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Grey Dog by Elliott Gish

Cover art for Grey Dog by Elliot Gish

Grey Dog by Elliott Gish

ECW Press, 2024

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1770417328

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition, audiobook, audio CD

Buy:  Bookshop.org | Amazon.com

 

In 1901 Canada,  Ada Byrd, fleeing from a sex scandal and escaping from under her father’s thumb, takes up a position as a school teacher in the small town of Lowry Bridge. Things go well at the beginning: she is welcomed by the families, and makes new friends, such as Agatha, the minister’s wife. Ada goes to church, helps organize picnics and plays, and freely dances at one of the town’s festivities. She follows the town’s rules and their suspicions of the wild child, Muriel, and the spinster, Mrs. Kinsley, who the town considers a witch.

 

The civilized life she leads is in contrast to the dark woods surrounding the town. To get from the schoolhouse to the home she shares with her host family, the Griers, she must pass eerie woods that seem to be watching her every move. Time goes on, and the ordered and civilized life she leads starts to fade, as her past life comes back to haunt her and the town starts to reveal its secrets. Ada slowly breaks away from the rigid conventions of the town, and feels drawn to the wildness of the woods. She starts spending more time with town outcasts, Muriel and Mrs. Kinsley, and rejects Agatha and Mrs. Grier, the more accepted members of society.

 

Ada writes in her journal that there are many ways to be a good man, but only one way to be a good woman. The pressure of women being forced into specific gender roles breaks Ada, and you see her slow descent into madness as she breaks the bonds of civility. She’s not just refusing to shave her legs or wearing white after Labor Day. The book is a slow burn but at the end, it revs up like The Shining. It goes from psychological and paranormal horror to a slasher.

 

Even though it has feminist themes, Ada herself is somewhat self-hating of women and seems to take her trauma out on the women in the book rather than the men who hurt her. Grey Dog is well-written, and Ada’s descent is reminiscent of “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. This novel had so many themes, such as trauma, sapphic love, rape, birth, death, gender roles, and yearning that it is a haunting read that will have you thinking about it and running online to find out what others thought of it. I recommend it, though the ending might not be everyone’s cup of tea.

 

Reviewed by Lucy Nguyen

 

Posted on April 4, 2026 by , Reply

Book Review: Their Monstrous Hearts: A Gothic Horror Novel with a Dual Timeline and a Suspenseful Mystery by Yigit Turan

Cover art for Their Monstrous Hearts

Their Monstrous Hearts: A Gothic Horror Novel with a Dual Timeline and a Suspenseful Mystery by Yigit Turan

MIRA, 2025

ISBN-13: 978-0778368274<

Available: Hardcover, Paperback, Kindle edition, audiobook

Buy:   Bookshop.org | Amazon.com

 

 

A feeling of impending doom hangs over the characters of Their Monstrous Hearts emanating from, of all things, beauty. The narrator tells us: “Beauty had a threshold, and beyond it, it became a captivating terror.” This terrible beauty finds its expression in the overwhelming presence of living and preserved butterflies and the cloying smell of tuberoses connected with the elegant, sinister Perihan, grandmother of Ricardo, who wields a secret power over the elite of Milan.

 

When Riccardo, a struggling writer, leaves Paris to attend his Turkish grandmother’s funeral, he has mixed feelings about returning to Milan. When he finally reaches Perihan’s home, he discovers her once beautiful garden has been left untended, and there is a cloud of butterflies hovering over her house. He also finds that Perihan’s employees, familiar to him from childhood, are still there, but they are acting very oddly.

 

As he prepares for the funeral, Ricardo discovers a manuscript written by his grandmother, with his name on it, and immediately begins reading what seems to be a very strange horror myth. He finds himself wondering whether she has left him a phantasmagoric novel or a shocking memoir. The answer to that question will determine how much danger Ricardo is in and whether he will be able to face the terrors Perihan has prepared for him.

 

Their Monstrous Hearts is notable for its originality of plot, its complicated juxtaposition of magical goodness and mythic horror in the characters’ motivations, and its European locations infused with a Turkish sensibility. At times, Riccardo’s constant reading of the manuscript is an unwelcome distraction, until the final scenes in the book. But there is also a luxurious languor, ironically, in the mesmerizing prose that leads to the best part of the tale. That is when Turhan answers his own question: what would happen if you extracted something from a fairytale and placed it outside its original context, dragging it back into the center of reality?

 

Reviewed by Nova Hadley

Posted on July 27, 2025 by , Reply

Book Review: The Madness by Dawn Kurtagich

cover art for The Madness by Dawn Kurtagich

The Madness

Dawn Kurtagich

Graydon House, 2024

ASIN: B0CKFHZTLR

Available: Hardcover; paperback; Kindle edition

Buy:  Bookshop.org  | Amazon.com

 

Mina is often called to the psychiatric facility where she cares for women suffering from extreme trauma. She has contempt for how male doctors treat female patients and persistently tries to understand the roots of the problems she confronts in her practice. She is also troubled by something that has happened in her past, something bad enough to cause OCD, a move from Wales to London, a break-up with a man she loves, and estrangement from her best friend and even her mother. But it isn’t until she is faced with the mysterious illness of her childhood friend Lucy that she begins to face her own demons and slowly reveals the horrific event that has shaped her.

 

Unfortunately, from Mina’s perspective, helping Lucy will require going back to her home town and seeing her mother, whose belief in the dark and bloody myths of Wales suddenly begins to seem like useful information instead of annoying old stories. As the search for the cause of Lucy’s quickly worsening symptoms continue, some characters’ names (linking this book to a classic that readers will quickly recognize) shed light on the  direction of the plot, as do other elements such as a creepy black car, a black business card, and an exclusively secret gentlemen’s club. Lucy is not the only one in trouble.

 

The author of The Madness, Dawn Kurtagich, delivers non-stop suspense as the action takes us from a small Welsh town and its most luxurious mansion, out to an ancient castle on the coast where there are evil monsters preying upon women. However, these violent killers soon become the target of the group of women who have figured out how to get rid of all of them.

 

The way this book begins with a very brief, cryptic scene and a nameless character immediately draws the reader into the action, which continues at a quick pace as the author seamlessly shifts between times, places, perspectives, and emotions. There are subtle plot twists sparked by the unexpected decisions some characters make along the way. The Madness stands at the supernatural intersection of horrible crimes known– but left unsolved– and Mina’s revelations about the mythic evil that exists in never taking the past for granted.

 

Reviewed by Nova Hadley

Posted on June 10, 2025 by , Reply
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