Reviews Archives - Cemetery Dance Online

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

Review: Symphony for Walpurgis: A Collection by Rami Ungar

Cemetery Dance OnlineApril 23, 2025April 17, 2025ReviewsJoshua Gage, Rami Ungar, Reviews, Symphony for WalpurgisLeave a comment

Symphony for Walpurgis by Rami Ungar
May 1, 2025
Reviewed by Joshua Gage

Rami Ungar is the author of Rose, a novel about a woman who turns into a plant, and the collection Hannah & Other Stories, which includes the tale of a carnivorous horse. He is the Ohio chapter coordinator for the Horror Writers Association. His newest collection of novelletes is Symphony forrWalpurgis.

Novellettes are a strange beast. Many publishers and readers find them difficult because they’re such an in-between style of writing. They’re too short to build real suspense, some readers will tell you. Others will insist that they’re too long, and that they’re just short stories that need more editing. However, as the novelette is Ungar’s chosen form, he’s done his best to prove naysayers wrong, and what a job he has done!Continue Reading

Review: Blood On Her Tongue by Johanna Van Veen

Cemetery Dance OnlineApril 21, 2025April 17, 2025ReviewsBlood on Her Tongue, Haley Newlin, Johanna Van Veen, ReviewsLeave a comment

Blood On Her Tongue by Johanna Van Veen

Poison Pen Press (March 2025)

Reviewed by Haley Newlin

Blood On Her Tongue is a vividly violent and sapphic, good-for-her horror story with a strong appetite and ferocious bite. Johanna Van Veen has repeated her success; Blood On Her Tongue is every bit as unputdownable and shocking as her 2024 novel, My Darling Dreadful Thing.

Review: Saint Catherine by Anna Meyer

Cemetery Dance OnlineApril 16, 2025April 13, 2025Reviews, The Comic VaultAnna Meyer, Columns, Joshua Gage, Reviews, Saint Catherine, The Comic VaultLeave a comment

banner that reads The Comic Vault

Saint Catherine by Anna Meyer
23rd St. (April 29, 2025)
Reviewed by Joshua Gage

Anna Meyer is an author, designer and comic artist living in Brooklyn, New York. Originally from the Midwest, Anna went to a two-year design school in Lakewood, Ohio, where she received her associate degree in graphic design. She has over eleven years of professional design experience as both a senior designer and a design manager. She has been drawing and making comics ever since she could hold a pencil. Anna’s debut graphic novel is Saint Catherine. Continue Reading

Review: This Cursed House by Del Sandeen

Cemetery Dance OnlineApril 14, 2025April 13, 2025ReviewsDel Sandeen, Haley Newlin, Reviews, This Cursed HouseLeave a comment

This Cursed House by Del Sandeen
Berkley (October 2024)
Reviewed by Haley Newlin

Jemma Barker needs a fresh start, and it appears in a strange letter offering her a position with the Duchon family in New Orleans. It promises the highest pay she’s ever earned.

The author, Del Sandeen, wastes no time settling readers into the gritty anticipation of horror and mystery. When Jemma arrives in New Orleans, a woman in a café urges Jemma to return home. The driver ices her out, not wanting to speak of the Duchon place, much less see it.

This Cursed House was unputdownable from the get-go. Continue Reading

Review: Old Monsters Never Die by Tim Waggoner

Cemetery Dance OnlineApril 11, 2025April 10, 2025ReviewsChandra Calypool, Old Monsters Never Die, Reviews, Tim Waggoner1 Comment

cover of Old Monsters Never Die Old Monsters Never Die by Tim Waggoner
Winding Road Stories (May 2024)
Reviewed by Chandra Claypool (Instagram) (TikTok)

“18 provocative tales of terror that explore the darkest corners of the human mind.. concluding with an unforgettable metafictional story on what it takes to be a horror writer.” Yes, please!Continue Reading

Review: The Nightmarchers by J.Lincoln Fenn

Cemetery Dance OnlineApril 9, 2025April 5, 2025ReviewsChandra Claypool, J.L. Fenn, Reviews, The NightmarchersLeave a comment

