Author Archives: victoriaperpetua

Book Review: Carry Me To My Grave

18 Wednesday Mar 2026

Posted by in Book Reviews, Books, Carry Me To My Grave, Christopher Golden, Death, Fiction, Horror, mystery, Netgalley, road trip, supernatural, Suspense, vampires

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Publication Date: July 21, 2026

Mixed feelings about this book—on the one hand, I really, really liked it. On the other, as someone else noted, there are some really slow, repetitive spots I had to push through.

What was really cool? The vampiric monsters, for one. I’ve never encountered anything like them and they were horrifying. They were not your typical vampire that neatly bites the neck of its victim—so much gore!

I liked the twist with Maggie, Malcolm’s (and Jennie’s and Elias’) dead mother. They had to carry her to her grave for more reason than one. And I liked Malcolm and Jennie and their sister-in-law, Violet. And I liked the ending.

The story was good, the characters were good, it’s just that the two days this book covered felt more like a week to me. Still, it’s definitely worth reading.

Christopher Golden

GoodReads says:

From New York Times bestselling author Christopher Golden comes a high concept horror novel about a man trying to protect his dead mother’s body from the evil that is hunting them.

Maggie Wise will take your eyes.

When Malcolm was growing up, the local kids made up that chant about his mother, claiming she was a witch. He and his siblings did their best to ignore it. Now, Maggie is dying, and those same siblings have left Malcolm and his sister-in-law Violet to hold a vigil at her bedside.

But they’re not as alone as they think they are. A dark figure waits and watches from beneath the willow tree across the street. Hundreds of miles away, an ancient evil stirs in its burrow under a farmer’s cornfield. Across the country, other buried things begin to dream in anticipation of Maggie’s demise. On her deathbed, the old woman elicits a promise from Malcolm, her youngest child―when she dies, he and Violet must return her body to her birthplace in Shediak, Maine.

From the moment she takes her last breath, before her remains are even loaded aboard the baggage car of the Imperial Limited, there are forces trying to stop Malcolm from fulfilling that promise. Violence erupts on the train, evil preys on its passengers, and once the sun goes down, those long-buried things are coming to make Maggie Wise pay for her past. God help anyone who stands in their way.

Book Review: The Maidenheads

08 Sunday Mar 2026

Posted by in Benny B. Peterson, Book Reviews, Books, Fiction, LGBTQ+, Netgalley, Romance, The Maidenheads

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Publication Date: May 26, 2026

This is yet another book that I would probably not have picked up on my own. But I am so glad I agreed to read it because I truly enjoyed it.

This is a coming-of-age tale on a different timeline because while many people have their lives mostly figured out by the time they graduate from high school/college, it takes Jamie the next decade to finally realize who she is as a person.

A really bad break up with her first girlfriend, Mari, as high school ends, leaves Jamie stuck in such a deep rut that she doesn’t really function well at anything. And, most importantly, as the vocalist for the band she was in with Mari, The Maidenheads, she can no longer sing. But a second chance with singing, and with Mari, changes all that but there are plenty of twists and reconnoitering along the way.

Personally, I was way too preoccupied during the time this book takes place (raising a child, starting a church) that I was unfamiliar with a lot of the music. But having been a staff writer for a daily newspaper, lifestyle editor at another, and finally editor at a small every-other-week tabloid, I could really relate to that aspect of Jamie’s life.

All the characters and their lives seemed very real.

Benny B. Peterson

GoodReads says:

A bighearted debut novel about queer yearning, indie musicians, and bushwacking a thorny path back to your first love

Jamie is bad at endings, which is why she’s stuck at a dead-end Baltimore newspaper job, continuing to have break-up sex with her first-ever hetero partner, and haunted by the what-ifs of her ex-girlfriend Mari—a charismatic and brilliant musician—and their former band together, the Maidenheads. Since they (and their band) broke up a decade ago, Jamie hasn’t been able to sing.

Then an unexpected opportunity to perform in DC with Mari’s successful new band arises, and Jamie jumps at it. What begins as a return to music becomes a reckoning—with the weight of unfinished love, the voice she long buried, and her own complicated past. But as Jamie channels more of her energy into the band, other threads in her life begin to fray, and she must make some urgent choices about her future.

