Krispyy
Just a bookworm that leans towards the weird and macabre~
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About a Place in the Kinki Region
Sesuji Sesuji
My friend is missing. When he disappeared, he’d been working on a magazine about the paranormal—his first real job as an editor. With almost no budget, he’d resorted to digging through back issues and unused research material, looking for inspiration. As he did, a terrifying truth began to emerge about a certain place in the Kinki region. I have collected the relevant articles, interviews, and other materials in this book. And once you have understood everything, I would like to ask for your cooperation. I hope you will get in touch.
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Working Stiff: Two Years, 262 Bodies, and the Making of a Medical Examiner
Judy Melinek
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2w
Draugr
Klas Persson
DRAUGR
A VIKING FOLK-HORROR SAGA
DRAUGR is Klas Persson's debut folk-horror novel depicting a group of warriors searching the wilderness in Viking Age Sweden for a lost missionary, but are instead themselves hunted by a supernatural horror.
ABOUT ONE THOUSAND YEARS AGO...
There was a time when the pagan gods clashed against the new religion of Christ.
There was a time when the seid crones performed heathen sorcery inside their dusty hovels.
There was a time when the dark beings of ancient horrors still stalked the night.
In viking age, Sweden, a missionary bishop goes missing somewhere deep inside Eyeskogamörk, a vast forest that made a natural border between the South and the still pagan North.
To find him, or his murderers, they send Hakon Grettirson—famed warrior and lord of Sigtuna.
With him, he brings his troubled foster daughter, Nanna. Born in the dark North and plagued with visions and dreams of her pagan past.
This is the first time any of them will have entered these dark parts since the harsh Christinization attempts made years earlier during the reign of Anund Jakob the Coalburner.
Inside the darkness of Eyskógamörk they will both encounter the demons of their past. But also an ancient evil, lurking in the shadows.
The aptrganga
The walking dead
The DRAUGR
Draug slips into the abyss of madness and mayhem, blood and butchery. It holds tight to its ebony black fantasy while saturating itself in a grim sense of reality.
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2w
The Nonexistent Knight
Italo Calvino
The Nonexistent Knight (Italian: Il cavaliere inesistente) is an allegorical fantasy novella by Italo Calvino, first published in Italian 1959 and in English translation in 1962.
The tale explores questions of identity, integration with society, and virtue through the adventures of Agilulf, a medieval knight who exemplifies chivalry, piety, and faithfulness but exists only as an empty suit of armour.
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2w
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2w
Crossroads
Laurel Hightower
How far would you go to bring back someone you love?
When Chris's son dies in a tragic car crash, her world is devastated. The walls of grief close in on Chris's life until, one day, a small cut on her finger changes everything.
A drop of blood falls from Chris's hand onto her son's roadside memorial and, later that night, Chris thinks she sees his ghost outside her window. Only, is it really her son's ghost, or is it something else—something evil?
Soon Chris is playing a dangerous game with forces beyond her control in a bid to see her son, Trey, alive once again.
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2w
Beneath the Salton Sea
Michael Paul Gonzalez
Every memory is a recording.
Nothing about the Salton Sea is normal. The sand isn’t sand. Just piles and piles of desiccated bones. There are little pockets where life clings on, birds, reptiles, people. It’s an ecosystem of living things that rely on other living things too stubborn to leave. Life forcing itself on death, or maybe the other way around.
Dee and her wife Sharon find this out the hard way after making a quick stop at Salvation Mountain to film some b-roll and see the sights out in the middle of the vast nothing. A bizarre rumor of a “crack in the sky” from one of the locals sends them on the hunt for an abandoned yacht club— where they make a discovery that changes their lives forever, and those close to them as well.
Could you identify a loved one by their whisper?
Beneath the Salton Sea is a cosmic horror technological nightmare transcribing the raw honesty of what makes a family, what breaks them, the difficulties of communication, and the painful joy of memories.
If you knew this was the last thing I’d ever tell you, what would you want me to say?
