Review: Black Cat Tales: An Anthology of Black Cats edited by Francesca Maria and Mark S. Causey

Cemetery Dance OnlineMay 30, 2025May 20, 2025ReviewsBlack Cat Tales, David Niall WIlson, Franceca Maria, Mark S. Causey, ReviewsLeave a comment

cover of Black Cat Tales Black Cat Tales: An Anthology of Black Cats edited by Francesca Maria and Mark S. Causey
Black Cat Publishing (June 13, 2025)
Reviewed by David Niall Wilson

This anthology does a couple of rare things. It follows a narrow theme, and it delivers variety. There are so many ways you can go with stories and poems featuring black cats, and the editors managed to gather a wide variety. It never feels like you are just getting what you expect, and in a themed anthology, I believe that to be the key to success. In this volume you are getting black cats from every conceivable angle, and with serious talent behind their tales. Continue Reading

Review: King of Ashes by S.A. Cosby

Cemetery Dance OnlineMay 27, 2025May 18, 2025ReviewsDavid Simms, King of Ashes, Reviews, S.A. CosbyLeave a comment

cover of King of Ashes King of Ashes by S.A Cosby
Flatiron Books|Pine & Cedar (June 10, 2025)
Reviewed by Dave Simms

Today’s modern master of crime fiction is back in a scathing work that does what S.A. Cosby does best — entertain, but also leave a scar on the reader’s psyche. If one is familiar with the growing catalog, the expectations are high. In King of Ashes, those expectations are met again, and exceeded. His writing is akin to a beauty and the beast dichotomy — gorgeous prose wrapped around vicious scenes and broken characters — a mix that is addicting but also a gut punch, sucker punch, and whisper of poetry.

Bev Vincent explores Never Flinch by Stephen King

Bev VincentMay 26, 2025May 24, 2025Reviews, Stephen King News from the Dead ZoneBev Vincent, Cujo, Finders Keepers, Holly, If it Bleeds, Mr. Mercedes, Never Flinch, News from the Dead Zone, Reviews, Stephen King, Stephen King News, The Outsider1 Comment

Murderers Anonymous

Although Stephen King has written books that could be classified as thrillers in the past, it’s hard to pick one with more intricate interweaving of fast-paced events featuring numerous characters in different locations than you’ll find in the climactic section of Never Flinch. With plenty of foreshadowing to prime the pump, King begins the drive toward an impressive series of confrontations at the book’s midpoint. It’s a whodunit, replete with red herrings and misdirection, and even after the true identity of the killer is revealed, King keeps the tension level high as he juggles several independent but interlinked plotlines and roars to a gripping finale.

Nick Peterson on The Harvest

Cemetery Dance OnlineMay 23, 2025May 18, 2025Interviews, The Comic VaultLeave a comment

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cover of The Harvest Nick Peterson is a director and producer, working on everything from short films to commercials to music videos. The horror genre has long interested him, and he’s written his first graphic novel, The Harvest, which was initially inspired by his art. Peterson spoke to Cemetery Dance about his work, being in horror film festivals, and what makes The Harvest bold and different.Continue Reading

Denis Kitchen’s Oddly Compelling career

Cemetery Dance OnlineMay 21, 2025May 18, 2025Interviews, The Comic VaultLeave a comment

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Denis Kitchen has worn many hats, including artist, publisher, author, historian and founder of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. A Kickstarter has launched to fund a documentary about him, Oddly Compelling, and Cemetery Dance spoke to Kitchen about the documentary, comics censorship, if horror comics are treated differently, and ways to take action.

Review: Pushing Daisy by Christopher O’Halloran

Cemetery Dance OnlineMay 19, 2025May 18, 2025ReviewsChristopher O'Halloran, Elizabeth Broadbent, Pushing Daisy, ReviewsLeave a comment

cover of Pushing Daisy

Pushing Daisy by Christopher O’Halloran
Lethe Press (May 23, 2025)
Reviewed by Elizabeth Broadbent

Christopher O’Halloran’s Pushing Daisy has a simple premise: a grieving widower begins to suspect that his recently departed wife has returned from the great beyond. Roger Darling is the type of man women tell their girlfriends to dump immediately. He’s bitter and manipulative, self-centered and cruel. Daisy martyred herself to assure his happiness. Continue Reading

