This Incidents Around the House review is about the novel that pulled me out of the worst reading slump I’ve had in over a decade. For an entire month, the only books I managed to finish were the ones I had to read for work—until Josh Malerman came along and broke the spell. For that alone, I’m incredibly grateful. Now I’m also eagerly waiting to see how the upcoming film adaptation starring Jessica Chastain will turn out.

Incidents Around the House Review: Plot Overview

For eight-year-old Bela, her family is her entire world: her mom, her dad, and Grandma Ruth. But there’s also Other Mommy—a dark presence that asks her the same question every day:

“Can I come into your heart?”

When a series of disturbing incidents around the house makes it clear that Other Mommy is growing tired of repeating herself, Bela realizes that if she doesn’t give her consent, her family will soon suffer the consequences.

As Other Mommy becomes more restless, powerful, and bold, Bela’s only protection lies in her family bonds. But new events begin to strain her parents’ marriage, threatening the sense of safety Bela desperately clings to.

And still, Other Mommy wants an answer.

Incidents Around the House Review: Why You Should Never Deny a Good Author a Second Chance

Years ago—long before the Netflix adaptation starring Sandra Bullock—I read Bird Box, arguably Josh Malerman’s most famous and widely praised novel.

None of its elements truly worked for me. I remember finishing it with a lingering sense of dissatisfaction. The prose felt overly pretentious and moralistic, and the characters left no emotional mark on me whatsoever.

This Incidents Around the House review, however, tells a completely different story. The novel delivers a gripping, fast-paced, deeply unsettling reading experience that is also, quite unexpectedly, emotionally resonant. What I appreciated most is that the entire story is filtered through the perspective—and unmistakable voice—of Bela herself, an eight-year-old child.

I always knew V. E. Schwab would one day write the book of my heart. And now that moment has finally arrived: Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil is that book, at last!
A dark, magnetic, provocative novel… intense enough to pull you in by the gut and refuse to let go.

As a longtime Schwab reader, I can confidently say this is—at least for me—her most complex, ambitious, and mature work to date. Not just because of the beauty of her prose, always elegant and languid like a melancholy ballad, but also (and above all) because of the emotional and moral depth woven into every theme, and the level of introspection that permeates each chapter.

The Story

This is a story about hunger—an insatiable hunger.

1533, Santo Domingo de la Calzada.
A young girl grows up cunning and free, her beauty eclipsed only by her longing to escape. But María knows men will always see her as a prize or a pawn. When a mysterious widow offers her an unexpected way out, María makes a desperate choice: she will live a life without regret.

This is a story about love—love that transforms and destroys everything it touches.

1827, London.
A sheltered young woman lives quietly on her family estate… until one stolen moment with the wrong person forces her to move to London, where she’s expected to become the perfect wife. Sensitive, dreamy Charlotte finds her world upended by the arrival of a stunning red-haired woman; yet the price of freedom turns out to be higher than she ever imagined.

This is a story about anger—deep, feral anger—and a grief that refuses to die.

2019, Boston.
College was supposed to be Alice’s chance to start over, to reinvent herself. That’s why she moved halfway across the world, leaving her old life in Ireland behind. But one uncanny night forces her to confront past, present, and future all at once. Determined to uncover the truth, Alice sets off on a journey for answers… but also (perhaps above all) for vengeance.

This is a story about life itself: how everything ends, and how everything eventually begins again.

Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil: Review

Three wild roses, hiding razor-sharp white teeth…

This isn’t the first time V. E. Schwab has written about vampires and sapphic love. If you watched the (unfortunately short-lived) Netflix series First Kill, you might already know it was inspired by one of her short stories, published in the anthology Vampires Never Get Old: Tales with Fresh Bite.

This new novel, however—longer, deeper, and aimed at a more adult audience—rests on the incredible strength of three unforgettable narrative voices. Each one carries a powerful, distinct identity, rich not only in force but in vulnerability.

It’s rare to find multi-POV stories where every character truly leaves a mark. And yet, here, Victoria succeeds beautifully. The differences aren’t just stylistic; they are differences in worldview, in the way each woman listens to the world—and, of course, in the subtle echoes and mirrored themes that highlight both their contrasts and their undeniable connections.