The Nightmarchers by J.Lincoln Fenn
Gallery Books (October 2024)
Reviewed by Chandra Claypool (Instagram) (TikTok)

The Nightmarchers is a “bone-chilling novel where a mysterious island holds the terrifying answers to a woman’s past and future.” We start in the past, circa 1939, via journal entries from Irene Greer. We learn that her fall from a waterfall is to try and join her husband and daughter who she believes have “joined the nightmarchers — ghosts of ancient warriors that rise from their burial sites on moonless nights.”Continue Reading

Review: Delicate Condition by Danielle Valentine

Cemetery Dance OnlineApril 7, 2025April 5, 2025ReviewsDanielle Valentine, Delicate Condition, Haley Newlin, ReviewsLeave a comment

Delicate Condition by Danielle Valentine
Sourcebooks Landmark (August 2023)
Reviewed by Haley Newlin

Welcome to pregnancy. As you grow your bundle of joy, you’ll experience discomfort. That’s just part of it.

But why?

In Delicate Condition, Danielle Valentine mounds a tower of dread with every dismissive doctor and sacrifice Anna makes for her child, all before she’s pregnant. Early on, this book reminded me of Ira Levine’s Rosemary’s Baby, where the spouse, neighbors, and doctors view the woman more as a vessel than a person. There’s a simplicity in how Valentine conveys this, so familiar, yet still so horrific. Misogyny needs no ghost. Gaslighting needs no demon.Continue Reading

Review: The Salt Grows Heavy by Cassandra Khaw

Cemetery Dance OnlineApril 2, 2025March 30, 2025ReviewsCassandra Khaw, Haley Newlin, Reviews, The Salt Grows HeavyLeave a comment

cover of The Salt Grows Heavy The Salt Grows Heavy by Cassandra Khaw
Tor Nightfire (May 2023)
Reviewed by Haley Newlin

Cassandra Khaw is known for their evocative prose, intensely dark and stunning worlds, masterful acts blending genres and lines of reality and fiction, and humans and monsters. In their fantasy-horror novella, The Salt Grows Heavy, a mermaid’s daughters unleash death upon the kingdom. Bodies line the streets, stacked in towering piles. They’ve gorged themselves on townspeople.Continue Reading

Review: Model Home by Rivers Solomon

Cemetery Dance OnlineMarch 31, 2025March 30, 2025ReviewsChandra Claypool, Model Home, Reviews, Rivers SolomonLeave a comment

cover of Model Home Model Home by Rivers Solomon
MCD (October 2024)
Reviewed by Chandra Claypool (Instagram) (TikTok)

I don’t even know where to start with this one! I decided to go with audio on this one and I’m glad I did as the narrator, Gabby Beans, was FANTASTIC. As the first sentence of the synopsis states: “Welcome to Rivers Solomon’s dark and wondrous Model Home, a new kind of haunted-house novel.” And that, it surely is!

“Rivers Solomon turns the haunted-house story on its head, unearthing the dark legacies of segregation and racism in the suburban American South. Unbridled, raw, and daring, Model Home is the story of secret histories uncovered, and of a queer family battling for their right to live, grieve, and heal amid the terrors of contemporary American life.”Continue Reading

Review: Bloodstains by Gaslight by Red Lagoe

Cemetery Dance OnlineMarch 28, 2025March 23, 2025ReviewsBloodstains by Gaslight, Elizabeth Broadbent, Red Lagoe, ReviewsLeave a comment

cover of Bloodstains by Gaslight — Version 1.0.0

Bloodstains by Gaslight by Red Lagoe
Brigids Gate Press (March 29, 2025)
Reviewed by Elizabeth Broadbent

Red Lagoe’s Bloodstains by Gaslight comes with numerous trigger warnings, including intimate partner violence and sexual assault. I was warned. I assured Lagoe I would not be triggered. I think I said something like, “I’m okay.”

