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Eat The Ones You Love

“Lay waste to yourself all you like, I will grown in your ruin.” Author: Sarah Maria Griffin There is nothing more attractive to a horror-hound/B-movie monster lover than the idea of a sentient, carnivorous plant. It evokes the lovably laughable Little Shop of Horrors while still hitting all the right tones of horror. After all, what is more terrifying than being secretly observed and puppeted by something that should be so ordinary, so innocuous? And that, dear reader, was the siren call that led me to this book. Well, that and the gorgeous cover. What it promises (feed me Seymour!) is [...]

Frances Carden2025-11-03T15:32:10-07:00November 3rd, 2025|Tags: book review, horror, read, reading, Sarah Maria Griffin|

If You Really Loved Me

Like Daughter, Like Father? Author: Ann Rule California, 1985. A 17-year-old woman (Julia Brown) calls the police, weeping. She thinks her sister, Linda Brown, who is sleeping in the next room, has been shot. The police arrive and Linda’s husband, David Brown, opens the door. In the background, they see Julia in the living room cradling her sister’s baby. Neither Julia nor David had gone into the room to check and see if Linda was indeed shot. Both, however, instantly accuse David’s missing fourteen-year-old daughter, Cinnamon, of the crime. Fast forward – Cinnamon has confessed to killing her stepmother and is [...]

Frances Carden2025-11-02T16:37:12-07:00November 2nd, 2025|Tags: ann rule, book review, Cinnamon Brown, David Brown, murder, read, reading, true crime|

Awash

Maggie Shocks Readers Author: Dawn Lee McKenna Wyatt, Apalachicola’s sheriff, Maggie’s boss, and Maggie’s secret boyfriend, has made good on his promise. He is leaving his position so that the couple can now be official, but his attempt to steady the sometimes-rocky relationship might run aground when a terrible new case upsets Maggie’s emotional stability, launching her into the traumas of the past and into the arms of the town’s kingpin, Bennet Boudreaux. In Landfall we learned a terrible secret that explains everything, in Dead Wake we watched this secret churn under the surface and here, and in Awash, we see [...]

Frances Carden2025-11-01T14:30:17-07:00November 1st, 2025|Tags: Awash, book review, cozy mystery, Dawn Lee McKenna, Forgotten Coast, mystery, read, reading|