Review: Down The Hill: My Descent into the Double Murder in Delphi by Susan Hendricks

Cemetery Dance OnlineMay 16, 2025May 12, 2025ReviewsDown the Hill, Haley Newlin, Reviews, Susan HendricksLeave a comment

cover of Down the Hill: My Descent into the Double Murder in Delphi Down The Hill: My Descent into the Double Murder in Delphi by Susan Hendricks
Hachette Books (September 2023)
288 pages; $19.58 hardcover; $15.99 e-book
Reviewed by Haley Newlin

As a child, I spent summers in Delphi, Indiana. I remember sycamores and cottonwood trees climbing the blue sky and the churn of gravel as we sipped on McDonald’s sweet teas, approaching “the farm.”

Reading Down The Hill: My Descent into the Double Murder in Delphi was nostalgic, hopeful, and tragic. I naively believed McDonald’s sweet tea and car rides through the small town were unique to my childhood. But I was wrong. Many kids in Delphi did the same — like 13-year-old Abby Williams and 14-year-old Libby German on the day they disappeared. Continue Reading

Review: Hospital of Haunts edited by Heather Daughrity

Cemetery Dance OnlineMay 14, 2025May 12, 2025ReviewsHeather Daughrity, Hospital of Haunts, Reviews, Rowan B. MinorLeave a comment

cover of Hospital of Haunts — Version 1.0.0

Hospital of Haunts edited by Heather Daughrity
Watertower Hill Publishing (October 2024)
Reviewed by Rowan B. Minor

Hospital of Haunts, edited by Heather Daughrity, is the second installment in a unique horror anthology series. The first book in this series focuses on a haunted house; the current book is set in a hospital; and the forthcoming installment will be in a hotel. Although part of a series, these books also stand alone as individual anthologies. Hospital of Haunts includes twenty-three stories by twenty-three authors. All stories in this book were written for and are set in Lychhurst, a fictional hospital set in the mountains of West Virginia, and are sectioned off into different “triage levels.” Not only does Hospital of Haunts include interactive passages that break the fourth wall, but readers get floor plans and a history of the hospital as well. Continue Reading

Review: The Harrowing Game by Antoine Revoy

Cemetery Dance OnlineMay 13, 2025May 12, 2025The Comic VaultAntoine Revoy, Columns, Joshua Gage, Reviews, The Comic Vault, The Harrowing GameLeave a comment

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The Harrowing Game by Antoine Revoy
23rd St. (May 27, 2025)
Reviewed by Joshua Gage

Antoine Revoy is an award-winning French writer, artist and designer, raised in Tokyo, Japan and Mexico City, Mexico. Revoy has created illustrations for clients such as The New York Times, Der Spiegel and Harvard University. He teaches visual storytelling and comics-making courses at the Rhode Island School of Design and is a thesis mentor at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. Revoy lives in Providence, Rhode Island, with his wife, author-illustrator Kelly Murphy, and their many animal companions. His newest graphic novel is The Harrowing Game.Continue Reading

Dead Trees: Cold Blood

Cemetery Dance OnlineMay 9, 2025April 26, 2025Dead TreesCold Blood, Columns, Dead Trees, Mark Sieber, Richard ChizmarLeave a comment

banner reading Dead Trees by Mark Sieber

Horror didn’t die in the nineties. It pulled back its reins, regrouped, and emerged as something different than we had in the eighties.

The market was flooded with weak product that eclipsed the truly worthy books being published. Those inferior books have ironically become more valuable collector’s items than most of the better titles of the time.Continue Reading

Review: Haint Country: Dark Folktales from the Hills and Hollers edited by Matthew R. Sparks and Olivia Sizemore

Cemetery Dance OnlineMay 7, 2025April 26, 2025ReviewsHaint Country, Matthew Sparks, Olivia Sizemore, Reviews, Rowan B. MinorLeave a comment

Haint Country: Dark Folktales from the Hills and Hollers edited by Matthew R. Sparks and Olivia Sizemore
University Press of Kentucky (October 2024)
Reviewed by Rowan B. Minor

