Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories ReviewsLeave a comment on Review: Drencrom by Hamelin Bird 
Drencrom by Hamelin Bird
Piper House (May 2023)
144 pages; $12.95 paperback; $5.99 ebook
Reviewed by Haley Newlin
Hamelin Bird’s Drencrom is a graphic and poetic love letter to Lynchian horror and A Clockwork Orange.
Since getting kicked out of her home, Coda has indulged in a hippie-soul existence without much direction. All of that changes when she scours the dark web for an allegedly “mythical” drug called Drencrom, a crimson-colored liquid with unimaginable power. Continue Reading
Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories ReviewsLeave a comment on Review: Diavola by Jennifer Thorne 
Diavola by Jennifer Thorne
Tor Nightfire (March 2024)
Reviewed by Haley Newlin
In 2022, I reviewed Jennifer Thorne’s debut novel, Lute, a folk horror story compared to Ari Aster’s Midsommar, where the town’s adults were impressively desensitized to occult traditions. (Are you thinking of the murderous ritual for the elderly? I can still see Florence Pugh’s face.) The execution of this element lends itself well to an unnerving mystery and a sense of outrage in Lute that made readers devour the pages and does so, once again, in Thorne’s latest release, Diavola.Continue Reading
Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories ReviewsLeave a comment on Review: Cranberry Cove by Hailey Piper 
Cranberry Cove by Hailey Piper
Bad Hand Books, LLC (April 2024)
Reviewed by Haley Newlin
Hailey Piper creates a haunting atmosphere and writes with stunning prose in her Bram Stoker Award-winning novella Cranberry Cove.
In the desolate halls of the Cranberry Cove Hotel, there’s an evil once called upon but abandoned. Even rodents didn’t dare enter. No one did until Emberly’s boss, Ricard, sent she and her partner, Conner, on a mission after his son was s*xually assaulted. What stands out here is: one, the victim is male, and two, there’s a lot of nuanced information. He didn’t see his attacker. There don’t appear to be secret passages to allow someone to sneak in and out unseen. Still, Richard’s son is instantly believed, a privilege both cisgender and transgender women fight tooth and nail for. Continue Reading
Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories Reviews1 Comment on Review: Scribe by Michael R. Goodwin 
Scribe by Michael R. Goodwin
Dark Pine Publishing (September 2023)
Reviewed by Haley Newlin
In Michael R. Goodwin’s Scribe (the Smolder prequel), an ancient force prowls and feeds in the woods, hungry for women, children, hunters, and whoever should be misfortunate enough to enter the shadows. The Penobscot natives lost several to the evil of the woods, with nothing left of the bodies, only scorched patches of earth.
Finally, an elder arranges a deal, trading sacrifice for immunity.Continue Reading
Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories InterviewsLeave a comment on The Cemetery Dance Interview: The Haunting of Gwendolyn Kiste 
Gwendolyn Kiste is a three-time Bram Stoker Award-winning author of The Haunting of Velkwood, The Rust Maidens, Reluctant Mortals, and most recently, a short story called “Your Mother’s Love Is An Apocalypse” in the Mother Knows Best: Tales of Homemade Horror anthology, foreword by Sadie Hartmann, edited by Lindy Ryan. Kiste has also won the Lambda Literary Award and received the This is Horror award for Novel of the Year.
She doesn’t just tell any old ghost stories. Kiste’s books, like The Haunting of Velkwood, orbit themes of self-identity, complacency, and unbreakable bonds. To her, “Everyone’s life is like a haunted house.” Perhaps that’s why her books linger, giving readers a ghostly book hangover.
