This has been on my radar for some time and I was excited to jump in! This is a reimagining of the Innsmouth story by Lovecraft, set in a small Korean village that has been inflicted with 'East Sea Disease' following an earthquake in the region that has brought something up from the bottom of the sea. The inflicted develop mottled skin, bulging eyes, and jaws like anglerfish.

The premise is very fun - I loved all the disgusting descriptions of wet and rotting places and people.

This seems like a great idea for a short story - or maybe a Call of Cthulu RPG setting. But beyond the cool premise, I couldn't buy into it. There are characters, such as the outsider-cum-police enforcer and a naive scientist. Events also occur but, as this is a novella, they move at a breakneck speed and the aforementioned characters seem to float from one event to the next.

There's also this writing quirk that I found fairly annoying to read. As the fish-people have distorted jaws, many are unable to verbally communicate. This means conversations between them and the protagonist always devolved into the protagonist looking into the fish people's eyes and imagining incredibly detailed dialogue about what they would be replying to her.

Overall, this was fun but this wasn't a big, satisfying bite of an Innsmouth retelling.

Thanks to NetGalley for my ARC

Five people find themselves coming together after one hazy commute on the London Central line; something horrible happened in that train car and why can't they remember it? The book is told from multiple perspectives of these characters: they are people from vast different walks of life who find themselves forming a desperate community built on trauma.

This is my third Jonathan Sims novel (I like Thirteen Storeys, got on reasonably well with Family Business - I'm also a huge Magnus Archives fan). Sims is incredibly good at building his characters, and making them feel empathetic and individual, and this takes centre stage in The Burn Line.

The horror plot is schlocky but fun: A tale of creeping horrors in the London underground feels somewhat timeless, as the underground is steeped in ghost stories and urban legends.

I will say, the specific flavour of haunting in The Burn Line comes with a very precise social commentary that builds on a lot of the themes of Thirteen Storeys, but felt way more 'on the nose' and obvious. I thought the topics were handled clumsily in ways that meant I predicted every single twist miles ahead (obvious villains are obvious).

Overall, despite the issues I had with the unsubtlety, The Burn Line is a good, fun time, with characters I enjoyed spending time with.

Thanks to NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for my copy