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The Curse of Hester Gardens by Tamika Thompson

The Curse of Hester Gardens by Tamika Thompson
Erewhon Books, 2026
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1645663195
Available: Hardcover, Kindle edition, audiobook
Buy:  Amazon.com  |  Bookshop.org

 

Hester Gardens is a housing project cursed by a history of violence, especially gun violence, and the residents are haunted by its victims.

 

Nona believed she was living a law-abiding life, until ten years ago, when she stumbled on her husband pistol-whipping a drug-addicted teenager to death in an alleyway and helped him cover it up. Now her husband is in prison for drug-dealing, and her oldest son is dead, a victim of a gang shooting. Her youngest son, Lance, is just starting to join in the activities of the local gang.

 

If only there were a way to escape Hester Gardens. It is possible– Nona’s nephew Harlan, an investigative journalist, made it out, and nursing student Kiandra is only held there by her younger brother.

 

Nona’s second son, recent high school graduate Marcus, has a ticket out, with a full scholarship to Brown University in the fall… if he can only make it through the summer. But Marcus, always the “good kid”, has a lot of anger and grief over Kendall’s murder, and he can’t quite keep it under the surface anymore. Thompson creates a disorienting atmosphere in Nona’s apartment, which already has an unstable feeling to it ,due to the disturbing changes in Marcus. It is just haunted enough to make her and her sons uneasy… until it suddenly escalates into a life-and-death situation.

 

Thompson’s talent is not just in creating an uncanny atmosphere, but in bringing the neighborhood and characters to life. There are ghosts… maybe… in the alleyways, and a smart person keeps a sharp eye out. While mainly told from Nona’s point of view, we also occasionally get the point of view of other characters: Harlan, Nona’s nephew; Lance, her youngest son and Marcus’ brother; Gretchen, Marcus’ girlfriend and gang leader Peter’s baby mama; Donnell, a gang member; Kiandra; and police officer Sgt. Victoria Prager, who was in charge of Kendall’s case and is involved in the ending of the terrible, shocking, night where six young people were silently executed with a rifle.

 

Readers will grow to care about, cheer for, and fear for characters who could easily have been cardboard cutouts. Gretchen, for instance, as a point of view character, is shaped by the trauma of having her twin murdered in a drive-by shooting right next to her and the stress of raising a child in an unpredictable environment. She’s much more fleshed out than she would be if we were limited to only Nona’s judgmental mindset. We get to see Donnell’s regrets and terror because he did not stop the execution of a boy about to escape Hester Gardens for college, and now can’t escape his ghost.  In a “closed community” like Hester Gardens, lives are entangled because everyone knows everyone: the same kids who were friends with your own kids, could grow up to be the killers of someone you loved, and Thompson does a great job of revealing that complexity. Thompson convincingly creates a claustrophobic and terrifying atmosphere: to escape Hester Gardens, its history of violence, and tangled relationships, isn’t easy. It’s a place that doesn’t want its residents to leave alive.

 

There’s a lot packed into these pages, and I found myself going back to this more than once. Highly recommended.

 

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted on March 31, 2026 by , Reply

Book Review: Shiny Happy People by Clay McLeod Chapman

 

Shiny Happy People by Clay McLeod Chapman

Delacorte Press, 2025

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0593904084

Available: Hardcover, ebook edition, audiobook

Buy:  Bookshop.org

 

 

I find Clay McLeod Chapman’s work uniquely disturbing. While Shiny Happy People, his foray into YA horror, isn’t as gruesome as some of his previous projects it is a natural fit with his other work, especially Wake Up and Open Your Eyes. 

 

Kyra was abandoned by her addict mother at a young age and is now the adopted daughter of a loving family. Her father works long hours at a large pharmaceutical company, BoTanic, which employs most of the town. She has terrible anxiety and panic attacks, and a supportive “black sheep” best friend, Halley.

 

Kyra’s need for control and family history of addiction mean she’s completely straight-edge even in the face of peer pressure, so when a new party drug starts making the rounds at school, she’s one of the few who hasn’t taken it and can observe the effects it is having on the people around her. Kids who have taken the drug go into violent convulsions, followed by becoming artificially happy and calm, causing an uncanny valley effect that Kyra feels but can’t explain to the adults around her, who are also acting very strange. With the people around her all gaslighting her, Kyra starts doubting her grip on reality. The only person who seems to be on her wavelength is new boy Logan, who is clearly hiding something.

 

Flashbacks to Kyra’s abandonment in a dark room infested with bugs, mold and fungus are truly claustrophobic and creepy, On a personal level, as someone who lives with epilepsy, the descriptions of violent convulsions created a visceral response. Kyra’s description of her anxiety as “ivy threaded through my ribcage” is vivid, and when it gets entangled with already-creepy fungal horror, becomes terrifying, with its network spreading wider and wider. This horror is not limited to one school or even one town.

 

There is so much going on in this book: it comments on addiction, Big Pharma, hive mentality, peer pressure, corruption, mental health, and more, but messaging doesn’t take over the story. Chapman follows Kyra’s narrative thread all the way through at a fast pace. It’s an uncomfortable, disorienting ride, and one that’s well worth taking.

 

Highly recommended.

 

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski

Posted on March 12, 2026 by , Reply

Invasive Species by Ellery Adams

Cover art for Invasive Species by Ellery Adams

Invasive Species by Ellery Adams

Hanover Square Press, 2026

ISBN: 978-0369774903

Available: Hardcover, ebook edition

Buy: Bookshop.org

 

There aren’t many neighbors like Mrs. Smith, someone who stands out for all of the wrong, strange reasons. In the beautiful seaside town of Cold Harbor, where the moms are in competition and have a lot of socializing to do, no one really knows Mrs. Smith because she rarely leaves her home. What the annoying moms do know is that she doesn’t care at all about their high standards for landscaping. While their yards are ready for the cover of a magazine, hers is a dark and brooding tangle of creeping vines, large trees, and scary, dark shadows.

 

We quickly learn that Mrs. Smith is an actual monster, an ancient sea monster, who has been biding her time while planning to carry out a centuries old way of making herself young and more monstrous again. Mrs. Smith has a distinctive aquatic form and a fairly human body when on land. To the particular men she’s interested in cultivating, she seems to be a gorgeous, desirable woman. But, to a few people who are knowledgeable in the areas of myth, legend, and folklore and think she is suspicious, she could be the greatest danger their little community has ever seen.

 

A special part of Mrs. Smith’s renewal strategy involves the children of the town. When an ambitious mother sends two of her kids to do some outdoor chores for Mrs. Smith, the timeline is already nearing its end, and some people will have to die to keep Mrs. Smith on schedule. Worst of all, some people have already been selected for an especially terrifying death.

 

Ellery Adams tells this horror story in a rather upbeat, casual, and non-threatening way that helps to enhance the ominous nature of Mrs. Smith’s presence in the neighborhood. The local women are usually oblivious to what is happening around them because they are so focused on their status and how they can prevent Mrs. Smith’s property from reflecting badly on their own rather than on protecting those they love. Instead of the invasive vines they hate so much, Mrs. Smith is the real invasive species they should be trying to eradicate, and Ellery Adams makes her just as intriguing as demonically evil.

 

Reviewed by Nova Hadley

 

Posted on February 12, 2026 by , Reply
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