KateRookery

[she / her ] - SFF / SpecFic fan, but happy to read anything with good prose

302 points

0% overlap

My Taste

Catholica: The Visual Culture of Catholicism (Religious and Spiritual Imagery, 1)

A Taste of Honey (The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps, #2)

Reading...

The White Luck Warrior (The Aspect-Emperor, #2)

KateRookery is interested in reading...

23h

We Had It Coming: and other fictions

Luke O'Neil

“I’ve been asking myself just how it is that a person can go about their day to day life at a time like this and I keep coming back to another question which is how did we ever convince ourselves we had the right to do so before?” That question runs through We Had It Coming, a collection of stories that pulse with both the familiar and the uncanny. O’Neil’s characters struggle to survive in a reality rife with violence, addiction, fascism, and the crushing weight of modern life. From the threat of mass shootings to the absurdity of predatory healthcare, his sharp observations of societal decay leave a lasting impact. Yet even amid the chaos, O’Neil’s trademark wit cuts through, offering moments of unexpected levity. Jumping from CVS to the emergency room to a seaside Massachusetts town ravaged by the opioid crisis, and blending short stories, poetry, and micro-fiction, O’Neil’s stream-of-consciousness style and inventive syntax pull the reader into a mesmerizing rhythm. Fans of his previous work will find a continuation of his unique voice, and new readers will be captivated by his unflinching portrayal of survival in a world gone awry.

KateRookery is interested in reading...

23h

Withered Hill

David Barnett

If you find your way here, you’re already lost. Inside A year ago Sophie Wickham stumbled into the isolated Lancashire village of Withered Hill, naked, alone and with no memory of who she is. Surrounded by a thick ring of woodland, its inhabitants seem to be of another world, drenched in pagan, folklorish traditions. As Sophie struggles to regain the memories of her life from before, she quickly realises she is a prisoner after multiple failed escape attempts. But is it the locals who keep her trapped, with smiles on their faces, or something else, lurking in the woods? Outside In London, Sophie leads a chaotic life, with too many drunken nights, inappropriate men and boring temp jobs. But things take a turn as she starts to be targeted by strange messages warning her that someone, or something, is coming for her. With no idea who to trust, or where to turn for help, the messages become more insistent and more intimidating, urging Sophie to make her way to a place called Withered Hill… An utterly bewitching, dual timeline folk horror novel, with a truly devastating twist you have to read to believe.

KateRookery is interested in reading...

23h

Scuttler's Cove

David Barnett

‘A brooding tale from the murky depths below the English idyll. Coastal-horror at its finest’ Matt Wesolowski The sea never forgets. The sea never forgives… Scuttler’s Cove is a working village, nestling in dramatic coastal scenery in Cornwall, where life has gone on uninterrupted for centuries… until this seaside idyll was discovered by the rich. Now the quaint harbour-front cottages have been snapped up by second-homers and rental companies, and the locals can barely afford to live in their own town. It is a very different place for Merrin Moon, who left for university at the age of eighteen and never looked back. Now in her thirties, she returns to the Cove for the first time since, after the death of her mother. She soon discovers that there are forces at play in the village that she could never have imagined. Is someone trying to drive out the second homers? And has their arrival started a chain of events none of them will be able to stop? For something old and terrible is awakening beneath the town’s hallowed ground. And with it comes a horror that the residents have fought for generations to keep a secret. A dark and mysterious folk horror of the sea, and a timely exploration of the displacement of our modern moment, with a twist that will leave you reeling. Praise for Scuttler's Cove ‘There's a rich vein of horror to be mined here, and Barnett's doing a great job of excavating it’ SFX ‘An eerie tale of folk horror, as old gods and locals with age-old roots come into conflict with new money and the modern world, with a satisfying supernatural showdown, and a twist you won't see coming’ Jane Johnson ‘It feels like a modern version of The Wicker Man, in the best possible way and with its own unique take’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Reader review ‘Wow, just wow. David Barnett is my new go-to for folk horror’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Reader review ‘Filled with great characters, a downright creepy unsettling narrative, and surprises in store which you won’t see coming, this is a must-read folk horror novel’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Reader review ‘Very well-written. Dark, compelling and atmospheric’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Reader review ‘Folk horror at its finest… leads to an intensely satisfying and fantastic ending that will have you actually cheering’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Reader review ‘Another gem! Scuttler’s Cove takes you on a wild ride of mystery, intrigue, and horrific folklore’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Reader review ‘The bright, beachy atmosphere with a looming undercurrent of something dark and sinister kept the tension high… I found myself itching to read more when I wasn’t actively reading it’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Reader review ‘I came for the crab on the cover, stayed for the folk horror… a timely and atmospheric horror novel’ ⭐n

