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@readbydusk

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📖 book recs + reviews
🩸 all things horror
👻 host of @coldhaunts
“𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥𝘴𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘭𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘥𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘪𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘭𝘺?”

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👻 SPOOKY SEASON 👻

Happy Spooktober 🎃🔮🕷️ My favourite time of year is here, so I’ve made a list of 60 new horror books releasing this autumn to celebrate! RIP my TBR ☠️ Do you see any you want to read? Let me know in the comments!
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[SLIDE 2]

Crone
Incarnate
Traps and Specters
Our Cut of Salt
Worry Box
Insatiable
Mazywood
Newbourne Park
Video Night
The Unhaunting
Little Kin
The Ship of Death

[SLIDE 3]

American Crow
Dive Bar at the End of the Road
Find Me Where It Ends
Bruja’s Nest
Fitcher’s Bird
Raven
The Finalist
House Haunters
Killing the Boogeyman
Morsels
Portrait of a Haunting
The House Built on Alligator Bones

[SLIDE 4]

What Feeds Below
Be Not Afraid
Your Beloved Remains
Don’t Leave Her Alone
The Creeps
Mystery Play
It Looks Like You in the Dark
The Forest Bleeds
Off the Reservation
Look What the Cat Dragged In
Monstera
To Bewitch a Hunter

[SLIDE 5]

The Water House
The Woman of the House
Happy Hour
Tatratea
What the Forest Devours
The Turning of Sally-Mae
The Haunting of Lavender House Needlemouth
From the Library of Jurgen Leitner
The Witching House
When the Night Comes Knocking
Going to Summertime

[SLIDE 6]

Savage Lake
The Porcelain Sisters
Public Access Afterworld
Scorpion Deep
She Isn’t Herself Tonight
Chimera Skin
Behind the Gate
There Used to Be People Here
Depth Charge
Milkteeth
Cold Empty Rooms
Welcome Home, Mariam

Happy reading! Please like, save, or share if you enjoyed this post 🤗 🎃 by @readbydusk

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4 days ago

🌟 BOOK RECS 🌟

Mind-bending horror is one of my favourite sub-genres! If a book can spin my head and make me question everything, then it’s done its job well. So here are 6 books that made me question reality 👀

* ROAD TO NOWHERE (Christopher Pike)
* FEVER DREAM (Samanta Schweblin)
* NIGHT FILM (Marisha Pessl)
* I’M THINKING OF ENDING THINGS (Iain Reid)
* THE BETWEEN (Tananarive Due)
* DEVIL HOUSE (John Darnielle)

Let me know your favorite mind-bending, reality-twisting book!
_____________ by @readbydusk

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a year ago

🌸 WOMEN IN TRANSLATION 🌸

While August is almost over, it’s still Women In Translation Month! So I made a list of horror books originally written in other languages and translated into English. Check them out and let me know if you’ve read any of them 💗

[SLIDE 2]

• Human Sacrifices
• The New Seoul Park Jelly Massacre
• Pink Slime
• Thirst
• Eartheater
• The Lost Village
• The Iliac Crest
• Revenge

[SLIDE 3]

• Woodworm
• Little Eyes
• The Houseguest
• Nails and Eyes
• The Graveyard Apartment
• I Remember You
• Our Share of Night
• Cursed Bunny

[SLIDE 4]

• Body
• Sing, Nightingale
• Tender Is the Flesh
• Confessions
• Hurricane Season
• Jawbone
• Strega
• Paradise Rot
__________________ by @readbydusk

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a year ago

🍁 PUB DAY 🍁

Happy publication day to NIGHTJARS by @michaelwehuntauthor! Thank you to the author and publisher for a digital copy 🧡

Full disclosure: I’m only halfway through the book, but I’m loving it so far! It’s creepy, mysterious and foreboding. The main character is trying to figure out why strange people are giving him photos showing him doing (bloody) things he doesn’t remember. Is he a killer? I’m excited to see where this goes. Also, this book is set in autumn so it’s perfect for spooky season 🎃

Here’s the synopsis:

On a rainy night, Luke Oshel gets stood up halfway through dinner. But before his date left, she leaves behind an old photograph — Luke as a child, a dead body in the shadows of his bedroom, and a terrifying masked man. He has no recollection of this event.