Electric, spine-tingling, and filled to the brim with tenderness and honesty, The Maidenheads is a novel about the tenacity of first love, the life-changing power of music, and the difficult, necessary work of becoming yourself.

Book Review: Where the Water Meets the Sky

27 Friday Feb 2026

Posted by in Book Reviews, Books, Diane Les Becquets, Earth, Ecology, Environment, Fiction, Netgalley, Summer, UP Michigan, Where the Water Meets the Sky, wildflowers, Wildlife

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Publication Date: May 5, 2026

One of the reasons I like being asked by publishers to read books via NetGalley is that I find myself reading things I might normally pass over. Take this book, for example—it didn’t seem like one of my “normal” reads. But when the publisher described it as a book “For readers of Wild Dark Shore and Heartwood, Where the Water Meets the Sky is the story of a brave young woman seeking wholeness and love in the untamed forests of Michigan’s upper peninsula—and answers about a fire that took away everything.” Well, that piqued my interest as I had read both of those—one for NetGalley, the other because my husband highly recommended it.

And I am so glad I did! I absolutely loved all the natural stuff, and I learned a lot about the UP (Upper Peninsula of Michigan), someplace I’ve never been. I also really enjoyed the story—the main characters, the couple of twists I wasn’t expecting, the closeness of the family . . . let’s just say I teared up more than once!

Diane Les Becquets, from the UP herself, really makes this work. I am so glad I read it, and it had the added bonus of being by a fellow Episcopalian.

Diane Les Becquets

 GoodReads says:

For readers of Tell Me Everything and Heartwood, Where the Water Meets the Sky is the story of a brave young woman seeking wholeness and love in the untamed forests of Michigan’s upper peninsula—and answers about a fire that took away everything.

On a night in January, on the Garden Peninsula of Michigan, a farmhouse burns to the ground. A young child makes it out and flees into the woods with a book of matches in her hand.

Ten years later, Abby, a lover of birds and the natural world, returns to Garden, to the woods and lakes and farms and fisheries of her childhood, to assist her uncle on an environmental study of trees. Her best friend, Brew, invites her to a party where she meets a troubled girl named Seda, on the run from her abusive ex. Abby sets out to protect Seda and introduces her to an abandoned cabin that becomes a sanctuary for them both. Here, Abby begins to process her unrequited feelings for Brew while also discovering the person she is becoming. She wants more for her life, a hunger both spiritual and physical, and seeks to understand the trauma of her childhood that took her mother from her. Abby cares deeply for the people and flora and fauna around her and identifies with the wounds of the environment. She is desperate to remember what happened the night of the fire and as the summer of 1996 unfolds, Abby will be forced to reckon with the truth.

Perfect for fans of the lush and tender nature writing of Helen Macdonald and Richard Powers, Where the Water Meets the Sky is a coming-of-age novel that expertly delves into the connection between our perception of ourselves and our natural environs. It is a paean to the vast and beautiful wildscape around us and to the power of community and the wisdom of love.

 

Rune Before Prayer

23 Monday Feb 2026

Posted by in Carmina Gadelica, God, Prayer, Rune before prayer

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Angel on tombstone, Orkney, Scotland.

Rune Before Prayer

I am bending my knee

In the eye of the Father who created me,

In the eye of the Son who purchased me,

In the eye of the Spirit who cleansed me,

In friendship and affection.

Through Thine own Anointed One, O God,

Bestow upon us fullness in our need,

Love towards God,

The affection of God,

The smile of God,

The wisdom of God,

The grace of God,

The fear of God,

And the will of God

To do on the world of the Three,

As angels and saints

Do in heaven;

Each shade and light,

Each day and night,

Each time in kindness,

Give Thou us Thy Spirit.

