It did take me just a little work at the beginning of the book to get into it. If you hated Moby-Dick for its pacing, or lack thereof, and for all its digressions, you’ll almost certainly hate Hell’s Heart too. If you hate disaster characters, you’ll cringe at many decisions made by “I.” But there’s much more than enough in here to keep an attentive reader thoroughly engaged and entertained. I thought it was great!
Operation Bounce House is more grounded and more thoughtful than Dungeon Crawler Carl, but just as exciting.
Using medical logs and other ship records, Dorothy quickly finds out the baby’s genetic heritage, but its origins are still swaddled in mystery. There’s a highly suspicious gap in the memory of someone who really ought to know what happened, so Dorothy has to do a bit of digging to find out the motives of several people involved (or not) with this little bundle of joy.
This took me on a wild trip of experiences, with tones ranging from surrealistic to snappy, giggly to grim, and much more, and left me with a lot to think about.
An amazing new talent has burst onto the Southern Gothic horror scene. On Sundays She Picked Flowers is the self-published debut novel of Yah Yah Scholfield, but I sure wouldn’t have guessed that from the text (reissued Jan. 27, 2026 by Saga Press). Protagonist Jude is a fa character, the environment she lives in is rich enough to sink into it, the love story is disturbing yet striking, and in the end, Jude finds a way to make peace with her violent past and her current situation. Violent? Oh, yes, this book contains very graphic violence, from beatings to fights and homicides, with very messy results. It is deliberatively transgressive along several other axes, too, but for the story, not for shock value. Nothing feels cheap or sensational here, but rather, thoughtful and deeply felt (and often sensual).
I’m fascinated to see where this series will go, especially because of how it’s already subverted my expectations.
