#storyseekers

[daphneblakess]

books i read in 2026: death of a bookseller by alice slater

the chances of Roach being interested in my mother's murderer are low. it's not much, but it's something to be thankful for.

[daphneblakess]

books i read in 2026: cinder house by freya marske

"i was an odd little girl. my father always told me so. and i'd been looking forward to being an odd young woman, except now i'm a haunting. i'm a ghost and a house and there's no room for anything else. of all the things i lost when i died, perhaps it's silly i mourn that, but i do. i hate that my oddness got chosen for me."

[daphneblakess]

books i read in 2026: private rites by julia armfield

to be misunderstood is one thing, but the curious hostility of a sibling's approach lies less in what they miss than in the strange backdated nature of the things they choose to know. a person can be thirty, thirty-five, and yet still largely described by her sisters in terms of things that happened to be true at seventeen.

[daphneblakess]

books i read in 2026: the god of the woods by liz moore

eight campers. nine beds. Louise counts and counts again. at last, when she can no longer defer it, she lets one name bob to the surface of her mind. the empty bed is Barbara's.

[daphneblakess]

books i read in 2026: the bog wife by kay chronister

if they could show the bog they did not need it, maybe the bog would again fruit and flower and flush with life, trying to appease the Haddesleys as the Haddesleys had for so many years tried to appease the bog.

[daphneblakess]

books i read in 2026: the burning kingdoms trilogy by tasha suri

maybe wanting more than what she had was selfish, a mistake. but Priya thought of all she had suffered, and all Ahiranya had suffered, and felt the kernel of anger in her chest bloom open.

[daphneblakess]

books i read in 2025: the bloody chamber and other stories by angela carter

the secret of pandora's box; but he had given me the box, himself, knowing i must learn the secret. i had played a game in which every move was governed by a destiny as omnipotent and oppressive as himself, since that destiny was himself; and i had lost. lost at that charade of innocence and vice in which he had engaged me. lost, as a victim loses to the executioner.

[daphneblakess]

books i read in 2025: the devil she knows by alexandria bellefleur

The byproduct of a too-active imagination and not enough sleep was that, for a split second, Sam could have sworn that nestled between her blonde bangs and beehive bump, the woman across from her had horns jutting from the top of her head.