What struck me most is how easy it is to find some small piece of yourself in each of these characters.

There’s Alice, with her aching urban melancholy and invisible wounds.
There’s Charlotte, delicate and sensitive, tinged with a hint of hedonism.
And then there is her… Sabine: larger-than-life, audacious, electric, seductive as sin. Her hunger is visceral, her thirst for life boundless, her centuries-old heart desperate for a kind of love willing to brush against worship.

An Unstoppable Hunger

These three captivating protagonists intertwine in a gothic narrative that echoes Interview with the Vampire, Carmilla, and Let the Right One In.

I went into A Treachery of Swans with high expectation… and maybe that’s exactly why the disappointment hit even harder. The cover, with its dark, mature hues, seems to promise an intense, moody story, and above all a sweeping sapphic love story worthy of masterpieces like As Many Souls of Stars or Bury My Bones in the Midnight Soil.
But the reality, unfortunately, is quite different. A Treachery of Swans turned out to be a rather light-toned YA novel, memorable more for its decadent vibes and original French-inspired setting than for any complexity in its plot or depth in its characters.

The Story

Raised by a sorcerer, Odile has spent years preparing for the heist of a lifetime. The plan is simple: impersonate a princess, infiltrate the royal palace, steal the enchanted crown, and restore magic to the kingdom.

But when the king is unexpectedly assassinated, Odile is forced to seek help from Marie, the real princess. Together, they begin to unravel a tangled web of lies and betrayals that soon leaves Odile facing a difficult question: whom can she really trust?

Soon enough, Odile must choose between her mission and the girl she’s falling in love with.

The fate of the kingdom, quite simply, depends on her choice.

A Treachery of Swans – Review

Yes, but… where is my Black Swan?!

A Treachery of Swans is a retelling of Swan Lake, and to give credit where it’s due, Poranek is incredibly skilled at crafting a seductive, atmospheric aesthetic for her novel.

The worldbuilding is solid, every scene is wrapped in a luxurious, decadent opulence, and the magic system is engaging, even without leaning on particularly original ideas.

And yet, the truth is that I simply couldn’t enjoy this book as much as I hoped. And I’m afraid the main reason has a very precise name: Odile.

Instead of the fascinating, morally ambiguous villain the premise seemed to suggest, Odile comes across as petulant, naïve, and surprisingly childish. Her entire character arc is overshadowed by her father, whose villainy is so blatant anyone would notice it immediately… except her.

Her slowness in acknowledging the obvious makes following her point of view frustrating, and it also drags down the development of her bond with Odette—a relationship that could have been far more intense and magnetic, but instead gets bogged down in the protagonist’s insecurities and her exhausting daddy issues.

A Language of Dragons is a New York Times bestseller, and I couldn’t be happier about its success. Against all odds, I completely fell in love with this YA novel by S. F. Williamson, which masterfully weaves together translation, academic rivalry, dragons, and intrigue.

It’s a light yet brilliant read — and, most importantly, an incredibly fun one. Imagine the rebellious themes of Babel mixed with the breathtaking action of Fourth Wing; the tension of The Hunger Games blended with the academic wonder of Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries.

The Story

London, 1923. Dragons rule the skies and protests fill the streets, but Vivien Featherswallow isn’t worried. She plans to follow the rules, secure an internship in her dream field — the study of dragon languages — and ensure her little sister Ursa never risks becoming a Third-Class citizen.

By midnight, though, Viv will be caught in the middle of a civil war.

When her parents are arrested for sedition, the safety she has worked so hard to build begins to crumble. So when she’s offered a mysterious chance to save herself, she accepts — even if it means leaving London, “abandoning” Ursa, and entrusting her sister’s safety to the family of a friend she has betrayed.

At Bletchley Park, Viv discovers she has been recruited to decode a secret draconic cipher and aid the war effort. If she succeeds, her family may go free. If she fails, their fate will be far darker.