KateRookery is interested in reading...

23h

Scratch Moss

David Barnett

It's bad when the heart is ripped out of a community... it's worse when it loses its soul. 1865. There is coal under the fields of Scratch Moss Manor and Sir Henry Brody is determined to get at it. But there is something else in the ground as well, something dark and evil 1905. A more Godless set of people the Reverend George Ackman has never known than the people of the northern town of Scratch Moss. But if not God, what do they believe in? 1945. Arthur works for the Coal Commission, visiting privately-owned pits ahead of their nationalisation. But something is amiss in Scratch Moss, with a disturbing number of deaths at the mine and children going missing in the tunnels. 1985. The miners have lost. Thatcher reigns supreme. And in the shattered community of Scratch Moss, rumours resurface about Red Clogs, a terrible presence in the land below. 2025: Divorced, fifty-something writer Joe returns to the former mining community of Scratch Moss where he grew up, for the funeral of his father. Soon the memories of Joe's teenage years, and the horror that blighted the community, come flooding back. A devastating, five-timeline tale centred on a community first invigorated, then devastated by the coal mining industry in the most original folk horror novel of the year.

KateRookery finished reading and wrote a review...

KateRookery

Jan 08, 2026

4.5

Enjoyment: 5.0Quality: 4.5Characters: 4.0Plot: 4.5

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🎨

📱

This is a poignant short story about longing, loneliness, and filial obligations, with quick, tense prose and an ending like a warm, slightly sweaty hug. When a phantom force makes itself known to the narrator, he is able to find comfort and a new connection with his father despite his initial envy and misgivings.

KateRookery is interested in reading...

Gogmagog (The Chronicles of Ludwich, #1)

Jeff Noon

In a distant, tattered future an old woman, a young girl and mechanical man embark on a slow voyage in the shadow of the great dragon Haakenur up the vast estuary towards the city of Ludwich… Past plants on the mud-flats that send up brief, man-shaped clouds of seeds to lure you out, past shanty towns full of old sailors and pilots scraping a living from the dregs of the passenger trade, between the wicker effigies in the Wodwo graveyards this is a journey at once familiar from folk tales and country customs and utterly strange and alien. Cady, back on her boat and feeling every day of her 1,600 years; the tight-lipped but beautiful little girl and her rubber-stitched-faced, mechanical companion are an odd but warmly imagined and compelling cast to accompany the reader on a quest into a world of mysteries and terrors that leave the reader with an inkling that this world is perhaps more familiar than it first appears. Can Cady find her youth again?

KateRookery commented on a post from the Pagebound Club forum

Writerchic13

Edited

Missing book

Edit I got it to work! I had to switch editions and copy that url because apparently the Kindle edition would not take. Thank you everyone who reached out trying to help. ❤️

Does anyone know if there has been a delay with the influx of new users for adding a missing book via a Goodreads link? I have tried for the past couple days to add a missing book I've copied the link from the URL and the share link button and it still hasn't shown up anywhere.