Two hundred and some odd pages later, I am decidedly not okay. “Emotionally shell-shocked” comes closest. Bloodstains by Gaslight is a propulsive read — I finished it in one sitting — but a hard one. That’s not a weak point; the novel is a devastating and realistic look at the horrors of domestic abuse, told slant, as Lagoe turns the vampire trope into a metaphor for partner violence. Continue Reading

Review: Something in the Walls by Daisy Pearce

Cemetery Dance OnlineMarch 26, 2025March 24, 2025ReviewsChandra Claypool, Daisy Pearce, Reviews, Something in the WallsLeave a comment

cover of Something in the Walls Something in the Walls by Daisy Pearce
Minotaur Books (February 2025)
Reviewed by Chandra Claypool (Instagram) (TikTok)

Doesn’t this cover just call to you? In this book we meet Mina who is still grieving the death of her brother. In a bereavement group, she meets Sam, a journalist, who thinks she should investigate Alice Webber. Alice is a teen who says she is being haunted by a witch. As her behavior becomes more and more disturbing, they delve into the town’s history and evil traditions. Exploring grief, loss and faith, this book also explores whether or not supernatural things are actually real or just a reflection of our own human darkness. This is a great read for those who love folk horror mixed with cults, curses and of course, witchcraft. Continue Reading

Review: Fever Dreams of a Parasite by Pedro Iniguez

Cemetery Dance OnlineMarch 24, 2025March 23, 2025ReviewsElizabeth Broadbent, Fever Dreams of a Parasite, Pedro Iniguez, ReviewsLeave a comment

cover of Fever Dreams of a Parasite — Version 1.0.0

Fever Dreams of a Parasite by Pedro Iniguez
Raw Dog Screaming Press (March 2025)
Reviewed by Elizabeth Broadbent

All horror is political (Gabino Igelias says it, so it must be true). The best authors hand us stories alongside their politics; it’s only after we’re wowed by their words that we stand back and marvel at the message. And if the author is very lucky, their message hits at the right cultural moment. Their theme becomes not important, but culturally vital. We need their voice. We need them to speak up and speak out. In the midst of this moment, Pedro Iniguez pulls this off with panache in Fever Dreams of a Parasite. Continue Reading

Review: White Line Fever by KC Jones

Cemetery Dance OnlineMarch 19, 2025March 16, 2025ReviewsBlu Gilliand, KC Jones, Reviews, Tor Nightfire, White Line FeverLeave a comment

cover of White Line Fever White Line Fever by KC Jones
Tor Nightfire (March 2025)
Reviewed by Blu Gilliand

County Road 951. Not exactly a name that evokes chills, is it? Maybe not, but go ahead and spend a little time on this 15-mile stretch of road, this “two-lane scar across the Cascade foothills of Central Oregon,” and let KC Jones show you why it’s better known as “The Devil’s Driveway.”Continue Reading

Review: The Order of the Circle by Levi Cory, Elisabeth Mkheidze, Maria Letizia Mirabella and Eva de la Cruz

Cemetery Dance OnlineMarch 17, 2025March 9, 2025Reviews, Stephen King News from the Dead Zone, The Comic VaultColumns, Dead Sky Publishing, Elisabeth Mkheidze, Eva de la Cruz, Joshua Gage, Levi Cory, Maria Letizia Mirabella, Reviews, The Comic Vault, The Order of the CircleLeave a comment

banner that reads The Comic Vault cover of The Order of the Circle The Order of the Circle by Levi Cory, Elisabeth Mkheidze, Maria Letizia Mirabella and Eva de la Cruz
Dead Sky Publishing (February 2025)
Reviewed by Joshua Gage

Levi Cory is a new graphic novelist fresh off the farm. With a degree in Playwriting and studies in film and theater, Levi brings a deep understanding of narrative structure and character development to their work. They have written and directed films and TV shows such as Living… and Snakemagic.com. In addition to their work in film and TV, Levi has authored several written works, including The Comfort of The Womb, Robbing Stupidity, and The Sick Rose. Their playwriting has earned significant recognition, including a Texas Playwright Award. Known for blending deep thematic exploration with innovative narrative structures, Levi continues to captivate audiences across both written and visual media, pushing creative boundaries with each new project. Cory’s newest book, The Order of The Circle, is available on Dead Sky Publishing.Continue Reading

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