Bookquarium

Hiya, it's WhaleSnark!      Here are things I have been reading and doing during my Work From Home life. I love the horror graphic novels of Emily Carroll. She is a brilliant storyteller and artist. She wrote Through the Woods, which has a very limited color scheme that really adds to the drama of her work. Right now, several of her works are available on GumRoad, a website that caters to small independent artists getting their work out into the world. The first one is called Mona, and it costs £2.50 https://gumroad.com/l/monabasic   The other, Beneath the Dead Oak Tree, is available for free right now due to the COVID-19 outbreak. https://gumroad.com/l/XpFfX Both are excellent for late-night-by-candlelight reading. Being spooky isn't just reserved for the autumn months.  Now let me throw one more wicked awesome webcomic at you! Tiger, Tiger, by Petra Nordlund. https://www.tigertigercomic.com/tiger-tiger/001 Synopsis:  Tiger, Tiger is a sto...

Mira Grant  is well known for her science-y horror novels. The Parasites trilogy, the Newsflesh trilogy (hellooooo, zombies + journalists), and probably my favorite, Into the Drowning Deep, which is about killer mermaids. Anything by Grant is basically an insta-click for me, and when I was learned she was writing a ghost story, I nearly peed myself in the excitement. And friends, it's worth the hype. Let's break it down, shall we? The Cover: Can we take a moment to admire that cover? One, it's an incredibly detailed and intricate drawing, which is being used less and less by publishers these days, but I'm glad they went with that direction in this cover. A woman, half floating in the sea, gazing at a creepy old house while tentacles begin to twine around her ankles. Had I known nothing about Mira Grant, I would have read this book based on the cover alone. The Plot: A group of four paranormal investigators, who happened to get famous solving crimes, accepts a co...

The Luminous Dead The Blurble:  When Gyre Price lied her way into this expedition, she thought she’d be mapping mineral deposits, and that her biggest problems would be cave collapses and gear malfunctions. She also thought that the fat paycheck—enough to get her off-planet and on the trail of her mother—meant she’d get a skilled surface team, monitoring her suit and environment, keeping her safe. Keeping her sane. Instead, she got Em. Em sees nothing wrong with controlling Gyre’s body with drugs or withholding critical information to “ensure the smooth operation” of her expedition. Em knows all about Gyre’s falsified credentials, and has no qualms using them as a leash—and a lash. And Em has secrets, too . . . As Gyre descends, little inconsistencies—missing supplies, unexpected changes in the route, and, worst of all, shifts in Em’s motivations—drive her out of her depths. Lost and disoriented, Gyre finds her sense of control giving way to paranoia and anger. On her own in ...