I feel like a broken record every time I express how confused or disoriented I am with grasping the concept of time lately (and how quickly we just went through October…) We’re at the end of the month already, and I feel it was only yesterday that October arrived.
Either way, regardless of this cold bowl of time soup warping my sense of reality, I’m so excited that Halloween is here and also that we get to celebrate it on a Friday!
It’s The Best Time of the Year
Since moving to a new area in town, I’ve truly been appreciating my neighborhood and the insatiable energy I get from walking around and exploring all the different houses and parks that are nearby. I was especially excited for Halloween this year, to get a chance to see how everyone decorates their houses for the spooky season, and let me tell you, my neighbors did not disappoint!
I’ve always verbally said “Christmas” when meaning to refer to Halloween (don’t ask) and I think it’s because deep down inside, Halloween gives me the energy that Christmas gives to others. And seeing houses decked out in lights and inflatable ghouls make my creepy heart so full. Just the sheer amount of effort and commitment put into some of the Halloween decor is truly impressive!
Unfortunately, we were getting rained on hard earlier here on the East Coast, so I’m not entirely sure how we will fare with Trick ‘or Treaters tonight, but I do hope to get to see some cute costumes this evening!
This Year’s Halloween Costume
Every year, I (casually) dress up at the office for the spooky festivities. Last year’s Helly from Severance costume was pretty good, and Daria the year before that was actually quite epic! But this year, I was finally able to create one of my favorite costumes to date…
Here’s a hint if you’d like to guess:
Who am I?
Mothman
I’m so freaking happy with how my costume turned out! I made and taped my antennas to my headset so every meeting I joined, I could just “lurk” curiously in the background… and my red shades weren’t too much of a headache to wear as they were removable when I didn’t want to see the world in reddish hues.
Hands down, this was one of the best office costumes I’ve done so far in my eight years of dressing up for Halloween there 😈
Blessed Samhaim!
Do you celebrate the magic of the season? 🕯️How do you tend to recharge your energy during this time?
Tonight shall be filled with plenty of horror books and films, as I must satisfy the morbid curiosities, but I also want to do a yoga routine by candlelight, also lighting some incense and placing some crystals around to transition into the new season in a calm, intentional and peaceful state of mind in celebration of Samhain 🪷
While searching for a YT video to follow, I found this perfect Yoga for Witches sequence to practice later tonight and incredibly grateful to have found Bethany’s online presence and yoga videos. Ever since I finished reading Yoga for Witches at the beginning of this year, I’ve been really wanting to really balance my yoga routines with my witchcraft.
And as it’s a super special and sacred Friday, I thought we could throwback our ol’ tradition of featuring weekly fierce and fabulous Friday Fashion Icon energy…
Friday’s Fashion Icon 🤩
If you’re in the market for good vibes, magical energy and wonderful wisdom, check out her IG, YT channel and visit her webpage for exclusive content, workshops and other magical things 🔮
If you’ve read this Freaky Friday All Hallows’ Eve blog post, I seriously appreciate your attention and as always, your energy and presence 🖤
And if you aren’t subscribed…
Wishing you the creepiest and spookiest Halloween yet!
I did! I went as a black widow spider. I wore a spider web print pencil dress, a black wig and put a few fake tattoo spiders over my neck and arms. The only photos I have from that night are the polaroids we put on my friend’s living room wall (she hosted the party). It was so much fun!
Oh Boils and Ghouls, this is seriously quite the Friday to celebrate! 🎉
We have hit our first (!!!) milestone with the Morbid Curiosities 💀Book Club and my beating heart is full of gratitude and appreciation for that cozy & creepy corner on Fable
🎉 Cheers to an entire year of discussing morbidly dark, disturbed and macabre Horror books together! 🥂
We are currently sitting at just around 460 Morbid Mavens (in the original haunted clubhouse) who are eager to dive into the darkest depths of the most chilling, horrific & morbidly disturbed literature that we can find!
We’ll talk about our Double Trouble haunted clubhouse in a bit…
And for every single spooky spirit who has ever graced their presence within our haunted clubhouses on Fable:
Tonight’s blog post is in celebration of you and the hilariously haunted energy you’ve added to our darkly comedic bunch of Morbid Mavens! 👻💀🐦⬛
I seriously can’t believe it’s been a whole year already…
Feel free to jump in the Wayback Machine to see some of the previous blog posts featuring our selected monthly (morbid) reads…
So I started a horror book club online, using the Fable app as the hosting platform, in hopes of cultivating a creepy, and cozy corner for summoning like-minded spirits together to read & discuss the darkest, most disturbed and morbid horror literature…
October 2k24
In The Miso Soup
Throwback to that moment where I essentially became the “WTF did I just read?!” meme above… because wow, what a disturbing (yet oddly quick) horror book to read as the very first morbid curiosity!
