Got my first bingo! Thanks as always to @batmanisagatewaydrug for creating this fun book bingo.
For the Short Story Collection square, I read A Phoenix First Must Burn, edited by Patrice Caldwell. I was pretty excited about this because it's billed as a collection of stories inspired by, and in the tradition of, Octavia Butler (whose book The Parable of the Sower is on my list...but alas, the library waitlist...). Sadly, I didn't realize until I was well into the audiobook that this is also a YA collection, so it was short on the freak behavior I was looking forward to. Taken for what it was, however, there were a few stories I really enjoyed, namely A Hagiography of Starlight by Somaiya Daud, All the Time in the World by Charlotte Nicole Davis, and my particular favorite, Tender-Headed by Danny Lore.
I read Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia for the Horror square. There's been a lot of horror on my list so far (and still more to come), but Mexican Gothic is still a change of pace as an actual gothic novel. I was deeply charmed by Moreno-Garcia's blending of traditionally British gothic elements and the setting of Mexico; instead of feeling shoehorned together it actually compounded the horror. Extremely well-foreshadowed reveals, and oh, how I loved the increasing level of feverish disorientation in the protagonist. If I wished for anything, it was for the ending to be more disorienting; I felt like in some ways the momentum dropped after the reveal.
For the 2025 Debut Author square I read Listen to Your Sister by Neena Viel. Folks, this one slaps. Not a particularly subtle read, but an incredibly cool take on the slasher horror genre. If you like sibling drama, generational trauma, and cathartic violence, check this one out. Not exactly the bloodbath of Stephen Graham Jones's The Angel of Indian Lake, but if you're squeamish about gore do keep in mind that this book contains a fair amount. I rather wished for a more bittersweet ending, typical of my taste in horror, but given the book's other themes I think the conclusion is still satisfying.
For the Read and Make a Recipe square, I read the Chhole/Channa Masala recipe from Dr. Sheil Shukla's recipe book, Plant-Based India. A great reminder that sometimes following the recipe exactly really is worth the effort, and that pre-making the tomato onion masala in bulk is probably something I should do because whenever we use it the meal goes hard. I meant to take a photo of the finished dish but I was too hungry and it smelled too good.
And a little bonus! This doesn't fit any of my remaining bingo prompts because I have no way of knowing if Yeu, the person who recommended this book in the winter issue of Better Homes and Dykes magazine, is a librarian or bookseller. But their book review of My Lesbian Novel by Renee Gladman convinced me immediately and I was not disappointed. It's brief -- about 150 pages on Libby -- but oh-so-dense and richly constructed. My Lesbian Novel is a fictional interview between "I", the interviewer, and "R", implied to be Renee herself, as they discuss the ongoing work of Renee's attempt to write a lesbian romance novel. As someone finally working on my own novel this year after a dry spell, R's relationship to and philosophy about writing was deeply inspiring. If you're a writer, keep a notebook handy while reading. The interplay between the discussion of craft and the actual act of writing was deeply entertaining, and it's easy to fall in love not just with R's novel fragments as they are presented, but with R and I's dynamic. Mr. @batmanisagatewaydrug, given your ongoing romance novel reviewing I think you'd get a kick out of R's digressions into what she loves and hates about romance fiction.
