Malicia by Steven dos Santos

Formats: Print, audio, digital

Publisher: Page Street Publishing

Genre: Blood & Guts, Demon, Monster, Mystery, Myth and Folklore, Occult

Audience: Y/A

Diversity: Gay and bisexual man characters, Dominican Americans, character with anxiety disorder

Takes Place in: The Dominican Republic

Content Warnings: Ableism, Child Death, Death, Forced Captivity, Gaslighting, Gore, Medical Torture/Abuse, Mental Illness, Suicide, Torture, Verbal/Emotional Abuse, Violence, Vomit (Highlight to view)

Blurb:

Four friends, three days, two lovers, and one very haunted theme park. On a stormy Halloween weekend, Ray enlists his best friends Joaquin, Sofia, and Isabella to help him make a documentary of Malicia, the abandoned theme park off the coast of the Dominican Republic where his mother and brother died in a mass killing thirteen years ago. But what should be an easy weekend trip quickly turns into something darker because all four friends have come to Malicia for their own Ray has come to Malicia to find out the truth of the massacre that destroyed his family. Isabella has come to make art out of Ray’s tragedy for her own personal gain. Sofia has come to support her friends in one last adventure before she goes to med school. Joaquin already knows the truth of the Malicia Massacre and he has come to betray his crush Ray to the evil that made the park possible. With an impending hurricane and horrors around every corner, they all struggle to face the deadly storm and their own inner demons. But the deadliest evil of all is the ancient malignant presence on the island.

I received this product for free in return for providing an honest and unbiased review. I received no other compensation. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

The story is told through alternating first-person perspectives between the four main characters; Raymundo, Joaquin, Sofia, and Isabella. The friends are traveling to spend Halloween weekend in Raymundo’s family’s abandoned, horror-themed amusement park, Malicia. The park was closed after a mysterious mass murder took place, claiming the lives of Raymundo’s mother and brother. The island on which Malicia was built is only accessible by boat, and there’s a massive hurricane headed right toward them, so good luck trying to escape if anything goes wrong. You may question the teens’ decision to go to what is very obviously a cursed murder island during a hurricane, but each of the four have their own reason for being there. Raymundo wants to try and summon his brother’s spirit, Isabella wants to film a documentary about the island, and Joaquin wants to sacrifice Raymundo because the cult he belongs to told him to. (Don’t worry, that’s revealed early in the story, so it’s hardly a spoiler.) Sofia is  there because her friends are, and because she very firmly doesn’t believe in the supernatural or scare easily.

I think the characters were somewhat underdeveloped and one-note, and the exposition felt awkward at times. But honestly, the characters were just an excuse to explore the super cool setting. I mean, an abandoned, horror-themed, cursed, amusement park? Could there be a more perfect location for a horror story? And Santos clearly put a lot of thought into describing Malicia in loving detail. There’s an entire map in the beginning of the book (and I’m a sucker for maps) showing the different areas of the park, like Serial Springs, Paranormal Place, and Creature Canyon. I also liked the ride descriptions, which all sounded like tons of fun.

Malicia strongly reminded meof the island setting in Umineko When They Cry, where the characters are trapped by a typhoon on a remote island that is slowly overtaken by the supernatural (and everyone there dies horrible deaths). As both stories progress, the scares move from strange shadows and murders that could’ve been committed by a human to horror that’s clearly the work of demonic forces.

I enjoyed how the author not only used Spanish frequently throughout the book (which I appreciate that the publisher did not italicize) but words and phrases specific to the Dominican. The friends name their little group the Quisqueya Club, a word of Taíno origin that refers to the inhabitants of Hispaniola. Raymundo and Joaquin refer to each other as pana and tiguere, the friends informally greet each other with “Qué lo que” (what’s up?), Raymundo calls his parents Mai and Pai, and he admits to himself that he’s a Jablador (liar). Many of the monsters are also specific to the Dominican like Los Biembiens and La Jupia. The four friends also prepare Dominican food like mangú and yaniqueques.

Malicia an incrediblya spooky, gory, fun read. Even though it’s a 300+ page book, it felt like a quick read because the chapters are short and the suspense was able to grab my attention, although, admittedly, the story did drag a bit in the middle. The shifting viewpoints throughout the book helped build the suspense as the characters all started to become suspicious of each other. Because it was written for teens, it felt like a PG-13 horror movie with R-rated violence, which, of course, you can get away with in a book. The descriptions of mutilated bodies and rotting flesh are very graphic so this one is definitely not for the squeamish horror fan.

The White Guy Dies First: 13 Scary Stories of Fear and Power edited by Terry J. Benton-Walker

Formats: Print, audio, digital

Publisher: Tor Teen

Genre: Apocalypse/Disaster, Dark Fantasy, Eco Horror, Killer/Slasher, Monster, Mystery, Myth and Folklore, Romance, 

Audience: Y/A

Diversity: Black characters and authors, characters of Chinese descent and Chinese New Zealander author, Indigenous characters and author (Seminole), Korean American characters and author, Bisexual characters, Queer women characters, Non-binary character and authors, Ace Spectrum author, MENA character, Bangladeshi-Irish author, Iranian-American author, Latinx characters and author

Content Warnings: Alcohol Abuse, Amputation, Bullying, Cannibalism, Child Abuse, Child Death, Child Endangerment, Death, Drug Use/Abuse, Forced Captivity, Gaslighting, Gore, Mental Illness, Racism, Rape/Sexual Assault, Suicide, Verbal/Emotional Abuse, Violence, Vomit (Highlight to view)

Blurb:

13 SCARY STORIES. 13 AUTHORS OF COLOR. 13 TIMES WE SURVIVED THE FIRST KILL. The White Guy Dies First includes thirteen scary stories by all-star contributors and this time, the white guy dies first. Killer clowns, a hungry hedge maze, and rich kids who got bored. Friendly cannibals, impossible slashers, and the dead who don’t stay dead.... A museum curator who despises “diasporic inaccuracies.” A sweet girl and her diary of happy thoughts. An old house that just wants friends forever.... These stories are filled with ancient terrors and modern villains, but go ahead, go into the basement, step onto the old plantation, and open the magician’s mystery box because this time, the white guy dies first.

I received this product for free in return for providing an honest and unbiased review. I received no other compensation. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

This is a book that is going to make racists people mad, and I’m here for it. Consider yourself forewarned: if you’re white, this book is not written for you and you’re going to need a thick skin to read it. White people are so used to having positive representation in media that a book where white people make everything worse and always end up dead is going to rub the more sensitive white folks the wrong way, even those who might consider themselves allies. But for the rest of us? It’s awesome and a much-needed subversion of the “Black Guy Dies First” trope. Now, just because the white guy dies first in these stories does not make the BIPOC immune from horrific deaths. Hedge and The Protégé both have Black teens who meet violent ends. A Native person in Best Served Cold is tortured. They’re just not the first to die and get to be main characters.