~~Carmina Gadelica

Book Review: Accumulation

19 Thursday Feb 2026

Posted by in Accumulation, Aimee Pokwatka, Book Reviews, Books, Fiction, Ghosts, Horror, Netgalley, Paranormal

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Publication Date: May 5, 2026

This is probably one of the most creative haunted house stories I have ever read. And the story has more turns than “The Tail of the Dragon”, an infamous section of U.S. Highway 129 at Deal’s Gap in North Carolina. (North Carolina being where the Cherish family moves from to a new old home in New York).

As Tennessee Cherish (Tenn) tries to sort out what’s going on in the old house they’ve moved into, you’ll find yourself also trying to figure out why everything is happening. Why does her family keep getting stuck? Why do things keep going missing? Why are there so many problems with the house, itself?

I don’t know if it was intended or not, but this book is a great metaphor for our own lives. We are all porous in our own ways—accumulating everything from fears, anger, grief to actual possessions without finding an outlet for what’s causing us to do so. That is, rather than holding in anger, grief, etc., wouldn’t it be better to find a way to diffuse it?

Just ask Tenn. I think she’ll agree.

 

Aimee Pokwatka

GoodReads says:

A twisty, searing, conversation-starting novel about a filmmaker-turned-housewife who moves into her dream house and is forced to consider whether it’s the house or herself that is haunted.

When documentary filmmaker turned stay-at-home mom Tennessee Cherish moves into the the dream house her husband bought for her, a brighter future seems to be on the horizon. Even if her husband is frustratingly absent due to his new high-paying job. Even if their two young children begin acting out in strange ways. Even if she feels lonelier than ever.

Distracted by the endless details that come with moving into a new town, a new house, and new schools, Tenn doesn’t notice when odd things begin happening at home. The faucet that runs at all hours. The creepy doll that seems to show up in every room. The human tooth they found in the floorboards.

As the kids’ outbursts and the strange events start to escalate, the family finds themselves increasingly caught in loops, repeating everyday actions with dangerous—and then devastating—effects. Tenn realizes she must find the source of what is haunting her family, before it kills them all.

Taut and twisty, scary and searing, Aimee Pokwatka’s Accumulation lays bare the high price women pay for the promises of domesticity and motherhood, and the many ways in which families can be haunted.

 

Book Review: Wolf Worm

05 Thursday Feb 2026

Posted by in Book Reviews, Books, Fantasy, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Horror, Insects, Netgalley, T. Kingfisher, Wolf Worm

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Publication Date: March 26, 2026

This book was super creepy not only because I already have a horror at the thought of bugs burrowing into me whether they be ticks or bedbugs or something much worse like botflies or, as they are sometimes called, wolf worms. What made listening to this book (narrated by Hugo-award-winning Mary Robinette Kowal. Very cool; loved The Calculating Stars!) even more horrifying was at the same time I was editing a short story about a woman being menaced and attacked by everything from ants to centipedes. And, simultaneously, silverfish decided to invade my house. I am still shuddering.

But even without those things, the story would have been beyond creepy with the main character’s (Sonia Wilson) mean-tempered employer’s irrational behavior and the freaky Mr. Phelps who, despite his constant assertions of being a good Christian, was always suspect in his words and actions. I won’t give anything away, but there are some very good characters in the book who come to Sonia’s rescue over and over again. And I was not expecting that ending! But boy did I enjoy it. This book kept me entertained for many miles on my treadmill during this frigid winter.

 

T. Kingfisher

GoodReads says:

Something darker than the devil stalks the North Carolina woods in Wolf Worm, a new gothic masterpiece from New York Times bestselling author T. Kingfisher.

The year is 1899 and Sonia Wilson is a scientific illustrator without work, prospects or hope. When the reclusive Dr. Halder offers her a position illustrating his vast collection of insects, Sonia jumps at the chance to move to his North Carolina manor house and put her talents to use. But soon enough she finds that there are darker things at work than the Carolina woods. What happened to her predecessor, Halder’s wife? Why are animals acting so strangely, and what is behind the peculiar local whispers about ‘blood thiefs’?

With the aid of the housekeeper and a local healer, Sonia discovers that Halder’s entomological studies have taken him down a dark road full of parasitic maggots that burrow into human flesh, and that his monstrous experiments may grow to encompass his newest illustrator as well.

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