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2w
The Hill in the Dark Grove: A Novel
Liam Higginson
Carwyn and Rhian – the last in a long family line of sheep farmers – are living out a brutal year in their hillside farm, deep in the mountains of Eryri, North Wales.When Carwyn stumbles across a stone circle and some sort of burial mound in one of the fields on their land, he quickly develops an obsession. His wife, Rhian, meanwhile, is confronted with the growing realization that the man with whom she shares her life and home is slowly becoming a frightening stranger.As the harsh mountain winter closes in, Rhian finds herself alone with her increasingly peculiar husband, the mountains and the looming megalithic stones . . .Exquisitely written and impossible to put down, The Hill in the Dark Grove is a gorgeous story embedded in Welsh folklore. It is about love, growing old, a lost way of life and the lengths we go to to protect what we know.
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2w
Better the Devil
Erik J. Brown
A harrowing, edge-of-your-seat psychological thriller about a queer homeless teen who, in a bid for safety, assumes the identity of a boy who went missing ten years ago...only to find that his new home is anything but a safe haven—from All That's Left in the World author Erik J. Brown!
Perfect for fans of Karen McManus, Holly Jackson, and Ryan La Sala.
When a runaway teen is arrested for shoplifting, he's desperate not to be sent back to the hyper-religious parents he knows will never accept him. While at the police station, he notices a resemblance to the aged-up photos of Nate Beaumont, a child who went missing ten years ago—and, in a moment of desperation, he takes Nate’s identity in hopes that it will help him make a quick getaway.
Before he can run again, Nate’s family arrives and welcomes him home to a life he never had. As "Nate" watches and waits for his chance to run, he finds that the Beaumonts are nurturing and loving, very different from his own parents.
But soon unsettling things start to happen—vandalism, alarms going off in the middle of the night—and it becomes clear that someone knows "Nate" isn't who he says he is...and that the real Nate wasn't kidnapped, but murdered.
As he starts to unravel the mystery, he gets ever closer to the devil he may know—and learns he might be their next victim.
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2w
Spooky Lakes: 25 Strange and Mysterious Lakes that Dot Our Planet
Geo Rutherford
From TikTok sensation and educator Geo Rutherford, creator of the hit series “Spooky Lake Month,” comes a thrilling nonfiction book that plumbs the depths of unusual lakes around the world.
Some of Earth’s strangest—and creepiest—wonders lie deep below the surface. There’s Lake Natron, a Tanzanian lake so briny that its waters can mummify any creature that touches its surface; Lake Maracaibo, a Venezuelan tidal bay where a constantly brewing storm sends an average of 28 lightning bolts per second into the water; and at the bottom of Lake Superior, the crew of the USS Kamloops—which mysteriously disappeared in 1921—remains somehow almost perfectly preserved.
Middle-grade readers will learn not only about the science of hydrology, but why understanding the natural world is crucial to protecting it from pollution and climate change. Backed by extensive research and packed with all-new content—including eerie and eye-catching watercolor illustrations—Spooky Lakes takes readers on an adventure through weird and wild waters.
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2w
There's a Monster in the Lake
Laura Fernández
A witty meditation revealing what our obsession with monsters says about wonder, reality, and narrative itselfWhat does the Loch Ness Monster tell us about belief, tourism, and the stories we need to survive? In this formally innovative essay, award-winning Spanish writer Laura Fernández travels to the Scottish Highlands to investigate the legend of Nessie and develops a perspective on humanity’s perpetual and sometimes destructive need to “discover.” From the 1933 sighting that launched a media sensation to the cast of monster hunters, fraudsters, and devotees who have perpetuated the story, Fernández unravels how we transform mystery into tourist attraction. Boarding a cruise ship on Loch Ness itself, she encounters a world where imagination and commerce collide.But this is more than a travelogue. Fernández probes What does reality consist of and who is creating it? How is observing also living? In a world increasingly hostile to the fantastical, what does our relationship with Nessie reveal about how we inhabit reality itself?Written with the punch of Douglas Adams and the ambition of Thomas Pynchon, There’s a Monster in the Lake is a brilliant meditation on monsters in the age of manufactured reality. Reminiscent of David Foster Wallace’s Consider the Lobster, Fernández’s essay is both playful and philosophical, a celebration of imagination as the source of our humanity.