Many (but not all) of the stories focus on the racism characters face and how often bad things happen to BIPOC people because of the actions of white people. Farz-joon from Break Through Our Skin by Naseem Jamnia is a non-binary, Iranian high school student who desperately wants a Smithosian internship. In order to secure one, they agree to volunteer at the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute (thankfully, the problematic name was changed to the Institute for the Study of Ancient Culture in 2023) working under a condescending, racist, and transphobic old white professor named Dr. Hudson who thinks he knows more about Iran than Farz does because he’s studied it, speaks Farsi, and actually visited Iran, which Farz has not. He also objects to the Institute’s name change because the original name has “history” and “meaning.” Farz tolerates his boorish behavior so they can fulfill their dream of becoming an archeologist and challenge the idea that gender can be determined from a skeleton alone, but of course Dr. Hudson criticizes their “modern” ideas about gender stating “political correctness has no place in ancient history”, despite historical evidence of gender non-conforming people existing in ancient Iran and bioarchaeologist's more recent views on sex and gender. Unsurprisingly, it turns out he only hired Farz to give the exhibits a “layer of authenticity” and he’s willing to jeopardize Farz’s future by withholding his recommendation.

Wasps by Mark Oshiro focuses on how gentrification hurts immigrant communities, while Hedge by Kalynn Brown has a topiary garden created by wealthy whites in the 1970s where anyone who enters winds up dead, including the main character’s father. In Grave Grove by Alexis Henderson, a Black teen named Rumi befriends a white Northerner named Kaitlin and she helps adjust to life in the Southern US. The two even start a podcast together entitled Girls and Ghosts. Their newest episode is about Kyle Adams, a racist who went missing in the eighties after chasing a Black teen, William Jones, into an abandoned plantation. Unfortunately, we quickly learn that Kaitlin is not a good friend to Rumi. She ignores her at school in favor of hanging out with white girls, makes Rumi do all the grunt work for their podcast, and is actually pretty racist for someone who probably considers themselves liberal. She excuses Kyle’s racism because it happened in the past (the 1980s) and “everyone was racist back then.” She thinks William is a “drug dealer” who belongs in prison because he was caught with marijuana, despite smoking weed herself. She views Kyle as the victim, not William. She doesn’t want to talk about the racist history of the plantation or consider the slaves who died there, just the missing white boy. She even mentions her sister’s best friend got married at the plantation, a favorite location for Southern brides (gross). Side note, but I loved that Kaitlin believed in the supernatural while Rumi was the skeptic, since BIPOC are so often cast as superstitious and foolish compared to logical white people. I’m a skeptic myself so it was nice to see a character like me in both Grave Grove and Hell is Other Demons, where the Black main character is an atheist.

Best Served Cold by H. E. Edgmon and The Protégé by Lamar Giles both have the BIPOC main characters get into trouble specifically because they choose to trust a white person. In the former, our protagonist, EJ, makes the mistake of accepting a white man who befriended their brother. EJ struggled with internalized racism throughout their childhood, doing things like using cheap, unsafe contacts from the mall to change their eye color from brown to green. Kai, their brother, tells EJ that those are their ancestor’s eyes, and that their appearance connects them to their ancestry and they should be proud of them. Kai works to reclaim a past that was stolen by colonization (like learning traditional farming and hunting), and teaches EJ about ancestral trauma. EJ realizes the reason they feel angry and frustrated is because they are “playing a game whose rules have never been designed for me to win.” Their mother claims to be white because she passes, even though her grandfather was sent to a residential school in Oklahoma. She denies her heritage. EJ and Kai’s parents grew up together on a reservation in Florida, but moved to Chicago as adults. They told their children they’d left the Rez to give them a better life. Kai brings his white friend (possibly boyfriend) Isaac, who has intense green eyes, to a Pow Wow where the other Natives give him side eye. Clearly, they see something Kai doesn’t (there are other white people there but they don’t face the same level of scrutiny). One of the community leaders talks about MMIWC (Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Children) which serves as foreshadowing. It’s implied that the antagonist in the story is a certain evil spirit from Algonquian mythology (one who’s associated with winter and cannibalism). Edgmon is Seminole, not one of the Algonquian tribes, but he writes with respect, never breaking the taboo of using the spirits name which is said to summon it. This particular creature is also a perfect representation of colonialism with its insatiable hunger and destructive nature.  Kai and EJ do everything they can to fight colonialism but still fall victim to the evil spirit.

The Protégé by Lamar Giles, like Best Served Cold, is a particularly tragic story with the main character, Troy’s, life ruined by his best friend, in this case an older, white gentleman named Jack Meridian. Jack is a retired magician who’s been mentoring Troy in the art of card tricks and illusions, and one of the young teen’s only friends. Troy so admires the older man that he immediately agrees to do him a favor, accepting a package while Jack runs errands downtown. Simple enough, right? While Troy’s older brother Darius is having a party with his friends, Troy sees that the news is reporting a mass killing at the mall where Jack was heading. He tries to contact his magician mentor but the person who killed him answers the phone and threatens Troy if he doesn’t give them the package he received. The killer is revealed to be Danford Dread, a magician who “perverts” the art and performs dark and gory magic that “plays to the worst in people.” And now he’s after Troy and his brother. Even though the white guy in this story is a “good guy” he still ruins a Black boy’s life by bringing him into his world and putting him directly into danger.

In Hell is Other Demons by Karen Strong, the main character is killed (she spends most of the story as a ghost) because her crush’s white boyfriend starts meddling with the supernatural and summons a demon. The other stories of dating a white boy don’t end with dead young women, but they do highlight the perils of interracial dating, namely that white men often fetishize non-white women. I mean, just look how BIPOC women have their own categories on porn sites (gross). Obviously not all mixed-race relationships are problematic; my parents are a mixed-race couple, my sister has an amazing Chilean fiancé (who is himself biracial), and I’m friends with happily married couples in mixed relationships. Unfortunately, there are always bad apples.

