarah Jane, lets him watch as many movies as he wants. Things change when a customer returns a VHS of Targets, an old Boris Karloff film, claiming “something’s on it.” Jeremy dismisses it at first. After all, old tapes tend to wear out over time. But when another customer reports a similar issue on a copy of She’s All That, curiosity wins out.

In the middle of the rom-com, the screen briefly cuts to black before flickering into a black-and-white scene: a barn, a camera left running, the faint sound of someone breathing. Four minutes later, the movie resumes. Disturbed but transfixed, Jeremy rewinds and watches the clip repeatedly. The footage on Targets is similar—grainy, unsettling, and clearly made by the same hand. Worse, the barn looks awfully familiar, like one just outside town. Jeremy wants nothing to do with it, but once Sarah Jane sees the tapes, she urges him to dig deeper. For Jeremy and those around him, life in their quiet town will never be the same.

I have to admit, I’m still not sure I can make complete sense of John Darnielle’s Universal Harvester. The premise suggests a kind of found-footage horror story, but that’s not quite what the novel delivers. In fact, part of me felt a little betrayed by the summary. It wasn’t the story I expected going in. And yet, I tore through the book in just a couple of sittings, completely absorbed by Darnielle’s prose and the richly drawn characters he conjures. The question, of course, is to what end? Is this a nostalgic meditation, a story about grief, a slow-burning mystery laced with unease? Maybe it’s all three. Or maybe it’s none of them. In the end, Universal Harvester resists easy categorization, leaving readers to decide for themselves what it ultimately means. I guess some stories aren’t meant to resolve neatly. Some exist to make you question, haunting your thoughts long after you’ve closed the book.

For more information, visit the author's website, Amazon, and Goodreads. 

(2025, 77)

October is here at last, and with it comes my annual dive into spooky reads. It doesn’t quite feel like fall in South Texas yet—the summer heat still hasn’t gotten the memo—but I’m determined to will the season into existence. Horror is a genre I enjoy all year, but when October arrives, my reading appetite shifts into overdrive. That’s why I was thrilled when the kind folks at Macmillan Audio sent me a copy of Sarah Gailey’s latest novel, Spread Me. It turned out to be the perfect book to kick off my spooky season.

Kinsey has been content leading a team of researchers at a remote desert outpost, far removed from the pull of civilization. For her, isolation is freedom, a life stripped of distraction and temptation. But everything changes when the team uncovers a strange specimen buried beneath the sand. Against protocol, Kinsey breaks quarantine to bring it into the facility. From that moment on, her carefully ordered world begins to fracture. The specimen exerts a pull she can’t explain, and the temptations she thought she’d left behind return with a force that can’t be ignored.

Spread Me finds Sarah Gailey leaning into body horror, temptation, and a strain of strange eroticism. At times, it reminded me of the film Splice, where a scientist develops an unhealthy attachment to their creation. The story can be cringe-inducing, silly, and even a bit over the top—but I couldn’t stop listening. Gailey writes with an urgency as infectious as the viral specimen at the heart of the novel. Is this highbrow, intellectual horror? Not at all. But it never pretends to be. Spread Me is pulpy, B-movie–esque horror that managed to both entertain and repulse me, which feels like the perfect way to kick off a month of spooky reads.

For more information, visit the author's website, Amazon, and Goodreads. 

(2025, 76)