Thankfully I had another horror lover & book club member in the club at that time to discuss Ryū Murakami’s approach to writing such a disturbed and twisted tale. And again, it helped to talk through some of those disturbing moments encountered while reading through the novel with another survivor of the book!
December 2k24
The Eyes Are The Best Part
I couldn’t wait to read this one with the club when it was suggested and won our first ever voting poll! (Sorry Chlorine, it wasn’t quite your time…)
This is when we were christened the Morbid Mavens (by another lovely book club member) and became the bunch of hilariously haunted souls we still are today… inserting our dark comedy and epic meme/gif action whenever and wherever possible in the book discussions!
Feb 2k25
The Haar | Graveyard Shift
This is when we evolved our club choices from one Horror book to two Horror books! (muahaha)
We voted on the main book to read as a club, and then whichever book came in 2nd place in the polls, that became the optional second book to read, if you’ve already read or weren’t interested in reading the main one.
We were still opting for six week periods per book (as I truly am a moody reader and having more time to read a book is always better for me) to account for all reading paces!
April 2k25
The Unworthy | Exquisite Corpse
What a quickly selected book The Unworthy was!
(But also, so was Exquisite Corpse for a second pick, if it didn’t win…) so needless to say we knew and were ready for the frights that awaited us in April!
May 2k25
Rouge | Chlorine
I see you, Chlorine! We are finally reading you only about five months later, but that’s the amazing thing about building up a collection of morbid curiosities… you will eventually get to that tasty treat!
Both books were two wild reads to discuss during the Spring and were also quite the impressionable novels for a few reasons… like, how I’ll never look at Tom Cruise the same way again (IYKYK)
June/July 2k25
Strange Pictures | Mary
Summerween 2k25 was in full swing with these two terrifying treats! 🎃
I had previously read Strange Pictures back during the winter and absolutely LOVED it, so I put more focus on Nat Cassidy’s Horror debut novel (with the full immersive physical + audiobook experience) which was probably my favorite way to get to read Nat’s book!
August 2k25
The Deep | Knock Knock, Open Wide
Here’s where things got a little more chaotic for me during the summer, and I ended up pausing The Deep and not even getting a chance to read Knock Knock, Open Wide…
Thankfully, those who haunt the book clubhouses are the most thoughtful and supportive souls you could summon, meaning they truly understood the hectic and turbulent energy I was dealing with and gave me a pass.
Once I get a chance to revisit these two terrifying treats, I’ll jump back into the archives discussions to see what the consensus was on our August morbid curiosities! I seriously can’t wait and so grateful that Fable supports that feature 😈
September 2k25
The Rotting Room | Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng
Back in the middle of Summer, we had the biggest vote-off of two Horror books I’ve seen yet!
If you aren’t familiar with what happened 👉🏻 the August Morbid Curiosities post has more of the details but the TL;DR version would be there was an epic fight between The Deep & The Rotting Room… to the point I did not think we would ever choose between them.
But spoiler, it was 51% to 49% in the very, very end.
So because of the exhausting battle The Rotting Room had to endure, we promised that it would be an instant September Morbid Curiosities pick!
October 2k25
Come Closer | This Thing Between Us
This Ghoul asked the spooky spirits of the haunted clubhouses kindly if they could populate the October roster as a birthday gift to them 🖤 (since we would begin reading them both on the day of my birth) and the two books that came out winning were actually two books I’ve been dying to read for so long!
It truly was the best birthday gift this ghoul could have received from those wonderfully spooky spirits, and with one out of two of them finished already… I should start preparing for next month’s Upcoming Morbid Curiosities 👀
November 2k25
????? | ?????
You’ll just have to come back and see what we will be subjecting ourselves to next month… if you’re that morbidly curious…
If you’re subscribed to the blog 👀 you will be notified via email as soon as the Upcoming Morbid Curiosities for November 2k25 blog post is published 👇
Did you know in celebration of ONE YEAR of Morbid Curiosities, I’m hosting an exclusive giveaway* for the spooky souls within the club?!
So to show my eternal gratitude and appreciation for this incredible year, I want to celebrate everyone who has contributed to the safe and spooky space we’ve created using the Fable app!
*this giveaway is exclusive to Morbid Curiosities 💀 book club members only & all entry submissions and tags will be on Fable, in the Morbid Curiosities 💀 book club!
✨ One Year Book Club Giveaway ✨
Little Ghosts BookStore x Cafe
Have you checked out online or visited Little Ghosts before?
I’m endlessly dreaming about visiting this shop someday, owning my own cute little ghosts hatand tote, plus purchasing stacks upon stacks of their horror gems!
I also really like that they’ve made SUMMON A GHOST mystery packages that you can order online for those who really want to dive into the eerie unknown with a ghoulish, horrific treat!
It’s seriously crazy going from one book last year…
October 2k24
to sixteen Morbid Curiosities this year!