In both the Golden Dragon by Kendare Blake and Docile Girls by Chloe Gong, Korean-American Sophie and Chinese-I-think-American-but-possibly-New-Zealander Adelaid are dumped by their white boyfriends (and subsequently lose all the white people they thought were their friends) who fetishized them but don’t view them as committed relationship material. As Sophie’s sister puts it, they’re an exotic bang to mark off their “international bang bingo card.” Even after she gets dumped, Adelaid’s ex sees her as too weak and docile to be the killer who’s been stalking the teens, an assumption that proves fatal for him. This is unfortunately common, as all the East Asian-American women I know I can attest to. When they’re sexually harassed, it almost always has racist undertones. They’ve been propositioned by white men looking for “submissive waifus,” had “me so horny” shouted at them, asked if they have sideways vaginas, or “complimented” on their “exotic” beauty. White men have long fetishized East Asian women, with examples dating as far back as 1898 with the book Madame Butterfly. A Columbia University study from 2007 showed that in online dating, White men seemed to have a strong preference for Asian women when it came to hookups, but when they wanted a committed relationship, they preferred white women. Meanwhile, Black women, especially those with dark skin, are considered less desirable than women of other races.

In All Eyes on Me by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé main character Helen deals with a white boyfriend, Asher, who is constantly committing microaggressions. He mocks her kinky hair, and implies she can’t be an actress because she’s Black and not a “bombshell.”  Yet Helen still feels guilty about wanting to break up with Asher because everyone else considers him the perfect, all-American boy. And as a Black girl she’s supposed to be grateful that a white boy wants her, even though being tied down to him and trapped in their small town forever sounds like a nightmare. Fortunately for all three girls, they end their stories without being tied down by their racist exes.

Not all the stories in the collection are focused on race and racism, however. The Road to Hell by Terry Benton-Walker has a very original set up, exploring an abusive relationship between a haunted house and a family living it with the house as the abuser. Everything’s Coming Up Roses by Tiffany D. Jackson is about a mentally unwell girl named Leesa who is obsessed with gardening and documents her daily life in her journal. Leesa is an unreliable narrator and the true horror is slowly revealed over the course of the story. Like most anthologies, the quality of the stories varies, but none that I would have rated below three out of five stars. Some were good, others, like Everything’s Coming Up Roses, Gray Grove, and Best Served Cold, were great. It’s also worth noting that many of the stories are VERY gory, which may be too much for younger teens who aren’t big horror fans. Of course, since most horror fans were reading Stephen King when they were eight, I don’t foresee this being an issue for anyone who decides to read this book.

Spectrum: An Autistic Horror Anthology edited by Aquino Loayza

Formats: Print, digital

Publisher: Third Estate Books

Genre: Body Horror, Folk Horror, Myth and Folklore, Psychological Horror, Sci-Fi Horror, Slahser/Killer

Audience: Adult/Mature

Diversity: Autistic characters and authors, trans, two-spirit, agender and non-binary characters and authors, gay characters, asexual author and characters, Mexican American author and character, Latinx authors, biracial Filipino and Taiwanese author, Afro-Indigenous author

Content Warnings: Ableism, Alcohol Abuse, Animal Death, Bullying, Cannibalism, Child Abuse, Eating Disorder, Gaslighting, Gore, Illness, Medical Torture/Abuse, Mental Illness, Physical Abuse,  Rape/Sexual Assault, Self-Harm, Suicide, Torture, Transphobia, Verbal/Emotional Abuse, Violence (Highlight to view)

Blurb:

Deep in the recesses of our minds are twisted realities that so closely mirror our own. In these pages, our nightmares are laid bare, made to manifest. There is no waking up; there is no going back once you fall into the tapestry of terrors that await. Are you ready? From courteous neighbors gone awry to the burning brightness of everlasting daylight comes Spectrum: An Autistic Horror Anthology reflective of the vast array of neurodivergent artists in our community and the things that keep them up in the night, the things they can’t look away from. Don’t Blink.

I received this product for free in return for providing an honest and unbiased review. I received no other compensation. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

Unfortunately, to review this, I do have to address some of the drama surrounding it. Anyone in the horror book sphere has probably heard it and it might turn some folks off this amazing anthology. However, you may not have heard about how Third Estate Books addressed it, and you shouldn’t pass on this book just because of a few bad apples.

One of the anthology’s original authors, Zach Rosenberg, was revealed to have a history of harassing and bullying women and femme identifying people. Writer and editor Evelyn Freeling details the harassment she received from Zach Rosenberg here. After Rosenberg posted a non-apology the next day Mattie Lewis shared her own negative experience with the author. Shortly afterward it was revealed that one of the editors of the anthology, Freydis Moon, had been impersonating a Latinx person to sell their books and bullying others online. You can find details of the Freydis Moon controversy here. Third Estate Books released statements that both Moon and Rosenberg had been removed from Spectrum and that they would have no place on any other projects moving forward. Therefore, I would still recommend this book, as the publisher has taken steps to ensure the safety of everyone involved and removed anyone problematic. Now, on to the review!

I was happy to see that many of the authors and characters in the book were trans, agender, or non-binary (not surprising since trans and gender diverse folks are up to six times more likely to be autistic). There was also some BIPOC representation with Asian, Latinx, and Afro-Indigenous authors, though I would have liked to have seen more. The stories were a very interesting mix. Some were straightforward and followed a classic story structure, while others felt more like stream of consciousness writing and focused more on  the poetic words used than forming a coherent plot (Survive Lot 666, Neighborly, and Discourses of the Seven Headed Monkey come to mind). But both styles worked well. A few of my favorites were Freedom was a Flaying by Onyx Osiris, Curse the Darkness by Die Booth, and The Sun Approaches Every Summer by Akis Linardos. The first of these stories was a violent revenge story where the bullies get violently massacred by the Aztec flayed god, Xipe Totec. I love revenge stories, and this one was particularly satisfying and twisted with a nice nod to the author’s heritage. Booth’s story was more of a “be careful what you wish for” tale, a genre of story I also greatly enjoy. The Sun Approaches Every Summer was particularly unique where a man with magical abilities slowly watches the town he lives in die because the sun is getting too close. As the townspeople fear witches, he’s forced to mask, hiding both his autism and his magical abilities. It reminded me of the Twilight episode The Midnight Sun, except in this story the protagonist is the only one immune to the heat due to his magic and is eventually the only one left alive.

The last story in the anthology, Different by Ashley Lezak, is one of only two in which autism is central to the story. In it, a little autistic girl named Abigail is “cured” by her parents who want a “normal” child.  One of ASAN’s (the Autistic Self Advocacy Network) core beliefs is that “autism cannot and should not be cured.” One thing many allistic and non-disabled people don’t seem to grasp is that Autism is part of who a person is and eliminating that would fundamentally change who they are. As Andrew Pulrang explained in an article for Forbes entitled What Do Disabled People Mean When We Say We Don’t Want A Cure? ,"Life without disabilities may at times have its attractions. It’s something that can be interesting, even fun to speculate about. But since it would often fundamentally change who we are, it’s not always a 100% attractive prospect." The desire to “cure” autism is similar to the appeal of gay conversion therapy. Parents who can’t love their children as they are try to change them to be more “normal,” someone they can accept. This is what makes Lezak’s short story so frightening: the idea that not only can parents not love and accept their child as they are, but that they would fundamentally change her as a person without her consent. And while the procedure Ashley undergoes is fictional, it’s not too far removed from the lobotomies performed on unwilling patients until the 1970s to change their personalities and even sexual orientation.

