⚠️ Spoiler Warning: These reviews dive deep and include major plot points. If you prefer to go in blind, bookmark this page and return after reading! ⚠️

The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones

Set across the frozen landscapes of Montana, the novel unfolds through a Lutheran pastor’s diary from 1912, discovered a century later. Within its pages are the transcribed confessions of Good Stab, a Blackfeet man cursed with an unnaturally long life and an insatiable thirst. His story takes us back to the chilling Marias Massacre, where 217 Blackfeet were slaughtered, and forward through decades of survival, memory, and revenge. Jones writes with cold, poetic precision. Think Interview with the Vampire but grounded in Indigenous history and voice.

Buffalo Hunter Hunter is the first Stephen Graham Jones novel I’ve picked up, even though I’ve had a stack of his other titles sitting on my TBR. This one wasn’t easy to read, but worth pushing through. The difficulty comes partly from Jones’s writing style, but even more from the subject matter and the unusual structure. The horror here isn’t only supernatural because it’s grounded in real history: the massacre of Indigenous people and the violent enforcement of religious ideology. That’s where the real terror lies.

The novel shifts between three different narrators, and settling into that rhythm took me a while. Good Stab, an Indigenous vampire, was by far the most intriguing. His voice is unlike anything I’ve read before: imaginative, raw, and grounded in a cultural lens that reframes the world in ways I wasn’t used to but quickly came to love. Even his name, Good Stab, tells you much about who he is and how he sees life. His chapters were immersive, emotional, and often haunting, especially as he recounts the violence of history.

Three Persons, a Christian priest, didn’t grip me in quite the same way. There were flashes of brilliance in his sections, especially one church scene involving a mock crucifixion, which genuinely terrified me and has stuck in my head. But overall, his voice felt repetitive. I was never as eager to return to his perspective. And then there’s his modern-day great-great-great-granddaughter, a PhD student studying his manuscript. Her sections were the weakest for me. Her dialogue felt clunky, her voice flat, and every time her chapters appeared, they broke the momentum and atmosphere I’d built up in the past timelines.

Still, the book is rich, which made me glad to read it. The historical grounding is layered and complex. Stephen Graham Jones knows how to weave horror through the cracks of history so that it feels inescapable. Even when I wasn’t enjoying every perspective, I still appreciated how ambitious and weighty the book was.

The concept that a vampire becomes what it consumes is something I loved because it’s such a unique and clever take on vampire lore. But the way it played out, with the priest turning into a prairie dog-like creature, didn’t work for me. Instead of feeling horrified, I found myself confused, even a little amused, which was jarring after everything that had come before. Then the book wrapped up with the modern-day PhD student, which drained away any lingering tension and left me disconnected. I would have preferred to stay in the past, with Good Stab’s voice carrying me to the end.

Even with those frustrations, Buffalo Hunter Hunter stuck with me. It’s layered, unsettling, and full of horrifying and unforgettable moments. Good Stab’s chapters alone made the book worthwhile, and while I’ll probably skip the modern sections if I reread it, I plan on returning to it. As my first Stephen Graham Jones experience, it convinced me that I need to dive into the rest of his books waiting for me.

So while it wasn’t perfect, it was powerful — and sometimes that’s more important than being neat or tidy.

The Starving Saints by Claire Kohda

Medieval horror is one of my absolute favorite subgenres. Claire Kohda’s The Starving Saints delivered much of what I love: a besieged castle, starvation, religious mania, and a creeping sense that salvation comes at a price. The atmosphere is suffocating in the best way, drenched in blood, faith, and desperation.

The novel traps us inside the castle of Aymar during a brutal siege. Food has long run out, and despair clings to every stone wall. When the mystical Constant Lady and her Saints arrive, bringing food and healing, it feels like divine intervention. But of course, nothing in gothic horror is that simple. Their presence quickly warps devotion into depravity, and the castle’s inhabitants must reckon with whether they’ve been saved… or damned.

The horror here works beautifully. One scene in particular seared itself into my memory: the Saints convincing the starving kingdom they’re feasting on rich banquets, only for it to be revealed that they’ve been devouring one another. It’s grotesque, chilling, and unforgettable. Cannibalism runs like a poisoned thread through the entire book, even before the Saints appear, as if war and famine had already primed humanity for its own undoing. The true terror is what desperation drives people to do.

