Mailbox Monday #19

 I'm still at my mum's and of course I couldn't not go to a bookstore, especially since I'm predicting a summer of mostly COVID restrictions in the Netherlands. So I went wild and thankfully she picked up the tab! The first three books below are ones I bought myself and the final one is a poetry collection I was approved for on NetGalley, which I'm also very excited for!

Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came in their mailbox during the last week. Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists. It is hosted weekly over at Mailbox Monday and every Friday they do a round-up of some of their favourite, shared reads!

Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder (Doubleday Books; 7/20/2021)

An ambitious mother puts her art career on hold to stay at home with her newborn son, but the experience does not match her imagination. Two years later, she steps into the bathroom for a break from her toddler's demands, only to discover a dense patch of hair on the back of her neck. In the mirror, her canines suddenly look sharper than she remembers. Her husband, who travels for work five days a week, casually dismisses her fears from faraway hotel rooms.

As the mother's symptoms intensify, and her temptation to give in to her new dog impulses peak, she struggles to keep her alter-canine-identity secret. Seeking a cure at the library, she discovers the mysterious academic tome which becomes her bible, A Field Guide to Magical Women: A Mythical Ethnography, and meets a group of mothers involved in a multilevel-marketing scheme who may also be more than what they seem.

An outrageously original novel of ideas about art, power, and womanhood wrapped in a satirical fairy tale, Nightbitch will make you want to howl in laughter and recognition. And you should. You should howl as much as you want. 

I have been fascinated by this book since I first heard about it. I think it might not necessarily be the easiest of reads and I may need to be careful about where I read it since the cover may freak some out. But I can't wait to dig my teeth into the meat of this novel. (I will see myself out...)

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Jo Fletcher Books; 6/30/2020)

When glamorous socialite Noemí Taboada receives a frantic letter from her newlywed cousin begging to be rescued from a mysterious doom, it's clear something is desperately amiss. Catalina has always had a flair for the dramatic, but her claims that her husband is poisoning her and her visions of restless ghosts seem remarkable, even for her.

Noemí's chic gowns and perfect lipstick are more suited to cocktail parties than amateur sleuthing, but she immediately heads to High Place, a remote mansion in the Mexican countryside, determined to discover what is so affecting her cousin.

Tough and smart, she possesses an indomitable will, and she is not afraid: not of her cousin's new husband, who is both menacing and alluring; not of his father, the ancient patriarch who seems to be fascinated by Noemí; and not of the house itself, which begins to invade Noemi's dreams with visions of blood and doom.

Her only ally in this inhospitable abode is the family's youngest son. Shy and gentle, he seems to want to help, but might also be hiding dark knowledge of his family's past. For there are many secrets behind the walls of High Place. The family's once colossal wealth and faded mining empire kept them from prying eyes, but as Noemí digs deeper she unearths stories of violence and madness.

So this is a book I have heard so much about and have consistently been meaning to read. So when I saw it laid out all beautiful at the bookstore I grabbed it without hesitation. Am I on a massive fantasy-kick? Yes! I'm loving all my recent reads so hard and I think Mexican Gothic won't be an exception to that!

For the Wolf (Wilderwood #1) by Hannah Whitten (Orbit Books; 6/1/2021)

As the only Second Daughter born in centuries, Red has one purpose-to be sacrificed to the Wolf in the Wood in the hope he'll return the world's captured gods.

Red is almost relieved to go. Plagued by a dangerous power she can't control, at least she knows that in the Wilderwood, she can't hurt those she loves. Again.

But the legends lie. The Wolf is a man, not a monster. Her magic is a calling, not a curse. And if she doesn't learn how to use it, the monsters the gods have become will swallow the Wilderwood-and her world-whole.

I have been so desperate for this book since I first heard talk of it. First off, the cover if genius. Secondly, that plot, with destinies for daughters and dangerous enemies and ancient gods and legends full of lies (liegends?). I think this book has literally everything I could possible ask for.

Can You Sign My Tentacle? Poems by Brandon O'Brien (Interstellar Flight Press; 8/20/2021)

Cthulhu meets hip-hop in this book of horror poems that flips the eldritch genre upside down. Lovecraftian-inspired nightmares are reversed as O'Brien asks readers to see Blackness as radically significant. Can You Sign My Tentacle? explores the monsters we know and the ones that hide behind racism, sexism, and violence, resulting in poems that are both comic and cosmic.

About the Author

Brandon O’Brien is a writer, performance poet, teaching artist and game designer from Trinidad and Tobago. His work has been shortlisted for the 2014 Alice Yard Prize for Art Writing, the 2014 and 2015 Small Axe Literary Competitions, and the inaugural Ignyte Award for Best Speculative Poetry. His work is published in Uncanny Magazine, Strange Horizons, Reckoning, and New Worlds, Old Ways: Speculative Tales from the Caribbean, among others. He is the former Poetry editor of FIYAH: A Magazine of Black Speculative Fiction.

I love the idea of mixing two completely different cultural spheres like Lovecraftian horror, with its inbuilt and insidious racism, with the world of hip-hop. I have already read some of the poems in this collection and so far I am really into it!

So those are my current reads! For once I am doing amazingly on my yearly Goodreads Challenge and I plan to add all of the above very soon. What's in your Mailbox?Mailbo