KateRookery created a list

Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off Winners

by KateRookery

10 books

Fairly self-explanatory, but the previous winners of the Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off Contest, run by MarkLawrence since 2015. All books are (or were) self-published at the time of judging, and are the first in a series or a standalone work.

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The Thief Who Pulled on Trouble's Braids (Amra Thetys, #1)

Where Loyalties Lie (Best Laid Plans, #1)

KateRookery commented on a post

OhMyDio

Thoughts from 41% end of chapter 7

My hometown was HUGE into the midnight Rocky Horror showings! I only ever went once (which was a WILD and good time!) but it was very very common in the summer and around Halloween to see troupes of people dressed in amazingly outrageous glam walking around as they got dinner/hung out before the show. The theater that hosted the midnight showing was right down town, and it was always a spectacle. They would make a big deal about "Rocky Virgins" - you got shamelessly flirted with and showered with attention if it was your first time to the show. People driving by and folks waiting in line outside would shout encouragements (or insults, but those were rarer in my very college-liberal-town) or sing refrains to each other.

I just have so many positive, warm, and exciting memories attached to The Rocky Horror Picture show. I haven't watched the movie in ages and I definitely need to change that in the near future.

Who else has done the midnight showing? Did you ever perform?? The theater in my home town had a stage in front of the movie screen so that people could act it out while the movie was playing - it was SO fun!

KateRookery commented on a post

minsuni

Thoughts from 48% (ch20/page 215) - Dulcinea

spoilers

View spoiler

KateRookery is interested in reading...

Witchcraft for Wayward Girls

Grady Hendrix

There’s power in a book… They call them wayward girls. Loose girls. Girls who grew up too fast. And they’re sent to the Wellwood Home in St. Augustine, Florida, where unwed mothers are hidden by their families to have their babies in secret, give them up for adoption, and most important of all, to forget any of it ever happened. Fifteen-year-old Fern arrives at the home in the sweltering summer of 1970, pregnant, terrified and alone. Under the watchful eye of the stern Miss Wellwood, she meets a dozen other girls in the same predicament. There’s Rose, a hippie who insists she’s going to find a way to keep her baby and escape to a commune. And Zinnia, a budding musician who knows she’s going to go home and marry her baby’s father. And Holly, a wisp of a girl, barely fourteen, mute and pregnant by no-one-knows-who. Everything the girls eat, every moment of their waking day, and everything they’re allowed to talk about is strictly controlled by adults who claim they know what’s best for them. Then Fern meets a librarian who gives her an occult book about witchcraft, and power is in the hands of the girls for the first time in their lives. But power can destroy as easily as it creates, and it’s never given freely. There’s always a price to be paid…and it’s usually paid in blood. In Witchcraft for Wayward Girls, the author of How to Sell a Haunted House and The Final Girl Support Group delivers another searing, completely original novel and further cements his status as a “horror master” (NPR).

KateRookery is interested in reading...

The Spear Cuts Through Water

Simon Jimenez

Two warriors shepherd an ancient god across a broken land to end the tyrannical reign of a royal family in this new epic fantasy from the author of The Vanished Birds.The people suffer under the centuries-long rule of the Moon Throne. The royal family—the despotic emperor and his monstrous sons, the Three Terrors—hold the countryside in their choking grip. They bleed the land and oppress the citizens with the frightful powers they inherited from the god locked under their palace.But that god cannot be contained forever.With the aid of Jun, a guard broken by his guilt-stricken past, and Keema, an outcast fighting for his future, the god escapes from her royal captivity and flees from her own children, the triplet Terrors who would drag her back to her unholy prison. And so it is that she embarks with her young companions on a five-day pilgrimage in search of freedom—and a way to end the Moon Throne forever. The journey ahead will be more dangerous than any of them could have imagined.Both a sweeping adventure story and an intimate exploration of identity, legacy, and belonging, The Spear Cuts Through Water is an ambitious and profound saga that will transport and transform you—and is like nothing you’ve ever read before.

