Tantalizing Tales — October 2024 — Part Two

Time flies, dear friends! Halloween will soon be upon us, so let’s check out some of the best spooky season reading, as well as some excellent counterprogramming should you be in the mood for a break from the cold, dark and scary.

Into that first category goes Joelle Wellington’s sophomore effort, The Blonde Dies First, where a group of friends must grapple with a demonic force that closely follows the rules of classic horror movies.

Our heroine Devon is always being left behind by her genius twin sister Drew. At this point, it’s just a fact of life. But Devon has one last plan before Drew leaves for college a whole year early: to enjoy The Best Summer Ever. After committing to the bit a little too much, the twins and their chaotic circle of friends learn why you don’t ever mess with a Ouija board if you want to actually survive the Best Summer Ever, and soon find themselves being hunted down by… a demon?

While there’s no mistaking the fact that the creeping, venomous figure stalking them is not from “around here”, its murderous methods don’t feel very demonic at all. In fact, it’s acting downright human, going after each of them in typical slasher-movie kill order. What that most likely means is that Devon, the blonde, will be up for slaughter first, while her decade-long crush Yaya is destined to be the Final Girl who must kill or be killed in order to end the cycle.

Devon has never liked playing by anyone else’s rules though, and especially not a demon’s. But the longer this goes on, the more she feels Drew and Yaya slipping away from her, even as she tries to help them all survive. Can they use their horror movie knowledge to flip the script and become the hunters instead of the hunted? Or will their Best Summer Ever be their last?

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For something entirely different, if just as feminist, check out Ann Liang’s A Song To Drown Rivers. Inspired by the legend of Xishi, one of the famous Four Beauties of Ancient China, this is an epic historical fantasy about womanhood, war, sacrifice and love against all odds.

Xishi’s beauty is seen as a blessing to the villagers of Yue, who are convinced that the best fate for a girl is to marry well and thereby support her family. When Xishi draws the attention of the famous young military advisor Fanli, he presents her with the rare opportunity to use her beauty as a weapon, one that could topple the rival neighboring kingdom of Wu, improve the lives of her people and avenge her sister’s murder. All she has to do is infiltrate the enemy palace as a spy, seduce their immoral king and weaken them from within.

Trained by Fanli in everything from classical instruments to concealing emotion, Xishi hones her beauty into the perfect blade. But she knows that Fanli can see through every deception she masters, as the attraction between them burns away any falsehoods.

Once inside the enemy palace, Xishi finds herself under the hungry gaze of the court. While the king himself shows her great affection and gentleness, a brutality lurks beneath his surface. Xishi knows she can never let her guard down, but the higher she climbs in the Wu court, the farther she and Fanli have to fall. And if she’s unmasked as a traitor, she could very well bring her own kingdom down, too.

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Another novel inspired by East Asian mythology is Katrina Kwan’s fantasy debut The Last Dragon Of The East. This is by far my favorite cover of the week, with its gorgeous swirl of colors evoking movement and grace.

At the spry young age of twenty-five, Sai has led a quiet life, keeping the family teahouse up and running — even if that means ignoring the past-due notices — and taking care of his ailing mother. It helps a bit that he has a not-so-secret gift that he’s parlayed into a side career: he was born with the ability see the red threads of fate between soulmates, which lends itself nicely to matchmaking. Sai has thus far been content not to follow his own thread, the only one he’s ever seen that’s gray and fraying.

But Sai’s ordinary existence is about to be turned upside-down by a pair of shining dragon scales. When his mother’s doctor sells them to him, claiming them as a miracle cure, Sai is pretty sure he’s being scammed. When the medicine actually works — and the terrifying, ruthless emperor catches wind of it — Sai is thrust into the search for a long-extinct dragon that will lead him into the throes of a brewing war and deep into foreign lands, facing down challenges both magic and mortal on his unexpected adventure. And for the very first time, his own thread of fate begins to move. Will he be able to find out who’s on the other end of it?

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Sticking with the fantasy genre for another minute leads us to our next selection, Kim Sung-Il’s epic fantasy Blood Of The Old Kings, translated from the Korean by Anton Hur.

In an Empire run on necromancy, dead sorcerers are the lifeblood. Their corpses are wrapped in chains and drained of magic to feed the unquenchable hunger for imperial conquest. Born with magic, Arienne has become resigned to her dark fate. But when the voice of a long-dead sorcerer begins to speak inside her head, she listens. There may be another future for her, if she’s willing to fight for it.