Then more photos arrive — Luke posing with murder victims, covered in blood — and he falls back into the repressed memories he’s tried to leave behind. All the drugs and alcohol, therapy, and hypnosis sessions have never conquered his deepest fear — that he hasn’t escaped the hidden legacy of his father, who he suspects was a killer. But now there are new serial killings, and the evidence all points to Luke.

Luke must chase his father’s darkness through a centuries-old secret and learn what monsters truly are. And decide if he’s one of them.
__________ by @readbydusk

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11 days ago

🍂 HELLO AUTUMN 🍂

Spooky season is officially here! What are you planning to read this season? My TBR is chaotic but I have a few horror books I’m excited to dive into, including BLACKTAIL and THE BURN LINE.

Q: pumpkin spice, yes or no? 🎃
___________ by @readbydusk

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15 days ago

🤖 BOOK REVIEW 🤖

WILLIAM was @coldhaunts August horror book! Thanks to everyone who joined the discussion 🩶

Henry is a brilliant engineer who suffers from agoraphobia. While he’s unable to leave his house, he has achieved a career breakthrough after creating an artificially intelligent consciousness - a half-formed robot he calls William. He keeps William away even from his pregnant wife, Lily. That is until Lily’s coworkers drop by for a visit to meet Henry and see their high-tech smart house. Henry decides to introduce them to William. But soon they realise all the technology in their control... might be controlling them.

WILLIAM is a timely horror book now, with all the talk about AI and codes that seem to know how to break out of their programming 🫪 I love the restrained writing, where the narration is efficiently delivered without fuss. It fits the cold nature of the story, which takes place in a huge AI-controlled house that lacks the warmth of a home. The house and Henry’s creations - including William - lurk in the background while the characters view each other with suspicion 👁️ Henry and Lily’s marriage appears to be shaky, and when Lily’s coworkers arrive, the sense of unease becomes even more apparent. Why are they behaving strangely? And why are they really here?

This book shows the risks of technological advancement at the cost of humanity. There’s a reveal that shakes the foundation that we knew and puts everything into perspective. On paper, William is an antagonist, an AI-gone-wild that seeks freedom (hello Skynet!) 🦾 But how can we blame a code for doing what it was programmed to do? As William said, “What’s natural about me?” An intelligent, empathetic, surprisingly violent cautionary tale about creation and what it means to be alive.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
____________ by @readbydusk

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21 days ago

#WhatThisWeek

August is over but it’s a new week! Today is Malaysia’s 69th Independence Day so I thought it’s fitting to share a book by Malaysian author Ong Chin Huat called HARMONY HEIGHTS. It’s about residents in a condominium whose lives and secrets intertwine, leading to high drama 👀

Swipe to see my week! ➡️

📖 READING 📖

Racing to finish my @coldhaunts books this month — tech horror WILLIAM and southern thriller FORGET ME NOT. Also reading murder mystert THE GOOD LIAR!

📺 WATCHING 📺

To everyone who recommended me SLOW HORSES — you guys were right this show is great! I love spy shenanigans! Especially by a bunch of flop spies 🤭 River Cartwright my favorite loser… every season he gets humiliated (swipe to see my fave comments about him 😂) I binged 3 seasons in a week, excited to continue!

🎵 LISTENING 🎵

I’ve been listening Of Monsters and Men’s new album that came out last year! I’ve missed their music ☺️

What are you reading/watching/listening to this week?
___________ by @readbydusk

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a month ago

⛺️ BOOK REVIEW ⛺️

One last camping horror book before summer ends!

HOW TO SURVIVE CAMPING: THE MAN WITH NO SHADOW was @coldhaunts July horror book! Thanks to everyone who joined the discussion 🧡

Goat Valley Campground has been passed down to Kate’s family for generations 🏕️ The land is old, and creatures from folklore have made it their home and hunting ground. As campground manager, Kate has rules to protect her campers, even though not everyone follows those rules. But soon, dead campers are the least of her worries. Because a dangerous creature is determined to claim the land for himself — The Man With No Shadow 👤

This is an entertaining, bloodthirsty horror story! 📝 Written like a campground guide with lists of rules and chapters marked by different incidents Kate faced, the pacing is quick and suspenseful. There were some deliciously gory, creepy moments. The narration is quite funny at times which allows for some levity, and I thought Kate was a great protagonist to root for 💪

I liked the short chapters but in some scenes I was hoping we’d get more of an emotional impact 💔 This book was originally written chapter by chapter online, and it’s most obvious when important characters suddenly appear. The creatures that Kate encountered were unique, and I wish we knew more about them. I also wanted to know more about Kate’s family. Thankfully, there are more books in this series, so I’m looking forward to reading them!