The other one is Safe Food by Xochilt Avila, in which a teen named Cedar struggles with their avoidant and restrictive food intake disorder (unfortunately many autistic people also have eating disorders) and an abusive father. What their father doesn’t understand is that it’s not that Cedar doesn’t want to eat, it’s that they have such severe sensory issues around taste there are only certain foods they can palate, none of which their father ever gives them. This story is another example of how badly parents can treat their autistic children (although in Cedar’s case their dad probably would have been abusive even if they were neurotypical). Unfortunately, it isn’t uncommon for autistic individuals to be abused, and their abuse is often blamed on their “challenging behaviors” rather than society’s ableism. Often the media will portray the abuser with sympathy as they were “burdened” with having an autistic child.

But those were the only two stories that felt like they made autism and autistic issues major plot points. The others chose to focus more on undead creatures, migraines, curses, abandoned buildings with dead whales, monkey gods, music, haunted houses and a head in a box. And honestly, I like that. While autism is part of someone’s identity, it’s only one part and Spectrum allows its authors to be their full selves rather than just focusing on their autism. I also really enjoyed seeing how differently autism manifested in each of the fictional characters, underlying how autism really is a broad spectrum. Some had severe sensory issues requiring soft clothing and ear protectors, others didn’t. Some struggled socially, others did not. Some characters had trouble with eye contact while others didn’t. Some were single, while others in committed relationships (there seems to be a myth that autistic people don’t date or have sex, which is patently untrue). There was no “one size fits all.” Autism is just one aspect of their personalities instead of all it, like is often the case when neurodiverse characters are written by neurotypicals. But their autism also wasn’t downplayed like it didn’t matter at all. They got to be multidimensional people.

Out on a Limb by Luis Paredes

Formats: Print, digital

Publisher: Platypus Book Press

Genre: Dark Fantasy, Mystery

Audience: Adult/Mature

Diversity: Mexican-American main character and author

Takes Place in: Ney York City, New York USA

Content Warnings: Child Endangerment, Death (Highlight to view)

Blurb:

"How many perverts d'ya think sucked on those toes before the police rolled in?" With that question, Out On a Limb kicks off an irreverent, foul-mouthed, and horrific urban fantasy noir series following the exploits of private occult investigators Rebecca Suarez and Peyton Marx. In this fast-paced novella that readers can devour in an afternoon, Rebecca and Peyton are stumped by their strangest case yet--a tree growing human legs. The dangling gams become the least of their concerns when nearby trees start consuming more than just carbon dioxide. Now the investigators must use their powers and the NYPD's magical tech to find the mage responsible for this heinous crime and stop a bloody disaster from creeping across the Empire State.

I received this product for free in return for providing an honest and unbiased review. I received no other compensation. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

As those of you who follow my Twitter (I refuse to call it by that other name) know, I have a rabbit named Aramis who enjoys violence and horror movies. She thinks more horror should have rabbits in it, especially rabbits that murder people like in Night of the Lepus. So, Aramis was very excited that Out on a Limb has a Holland lop as a main character. But this rabbit doesn’t murder anyone. She’s a heroic rabbit, albeit a foul mouthed and very sassy one (much like Aramis would be if she could speak) named Peyton Marx.

Aramis is seen here plotting murder

Ten years ago a statue of Hecate walked out of a museum in Greece, and magic was brought into the world. Thousands of people (and some animals, like Peyton) found themselves gifted with different types of magical abilities. There are different types of magic, and people can specialize in more than one kind. Unfortunately, magical powers were distributed randomly which means criminals also ended up with magical abilities. And that’s where Peyton and her human partner, Rebecca Suarez, come in.

Rebecca and Peyton are struggling, private occult investigators who specialize in unexplained paranormal phenomena (UPP) and hunt down magical criminals using their own array of charms and spells. The story starts with Rebecca and Peyton arriving in Queens, having been called in by the police to assist on a particularly strange crime, an oak tree full of human legs. Clearly the work of an incantation (possibly one that backfired), but who cast it is unclear.

Out on a Limb is a fun, quick read filled with lore and humor. I also liked all the rabbit-y things Peyton does like binkies when she’s happy or getting offended when a child points out that rabbits eat their own poop. The world building is exquisite, and there’s a surprising amount of it for such a short novella, but not so much that you feel overwhelmed with information. The relationship between Rebecca and Peyton is cute, and much of the humor comes from how they play off each other. While this novella leans more towards dark fantasy then straight horror it’s still creepy enough that most horror fans should enjoy it. 

A Haunting in Hialeah Gardens by Raul Palma

Formats: Print, audio, digital

Publisher: Dutton

Genre:  Demon, Ghosts/Haunting, Myth and Folklore

Audience: Adult/Mature

Diversity: Cuban characters and author, Bolivian character

Takes Place in: Miami, Florida

Content Warnings: Alcohol Abuse, Animal Death, Child Abuse, Child Death, Child Endangerment, Death, Illness, Medical Procedures, Oppression, Mental Illness, Racism, Suicide, Violence, Xenophobia (Highlight to view)

Blurb:

eA genre-bending debut with a fiercely political heart, A Haunting in Hialeah Gardens explores the weight of the devil’s bargain, following the lengths one man will go to for the promise of freedom. Hugo Contreras’s world in Miami has shrunk. Since his wife died, Hugo’s debt from her medical bills has become insurmountable. He shuffles between his efficiency apartment, La Carreta (his favorite place for a cafecito), and a botanica in a strip mall where he works as the resident babaláwo. One day, Hugo’s nemesis calls. Alexi Ramirez is a debt collector who has been hounding Hugo for years, and Hugo assumes this call is just more of the same. Except this time Alexi is calling because he needs spiritual help. His house is haunted. Alexi proposes a deal: If Hugo can successfully cleanse his home before Noche Buena, Alexi will forgive Hugo’s debt. Hugo reluctantly accepts, but there’s one issue: Despite being a babaláwo, he doesn’t believe in spirits. Hugo plans to do what he’s done with dozens of clients before: use sleight of hand and amateur psychology to convince Alexi the spirits have departed. But when the job turns out to be more than Hugo bargained for, Hugo’s old tricks don’t work. Memories of his past—his childhood in the Bolivian silver mines and a fraught crossing into the United States as a boy—collide with Alexi’s demons in an explosive climax. Equal parts hilarious and heartbreaking, A Haunting in Hialeah Gardens explores questions of visibility, migration, and what we owe—to ourselves, our families, and our histories.

