No Gods, No Monsters by Cadwell Turnbull Titan Books, pb, £9.19 Reviewed by Joely Black One morning in October, Laina finds out cops in Boston have shot her brother. In another shooting, another Black man was the victim of police brutality. Yet there is more to this story. Laina’s brother is a werewolf, and the video shows him transforming into his human form right before being shot. Laina must deal with her grief and the discovery that monsters are real, that they live among humans unseen, and that they are caught up in a fight between conflicting factions for power. This is Cadwell Turnbull ..read more

Love Will Tear Us Apart by C.K. McDonnell Transworld Books, Penguin Random House HB, £14.95 Reviewed by Sarah Deeming Hannah has left The Stranger Times for an exclusive retreat exploring the benefits of giving her marriage a second try. But is there anyone in the world who can stare down the barrel of Banecroft’s blunderbuss and answer his interview questions without having a breakdown? Especially as Banecroft is even more unhinged than normal. Banecroft’s life revolves around waiting for ghosts to appear so he can talk to his deceased wife, convinced her spirit is in trouble. Without Hannah ..read more

THE DEATH OF JANE LAWRENCE by Caitlin Starling Titan, 450-page p/b, £8.99 Reviewed by Pauline Morgan The idea of Gothic literature was born in 1764 with the publication of Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto. Since then, the genre has built, so much so that the best need to contain a number of elements (up to ten are often quoted) to qualify. The Death of Jane Lawrence is hailed as a Gothic Novel, and as such, it contains many of these elements.             Jane Shoringfield does not want to return to Camhurst, where her parents died i ..read more

The Visitors by Owen W Knight Burton Mayers, pb, £7.20 Reviewed by Sarah Deeming Fourteen years ago, Peter and his sister Emily saved the world from destruction through a shadowy organisation called the Sect, with agents in world government called the Masters. Now they might have to do it again, this time from aliens who have landed near the Sect’s main base, Templewood. On the surface, the visitors appear benign, gifting new technologies to help the Earth survive the damage humans are doing to it without asking for anything in return. But their altruism is suspicious, especially when people ..read more

Harley Quinn: No Good Dead by Stephanie Phillips, Riley Rossmo, Laura Braga and Jay Leisten DC Comics, pb £11.76 Reviewed by Sarah Deeming Harley Quinn is back in Gotham, and this time she means business. The Joker has vanished and left a hoard of clown thugs without direction or goal. Some are in prison, and others are trying to move on from their life of crime which isn’t easy without professional emotional support. As Harley Quinn is a qualified psychiatrist and a Joker Survivor, she’s more qualified than anyone to help the abandoned clowns. But first, she has to convince Batman she’s on t ..read more

Wayward by Hannah Mathewson Titan Books, paperback, £8.99 Reviewed by Nadya Mercik Welcome back to London, divided into six magical sections and its political undercurrents! Hannah Mathewson’s Wayward is the second book in the Witherward series, but it can be pretty much read as a standalone. London is not what we know it. Apart from the Otherworld, which wields no magic, there is the true London, divided between six different factions. There are Whisperers, who read minds; there are Changelings, who take forms; there is a closed community or distant Oracles, who see into the future; there ar ..read more

THE SOMEBODY PEOPLE By Bob Proehl Titan Books, s/b, £9.99 Reviewed by Matthew Johns The sequel to The Nobody People takes up the story of those with extraordinary abilities who had been persecuted by those with none and transposed their roles. In the first novel, the people with fantastic powers were treated as second-class citizens. Exploited, locked away in secret internment camps, tortured, mutilated, killed. The first book ended with one of these few, Fahima Deeb, creating a Pulse from a machine that gave abilities to millions of people – making the few a part of a new many. The hope of t ..read more

THE FALL OF BABEL by Josiah Bancroft. Orbit. p/b. £9.99. Reviewed by Elloise Hopkins. Captain Winters aboard the State of Art has come to round up a series of paintings that were long ago scattered by the Brick Layer himself and said to be the key to opening the Bridge of Babel. That act comes with its own hazards, but the crew are nothing if not determined. Even Voleta, still recovering from a fatal wound. Adamos Boreas is also determined, though in his case, to con those who would try to con him. He has learnt to survive in the tower. Thief he may be, but for now, he is New Babel’s prisoner ..read more

THE TWELVE EVEN STRANGER DAYS OF CHRISTMAS By Syd Moore Point Blank Books, s/b, £6.99 Reviewed by Matthew Johns The follow-up to the successful “The Twelve Strange Days of Christmas” is a pocket-sized collection of thirteen short stories with a macabre twist and, at times, a tenuous link to Christmas or other winter celebrations. The opener, ‘Pantomime’, is a twist on Snow White and the Seven Dwarves – one of those tales that everyone knows, just not the way that Moore tells it. In her modern-day retelling, the dwarves are all female, with various backstories behind their names. Happy is so n ..read more

Misery and Other Lines by CC Adams Sinister Horror Company, ebook, £1.99 Reviewed by Melody Bowles Misery and Other Lines is a short story collection centred around terrifying happenings on the London Underground at Halloween. Every story begins with costume wearers and pumpkin-carriers mingling with ordinary Londoners to catch the Tube on that single fateful night. Some of the stories in the book share the same characters and continue or intertwine with one another, making them cohesive and clever. I found it better to read the collection in short bursts than binge it all at once, as the sto ..read more