Miles away, beneath a volcano, a seven-eyed dragon also wears the Empire’s chains. Before the imperial fist closed around their lands, it was the people’s sacred guardian. Loran, a widowed swordswoman, is the first to kneel before the dragon in decades. She comes with a desperate plea, and will leave with a sword of dragon-fang in hand and a great purpose before her.

In the heart of the Imperial capital, Cain is known as a man who gets things done. After his best friend and mentor is found murdered, he will leave no stone unturned to find those responsible, even if it means starting a war.

When peace is a lie, there is power in truth. As Loran, Cain and Arienne hunt for answers in their own lives, any one of their small rebellions could be the first stone that brings the Empire tumbling down.

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We’re staying in Asia but moving back to the real world, more or less, with the next featured novel, Pyae Moe Thet War’s I Did Something Bad. This murder mystery rom-com has my second favorite cover of the week, and my favorite title for calling back to an excellent Taylor Swift song.

When freelance journalist Khin Haymar is assigned by Vogue Singapore to get a scoop on Tyler Tun, Hollywood’s hottest movie star, she’s determined to succeed. If Khin is able to get an exclusive while he’s home in Myanmar to shoot his latest film, there might be a Vogue staff position with her name on it. The only catch is that Tyler is very private about his personal life and doesn’t show any signs of letting down his walls for Khin.

But one night on set, a man follows Khin into the park. When he threatens her, Tyler steps in and things escalate fast. Khin knows they can’t go to the police even if this was self-defense, and even if this stranger seems to have targeted her specifically. As Khin and Tyler work together to hide their secret and find out more about her attacker, they grow closer and Tyler finally starts opening up. Will they get away with murder? Can Khin get the exposé she needs for her dream job? And is she willing to risk Tyler’s trust in the process?

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Another cross-genre rom-com I’m excited about this week is Colby Wilkens’ If I Stopped Haunting You. Instead of being part murder thriller, however, it’s part ghost story and one hundred percent appropriate for spooky season vibes!

It’s been months since horror author Penelope Skinner threw a book at Neil Storm. But he was so infuriating, with his sparkling green eyes and his bestselling horror novels that claimed to break Native stereotypes. Now she’s a publishing pariah who hasn’t been able to write a word since. So when her friend invites her on a too-good-to-be-true writers’ retreat in a supposedly haunted Scottish castle, she seizes the opportunity. Alas, some things really are too good to be true.

Neil wants nothing less than to be trapped in a castle with the frustratingly adorable woman who threw a book at him. She drew blood! Worse still, she unleashed a serious case of self-doubt! Neil is terrified to write another bestselling “book without a soul,” as Pen called it. All Neil wants is to find inspiration, while completely avoiding her.

But as the retreat begins, Pen and Neil are stunned to find themselves trapped in a real-life ghost story. Even more horrifying, they’re stuck together and a truly shocking (extremely hot) almost-kiss has left them rethinking their feelings. Maybe they shouldn’t have become enemies at all? But if they can’t stop the ghosts pursuing them, they may never have the chance to find out.

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We’ll go full circle in this column and close out the week with another straight-up horror story, Yvonne Battle-Felton’s genre-bending fever dream of a literary Gothic novel, Curdle Creek.

Osira, a 45-year-old widow, is obedient. She follows the strict conventions and practices of Curdle Creek, an all-Black town in rural America that remains stuck in the past. The town is governed by sinister rules practiced in the name of tradition and the safety of its community, and everyone is expected to obey. But humans are complicated beings and can’t be good all the time, even if they wanted to be.

Everyone begins to doubt Osira’s beliefs in tradition after her children run off, she loses in the running of the widows, and her father flees when his name is called in the annual moving-on ceremony: a time when residents pick the names of neighbors who, once voted out, can no longer remain in town. Forced to test her allegiance, Osira finds herself transported back in time, then into another realm where she must answer for crimes committed by Curdle Creek. Exile forces her to move again, this time even farther away from home, to a rural town in England. Safe as long as she sticks to the rules, she quickly learns that there are consequences for everything.

Will Osira make it back to Curdle Creek? Is that even her home anymore?

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Let me know if you’re able to get to any of these books before I do, dear readers! I’d love to hear your opinions, and see if that will help spur me to push any of them higher up the mountain range that is my To Be Read pile.

And, as always, you can check out the list of my favorite books this year so far in my Bookshop storefront linked below!