I received this product for free in return for providing an honest and unbiased review. I received no other compensation. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

It’s Christmas time in Miami and Hugo is anything but merry. His wife, Meli, recently passed away and Hugo wasn’t even able to pay for her funeral. Like most Americans he’s been drowning in debt most of his adult life, and Meli’s medical bills have only added to that. His indebtedness feels like a physical weight, crushing the life out of him, following him wherever he goes. Debt collectors hound him every day and garnish his wages. Hugo may not be a perfect person but he doesn’t deserve the hand he’s been dealt. All of Hugo’s life has been hard. He never knew his father, a white Spainard, and his mother abandoned them when he was young. During his childhood in Bolivia, Hugo and his brother worked in the mines after school. His brother would pray and offer sacrifices to El Tío, the god of the mountain, but the mountain still took his life. Hugo was always a non-believer, but his brother’s death shook his faith even further. Ironically, Hugo now works at a Botanica and is a practicing Babalawo. Although he has great respect for Lourdes, his boss, and even has a knack for knowing what people need, he still thinks it’s all hokum. He is especially talented at ridding people’s homes of ghosts, using both psychology and showmanship to make them believe their specters have vanished. Hugo may not believe in what he does, but the result is the same: his customers are happy and the “hauntings” end.

The attorney in charge of Hugo’s debt, Alexi, calls out of the blue and asks for his help. At first, Hugo is hesitant to help the devil who’s made his life miserable, but when Alexi promises to clear his debt, he acquiesces. We learn that Alexi, the son of Cuban immigrant parents (part of the Cuban exodus when affluent Cubans were fleeing Castro), is obsessed with money. Instead of following his passion of becoming a painter he chose a field that would make him wealthy because money is more important to him. He loves to show off his wealth, but as Hugo notes, he lacks taste and his choices in home décor are gaudy. Alexi is also a racist, as is evident by the “All Lives Matter” sign in his yard and the way he speaks about his Haitian laborers. Hugo is conflicted about helping the awful man, but the promise of being debt-free is too good to pass up. Of course, Hugo is hardly perfect himself, and we learn of the many mistakes he’s made that still haunt him. With each chapter, the mystery of Hugo’s life is revealed, and the reader gains an increased understanding of the deeply flawed protagonist. Hugo is a well-developed, complicated character. He isn’t perfect and  makes lots of mistakes, but he loves his wife and does his best, making him relatable. I couldn’t help but be drawn to Hugo. I just felt sorry for the poor guy. Even as I was horrified by some of the things he did, I still wanted him to win.

A Haunting in Hialeah Gardens is a unique take on ghosts and haunting. While Alexi seems to be plagued by a literal ghost, Hugo is haunted by the ghosts of his past and his debt which keep him from happiness and living his life. As the story unfolds, we learn that Hugo is also indebted in ways that aren’t financial that have haunted him since childhood. Underneath the ghost story is a horror tale about Capitalism and its exploitative nature. While the ways in which it hurts Hugo are obvious, Alexi’s unchecked greed has caused him to give up on his dreams because he was raised to belief happiness can only be earned through the accumulation of wealth.

Palma’s descriptions of Miami make the city feel like its own character, a place filled with both beauty and pain and even a little bit of magic. While the story is filled with grief and suffering, it does end on a hopeful note. It reminds me of the Latin phrase “dum spiro spero,” or “while I breathe, I hope.” It may be too late for his wife and brother, but as long as Hugo is still alive there’s always the chance for things to get better for him, even when things are at their worse. While it’s not your typical horror story, the descriptions of hopelessness and grief still left me with a sense of dread. Overall, A Haunting in Hialeah is a strong debut from a talented new horror author.

The Final Women by Pardeep Aujla

Formats: Digital

Publisher: Self-Published

Genre: Demon, Killer/Slasher, Occult

Audience: Adult/Mature

Diversity: Black main character, Latina main character, Vietnamese main character, lesbian main character

Content Warnings: Alcohol Abuse, Amputation, Bullying, Death, Drug Use/Abuse, Gore, Homophobia, Mental Illness, Racism, Self-Harm, Sexism, Suicide, Verbal/Emotional Abuse, Violence (Highlight to view)

Blurb:

The mass murdering Phantom of Haven Cove is dead. For the one who killed him, however, life has never been the same. How do you return to normality after facing such a monster? How do you live when consumed by guilt, anger, fear, and denial? How do you connect with others when no one understands what you’ve been through? But there are others... Final girls of their own Haven Cove massacres. And now, thirty years later, they must all face a new question... What do you do when the killer returns?

I received this product for free in return for providing an honest and unbiased review. I received no other compensation. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

What happens when final girls grow up? It depends how they deal with the trauma of what happened to them the night they faced off with the masked killer, Silas Crowe. If you’re Nell James, you grow up to become a lonely and agoraphobic author who tries to turn the worst thing that ever happened to her-- watching her friends get murdered one by one--into financial gain. If you’re Josie Jedford, you numb your fear with drugs. Or you could become a paranoid survivalist like Ana Gómez who transforms her badly burned body into a living weapon. Even Cassie Phong, who seems to have the perfect life what with her wealthy husband and two children, can’t escape the PTSD she developed the night she faced off with Silas Crowe. Each woman has done her best to put the past behind them, believing Crowe to be dead once and for all. That is until Camp Haven Cove reopens and a new group of teenagers goes missing. Nell realizes that Silas Crowe never died, and never will unless she, and the other three former final girls find a way to deal with him once and for all. Now well into their forties the four final woman team up to put a stop to the killings once and for all.

Slasher heroines are almost exclusively young women: teens and twenty somethings with bare breasts and flat stomachs (they’re always conventionally attractive) enjoying the prime of their lives through sex, drugs and drinking. Any woman above the age of thirty is either a mother or a side character, and if she has a few gray hairs she’s relegated to the role of a frightful hag. But as nostalgia for horror of the 80’s and 90’s breathes new life into horror franchises, Hollywood is doing something new. Instead of rebooting and recasting their heroines, they’re allowing them to grow up from Final Girls into Final Women. Sidney Prescott (Scream), Laurie Strode (Halloween), and Sally Hardesty (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) all recently reprised their roles in their respective franchises as badass heroines over the age of forty. And as someone who will soon be saying goodbye to my thirties, it’s refreshing to see older women get their time in the slasher spotlight, and that’s one of the things I liked best about The Final Women.  Nell, Josie, Ana, and Cassie are all approaching fifty, but they all get to be the heroes of the story, and I found them much more relatable then horny, drunk teens in the woods. They’re also not written for the male gaze, which is refreshing.