At first, Viv believes deciphering the dragons’ forbidden language will be easy — after all, she’s a linguistic prodigy. But the deeper she digs, the more she realizes the world she grew up in isn’t the safe haven she thought. The government doesn’t protect everyone — only a select few, echoing George Orwell’s timeless truth:

“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”

In the end, Viv must decide which war she’s truly fighting, and what — and who — is worth risking her life for.

A Language of Dragons by S. F. Williamson – Review

Like a World War II Spy Film… with Dragons!

The moment I read the line, “The last dragon professor was replaced by a human teacher at the beginning of the year,” my mind immediately went to Wicked: Part One. After all, A Language of Dragons tackles similar themes: privilege, the fight for animal (or draconic) rights, and a determined resistance against an oppressive regime.

While none of these ideas are exactly new to seasoned fantasy readers, Williamson manages to craft a story that feels fresh, gripping, and wonderfully immersive, balancing dark academia aesthetics with touches of dystopian drama. Think Divine Rivals meets a glamorous black-and-white spy thriller.

The real highlight, though, is Vivien’s emotional arc. Despite all the action, betrayals, and adrenaline-filled dragon flights, the focus remains on her gradual transformation. Her shift in worldview never feels abrupt or forced — instead, it unfolds naturally through trial, error, and painful growth. Watching her evolve is one of the novel’s greatest joys.

Love in the Time of Dragons

A Language of Dragons features a beautifully written slow-burn romance. Some readers have labeled it enemies-to-lovers, but I’d have to disagree — Violet and Atlas may clash and misunderstand each other, but they’re never true enemies.

Being a Chinese Girl in New York, living with OCD, and surviving a pandemic…

Anyone would agree that this is the perfect setup for a horror story.
And indeed, in Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng, author Kylie Lee Baker takes this premise and transforms it into one of the most haunting, dark, and emotionally charged novels of 2025!

The Story

Cora Zeng works as a cleaner, specializing in scrubbing away the aftermath of brutal murders and suicides in Chinatown. But none of it feels truly terrifying—not after witnessing the worst thing imaginable: the death of her sister, Delilah, pushed in front of a train by a stranger.

Before fleeing the scene, the killer shouted only two chilling words: “bat eater.”

The bloody messes don’t disturb Cora as much as the germs on subway railings, the strangers’ hands brushing against hers, the viruses lurking everywhere, or the bite marks on her kitchen table. Ever since Delilah’s death, Cora has been struggling to tell what’s real from what exists only inside her mind.

She suppresses her emotions and ignores her aunt’s advice to prepare for the Festival of Hungry Ghosts, when the gates of hell are said to open. But she can’t ignore the unease in her stomach every time she finds bat carcasses at a crime scene—or the chilling fact that all the recent victims have been women of East Asian descent.

And most of all, as Cora will soon learn, some ghosts simply cannot be ignored.

Review: Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng

When Fear Reveals More Than We’d Like to Know About Ourselves

What many moviegoers—or “casual” horror readers—often fail to understand is that horror was never created just to bombard you with jump scares or make you laugh nervously while you snack on popcorn with your friends. Believe it or not, that was never its true purpose.

Jordan Peele and his impeccable social horrors didn’t invent anything new. Since its earliest days, macabre storytelling has always been a magnifying lens, capable of enlarging everything grotesque, monstrous, or simply unpleasant that hides in the shadows of our collective and individual psyches—dragging it into the light and forcing us to look at it in all its unsettling splendor.

It’s not about “political correctness,” “diversity quotas,” or any of those tiresome labels that certain right-wing voices use to discredit the work of writers from marginalized backgrounds. It’s about giving a voice back to those who have to fight with everything they have not to be silenced. And for us, the readers on the receiving end of that communication, it’s about learning to listen. To listen and to understand that our version of the world is not—and will never be—the only one that exists.

Chills and Adrenaline

That said, Kylie Lee Baker is not one of those authors so consumed by her message that she sacrifices the thrill of storytelling.
On the contrary: in Bat Eater, she draws generously from modern horror classics like The Ring and The Grudge, evoking the rich folkloric imagery of Asian ghost stories to deliver a cascade of breathtaking moments that will remind you exactly how and why you used to be afraid of the dark as a child.