The cast is a mix of archetypes and surprises. Ser Voyne, the hardened warrior, falls under the Saints’ sway, nearly embodying blind devotion. Phosyne, the frazzled nun-turned-sorceress, was one of the most intriguing characters. However, her mysterious power is never fully explained. And Trelia, the serving girl with vengeance in her heart, kept me hooked, even if I couldn’t quite buy her attraction to Voyne, who murdered her father years earlier; an event that drives her at first to try and exact revenge. That is, until the Saints appear and new threats arise that force the three women to work together. Of the three perspectives, Phosyne’s chapters stuck with me most because she constantly teetered between faith and suspicion, survival and madness.

That said, the characters aren’t perfect. The men in particular feel underdeveloped, which wouldn’t usually bother me. Still, one death scene clearly wanted to hit harder than it did. Without enough time spent fleshing him out, it fell flat. And while early buzz hinted that this book leaned into sapphic tension, I found those whispers exaggerated. There are a few fleeting glances, a hint of attraction, but nothing that develops meaningfully. Honestly, I prefer my medieval horror without “spice,” but in this case, a bit more authentic sapphic tension could have deepened the themes of devotion and desire.

If I had one major critique, it’s the repetition. Siege horror is inherently claustrophobic, but the story circles the same towers, passageways, and corridors so often that it started to feel redundant. The castle is such a rich setting, but I wanted more variety, like different rooms, different horrors, rather than pacing those same dim hallways again and again.

The ending also left me wanting. We never learn where the statue-like Saints came from, Ser Voyne’s resurrection after her untimely death goes unexplained, and Phosyne’s sorcery feels underdeveloped. I don’t always need a rigid magic system, and in fact, mystery often adds to the terror, but the vagueness left the climax unresolved. The threads didn’t quite weave together, and by the time the last page turned, I felt more puzzled than satisfied.

Nevertheless, The Starving Saints stands out because of its sheer ambition and mood. Kohda blends siege fantasy, religious horror, and feminist themes into something violent, decadent, and surreal. The body horror is vicious, the villains terrifying, and the themes of starvation and faith linger long after finishing. For me, it wasn’t a perfect feast, but it was a banquet worth sitting down for… and I’ll definitely be revisiting it when I crave gothic horror soaked in blood and sanctity.

Phantasma (Wicked Games #1) by Kaylie Smith

When I picked up Phantasma, the first entry in Kaylie Smith’s Wicked Games series, the premise immediately drew me in. A haunted mansion that travels from city to city, hosting a deadly contest where the prize is a single wish? Add in gothic atmosphere, vampires, poltergeists, and demonic trials, and I was ready for something dark, twisted, and dripping with horror. The setup gave me major Something Wicked This Way Comes vibes, and I was excited to see how it would play out.

The haunted mansion itself was the highlight of the book, dripping with red velvet curtains, labyrinthine hallways, and secret passageways hidden behind bookcases. The lore behind the King of Devils and the creatures lurking inside gave the world a rich backdrop, even if the details never went as deep as I wanted. It’s a gothic playground, and Smith clearly knows how to set the mood. And I’ll be honest: the first smut scene? Absolutely delicious. It captured exactly the dark and steamy tension I hoped for.

But once you get past the atmosphere, Phantasma doesn’t consistently deliver. The trials, which should have been the book’s heart, lacked real stakes. Each came with poetic clues that hinted at the dangers ahead, and I was especially excited for the Lust trial. But too often, the trials ended before they could build true suspense. Deaths happened off-page, tension fizzled, and Ophelia breezed through each trial without much resistance. Even the more exciting moments, like the lava-filled Greed trial, were summarized rather than lived through, which left me wanting more.

Then there are the characters… or rather, their lack of development. Ophelia, our protagonist, is supposed to be a necromancer trained from birth. Still, she often reads more like a helpless bystander than a powerful heroine. Her sudden invisibility ability felt like a convenient plot twist rather than a revelation, and it made me question how someone with her background could be so unprepared. Her sister Genevieve, whose disappearance sets the plot in motion, never becomes more than a name, and their mother’s presence barely registers. Even Blackwell (a name I couldn’t take seriously) failed to leave much of an impression, despite being positioned as the seductive love interest. And don’t get me started on his constant use of “Angel” as a nickname because it became so repetitive that it almost turned the romance into parody.

That said, the book isn’t without charm. As light, gothic escapism, it works. It’s not “real” horror — hardcore genre fans won’t find much to fear here — but it has enough atmosphere and intrigue to carry you along. I kept hoping for more of the ghouls, devils, and poltergeists promised in the setup. While they didn’t get the spotlight I wanted, they added just enough flavor to keep me curious about the world.