Another thing I liked about the book was Aujla’s realistic depiction of PTSD. None of the women escaped Silas unscathed, they each bear their own physical and mental scars, as one would expect from anyone going up against a slasher. Nell displays avoidance of people and places that remind her of her traumatic event and might trigger a flashback. Cassie and Josie both develop substance abuse problems, alcohol and drugs respectively, a common comorbidity for people with PTSD. Ana is prone to angry outbursts and aggressive behavior and is hypervigilant. All the women struggle with nightmares and flashbacks. It’s refreshing to see a slasher actually deal with mental health and the aftermath of a traumatic event (something we’re starting to see in more recent film sequels). I genuinely cared about all the main characters, something that rarely happens in horror fiction, and I was scared to see any of them get hurt or killed. Aujla just writes them so well! It’s sweet to see these women from different walks of life bond and draw strength from each other.

The Final Women was fun in a way the best 80’s slashers are. Gory, over the top, and wickedly funny. I absolutely devoured it as I found both the story and the characters enthralling. It draws on classic horror tropes while still being wholly unique. If you’re a fan of slashers you’ll definitely want to check this one out. 

Conquer by Edward M. Erdelac

Formats: Print, digital, audible

Publisher: Self Published 

Genre:  Historic Horror, Monster, Mystery, Myth and Folklore, Occult, Vampire

Audience: Adult/Mature

Diversity: Black/African-American, Hispanic, Trans, Gay

Takes Place in: Harlem New York, NY, USA

Content Warnings: Animal Death, Body Shaming, Child Abuse, Death, Drug Use/Abuse, Forced Captivity, Gore, Homophobia, Kidnapping, Necrophilia, Oppression, Pedophilia, Physical Abuse, Police Harassment, Racism, Rape/Sexual Assault, Sexual Abuse, Slurs, Transphobia (Highlight to view)

Blurb:

In 1976 Harlem, JOHN CONQUER, P.I. is the cat you call when your hair stands up...the supernatural brother like no other. From the pages of Occult Detective Quarterly, he's calm, he's cool, and now he's collected in CONQUER. From Hoodoo doctors and Voodoo Queens, The cat they call Conquer’s down on the scene! With a dime on his shin and a pocket of tricks, A gun in his coat and an eye for the chicks. Uptown and Downton, Harlem to Brooklyn, Wherever the brothers find trouble is brewin,’ If you’re swept with a broom, or your tracks have been crossed, If your mojo is failin’ and all hope is lost, Call the dude on St. Marks with the shelf fulla books, ‘Cause ain’t no haint or spirit, or evil-eye looks, Conjured by devils, JAMF’s, or The Man, Can stop the black magic Big John’s got on hand!

I received this product for free in return for providing an honest and unbiased review. I received no other compensation. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

Conquer is the story of a Black mystical detective named John Conquer (a reference to John the Conqueror) and a homage to 70’s detective fiction and Blaxploitation films. It’s fun, well written, and full of creepiness, including a fetus monster haunting an abandoned subway station and a man shrunk down and boiled alive in a lava lamp. I greatly enjoyed the book, but like most Blaxploitation, it wasn’t without its problems.

It’s important to point out that Erdelac is a White author writing a Black story (something not uncommon in Blaxploitation). I usually prefer to promote “own voices” books, and stories by cishet White men are a rarity on this blog. After all, folks with privilege do not have the best track record when it comes to writing marginalized groups. As Irish author Kit de Waal said, “Don’t dip your pen in someone else’s blood”. Take American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins and The Help by Kathryn Stockett. They’re both terrible for numerous reasons including, but not limited to: not doing enough research, using the White Savior trope, watering down their narratives to make them palatable for White audiences, cultural appropriation, speaking over marginalized voices, etc. That’s not to say White authors shouldn’t write BIPOC characters at all. Not having any diversity in your story can be equally problematic. It just needs to be done carefully and respectfully. Very, very carefully. Yes, I know that can be a fine line to walk, but if an author can research what kind of crops people were growing in 1429 to make their book more accurate, they can research American Indians and people of color. Besides, that’s what hiring sensitivity readers and using resources like Writing with Color is for. Of course, there’s also the problem of White voices being given preferential treatment by publishers and audiences over BIPOC trying to tell their own stories.

To his credit, Erdelac has done an impressive amount of research to make his book feel authentic. John Conquer wears a dime around his ankle for protection and a mojo hand (another name for a mojo bag) for luck. His name is a reference to High John de Conqueror, a Black folk hero with magical abilities. Conquer also has one of the most accurate representations of Vodou I’ve ever seen in fiction. Hollywood “voo doo” is a pet peeve of mine, so I appreciate Erdelac’s dedication to portraying the religion and loa/lwa (the powerful spirits Vodou  practitioners worship and serve) accurately. He also doesn’t try to portray an idealized version of 1970s NYC. There’s racism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, and cops and criminals spewing slurs. And while it’s jarring, it does make the story feel more authentic. The police are racist and homophobic and there’s tension between the many communities that make up 1970s New York. John Conquer’s Uncle Silas was disowned by his family for being gay, and when John is asked to solve his murder, he has to confront his own homophobia and transphobia. That doesn’t mean it always works, though. There were definitely a few times I side-eyed and wondered if a certain line really needed to be in there.

My favorite part of the book is Eldelac’s excellent world building. White vampires go up in smoke when exposed to sunlight, while vampires with more melanin are protected from the sun’s rays. Vampirism also halts a corpse’s decay, but all that rot catches up to them when they’re finally killed. Each culture has their own magical practices with distinct rules, and magic doesn’t cross cultural lines. For example, only Vodou practitioners can become zombies, and non-Christian vampires are immune to crosses. Conquer is especially powerful because he’s learned many different traditions and practices, but the catch is that this opens him to a wider variety of spiritual attacks. Street gangs utilize black magic to wage wars with each other. His work is clever, original, and something I could really get into. But…having White authors tell BIPOC stories still feels problematic to me when White authors are still so heavily favored by the publishing industry. I’ve reviewed books by White authors before, but because Conquer is based heavily on Blaxploitation it feels, well, more exploitative than those I’ve reviewed in the past. I’m still going to go ahead and recommend Eldelac’s work because—in the end—it is well written and interesting, but I can also completely understand if some of you want to skip this one.

