Welcome to Litsy!

This story was more complex than I expected. At first I was creeped out by the family. There's Merricat, who's is 18 but acts like she's maybe 12. There's Uncle Julian droning on about his damn papers and obsessing on the infamous familial incident. However, events occur that make me empathize with the family and truly appreciate the story. I think this story has a lot of hints and layers and deserves a reread at some point.

This is a dark and intense collection of short stories. Some of them involve literal monsters, but in many of the stories, the humans are the monsters or at least the ones commiting monstrous acts. Ballingrud's characters are complex with many of them dealing with loss and having screwed up backgrounds. Favorites included The Good Husband, Sunbleached, Monsters of Heaven, and North American Lake Monsters.

The book had detailed worldbuilding, an interesting magic system, and diverse characters. It is also incredibly slowly paced which is not something I typically enjoy.

It takes awhile for the story to take off but once it did I was more engaged. It's a solid book.

Definitely more for those that like slow, in-depth character driven books.

Thanks to #NetGalley for the #ARC

#10BeforetheEnd

Featuring selections from #HauntedShelf #trappedinaspookyhouse #NFNovember and my in-person book club

I love how much this character hates salad. 😄 I don‘t have a lot of experience with quinoa but I thought I would give it a try. Not sure what he was on about it‘s pretty great. 🥗 #HauntedShelf #GrimReaders #TrappedInASpookyHouse #OneSnackToRuleThemAll #Chocolatiers #PumpkabooHunt #BookSpinBingo

My first book for #trappedinaspookyhouse picked by @Charityann thanks to @PuddleJumper for organizing!

Another solid addition to this series about a Chicago lawyer who returns to her small hometown in Pennsylvania. She turns the family farm around and solves murders of course.

Finished this one last night. It was spicier than I expected but it was still really good. A lot about healing and learning who you are and want to be. It‘s a bit magical realism with premonitions and dreams. Zane and Autumn meet in Cozy Creek and fall in love. They both have bad exes and baggage and have to work through it.

#hauntedshelf #castthedie #screamteam #trappedinaspookyhouse #bookspinbingo

Ahh! I can‘t wait for the next book to come out. Bristol goes into the fae world to search for her father who she has believed is dead. There‘s some romance and steamy scenes. I loved this book. It was also great on audio.

#hauntedshelf #trappedinaspookyhouse #screamteam

#bookspin #trappedinaspookyhouse #hauntedshelf #screamteam

This was really excellent. Super harrowing & incredibly well executed idea. Highly recommended.