January 2020 Reads
January had 4 good reads. February however, is going considerably slower. To be fair, 2 books from January were audiobooks, so quicker to “read”.
Certain Dark Things by Silvia Moreno-Garcia – Vampires in Mexico City in a universe where vampires are no longer hidden in the shadows but citizens. Not necessarily accepted by the mortal world but apart of it. The story centres around street kid Domingo and Atl, a vampire of Aztec origins. They come together through Atl’s need to blend in, feed and get out of Mexico City as quickly as possible – angry drug dealing vampires looking for revenge will do that to a vamp chick. Domingo is enthralled to meet an actual vampire and falls in with her quickly.
I really enjoyed the vampire mythology and various types of vamps that Silvia Moreno-Garcia created and the glossary at the end of the book was interesting. I just didn’t feel any love for the main characters themselves. I wanted more of Atl teaching Domingo about vampires then him following her around. But it was still enjoyable and a fun vampire world to explore.
14 by Peter Clines (audiobook) – SPOILERS. A deal too good to be true? In our current housing/rental crisis, I would live in an apartment that had a portal to a hell dimension in the closet for the right price. Yep, that’s pretty much the gist of the story. Nate needs to find a new place to live and lucks into (or is it a set-up) a referral to an older buidling at a killer rental price. As Nate gets to know his neighbours and starts exploring with them, they soon uncover some interesting stories about the buildings history that only gets more interesting when Nate rips off his wallpaper and uncovers a mysterious note scrawled on his walls in blood and a corpse in his closet. Would you move….nah, the rent is too cheap. The portal is open, there is death and in the end Nate gets a new job protecting the secret of the portal.
This was a fun book. Not sure I connected with it as much listening to it but it was still good. None of the charaters really jumped out at me but the hell dimension seemed kind of interesting.
Monster, She Wrote: The Women Who Pioneered Horror and Speculative Fiction by Lisa Kröger & Melanie R. Anderson – One of the best things about going into a book store to kill time is finding a book you weren’t looking for and really enjoying it. The book journeys back centuries to some of the earliest, still accessable works of horror/sci-fi/spec fiction by women. Many I had heard of and just as many I had not. Mary Shelley, Shirley Jackson, Anne Rice among the most well known. What was enjoyable along with an amazing list of recommends, was the addition of the small biographies for these women. Many balancing their home duties with their passion for writing. Some even being the only source of income for their familes. And they made it work. Makes me feel like I’m wasting away creativity time being too tired and stressed from work/life to write. Very enjoyable read for anyone who wants to learn about and find books in these genres written by women.
The Elementals by Michael McDowell (audiobook) – The Elementals has been on my TBR list for awhile. This is true southern gothic story and I truly enjoyed listening to the audio version of drifting sands and the interesting dynamics of the McCray and Savage families. The story starts out with an unconventional funernal and ends in heaps of sand, myth and horror. This is short and sweet because it would be too easy to give away the good parts. Highly recommend for a slow burn 20th century gothic tale.
Dawning Creates 
Excellent post
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