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Eat Your Heart Out — Cannibalism and the Serial Killer

The most recent serial killer book I read was A Certain Hunger by Chelsea G. Summers. The book is absolutely brilliant. 10/10, lovely writing, witty, thoughtful, sarcastic voice and just dark enough to keep my internal “horror” reader engaged. It features a middle-aged female serial killer, Dorothy, writing her tell-all memoir from the confines of a prison she has no hope of leaving. According to interviews with the author, it was written with two books in mind: Eat, Pray, Love and American Psycho. Honestly, it falls perfectly in the middle of those two — balancing the “remaking” of a life through travel, food, and intimate relationships while exposing capitalism and…

Cozy Serial Killer Fiction: Please Don’t Tell

I started this journey with very specific types of serial killer fiction in mind. I wanted to read POV serial killer fiction with a focus on the difference through time and regarding gender. But as I read, that scope has widened and shifted. Throughout it all, the one type of book I wasn’t interested in was the more classic, mainstream books that tend to take the detective or journalist POV. I was also sticking to genres I’m comfortable with: horror, literary, and the occasional romance if it’s dark and/or sarcastically witty. I could maybe be convinced to read a thriller, but wasn’t super interested in crime, procedural or even mystery.…

A Dose of Aural Humanity

There seems to be clearly defined battle lines when you compare audio stories with written narratives. In one camp there’s the “listening isn’t reading!” group. To be fair, there are some benefits to reading as opposed to listening. For me personally, reading allows me greater space to exercise my imagination by putting my own emphasis and tone onto written words. There’s also the idea that reading can increase comprehension, but I think that has more to do with the idea that we often multi-task when listening. Yeah, if I was doing the dishes while reading, I’d also miss a few things. But, the trade-off for me is that I can…

My Favorite Serial Killer, The Sister

One of my favorite books of all time and definitely one of my favorite serial killer books is My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite. I originally read this back when it first came out in 2018, and it’s stuck with me since. But I did a re-listen to it this week, and I loved Adepero Oduye’s take on it. She really nails the sarcasm and brings it to life. The book is set in Lagos and told from the POV of Korede, a fairly plain, very organized, clean, and meticulous nurse. Her younger sister is a beautiful fashion designer who everyone loves and happens to be a serial…

Getting Caught Up In the Wasp Factory

Buckle in. This post is going to contain major spoilers for Iain Banks’ The Wasp Factory. And it’s one of those books that has twists that range from fairly big to huge, and the BEST way to go into the book is without knowing much about it — definitely not knowing the spoilers. Before I put the spoilers, I will say that I loved the book. I read it as part of my serial killer series, but I’m not a hundred percent sure it’s a serial killer book despite the serial murder. At the same time it has a lot of important aspects of the genre that have solidified some…

Available Now! Hold My Heart by Koji A. Dae

Direct from Ghost Orchid Press: Ebook Paperback More Sellers Suffering from severe depression, Emma seeks out a serial killer who will kill her in the most gruesome way she can describe. But when she backs out of their agreement, she discovers the murderer is host to a parasitic creature from another dimension that feeds on the extremes of pleasure and pain. When the creature turns its attention to Emma, she is torn between the ecstasy of desire and guilt over her new urges. At the same time the killer, no longer protected from his memories by the creature, has to face a century of gruesome murders, including the death that…