I’m sharing another instalment of my Mini Review Mondays, the most recent of which was last week. In case you haven’t seen any of my previous posts, I do ‘mini’ reviews of books that I’ve previously read and am now ready to share my full thoughts about.
First up, I’d like to talk about All That Consumes Us by Erica Waters. Thank you to HarperCollins Children’s Books for sending me an eARC in exchange for an honest review.
Magni animi numquam moriuntur. Great minds never die.
The students in Corbin College’s elite academic society, Magni Viri, have it all—free tuition, inspirational professors, and dream jobs once they graduate. When first-gen college student Tara is offered a chance to enroll, she doesn’t hesitate.? Except once she’s settled into the gorgeous Victorian dormitory, something strange starts to happen. She’s finally writing, but her stories are dark and twisted. Her dreams feel as if they could bury her alive. An unseen presence seems to stalk her through the halls. And a chilling secret awaits Tara at the heart of Magni Viri—one that just might turn her nightmares into reality; one that might destroy her before she has a chance to escape.
Publication Date: 17th October
TW: death, murder, abandonment, blood, cancer, self harm, suicidal ideation, transphobia, bullying, aneurysm, neglect, knife wounds, misogyny, abortion
My Thoughts:
All That Consumes Us is a haunting, stunning and truly special dark academia tale.
Erica Waters is one of those authors that just never fails to totally captivate me. Her stories have such original concepts with this murky mix of fantasy and reality, with almost a folk tale gloss over all the events. These slices of something slightly off-kilter from our world are just something else.
All That Consumes Us is yet another example of this. It is Dark Academia in a unique spin, or at least one that I have never seen explicitly before. Waters’ distinctive use of atmosphere so thick that it feels like it may start choking you is heightened here. This genre thrives on claustrophobia and paranoia, which is delivered here in next level territory. We really ruminate on the cost of ambition and success, leaving the question of what may be sacrificed for greatness. There is a real undercurrent of exploitation within the central conceit. Nothing here is quite as it seems, making that atmosphere that much more threatening and thick.
Tara was an excellent way in for us. Her narrative voice was so entrancing, full of heart and pulling you to become endeared to her so quickly. She is smart, driven and just wanting to find a place where she feels like she can truly belong. With that, you may be pushed to extreme circumstances in the right situations. This place is one that is designed to drive people to that exact point. It really centres what you would do in order to achieve perfection and speaks to that corrosive exploitation often at the heart of academic institutions. Waters delves deep into questions of legacy and what that truly means for us in the present. It is excellent.
All That Consumes Us is a Dark Academia tale like no other – sleep on Waters at your peril.
Next up, I’d like to talk about All These Sunken Souls. Thank you to Amberjack Publishing for sending me an eARC in exchange for an honest review.
Welcome to the Dark.
We are all familiar with tropes of the horror genre: slasher and victims, demon and the possessed. Bloody screams, haunted visions, and the peddler of wares we aren’t sure we can trust. In this young adult horror anthology, fans of Jordan Peele, Lovecraft Country, and Horror Noire will get a little bit of everything they love—and a lot of what they fear—through a twisted blend of horror lenses, from the thoughtful to the terrifying.
From haunted, hungry Victorian mansions, temporal monster–infested asylums, and ravaging zombie apocalypses, to southern gothic hoodoo practitioners and cursed patriarchs in search of Black Excellence, All These Sunken Souls features the chilling creations of acclaimed bestsellers and hot new talents, with stories from Kalynn Bayron, Donyae Coles, Ryan Douglass, Sami Ellis, Brent Lambert, Ashia Monet, Circe Moskowitz, Joel Rochester, Liselle Sambury, and Joelle Wellington.
Publication Date: 17th October
TW: racism, death, murder, body horror, fire, arson, animal death, gore, blood, violence, slavery, intergenerational trauma, alcoholism, abuse, physical abuse, abusive relationship, gaslighting, manipulation
My Thoughts:
All These Sunken Souls is an incredibly solid YA horror anthology, providing fresh spins on familiar tropes. It boasts some amazing new voices and established gems of YA – keep an eye on everyone involved because they are going places.