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2w
The Necromancer's House
Christopher Buehlman
Christopher Buehlman’s new novel—one of uncommon horrors hiding behind the walls of the house next door…
“You think you got away with something, don’t you? But your time has run out. We know where you are. And we are coming.”
The man on the screen says this in Russian.
“Who are you?”
The man smiles, but it’s not a pleasant smile.
The image freezes.
The celluloid burns exactly where his mouth is, burns in the nearly flat U of his smile. His eyes burn, too.
The man fades, leaving the burning smiley face smoldering on the screen.
“Oh Christ,” Andrew says.
The television catches fire.
Andrew Ranulf Blankenship is a handsome, stylish nonconformist with wry wit, a classic Mustang, and a massive library. He is also a recovering alcoholic and a practicing warlock, able to speak with the dead through film. His house is a maze of sorcerous booby traps and escape tunnels, as yours might be if you were sitting on a treasury of Russian magic stolen from the Soviet Union thirty years ago. Andrew has long known that magic was a brutal game requiring blood sacrifice and a willingness to confront death, but his many years of peace and comfort have left him soft, more concerned with maintaining false youth than with seeing to his own defense. Now a monster straight from the pages of Russian folklore is coming for him, and frost and death are coming with her.
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5w
The Bright Sword
Lev Grossman
A gifted young knight named Collum arrives at Camelot to compete for a spot on the Round Table, only to find he’s too late. The king died two weeks ago at the Battle of Camlann, leaving no heir, and only a handful of the knights of the Round Table survive.
They aren’t the heroes of legend, like Lancelot or Gawain. They’re the oddballs of the Round Tables, from the edges of the stories, like Sir Palomides; the Saracen Knight; and Sir Dagonet, Arthur’s fool, who was knighted as a joke. They’re joined by Nimue, who was Merlin’s apprentice until she turned on him and buried him under a hill. Together this ragtag fellowship will set out to rebuild Camelot in a world that has lost its balance.
But Arthur’s death has revealed Britain’s fault lines. God has abandoned it, and the fairies and monsters and old gods are returning, led by Arthur’s half-sister Morgan le Fay. Kingdoms are turning on each other, warlords are laying siege to Camelot, and rival factions are forming around the disgraced Lancelot and the fallen Queen Guinevere. It is up to Collum and his companions to reclaim Excalibur, solve the mysteries of this ruined world and make it whole again. But before they can restore Camelot they’ll have to learn the truth of why the lonely, brilliant King Arthur fell and lay to rest the ghosts of his troubled family and of Britain’s dark past.
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5w
Working Stiff: Two Years, 262 Bodies, and the Making of a Medical Examiner
Judy Melinek
The fearless memoir of a young forensic pathologist's rookie season as a NYC medical examiner, and the cases, hair-raising and heartbreaking and impossibly complex, that shaped her as both a physician and a mother.
Just two months before the September 11 terrorist attacks, Dr. Judy Melinek began her training as a New York City forensic pathologist. With her husband T.J. and their toddler Daniel holding down the home front, Judy threw herself into the fascinating world of death investigation, performing autopsies, investigating death scenes, counseling grieving relatives. Working Stiff chronicles Judy's two years of training, taking readers behind the police tape of some of the most harrowing deaths in the Big Apple, including a firsthand account of the events of September 11, the subsequent anthrax bio-terrorism attack, and the disastrous crash of American Airlines flight 587.
Lively, action-packed, and loaded with mordant wit, Working Stiff offers a firsthand account of daily life in one of America's most arduous professions, and the unexpected challenges of shuttling between the domains of the living and the dead. The body never lies, and through the murders, accidents, and suicides that land on her table, Dr. Melinek lays bare the truth behind the glamorized depictions of autopsy work on shows like CSI and Law and Order to reveal the secret story of the real morgue.
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Krispyy wrote a review...
6w
One the best creepypastas posted. Everything is so strange and and weird; it'll leave you never wanting to go to the woods again. I love there's no explanation for the incidents, that you don't need what your imagination would already fill in for you.
