ghosts – Tattered Covers & Broken Spines

A short story collection from Mary SanGiovanni

4/5 Star Review

Up next for Women in Horror Month, I read Mary SanGiovanni for the first time and I was quite pleased!

For those of you who don’t know, Ms. SanGiovanni had a cosmic horror podcast, Cosmic Shenanigans. For those of you like me, maybe you didn’t know about this genre – or referred to it as Lovecraftian horror. I was beyond thrilled to discover this podcast and give an actual name to this sub-genre of horror that I really enjoy. I guess I was living with my head in the sand. It was because of this podcast and listening to Ms. SanGiovanni co-host The Horror Show with Brian Keene that I decided to give one of her books a try. I love short story collections, so I thought it would be a good place to start.

Night Moves, is a beautiful collection of cosmic horror, ghost stories, and tales that are simply, other. The common thread throughout the book are the deeply human connections found in each one – fear, loss, love, and sadness. This is so important in a book where the horror can be, at times, so far beyond human comprehension that you need that connection to tether you to the fear the character is experiencing.

Like almost every anthology, some stories are stronger than others, and for me, Night Moves was no exception. The shorts that stood out for me in this collection were: The Hundred-Years’ Sleep, about loving a princess and saving the world; The Anathema Cell, about a container that does not belong in our realm; Shadow Puppets, a tale of heartbreak and closet monsters; and The Mime, about a creepy, creepy, creepy mime.

I will definitely be seeking out Mary SanGiovanni’s full-length novels to add to my TBR mountain – she is a must-read for fans of this tasty little sub-genre.

A Flame Tree Press January 2019 release by Catherine Cavendish

3/5 Star Review

If there is one element of horror that I never tire of – it’s that of the ghost story. It’s what drew me to The Haunting of Henderson Close and made it seem a perfect choice to kick off my February TBR for Women in Horror Month.

Hannah, divorcée and empty-nester, has moved to Edinburgh to start her new life and dream job. She works as a tour guide in a haunted attraction, an actual haunted alley, dressing in period garb, and sharing its history with tourists. Almost immediately, Hannah begins to experience sights, sounds, and smells that do not belong in her time – they belong to the past.

Overall, this was a fun read – the characters were well-developed and Cavendish handles the transitions between the present and the past quite well. The story is fast-paced and honestly, the book was hard to put down.

Without giving away any spoilers, the story started to fall apart for me during the last quarter of the book. There seemed to be too many additional plot points introduced without enough pages left to truly flesh them out – it left for a bit of a muddy ending.

This was my first read from Catherine Cavendish and I would most certainly try her again – this book had me hooked nearly all the way to the end. If you have a recommendation for one of her titles – I’d love to hear about it.

As a note, I received The Haunting of Henderson Close as a galley from Flame Tree Books in exchange for an honest review.