KateRookery is interested in reading...

I Do Not Apologize for My Position on Men

Rae Wilde

KateRookery is interested in reading...

Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology

Shane Hawk

A bold, clever, and sublimely sinister collection that dares to ask the question: “Are you ready to be un-settled?” Featuring stories by: Norris Black • Amber Blaeser-Wardzala • Phoenix Boudreau • Cherie Dimaline • Carson Faust • Kelli Jo Ford • Kate Hart • Shane Hawk • Brandon Hobson • Darcie Little Badger • Conley Lyons • Nick Medina • Tiffany Morris • Tommy Orange • Mona Susan Power • Marcie R. Rendon • Waubgeshig Rice • Rebecca Roanhorse • Andrea L. Rogers • Morgan Talty • D.H. Trujillo • Theodore C. Van Alst Jr. • Richard Van Camp • David Heska Wanbli Weiden • Royce Young Wolf • Mathilda Zeller Many Indigenous people believe that one should never whistle at night. This belief takes many forms: for instance, Native Hawaiians believe it summons the Hukai’po, the spirits of ancient warriors, and Native Mexicans say it calls Lechuza, a witch that can transform into an owl. But what all these legends hold in common is the certainty that whistling at night can cause evil spirits to appear—and even follow you home. These wholly original and shiver-inducing tales introduce readers to ghosts, curses, hauntings, monstrous creatures, complex family legacies, desperate deeds, and chilling acts of revenge. Introduced and contextualized by bestselling author Stephen Graham Jones, these stories are a celebration of Indigenous peoples’ survival and imagination, and a glorious reveling in all the things an ill-advised whistle might summon.

KateRookery is interested in reading...

Song for the Unraveling of the World: Stories

Brian Evenson

A newborn’s absent face appears on the back of someone else’s head, a filmmaker goes to gruesome lengths to achieve the silence he’s after for his final scene, and a therapist begins, impossibly, to appear in a troubled patient's room late at night. In these stories of doubt, delusion, and paranoia, no belief, no claim to objectivity, is immune to the distortions of human perception. Here, self-deception is a means of justifying our most inhuman impulses―whether we know it or not.

KateRookery commented on a post

The Priory of the Orange Tree (The Roots of Chaos, #1)

mangofloat

Edited

Thoughts from 30% (end of chapter 22 / part i: stories of old)

a quarter in and delighted to find it really is a banger bruvs

i was worried about tackling priory bc i'm a tenderfoot in the fantasy genre realm + i decided to borrow it from the library (after being on the waitlist for eons) and still i wasn't able to start it right away, so i have a Very limited time to finish this colossus. luckily it's actually super digestible. also i've been sucked right in. good lord. honestly i should just get my own copy now and continue it there. return the loan early and let the next person waiting feast their eyes...

THE ROOOOSE UNDER THE PILLOOOOW ohhh my everyone lock in NOW

KateRookery commented on a post

aelline

Thoughts from 67%

"Piety can turn the power-hungry into monsters," Ead said. "They can twist any teaching to justify their actions."

Well well well if this play ain't about us 👀

KateRookery commented on a post

graceful_mess

Edited

Thoughts from 13% (page 103)

Ok so as an ADHDer who is JUST getting into high fantasy, does anyone have some tips on how to keep track of the what feels like millions of names, places, and customs of these fictional worlds?

I'm really enjoying Priory of the Orange Tree but I can feel myself inching closer and closer to DNFing because I'm struggling with retaining and remembering everything and I really wanna tackle this before my ADHD gets the better of me 😭

KateRookery commented on a post

aeddea

Thoughts from 9%

i have a feeling this is gonna take me a while

KateRookery finished reading and left a rating...

KateRookery

Jan 05, 2026

5.0

Enjoyment: 5.0Quality: 5.0Characters: 5.0Plot: 5.0

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😎

☠️

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