Kiste spoke to Cemetery Dance about The Haunting of Velkwood, gothic horror, themes of complacency and accountability in her latest novel, and, of course, ghost stories (her specialty).Continue Reading
Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories ReviewsLeave a comment on Review: My Darling Dreadful Thing by Johanna Van Veen 
My Darling Dreadful Thing by Johanna Van Veen
Poisoned Pen Press (May 2024)
384 pages
Reviewed by Haley Newlin
My Darling Dreadful Thing by Johanna Van Veen exceptionally invokes gothic tropes such as unearthing buried secrets at a dire cost, and relics of her predecessors to craft a chilling, sapphic love story that is possessive, haunting, and beautiful.Continue Reading
Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories Reviews1 Comment on Review: Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay 
Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay
William Morrow (June 11, 2024)
288 pages
Reviewed by Haley Newlin
In his classic, fatalistic tone, Bram Stoker Award-winner Paul Tremblay cleverly assembles a haunting level of empathy between readers, the narrator, and characters in Horror Movie. At times the story felt all-too real, which will appease fans of Tremblay’s previous work like A Head Full of Ghosts (2015) and The Pallbearers Club (2022). Down the road, maybe even a few weeks from now, the characters’ names from Horror Movie may evade you but you’ll never escape the reality-bending and unsettling “horror void.” Continue Reading
Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories ReviewsLeave a comment on Review: Grasshands by Kyle Winkler 
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
Hitchcock’s Blondes: The Unforgettable Women Behind The Legendary Director’s Dark Obsession by Laurence Leamer
G.P. Putnam’s Sons (October 2023)
335 pages; $21.10 hardcover; $14.99 e-book
Reviewed by Haley Newlin
Alfred Hitchcock’s legacy has, until recent years, mostly been portrayed through the rosy lens of Hollywood. Many consider Hitchcock one of the fathers of horror and a worthy contender amongst the greatest directors of all time. He’s remembered for his brilliance and astute demeanor, evoked throughout the evolution of cinema-from silent films to “talkies” to color to the big screen.Continue Reading
Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories ReviewsLeave a comment on Review: This Wretched Valley by Jenny Kiefer 
This Wretched Valley by Jenny Kiefer
Quirk Books (January 2024)
309 pages; $18.99 paperback; $11.99 e-book
Reviewed by Haley Newlin
DO NOT TOUCH THIS GROUND
Some monsters live outside the shadows, beneath the sun, sitting beside you, watching and plotting.
Jenny Kiefer’s debut, This Wretched Valley, will appease horror readers who crave fright outside the typical haunted house or killer’s dimly lit basement. Many hair-raising, nail-biting scenes occur in broad daylight, and exploring an uncharted rock in the valley leaves the team isolated from surrounding campers or hikers. Not that many visit that wretched valley, anyway. Not after all the disappearances over the years. Continue Reading
Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories InterviewsLeave a comment on The Cemetery Dance Interview: Clay McLeod Chapman
Clay McLeod Chapman writes books, comic books, children’s books, as well as for film and television. His most recent novel, What Kind of Mother and Ghost Eaters are grief horror stories. Chapman’s vibrant personality and energy are magnetizing, and seemingly contradictory to his writing material. Todd Keisling and I joked that the Whisper Down The Lane author is “like a cup of coffee” — rejuvenating.
It’s there, in that duality and range both on and off the page, where Chapman’s talent lies.
Chapman spoke to Cemetery Danceabout What Kind of Mother, Ghost Eaters, fellow horror authors, and his upcoming projects. Continue Reading
Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories ReviewsLeave a comment on Review: The Maker’s Box by David Barclay 
The Maker’s Box by David Barclay
9 Swords (March 2022)
89 pages; $6.99 paperback; $3.99 e-book
Reviewed by Haley Newlin
Stephen King’s dreamscape fantasy Rose Madder meets the precise cleverness of Richard Chizmar’s Gwendy’s series in The Maker’s Box.
I’d never read anything from Barclay before The Maker’s Box, but now I’m blood-thirsty for more. Continue Reading
Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories Reviews, The Comic Vault1 Comment on Review: The Scarecrow Man by Miguel Goncalves 
The Scarecrow Man by Miguel Goncalves
Dark Pine Publishing (September 2023)
40 pages; $4.75 paperback; $0.00 e-book
Reviewed by Haley Newlin
Do you dare enter the Scarecrow Show?
From the pages of Devil’s Reject (by Dark Pine Publishing) comes Miguel Goncalves’s short story, “The Scarecrow Man,” where the line between reality and nightmare blurs into a devilish dance of psychological horror and crime fiction. As I devoured this debut, I couldn’t shake the echoes of Robert Bloch’s Psycho and A24’s cinematic masterpiece Pearl. Continue Reading
Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories ReviewsLeave a comment on Review: Vampires of El Norte by Isabel Cañas 
Vampires of El Norte by Isabel Cañas
Berkley (August 2023)
371 pages; $19.58 hardcover; $14.99 e-book; $20.25 audiobook
Reviewed by Haley Newlin
Some things are too precious to lose.
Nena and Nestor were inseparable as children. They even shared their first kiss. To Nena, Nestor’s voice is like coming home, but her father wishes to marry her to a wealthy rancher’s son to acquire more land for the family.
She didn’t always dread the idea of marriage, not when she envisioned it with Nestor.Continue Reading
Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories ReviewsLeave a comment on Review: Silver Nitrate by Silvia Moreno-Garcia Reviewed by Haley Newlin
Silvia Moreno-Garcia makes her much-anticipated return to horror (after Mexican Gothic) with her latest release, Silver Nitrate. It wasn’t just the Twilight Zone and Psycho-reminiscent imagery on the cover that pushed me to read Silver Nitrate; it was also because of its emphasis on oldies horror in the same vein as Hammer films and the rare chance to learn about Nazism in Mexico.
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