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Lyndsey Gollogly (2893 KP) rated Some Will Not Sleep: Selected Horrors in Books

Jun 22, 2021

90 of 250
Kindle
Some Will Not Sleep: selected horrors
By Adam Nevill

Once read a review will be written via Smashbomb and link posted in comments

A bestial face appears at windows in the night.

In the big white house on the hill angels are said to appear.

A forgotten tenant in an isolated building becomes addicted to milk.

A strange goddess is worshipped by a home-invading disciple.

The least remembered gods still haunt the oldest forests.

Cannibalism occurs in high society at the end of the world.

The sainted undead follow their prophet to the Great Dead Sea.

A confused and vengeful presence occupies the home of a first-time buyer.

In ghastly harmony with the nightmarish visions of the award-winning writer's novels, these stories blend a lifelong appreciation of horror culture with the grotesque fascinations and childlike terrors that are the author's own.

So I wrote a few notes on each story that I enjoyed!

They are just little rambling I’m far from a in depth critic!

1. Where Angels come in

I’ve read this before and it it’s stuck with me for some reason. We all had that one house as kids that spooked us, only luckily mine was never full of creepy things.

2. The Original Occupant

A man determined to spend time in a Swedish forest finds himself disturbing a sacred ritual only to disappear after writing a frantic letter to his friends. After a search of the house and forest he’s never seen again! Really good and quite creepy never mess with someone’s sacred alter!

3. Mother’s Milk

Well that’s just made my stomach turn! A man thinks he’s found lodgings and a job finds himself turned into a milk fiend the source of the milk is definitely an interesting one.

4. Yellow Teeth

An old friend comes to visit and never leaves. This was creepy I’d just hate having someone around me that filthy and smelly.

5. Pig Thing

A strange little piggy tale after a family move to New Zealand

6. What God have Wrought

This follows a soldier searching across desert for the creature that holds his sister! For some reason this didn’t grab me.

7. Doll Hands

This is what will happen when the world comes to an end the over privileged using the poor souls as meat! Quite chilling!

8. To Forget and be Forgotten

I loved this! It reminded me of his Apartment 16 which is a book I fell totally in love with and the first book I read of Adams and this was in that style. A lot of the paragraphs struck home with me especially at the start! Solitude is something we all seek at some point and being around people can be taxing.

9. The Ancestors

This is the second time I’ve read this and it still creeps me out! A little girl makes friends with a ghost and some toys that have dark intentions and definitely dislike parents!

10.!The Age of Entitlement

11. Florrie

Another brilliant short! I think a good cleansing of all newly brought houses is in order to prevent this!

Overall I absolutely love his writing style each story even ones I didn’t quite click with transports you to that scene you’re reading. I’m building a steady collection of Adams books I highly recommend anyone of them!

Kudos

Lottie disney bookworm (1056 KP) rated The Once and Future Witches in Books

Sep 20, 2020

The Once and Future Witches

Alix E. Harrow | 2020 | Science Fiction/Fantasy

10.0

(2 Ratings)

Book Rating

Thank you to Netgalley for luring me in with this recommendation and the gorgeous cover art. Thank you to Alix E Harrow for providing such an amazing story for this ARC review. All the opinions expressed below are my own.

"Witches and women's rights. Suffrage and spells. They're both...a kind of power...the kind we're not allowed to have."

I'm not often drawn to books involving witches to be honest. I love an annual viewing of Hocus Pocus (who doesn't?!) but that is usually where the affinity ends.
If anything can change my nonchalance, I suspect it may be Alix E. Harrow. This is the first piece of work I have read by the Hugo award winning writer and I don’t need any tarot cards to predict it will not be the last. From the outset of The Once and Future Witches I was hooked: the worldbuilding alone is amazing; you can immediately picture the mills, avenues, squares and slums of New Salem as well as the mysterious tower that pulls our three main characters together.

The three Eastwood sisters themselves are another work of art. Juniper, Agnes and Bella are fierce, formidable women in wildly different ways. They are also flawed, stubborn and quite frankly, inspirational: by linking women’s rights and witchcraft this fantasy novel suddenly becomes more real and relatable to the modern female reader, despite being set in 1893. We empathise, sympathise and rage right alongside the Eastwood sisters on their quest for equality in a male-controlled world.
However, not even witches can act alone and the Eastwood sisters have an amazing cast of supporting characters surrounding them. Impressively, not a single one of these characters can be accused of being two-dimensional: the character development that Harrow has invested into this novel is incredible and must have taken so much work! From the Suffragette’s secretary to the skin-crawling villain to the women and men fighting (and witching) side by side; every single character is substantial and memorable. The sarcasm within Juniper for example is hilarious and even the traditional figures of the Maiden, the Mother and the Crone refuse to conform to stereotypes: I LOVED it!

The format of this novel is very clever and practically forbids you from becoming too comfortable by peppering the main story with “witch-tales”. These complement rather than distract from the storyline and also provide small changes that make you smile – such as the tales of the Sisters Grimm.
Do not be fooled though: the use of witch-tales does not prevent The Once and Future Witches from being an incredibly modern piece of writing. Topics covered include sexuality, gender identity, feminism, race as well as smashing the patriarchy: all interspersed with magic, betrayal and a hell of a lot of emotion.
I would however argue that some topics are slightly too mature for the novel to be considered YA, the description of torture and suggestions of sexual abuse probably push this book firmly into general/adult fantasy fiction novels.

The Once and Future Witches is a future bestseller in my opinion. This unique, powerful novel provides characters that you can’t help but empathise with; slow-burning, intense relationships; the trials and tribulations that come with sisterhood and plot twists at every turn.
This book will swallow you heart and soul, make you laugh, make you cry and leave you bereft at the end.

It is a must read!