Testament by Jose Nateras

Formats: Print, digital

Publisher: NineStar Press

Genre: Ghosts/Haunting, Psychological Horror

Audience: Adult/Mature

Diversity: Gay Main character and side characters, Bisexual side character, Hispanic/Latinx (Mexican) Main Character, Asian-American side character, Black side character

Takes Place in: Chicago, IL USA

Content Warnings: Gaslighting, Homophobia, Mental Illness, Racism, Rape/Sexual Assault, Self-Harm, Suicide (Highlight to view)

Blurb:

Gabe Espinosa, is trying to dig himself out of the darkness. Struggling with the emotional fallout of a breakup with his ex-boyfriend, Gabe returns to his job at The Rosebriar Room; the fine dining restaurant at the historic Sentinel Club Chicago Hotel. Already haunted by the ghosts of his severed relationship, he's drastically unprepared for the ghosts of The Sentinel Club to focus their attentions on him as well.

I received this product for free in return for providing an honest and unbiased review. I received no other compensation. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

Once upon a time during a LGBTQ+ group therapy session, someone dropped one of those truth bombs that totally changed my perspective on things. “If you’re a minority in American you have trauma. You may not even be aware of it, but it’s there.” Holy. Shit. Suddenly the fact that I always felt stressed, anxious, and depressed made sense. I realized the headaches, stomach problems, chronic fatigue, and back and neck pain (for which I’d spent thousands of dollars seeing specialists only to be told they didn’t know what was wrong with me) were all due to minority stress. Well fuck.

Mind. Blown.

Testament is a horror story about trauma and minority stress, and the protagonist Gabe’s struggles were achingly familiar.  He worries about how to let new people know he’s gay in a way that feels natural, finding a boyfriend who doesn’t see him as “exotic” or call him “papi,” and working around a bunch of rich White people. And poor Gabe works in rich douche central, a swanky hotel that once functioned as a members-only men’s club called The Sentinel Club. As if working around so many White folk isn’t unnerving enough, the hotel also seems to be home to something supernatural and sinister. Something that has its attentions turned on Gabe.

**trigger warning: discussion of suicide and mental health**

Reeling from a suicide attempt after a bad breakup Gabe is not in the best place mentally. He’s incredibly hard on himself, constantly calling himself “worthless” and “pathetic.” He pushes people away assuming they don’t care and refuses to ask for help. As someone who has had their own battles with depression, this also felt achingly familiar. It was also incredibly well done. Writers tend to portray depression as someone staying in bed for days in a state of ennui and despair, unable to move and refusing to eat. But that kind of severe depressive episode is hardly commonplace. Most folks suffering from depression are still (at least partially) functional and go to great lengths to hide their illness in front of others, which is why it’s so difficult to recognize when someone’s actually depressed. Gabe gets dressed, goes to work and forces himself to smile and act like everything is fine while his brain screams insults at him and everything reminds him of his ex. 

**end of trigger warning **

What’s especially brilliant is how Nateras uses Gabe’s haunting to mimic his mental state. Gabe is trapped both by his past and the entity that latches on to him and follows him everywhere. It will seemingly disappear before suddenly and violently announcing its presence, much like his depression and PTSD. In fact, most of the horror in the story comes from Gabe wrestling with his inner demons rather than the outer ones. It’s not quite gothic fiction, but I’d definitely call it gothic-adjacent with its slow burn horror and tumultuous emotions. Of course, if you dislike the slower pace of gothic horror and its focus on the characters rather than the haunting, you may not enjoy Testament. Fortunately, it’s a quick read, so even if you get bored quickly like I do you’ll probably be fine. 

There’s a lot of discussion about the evils of privilege, power, and money. And they are evil. They corrupt and hurt those without. And while no, not all White people are evil, there’s no way of telling the good from the bad with a glance, and a lifetime of negative experiences sets off every alarm bell in my head. There’s nothing quite like the fear you experience when you realize you’re the only person of color in a sea of privileged White folk, even if they’re the “nice” liberal kind. Such situations immediately make me uncomfortable and anxious, even as a White-passing Black person. I jokingly call it that Get Out feeling. There’s a particular scene in the book I found especially frightening when Gabe gets on a subway car, discovers he’s the only non-White person there, and he’s surrounded by wealthy-looking men. It’s terrifying. Nateras knows it and uses the scene to make the book even scarier. He does it so well I want to shove Testament into White people’s faces and yell “See? This. This is how I feel all the time.”

Sadly not the worst date he's been on with a White guy

I could go on and on about how the book uses minority stress to create horror and how the haunting is a metaphor for privileged White men who hurt BIPOC, but it would get into spoiler territory and I really want you to read this book. So, I’ll end it here with a warning, beware of White gentleman’s clubs because you never know what kind of evil lurks there.

Children of Chicago by Cynthia Pelayo

Formats: Print, digital, audio

Publisher: Agora

Genre: Dark Fantasy, Demon, Killer/Slasher, Myth and Folklore, Thriller

Audience: Y/A, Adult/Mature

Diversity: Bisexual main character, Puerto Rican main character and author, Latinx characters

Takes Place in: Chicago, IL, USA

Content Warnings: Alcohol Abuse, Child Death, Death, Forced Captivity, Gaslighting, Illness, Kidnapping, Mental Illness, Physical Abuse, Police Harassment, Suicide, Violence (Highlight to view)

Blurb:

This horrifying retelling of the Pied Piper fairytale set in present-day Chicago is an edge of your seat, chills up the spine, thrill ride. ‪ When Detective Lauren Medina sees the calling card at a murder scene in Chicago’s Humboldt Park neighborhood, she knows the Pied Piper has returned. When another teenager is brutally murdered at the same lagoon where her sister’s body was found floating years before, she is certain that the Pied Piper is not just back, he’s looking for payment he’s owed from her. Lauren’s torn between protecting the city she has sworn to keep safe, and keeping a promise she made long ago with her sister’s murderer. She may have to ruin her life by exposing her secrets and lies to stop the Pied Piper before he collects.

And I chiefly use my charm

On creatures that do people harm,

The mole and toad and newt and viper;

And people call me the Pied Piper.

-          The Pied Piper of Hamelin by Robert Browning (1812-1889)

"The Pied Piper of Hamelin"by Augustin von Mörsperg, 1592

My dad was born and raised on the Southside Chicago and will tell anyone who will listen that his birthplace is the best city in the world. My wife, on the other hand, firmly believes Chicago is akin to LA in the ‘90s. When I did finally manage to lure her there with the promise of deep-dish pizza and the Museum of Science and Industry she did admit the Windy City was a pretty cool place and not at scary as she was expecting (even after we stumbled onto an illegal street race). Although the crime rate there is higher than the national average, Chicago is hardly the crime and drug filled dystopia my wife and other outsiders seem to believe it is. In fact, its violent crime rates are far lower than those of Anchorage, Wichita, and Milwaukee. The dangerous reputation may have come from Chicago’s fascinating history of crime, gangsters, and serial killers or even the many tragedies that have befallen the White City in the past. Modern-day boogiemen like the Lipstick Killer, John Wayne Gacy, the Ripper Crew, and Richard Speck all called Chicago their home. The Blue Beard-esque H. H. Holmes built his murder castle in Englewood. The city’s most notorious gangster, Al Capone, has morphed into something of a folk hero and tragedies like the Great Chicago Fire and the Haymarket affair have taken on almost a legendary status. Dark rumors surround the abandoned Edgewater Medical Center. Stories like these have shaped Chicago’s history and how it’s perceived by the rest of the country: a gothic city haunted by the past. But darkness and death aren’t all the city has to offer.

