Cailynn's Blog

Both The Bloody Chamber and Ghost Summer prove that horror isn’t just about what terrifies us — it’s about what we inherit, remember, and reclaim. In the world of folklore and feminist horror, stories become acts of survival and transformation.

Some hauntings aren’t supernatural — they’re ancestral. The Yearning by Mohale Mashigo is a lyrical, unsettling story of memory, identity, and the quiet horror of forgetting where you come from.

Meet Maud, Sweden’s most dangerous grandmother. In An Elderly Lady Is Up to No Good, Helene Tursten turns cosy crime into a darkly hilarious art form.

They came to celebrate the new year. They left with secrets, lies — and a dead body. In The Hunting Party, Lucy Foley delivers wintry suspense at its finest.

This Frightful Reads Friday, we dive into Everything The Darkness Eats, a devastating, queer cosmic horror where grief feeds the ritual and darkness always wants more.

This Frightful Reads Friday, we descend into the lyrical, unsettling depths of Our Wives Under the Sea — a queer horror tale of love, loss, and transformation from the ocean's dark heart.

In The Family Plot, Cherie Priest weaves Southern Gothic horror with emotional depth, inviting readers into a decaying mansion where every creaking floorboard holds a secret. With richly drawn characters, themes of grief and memory, and ghosts that whisper rather than wail, this story lingers like dust in a sunbeam — haunting, quiet, and unforgettable. If you like your horror slow-burning and soaked in sorrow, this one belongs on your shelf.

Alix E. Harrow’s The Once and Future Witches is a gothic fantasy woven with spells, suffrage, and the strength of sisterhood. In this review, we explore how the novel captures both the magic of resistance and the haunting echoes of historical witch trials. Like The Girl Who Knew The Medicine, it asks: what happens when women’s power — whether sacred or chosen — becomes a matter of survival?

In The Death of Jane Lawrence, Caitlin Starling transforms marriage into a gothic nightmare of secrets, rituals, and forbidden knowledge. This review explores why the novel lingers long after the last page, from its occult imagery to its suffocating dread — and how it echoes the same fears that inspired The Girl Who Knew The Medicine. Would you step into Lindridge Hall, or run before the door closed?

The Year of the Witching review explores Alexis Henderson’s haunting gothic horror about prophecy, forbidden woods, and a young woman caught between faith and forbidden power. Immanuelle Moore is raised in a puritanical community, but the Darkwood calls her toward secrets that could unravel everything. Like The Girl Who Knew The Medicine, Henderson’s novel asks how societies decide who wields power — and whether it’s a sacred ancestral calling or a destructive curse.

This House of Hunger review dives into Alexis Henderson’s lush gothic horror about bloodmaids, aristocratic estates, and power disguised as protection. Marion enters the Countess’s household seeking safety — but finds herself consumed by rituals that blur the line between devotion and destruction. We’ll explore the novel’s themes, its resonance with African ritual fears, and why its corrupted rituals reminded me of The Girl Who Knew The Medicine.

Some friendships last forever. Others go straight to hell. In Grady Hendrix’s My Best Friend’s Exorcism, a 1980s coming-of-age story collides with a chilling tale of possession. Packed with retro nostalgia, dark humour, and genuine scares, this novel proves that friendship might just be the most powerful exorcism of all.