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Krispyy wrote a review...
6w
I loved this book; horror westerns are incredible and this one fits right in with all of the others. The atmosphere of loneliness and creeping dread, the abundance of mutated, freakish animals, and the possibility of something worse out in the forest had me on edge the whole novel.
While I'm not usually a fan of kids as main characters, I really liked Charlie. She was tough and braver than half the men in the book. Her loneliness and longing for something better made my heart hurt. I truly felt for this girl stuck in the this empty land with a father that could be so much better to her. I also enjoy Theodore, I always like the weirdo characters with a heart of gold and he had plenty of both between his oddities, background, and actions to look after Charlie. I do wish Patton had more connections with the rest, though it was understandable considering his circumstances, but his determination and dedication were admirable for someone deemed an outsider by society.
I have not read of a monster more upsetting and unsettling than this one in a while. This creature was wholly something I wouldn't want to see in my worst nightmares and the more they encountered it the worse it got. Between it and the crazy mutated animals, it was hard to imagine myself in Charlie's shoes going after her father. I know I would have turned tail and run for the hills.
The only real downsides to this book were that Charlie reads older than she is described, but that may just lean into her having to grow up faster since she is partly raising herself, and the pacing is a big issue; there were quite a few slow spots that could have used a bit more of a boost to keep up the intensity of the narrative.
But overall, I highly recommend this book to any horror or western fans, this is a great use of both genres.
Thank you NetGalley for lending me an early copy!
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6w
The Unheld
Luke Larkin
A girl in the Montana territory sets out to find her father after he is carried off by an otherworldly creature in this atmospheric horror Western.
Charlie’s life is a lonely one. While other twelve-year-olds are in school, she spends her days skinning the animals her mercurial father hunts in the wild woods just outside their cabin. And the woods and its twisted creatures—an owl with four wings, a boar with two heads, a fox with gills—are becoming stranger by the day.
One night, a nightmarish beast neither animal nor human appears and drags Charlie’s father into the wilderness. To find him, she enlists the aid of two unlikely allies also in search of the beast: an Englishman with a connection to a mysterious occult society and a Northern Cheyenne policeman exiled for a crime he didn’t commit. Yet as she and her allies prepare for a confrontation with the Beast, Charlie must decide if her father, a brusque man who has always withheld his affection, is ultimately worth saving.
The Unheld is an unsettling and soulful horror novel about loneliness, human connection, and how we find each other in a world that seems designed to alienate. With this assured debut, Luke Larkin marks his arrival in the genre and proves the American frontier still harbors untapped stories in its shadows.
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7w
Holy Wrath
Victoria Mier
In a city clinging to light during an age of darkness, all healer Ophelia wants is for a Saint to finally claim her. Since being brought to Lumendei as an orphan nearly thirty years ago, she’s worked tirelessly to prove herself worthy of the Mysteries—the sacred, magical power that only the Saints can bestow upon mortals of their choosing.
When she’s tasked with caring for an injured prisoner, Ophelia sees the perfect way to prove she’s ready for her Sainting. The prisoner is none other than the Umbra Knight—the most dangerous warrior of Lumendei’s sworn enemy, the Sepulchyre. If she can save the Umbra Knight’s soul by converting her to the Church of the Host, the Saints will surely fight amongst themselves to claim Ophelia.
But the disarmingly beautiful and undeniably deadly knight’s soul is in even worse shape than Ophelia feared. In fact, she insists Ophelia’s beloved God is a murderous liar and her adopted city is built on blackened bones. It’s easy to dismiss as blasphemy, at least at first. Until Lumendei’s gilded secrets begin to tumble from their hiding places and Ophelia herself uncovers a conspiracy ... then she’s forced to consider the idea that Nyatrix—otherwise known as the Umbra Knight—might be telling the truth, and that saving the alluring knight’s soul is the least of her concerns.
A sapphic high fantasy for fans of The Fall That Saved Us and The Foxglove King, Holy Wrath is a standalone novel about the fierceness of queer love and two women who no longer want equality once they’ve tasted revenge.
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