Fairy tales, at least the original versions and not the Disney-fied ones, are often a child’s first introduction to the world of horror. Beautiful and sinister stories full of threats of death and assault, mutilation, hungry wolves, and dark forests have been used to frighten children for generations. Fairy tales are beautiful roses and sharp thorns, poisonous treats, beauty and blood. They also share many of the same elements as gothic fiction. Sometime in the distant past, a helpless woman is placed in a dark and dangerous setting (now a castle instead of a forest), where she is threatened by supernatural forces until rescued by the hero. Orphans and peasant girls are made to suffer before finally coming into riches. Animals no longer speak, but still bring portents of doom. Nature is wild, dangerous, and unpredictable. Both have themes of revenge, isolation, rags to riches, abuse, and women who are under constant threat as the men in her life fight over her body. Bluebeard, and other versions of the Aarne–Thompson type 312 tale, are the perfect example of a gothic fairy tale. In the story a woman leaves her family to marry a mysterious stranger and goes to live in his isolated and lonely castle. But locked away in a castle is a dark and dangerous secret. The wife can go in any room, but one, which contains the bodies of the stranger’s previous, murdered wives.

In the original version of Cinderella, the Little Mermaid, and Sleeping Beauty, the step sisters cut off parts of their feet and birds pecked out their eyes, the mermaid's tongue was cut out and every step she took on land was agony, and Sleeping Beauty was raped and impregnated with twins by a married king while she slept.

Cynthia Pelayo draws on the city’s history to create her gothic urban fairy tale, Children of Chicago. The city stands in for the dark forest, a vaguely supernatural setting where unwary children disappear and gang members prowl the street like big bad wolves. The book follows recently orphaned Lauren Medina, a deeply troubled police detective hunting a serial killer known only as The Pied Piper-- a shadowy boogeyman who preys on children then vanishes into the night. It’s rumored he can be summoned by burning a black candle and speaking a spell in front of a mirror. Throughout the story, Lauren is unstable and brimming over with barely-contained emotion, a staple of any good Gothic tale, as she wrestles with her missing memories of her sister’s death. Lauren breaks the typical female fairy tale mold where women were relegated to witches, wise women, virginal damsels, and evil stepmothers. She’s not exactly evil, but she isn’t pure and heroic either, instead she’s but a rare example of a female Byronic hero intentionally written to be tragic, unlikeable, morally gray, and hiding a dark past, much like the heroes found in gothic horror. In fact, few of the women in the story fall into any of the aforementioned roles. Stepmothers aren’t necessarily evil, even if their angry stepdaughters perceive them as such. Damsels in distress may possess more agency than they seem to, and villainous women can also be victims. I genuinely enjoyed seeing a female character (who wasn’t intended to be liked) embrace her darkness and struggle with her morality. Just as much horror came from Lauren’s psychological trauma and instability as it did from the threat of the supernatural.

While Lauren initially came across as “the young female cop with a dark past and something to prove” trope (aka Jodie Foster in Silence of the Lambs), it soon became clear that unlike Clarice Starling, we’re not necessarily supposed to root for her. And unlike every maverick detective in an ‘80s buddy-cop comedy, Lauren’s flagrant disregard for the rules in order to get her guy aren’t justified, but instead dangerous and unjust. Though, much like police in the real world, she’s able to get away with it. I appreciate that Pelayo avoided turning her crime drama into “copaganda” by making Lauren a protagonist, but not a hero. I admit I used to enjoy shows like Brooklyn 99, Lucifer, and Law & Order SVU (yes, I’m old) even though I recognized how incredibly problematic they were. But ever since 2020 I’ve more or less lost my taste for any media that portrays a corrupt system as a heroic force for good, justified in flouting the law. It no longer feels like harmless fantasy when you realize how many people actually believe that cop shows reflect real life and officers only target “bad guys” as oppose to anyone they don’t like (mostly BIPOC, the poor, and the mentally ill). So, reading a crime story where the police weren’t heroes was a relief. In fact, Lauren’s only redeeming quality is that she has a soft spot for troubled teens, ever since the mysterious death of her own sister.

Brimming with references to Chicago’s history, it’s clear that Pelayo loves her home while still recognizing its flaws. In fact, the novel feels just as much a crime story as it does a guide to the dark and fantastical parts of the Windy City. She holds a Master of Fine Arts in Writing from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and it shows in her writing. Throughout Children of Chicago Pelayo references the original, dark versions of famous and not-so famous fairytales, from Cinderella to the Singing Bone, adding to her own story’s dark atmosphere balancing on the edge of reality and fantasy. Pelayo’s novel is full of missing mothers, an unjust society where the most vulnerable suffer, magic mirrors, plenty of gore, spells, and a moral message. But overall, it’s a subversion of the classic fairy tale formula where the good are rewarded, the evil are punished, and morality is clearly defined. In Children of Chicago the “heroes” are neither pure-hearted nor moral, evil escapes justice while the innocent suffer, and no one is getting a happy ending.

It’s unfortunate that the darkest parts of Chicago’s history have shaped so much of its reputation when the Windy City has so much to offer. As my wife soon discovered on her first visit, the city is full or art, beauty, and wonder. Pelayo doesn’t just show the city’s dark side, she shows its magic as well. “Fairy tales are in our blood as Chicagoans” one of the books characters explains. Walt Disney, L. Frank Baum, Ray Bradbury, and Gwnedolyn Brooks were all inspired by the city to create their own fairy tales. Colleen Moore created her famous Fairy Castle and donated it to The Chicago Museum of Science and Industry. Children gathered pennies to create the Rock-a-Bye Lady from Eugene Field’s poem. The haunting beauty of the SheddAquarium feels like you’ve stepped into another world. The city even has a secret Little Mermaid inspired bar! It’s this beauty, contrasted with the allure of danger, that makes Chicago as wonderous as any fairytale.

Photos of Colleen Moore's Fairy Castle from the Museum of Science and Industry. Pictured here are the library (top), exterior (left) and great hall (right).