Haint Country: Dark Folktales from the Hills and Hollers is a new book of over 50 chilling short stories adapted, collected, and edited by Matthew R. Sparks and Olivia Sizemore. These local legends center around haints, boogers, UFOs, and supernatural happenings within the Appalachian region. Separated into five sections, the otherworldly retellings in Haint Country are accompanied by unsettling watercolor illustrations by co-author Olivia Sizemore. These beautifully eerie designs are reminiscent of those by Stephen Gammell in Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, and the legends and lore will remind you of an adult version of the Short and Shivery series. Haint Country also corrects misinformation and harmful stereotypes about rural folklore and Appalachia as a whole. Authors Sparks and Sizemore have expanded the traditions within Appalachian storytelling and invite their audience to participate in its culture. Continue Reading

Review: Craft: Stories I Wrote for the Devil by Ananda Lima

Cemetery Dance OnlineMay 5, 2025April 26, 2025ReviewsAnanda Lima, Chandra Claypool, Craft: Stories I Wrote for the Devil, ReviewsLeave a comment

cover of Craft: Stories I Wrote for the Devil Craft: Stories I Wrote for the Devil by Ananda Lima
Tor Books (June 2024)
Reviewed by Chandra Claypool (Instagram) (TikTok)

Imaging meeting the Devil at a bar and they convince you that you’re kindred spirits because you both crave stories and you’re just drunk and heartbroken enough to let them in. This book has a unique format in that there’s stories within the main story. We follow the main character and her several encounters with the Devil as we get a peek into the stories she is writing for them. I absolutely love the cover for this as it shows this concept so well.Continue Reading

Exclusive Preview: Lost Marvels No. 1: Tower of Shadows

Cemetery Dance OnlineMay 2, 2025April 21, 2025The Comic VaultFantagraphics, Lost Marvels, marvel, Preview, The Comic Vault, Tower of ShadowsLeave a comment

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cover of Lost Marvels No. 1: Tower of Shadows The Tower of Shadows anthology series from 1969, which includes the work of such comics bigwigs as Stan Lee, Neal Adams, Bernie Wrightson and more, is being published by Marvel and Fantagraphics together as Lost Marvels No. 1: Tower of Shadows on April 29. Cemetery Dance gets to show this exclusive preview of Gary Friedrich and George Tuska’s story. And don’t forget to check out the following Lost Marvels volumes:

Lost Marvels No. 2: Howard Chaykin Vol. 1: Dominic Fortune, Monark Starstalker, and Phantom Eagle
Lost Marvels No. 3: Savage Tales

These will be out in July and November, respectively.Continue Reading

Review: The Haunting of Room 904 by Erika T. Wurth

Cemetery Dance OnlineApril 30, 2025April 26, 2025ReviewsErika T. Wurth, Flatiron Books, Reviews, Rowan B. Minor, The Haunting of Room 904Leave a comment

The Haunting of Room 904 by Erika T. Wurth
Flatiron Books (March 2025)
Reviewed by Rowan B. Minor

Erika T. Wurth, a Kenyon and Sewanee fellow, lives in Denver, Colorado and is an urban Native of Apache, Chickasaw, and Cherokee descent. She has published in The Kenyon Review, Buzzfeed, and The Writer’s Chronicle. She is a narrative artist for the Meow Wolf Denver installation and has been a guest writer at the Institute of American Indian Arts. Wurth’s horror novel White Horse is a New York Times editor’s pick and a Good Morning America buzz pick. Her most recent novel is The Haunting of Room 904. Continue Reading

Review: The Night Birds by Christopher Golden

Cemetery Dance OnlineApril 29, 2025April 28, 2025ReviewsBlu Gilliand, Christopher Golden, Reviews, The Night BirdsLeave a comment

cover of The Night Birds The Night Birds by Christopher Golden
St. Martin’s Press (May 6, 2025)
Reviewed by Blu Gilliand

It is, as they say, a tale as old as time.

Someone seeking power and purpose joins a group centered around an ancient evil — in this case, something called an Ur-Witch, with followers known as weavers who practice its mysterious rituals. When the hideous truth of their involvement comes to light, a couple of women break away and seek shelter with an old acquaintance, unwittingly bringing danger and death to his door.Continue Reading

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