Two Sentence Reviews

Before I got into my Two Sentence Reviews, a little update:

Part of the reason I started reviewing the books I read is to get some regular practice for writing. I spent a long time writing fiction, then got very burned out due to gaming industry drama that just killed every desire in me to ever write again, despite how much of my identity was telling stories.If writing is a muscle, writing reviews and snippets of things are how I exercise it. I’m just really good at falling off that train because depression means your motivation is always less than 0. However, I’m trying to post reviews at least once a week. I eventually hope to have a second post with whatever else I am working on, such as longer reviews, fiber and other arts, book-inspired art, movie BS, Fear Street summaries (these are erratic because of having to track down copies of 30+ year old books in order), and whatever other random things pop up so that I’m writing, even if it isn’t exactly Bram Stoker level material.

With that, you can follow me on Instagram, which is theoretically updated more often, at @wuthering_cephalopod. I don’t do the Musk app, but part of my “being better at being a person… sometimes” is posting on Bluesky at wuthceph.bsky.social

The Hacienda by Isabel Cañas: 3.5. Beatriz, a mestiza woman, marries into a higher (and much whiter) caste in order to escape the legacy of her rebellious father; instead, she finds herself haunted by the ghost of her new husband’s vengeful late wife, the terrible presence of his overbearing sister, and his expectations regarding what Beatriz should be and do with only a somewhat competent priest to help her. While it wasn’t extremely difficult to figure out where the plot was going with the main mystery, I’m always a fan of Mexican horror and how the themes shift based on when it takes place. 

The Silent Companions by Laura Purcell: 3. Widowed, Elsie returns to the crumbling estate her husband left her, his poor cousin in tow; while there, she’s constantly hearing the sound of cutting wood, seeing the wooden cutouts of the home moved around, and finding out about a demonic, hidden child from 200 years past. While it’s interesting to me that Purcell likes to focus on haunted objects in her books (I have several more on the reading list), I could barely remember what this book was about other than wooden cutouts; so, I suppose it was solid, but nothing to write home about.

The Secret History of Vampire by Claude Lecouteuxs: 4.5. Less a secret than an interesting collection of sources, this book brings together ideas from letters, texts, stories, and various other sources in an effort to interpret our fascination with vampires. Man, this book gave me so many ideas on how to create a vampire game that is actually different from everything that’s out there; the primary and secondary sources are perfect for drawing your own conclusions about what vampirism meant to the people who thought they were being haunted by them.

The Broken Girls by Simone St. James***: 3.5. At a school for “troubled” girls, a group of young women bond over their shared trauma and a vengeful ghost, until one of their own goes missing without a trace; in the present, a young woman grapples with her sister’s murder at the abandoned school, as well as the mysterious deaths at the location. This was the first book I read by St. James; it took me a few chapters to recognize I was rereading it, which reminded me that I always felt the ending of the past mystery felt a little tacked on. 

The House of Small Shadows by Adam Nevill: 3. After several tragedies— a missing childhood friend, mental health issues, a bullying incident, and a miscarriage— Catherine takes a job in her home town cataloguing a doll and puppet collection that has a mind of its own. This book is essentially my partner’s worst nightmare— haunted dolls abound— and Nevill tries to wrap it in a neater bow than he usually does, but so many of his books leave me wanting just a little more than the atmosphere he’s willing to give.

***From what I’ve read of Simone St. James, she blends the beats of crime mystery with a supernatural force in every book. Best of both worlds if you’re a true crime lover who just wants a ghost to pop up and testify now and then.