As always, anthologies can be such tricky beasts. This one was so, so good and the perfect thing to pick up as the nights draw closer. A lot of them riffed on very familiar stories and tropes, but always provided something unexpected and new. I’m going to run through each of the stories to give a sense of my overall thoughts.
Lights by Kalynn Bayron was twisty and enjoyable. Bayron has high expectations from me and smashes them every time. Be Not Afraid by Ashia Monet was haunting, brilliant and incredibly well written. Liselle Sambury proved again to be one to watch with All My Best Friends Are Dead – creepy, twisty, excellent.
I was already very hyped for Dead Girls Walking by Sami Ellis and The Teeth Come Out at Night heightened this with a gory, dark and twisted story. I Love Your Eyes by Joel Rochester was a wonderfully twisted little tale of revenge and darkness, with a twist of academia and a riveting story at its core. Rochester has such a distinctive authorial voice.
To no one’s surprise, Joelle Wellington smashed it out of the park with The Consumption of Vienna Montrose. This was a stunningly written and inventive take on haunted house trope, with a bloody, raw and Gothic story that meditated on themes of family and grief. It was a total standout for me.
The Landscape of Broken Things by Brent Lambert gave me that twisty, time wimey wobbly wobbly brilliance. It was amazing and that ending was a pretty good cliffhanger. Mother Daughter and the Devil by Donyae Coles sold me completely from the opening line. With its depiction of intergenerational trauma and rage, it evolved into this bloody twisted monstrous thing.
Papa Pearlie by Ryan Douglass had an incredibly intriguing concept, which Douglass played on so well. It was very atmospheric, claustrophobic and twisty. Finally, No Harm Done by Circe Moskowitz closed us off in style. This was another one that took some shocking turns and was up to its knees in blood.
Finally, I’d like to delve into Supper For Six by Fiona Sherlock. Thank you to Hodder Fiction for sending me an eARC in exchange for an honest review.
The mystery of Bruton Square has never been solved. On that infamous night in 1977, six strangers were invited for dinner at Lady Sybil Anderson’s Mayfair apartment. Only five made it out alive.
Welcome to Supper for Six, the true crime podcast. I’m your host, Felix.
Together, we’ll uncover what really happened that night . . . Let’s dig in.
Publication Date: 19th October
TW: murder, death, violence, gore, fire, abandonment, cheating, physical abuse, blood, corpses, drugging
My Thoughts:
Supper for Six is a salacious, scandalous slice of something juicier than your average mystery.
I have quickly realised that I am a sucker for an originally styled narrative format within mysteries and thrillers. After all, Janice Hallett is one of my all-time favourites and delights in this. With a lot of pitfalls that could fall into cliche, these mysteries and thrillers deliver something new instead. I love stories that play with expectations and genre, which Supper for Six delivers through the use of a true crime style podcast that may be getting a bit too involved in its case. It is this mesh of the increasingly personal that elevates this mystery for me. You feel like you are watching a slice of life play go horribly wrong before your eyes. There is the added threats communicated through the radio, which add an extra layer of paranoia and tension to a household already brimming over with it.
Every character here is one that would stab you in the back and leave smiling. They are messy, complicated people, who are usually looking out for themselves first and foremost. There are layers upon layers of secrets and hidden connections that want to remain exactly that, until they are dragged kicking and screaming into the light. Sherlock revels in the nuances and the grubby little tricks pulled in the darkness of the night. This is heightened with the use of the podcast. You are left guessing about many significant details for much of the story, while other twists are revealed sooner than I expected. That was because Sherlock had far more nefarious plots still in store.
Supper for Six pulls the rug out of the classic locked-room mystery and gives it a new spin. It is full of twists, tricks and surprises.
A Short Book Lover 
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