One thing I love about doing author events is getting the chance to check out new and local talent. et the editor of this at one of the Pulp Literature events and I’ve been anxious to finally get a moment to check it out!

This is an anthology of a particular subgenre I’m not familiar with: Deadpunk. As near as I can figure, it’s got a Victorian gothic feel but with more of an emphasis on the horror elements. The stories range from vampires to werewolves to ghosts to people simply losing their minds, each of them with a slightly different take on the tone.

I’ll admit, I liked the ones with a bit more humour and levity, but I suspect that’s just because my life is a bit chaotic right now. There was such a variety in here that I can see myself going back into it again and again, picking out particular stories to satisfy particular itches that I need to scratch.

Overall, highly recommend! It was a lot of fun and there’s something in here to satisfy all of your horror needs.

You know how sometimes you see a title and you just have to know more? Look at that title. Look at the embroidered skulls. I couldn’t not check it out.

The story follows Maud, a little old lady who reminisces on her life and the many times she has encountered death, both as the one to cause it and as the one to… well, almost cause it. She is very deliberately sweet and uses her old age as a way to deter people from suspicion, but with the story told from her eyes, you can see just how cool and calculating she is in throwing people off of her trail and getting her kind of justice. Or, at least, to make her life a little easier.

I really enjoyed Maud! She was delightfully calculating and careful not to let her façade drop, and she was lovely to watch while she rationalized and put her plans into action. The framing device of a present day Maud avoiding an investigation by leaving the country was a little awkward, since it doesn’t feel like the arc ever finished so much as it stopped. The flashbacks to her history had more complete narratives, but the framing device was less so.

This is also the not as good second book in the series, which means I now have to check out the first one at some point.

Overall, it was a lot of fun! I’d definitely say check it out for some light, murderous reading.

I am starting to think I should just make a goal to only read books that I either get directly from indie authors or that I pick up from the library for the year. It’s certainly expanding my reading and I’m checking out a lot more interesting titles this way. Including a lot more Canadian content!

Exposed follows Raven, a young woman in Vancouver, BC, who is about to be old enough to leave the crime ring that she’s grown up in. She starts to realize that her exit is not going to be as easy as she thinks, and must enlist the help of some new friends to try and get herself free of the leader of the group of car jacking teens who likely has plans for her once she ages out of his current operation.

The book is quick to a fault, not quite giving us as much time with some of the characters that I’d have liked. There was the crush from school, the small group that helped her get out and take down her crime ring family, and the people in her criminal private life. For a book this short, there’s just too many characters to feel like you get to know anyone besides Raven in the end.

It does also read a bit like someone who has visited Vancouver as opposed to someone who lives here, but that might just be because it was written before I spent a lot of time downtown. Some of the specifics threw me off and didn’t seem to reflect the city as I knew it.

Still, it’s a fun and quick read! It’s an interesting idea and I do like Vancouver in stories. I wish there were more of it, and will definitely look into more of her stuff if I find it.

Let’s get back to some fiction and back to the long list of books I have randomly bookmarked in the library! Today’s selection is a mystery thriller that had a podcast angle that I’m pretty sure I picked out because I was in a true crime phase.

The book mostly follows Anna, a babysitter in Herron Mills who bears a striking resemblance to a missing girl named Zoe Spanos. Though she is there to turn over a new leaf, her resemblance to Zoe is affecting her and everyone around her until the day they find her body and Anna confesses to the murder of this girl she has never met. At the same time, we follow Martina, a girl with a true crime podcast specifically about Zoe Spanos and her quest to find the truth on behalf of her best friend and Zoe’s younger sister.

I honestly would not categorize this as a mystery and would not recommend going in with the expectation of figuring out what happens before they reveal it. Clues aren’t left so much as they are revealed at the time of the twist that they cause. The truth of the cause of death and motive isn’t even revealed until the epilogue, so it will be very frustrating if you’re going in with the intent of solving it.

It is an interesting story, but I did find Anna’s memory and her spiraling moments where she is having memory issues to happen more in line with when the story needed it to happen as opposed to being an actual character trait. I also didn’t find that the podcast element really added anything to the story, though that may be more because I didn’t think the way that they showed a podcast in writing to be as engaging as an actual podcast and that it lost something in the translation.

Overall, though, it was an interesting read. I thought it was a fine read, not one I would go back to but one that I was entertained by while I was there.