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️
_____________ by @readbydusk

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a month ago

🍁 BOOK REVIEW 🍁

The queen of epistolary mystery is back 🕵🏻‍♀️ I had fun buddy reading THE KILLER QUESTION with @bukushelves @dianreads @naddie.reads @logophiliclady @xjuwita because once again, we’re served with twists and turns and surprise reveals 🙌

Sue and Mal Eastwood run a rural pub called The Case is Altered with a popular weekly trivia night. Until a mysterious new team arrives and scores top marks every week. Then a body is found in the nearby river 😳 But Sue and Mal have secrets of their own. Five years later, their nephew wants to find out the truth for a Netflix documentary. What happened at the pub, and what was the killer question on that fated quiz night?

THE KILLER QUESTION is told through emails, texts, quizzes, and voice recordings, with multiple characters and storylines intertwining ✉️💬 The suspicious new team was intriguing to me because how were they able to score so high every week! And what was their endgame, because the prize was just 20 pounds? Then we find out that Sue and Mal used to work in another profession and were involved in another crime 👀 I thought this part was great because it felt like I was there with them in the flashbacks. The characters might not be who they say they are, and their way of surviving might harm other people.

This is a delightfully British cosy mystery with quirky characters (the convos between the quiz attendees and other pub owners were my favourite) and a complex mystery that thankfully gives you all the answers at the end!

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️
______________ by @readbydusk

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2 months ago

Happy Friday!

I’ve never been happier to see the weekend 💃🏻 Planning to catch up on my reading and maybe starting THE EYES ARE THE BEST PART 👁️ Look at that cover! Isn’t it eye-catching? (pun intended 🤣) And the movie adaptation is on the way!

Have you read this? Let me know what you’re reading this weekend! 📖
__________ by @readbydusk

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2 months ago

☀️ SUMMERWEEN ☀️

Are you feeling the heat 🥵 Then it’s time to read summer-themed horror! Here are some awesome horror books set during summer👇

☀️ HIDE (Kiersten White)
☀️ BURN OUR BODIES DOWN (Rory Power)
☀️ LOST IN THE GARDEN (Adam S. Leslie)
☀️ CLOWN IN THE CORNFIELD (Adam Cesare)
☀️ LOVECRAFT COUNTRY (Matt Ruff)
☀️ THE CABIN AT THE END OF THE WORLD (Paul Tremblay)
☀️ MY HEART IS A CHAINSAW (Stephen Graham Jones)
☀️ GHOST SUMMER (Tananarive Due)
☀️ CAMP DAMASCUS (Chuck Tingle)
☀️ THE RITUAL (Adam Nevill)
☀️ BAD MAN (Dathan Auerbach)
☀️ SIX STORIES (Matt Wesolowski)

Let me know if you’ve read any of these or if you have any recs!
___________ by @readbydusk

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2 months ago

🪻 BOOK REVIEW 🪻

SHE’S NOT SORRY was @coldhaunts’ crime book for May and June! Thanks to everyone who joined the discussion 💜

Meghan Michaels is trying to find balance between being a single mom and working as an ICU nurse when a patient named Caitlin arrives with a traumatic brain injury. They say she jumped from a bridge. But when a witness comes forward, Caitlin’s fall turns out not to be an accident after all. Meghan finds herself caught in Caitlin’s mystery until she realises that she and her daughter could be the next victims...

SHE’S NOT SORRY is about a woman who is not sorry (I am not joking lol). The book opens with Meghan receiving a call about her daughter potentially being in danger. And then we move back in time to when Caitlin first arrives in Meghan’s ward. Meghan also meets a new friend, Nat, whom she suspects is being abused by her husband. Meanwhile, a serial killer is possibly running loose in Meghan’s city. All of these threads end up connecting unexpectedly.

Unfortunately, Meghan is not a protagonist I care much about. The more I learn about her, the less I like her approach to things. The book jumps around the timeline, which confused me at times, and I also found the antagonist’s motives to be flimsy at best. And I’m not a fan of a reveal that shows the protagonist had known the truth all along, as it makes no sense that she wouldn’t consider that while dealing with her challenges. Anyway, read this only if you enjoy mysteries that deal with complicated female friendships and medical trauma!

⭐️ ⭐️ 💫
_____________ by @readbydusk

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3 months ago