historical horror – Cannonball Read 17

Folktales and cycles through history

Songs for Ghosts by Clara Kumagai

July 17, 2025 by LB Leave a Comment

Songs for Ghosts fulfills the “culture” square on CBR17 Bingo. Songs for Ghosts is a beautiful, tragic story of the power of stories and love, as well as the way past choices can create cycles throughout time. I’m unfamiliar with it, but in the afterword the author talks about Songs for Ghosts being a retelling of Madama Butterfly opera by Puccini where Cio-Cio-San has more agency than just the reductive submissive wife trope. Adam is a seventeen year old whose boyfriend just broke up with […]

Wait. So now I have to read ‘Jane Eyre’?

Reluctant Immortals by Gwendolyn Kiste

January 19, 2024 by dreadpiratekel 2 Comments

Reluctant Immortals opens with an opening line that is just … *chefs kiss*; “It’s almost sundown in Los Angeles, and Dracula’s ashes won’t shut up.” The book is set in 1967 California, splitting most of the action between Los Angeles and the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco, with a few spots visited in between. It is the Summer of Love and also yet just another summer for Lucy Westnera and Bertha (Bea) Mason, who are the immortals of the book title. Lucy comes from the […]

An Interesting Queer Horror

The Woods All Black by Lee Mandelo

December 27, 2023 by LB 2 Comments

One of my favorite elements of horror from queer voices (and other marginalized identities) is the examination of monstrosity and what makes for horror. I think Mandelo comes at it from an interesting angle in this novella, and I really did enjoy the final arc with Stevie. I also enjoyed Stevie and Les’ dynamic over the course of the story, seeing that call of like to like but also hesitancy given the locale. In many ways, though, I don’t overall know how I feel about […]

“None of us are what we were.” #CBRBINGO – Question

What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher

November 2, 2022 by narfna Leave a Comment

I literally just wrote a review for the book I finished a day before I finished this one where I could barely remember what had happened or how I felt about it, and then comes this book where I feel like I just read it yesterday and it’s vividly imprinted on my brain. And yet I gave them the same rating. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Maybe I’ll bump this one up to 4.5 stars. It really was very well done. Fantastically creepy. I was already scarred for life […]

Zirza on A Gothic Classic for a ReasonIt's one of those wish-you-could-read-it-again-for-the-first-time books. I loved it.
Emmalita on “It came to something when you found yourself hoping that the footsteps you heard were ghosts.”I loved the ending! I don’t think it’s been out long enough to talk about why though.
Dixie on Track Her Down by Melinda LeighI am just starting Track Her Down and I have read them all in order till now and thought I...
Roland of Gilead on How can you give us the gift of a crazy character named Rando Thoughtful and then just as suddenly take that gift away? We need to talk, Uncle Stevie.I came across this randomly years after it was written because I was searching "Random Thoughtful. But I have the...
Emmalita on “Only you, Em, would refer to heartbreak as a distraction. I think I would have a more sympathetic response if I asked to marry a bookcase.”Oh my goodness, Gallifrey was beautiful. I’m sure her mittens were gloriously murdery.

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