2025 book 179

 Elizabeth Hand’s Wylding Hall

Everyone’s talking about the spooky books they’re going to read in October, but I’m a giant wuss! I decided to reread this, which I remember being creepy but not outright a horror novel (will I regret reading this right before bed though? PROBABLY!!!). Anyway, this novel is an oral history about a folk band in the 70s working on a new album in a weird old manor house in the middle of nowhere in England. Lots of sex and drugs and mysterious rooms and mysterious girls. Ok yeah I should not have read this right before bed.

2025 book 178

 Bex Benjamin’s The Last Woman on Earth

Hey, it’s a weirdly fun post-apocalyptic romance novel! (Aside from the scary vampire-zombie hybrid guys.) Anyway, our protagonist is living in a post-apocalyptic farming community, doing chores and running the closest thing they have to a newspaper, when a ruthless woman military contractor type takes over a nearby community…and has an eye on on our (supposedly straight) protagonist. And also wants her to investigate exactly how this vampire/zombie apocalypse went down. Really engaging writing, and I enjoyed the characters a ton, plus lots of action and plot. Looks like this is the start of a trilogy and I’m here for it. A/A-.