The ending was predictable, and like the trials, it didn’t pack much of a punch. But despite this, I closed the book thinking I’d probably pick up the sequel. Not right away, but eventually. Phantasma is the story you reach for when you want something indulgent, sexy, and low effort — a palate cleanser between heavier horror novels. It’s a book that flirts with darkness but never truly dives in.

If you’re looking for genuine scares, this one isn’t for you. But if gothic velvet vibes, demon boys, and a dash of steamy tension sound appealing, Phantasma might scratch that itch. I’ll be back for book two to see whether the King of Devils and his haunted mansion finally get the spotlight they deserve.

The Butcher’s Daughter: The Hitherto Untold Story of Mrs. Lovett by Corinne Leigh Clark and David Demchuk

When you think of Sweeney Todd, you probably think of the Demon Barber and his grisly accomplice, Mrs. Lovett, the pie-maker who turned bodies into pastries. She’s always been treated as a side character, a ghoulish punchline to Todd’s story. But Corinne Leigh Clark and David Demchuk’s new novel, The Butcher’s Daughter, focuses directly on her, and what they uncover is a far more layered, devastating, and surprisingly tender tale.

The story unfolds through an epistolary format through letters, police records, and witness statements, creating the unsettling illusion that you’re digging through an actual archive of scandal and horror. At its heart is a correspondence between a journalist, Miss Gibson, and a mysterious woman who eventually reveals herself as Mrs. Lovett. The letters act as a confession, and we see how Mrs. Lovett became the woman of legend through them.

Mrs. Lovett’s life is one long descent into tragedy. As a child, she loses her father in a gruesome accident and is abandoned by her cold, distant mother. Things only worsen when she ends up in the home of a sadistic doctor and his eerie housekeeper. What follows is a series of escalating horrors: abuse, forced pregnancy, and flight into the underbelly of London.

From there, Lovett’s story becomes a brutal mix of survival and betrayal. She finds a fleeting moment of love in a brothel with Alphra, a prostitute who gives her a glimpse of tenderness and companionship. But that too is wrenched away soon after her freshly born baby is stolen from her and she is forced to run away, yet again. She drifts further into the shadows until she stumbles into the infamous pie shop and meets Mr. Sweeney Todd. Our scenes with Todd are short; we already know that story. Once Todd and Lovett’s special meat pies are exposed, she is on the run… again.

What makes this retelling so compelling is the way it reframes Mrs. Lovett not as a cartoonish villain, but as a deeply scarred woman whose monstrous choices are rooted in trauma. She loves fiercely, even obsessively. Her longing for her lost child, her devotion to Alphra, even her strange loyalty to Todd… these relationships humanize her, even as she slides into a moral abyss.

The ending packs the most brutal punch. Not only does Mrs. Lovett escape justice (she did chop up dead bodies and bake them, after all), but she is reunited with her long-lost son, who may be Jack the Ripper. The implication is chilling: her trauma and darkness live on, shaping yet another monster. And then there’s the letter’s final turn, where she casually tells Miss Gibson that she tastes delicious, revealing that her meat pie days are not over, and anyone who may reveal her true identity is subject to that same fate. It’s cruel, it’s absurd, it’s horrifying, and it’s precisely the ending a character like Lovett deserves.

That said, the book isn’t flawless. At times, side plots dilute the tension. The convent detour after the doctor tracks her down and then “imprisons” her there feels strangely out of place for such a sadistic villain, more convenient than convincing. Similarly, her brief marriage to Mr. Jennings, a closeted regular at the pie shop, slows the pacing and clashes with the darker trajectory of her story. And I couldn’t help but feel frustrated that her mother vanishes from the narrative entirely; a reconnection, even though bad news, could have added depth to her unraveling.

Even with these bumps, the novel shines. The atmosphere drips with soot, fog, and blood, Victorian London at its most Gothic. The epistolary format immerses you in the story so deeply that you start to believe it as fact. And above all, Mrs. Lovett is reimagined not as a punchline or sidekick, but as the tragic, magnetic center of her own gothic myth.

This book isn’t for the faint of heart. It’s violent, tragic, and unrelenting. But if you’re drawn to morally gray women, gothic horror, and stories that peel back the layers of infamous legends, The Butcher’s Daughter is a must-read. And that final twist — Jack the Ripper as Mrs. Lovett’s son? Absolute chef’s kiss.

So… which one will you read first?

For an audible version, listen to Scare Me Sam on Spotify