Grasshands by Kyle Winkler
JournalStone Publishing (January 2024)
216 pages; $16.95 paperback; $6.95 e-book
Reviewed by Haley Newlin
In Kyle Winkler’s Grasshands, the line between reality and nightmare trembles, unsteady, before dispersing into scattering spiders.
“Farce lands first. Tragedy knocks later.”
Throughout this read, I often thought of Ray Bradbury, who wrote stories like Fahrenheit 451, emphasizing the power of knowledge and caution against its misuse and exploitation. Winkler revived Bradbury’s calling card of creating characters who grappled with the pursuit of knowledge, whether for the exposure of hidden truths or devotion for discovery and conjured an unputdownable biblio-horror novel. Continue Reading
Terror doesn’t stumble and moan—it walks silently among us, cloaked in the guise of the overlooked. 
It begins in an unnamed city nicknamed “the Fairest,” distinguished by many things from the river fair to the mountains that split the municipality in half; its theaters and many museums; the Morgue Ship; and, like all cities, but maybe especially so, by its essential unmappability.
Jill Girardi is no stranger to horror. She runs the independent publisher 
In a secluded mansion hidden away from the outside world, young Kosa lives under the strict and overpowering rule of her enigmatic mother. For Kosa, the rules set by Mother are the guiding principles of her life, shaping her beliefs and actions. She has been sheltered from the truth about the world beyond the confines of their home, conditioned to fear the darkness and malevolence that supposedly lurks outside.
I just finished John Hornor Jacobs’ 
“She glanced over her shoulder. Had the scarecrow moved? It stood there, smile stitched on its face, but now it felt like a smirk.”