If you’ve gotten to this part of the blog tonight 🚨
Thank you for taking the time to read through and go down memory lane with me, revisiting an entire year’s worth of memories with such an amazing group of the most lively spirits!
Well it’s the 13th of October, Boils and Ghouls, and I can’t believe that in just a few short weeks, it will finally be Halloween 🎃
Time does seem to be flying by because I’m a little shocked that we are almost halfway through October 2025 (also, Happy Thanksgiving 🍁 to my Canadian readers!)
The sheer amount of books I’m aching to read are just piling up and there are always intriguing titles getting announced on the daily, so it’s like there isn’t enough time to read all the books I want to… (factually so) but I’m really hoping to cozy up this spooky season and finish a whole bunch on my reading list!
Speaking of reading list, let’s recap the books read last month in tonight’s post– the September vol. of our Morbid Monthly Reads 💀
As an ambitious ghoul, I like to prepare in advance a few books to read each month to get myself excited and inspired to curiously dive into some horrific stories!
(yet lately, a fewbooks has turned into about 10-12+ books on my TBR lists per month…)
And I also organize my lists based on seasonal themes or topics and Advanced Reading Copies (ARC) of books I’d like to review within the given NetGalley & BookSirens timeframe.
Also, I’ve had authors reach out to me over the last few months to read + review their books, and I must say it’s one of the few joys and honors as a blogger– to work with authors directly (via my contact page 👈🏻) and share my honest opinion of their works.
So if you’re a Horror, LGBTQ+ or Indie writer and you have some spooky books you’d like me to read 👀 please summon me as I’m your ghoul!
To me, this season, or time of the year, is all about slowing down. The summer fuels you with that hot, fierce and powerful energy to get outside more, and soak up as much sunshine as humanly possible. While the autumn weather can be enjoyable for a nice brisk walk, you would want to spend more of your time indoors (or possibly by a warm firepit, enjoying some campfire stories.)
So in summoning that energy, here’s some of the books I thought would be fitting for our September‘s vol. of our Morbid Monthly Reads.
I really love using the Fable app to prepare my Morbid Monthly and also sharing them with my fellow fabulous Fablers to get everyone hyped for the upcoming scares or fascinations I’m about to experience!
Many of the books I’ve recently added to my growing and endless TBR are actually from other Fable users who have endorsed them, so it’s a very mutually beneficial community to be a part of.
If you happen to be an avid reader and want more social in your book life, Fable is definitely the app to seek out 👀
Book Reviews
📖=physical/ebook 🎧=audiobook
Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner (2021)
Format: Audiobook 🎧
“The New York Times bestseller from the Grammy-nominated indie rockstar Japanese Breakfast, an unflinching, deeply moving memoir about growing up mixed-race, Korean food, losing her Korean mother, and forging her own identity in the wake of her loss.
In this exquisite story of family, food, grief, and endurance, Michelle Zauner proves herself far more than a dazzling singer, songwriter, and guitarist. With humour and heart, she tells of growing up the only Asian-American kid at her school in Eugene, Oregon; of struggling with her mother’s particular, high expectations of her; of a painful adolescence; of treasured months spent in her grandmother’s tiny apartment in Seoul, where she and her mother would bond, late at night, over heaping plates of food. As she grew up, moving to the east coast for college, finding work in the restaurant industry, performing gigs with her fledgling band – and meeting the man who would become her husband – her Koreanness began to feel ever more distant, even as she found the life she wanted to live.
It was her mother’s diagnosis of terminal pancreatic cancer, when Michelle was twenty-five, that forced a reckoning with her identity and brought her to reclaim the gifts of taste, language, and history her mother had given her.
Vivacious, lyrical and honest, Michelle Zauner’s voice is as radiantly alive on the page as it is onstage. Rich with intimate anecdotes that will resonate widely, Crying in H Mart is a book to cherish, share, and reread.“
As a fan of Japanese Breakfast, I was very curious to read Michelle’s memoir discussing the very difficult process of losing her mother at a young age and how she navigated that extremely difficult time in her life.
One of the last Get Outside and Read, Buds! selections for the month of August, I ended up finishing the book in early September as I was moving apartments during the end of that month… but when I started the audiobook (via Spotify Prem), I couldn’t stop! ❤️🩹
Rating:💀💀💀💀💀
They Fear Not Men In The Woods by Gretchen Mcneil (2025)
[ 🗣️Thank you to Brigids Gate Press & Netgalley for the ARC] Format: ebook 📖
“For fans of Midsommar, Catriona Ward, and Sarah Gailey, this addictively readable modern horror novel unfolds like a movie with a climax you’ll never see coming.
When Jen Monroe hears her father’s remains have been found, she returns home to disprove his death, only to find the forests of rural Washington are hiding unimaginable horrors.
Seven years ago Jen Monroe left behind her hometown of Barrow, Washington after her father, a forest ranger passionate about protecting old trees from the aggressive logging business, vanished. She vowed never to return. Then she gets a text from her estranged mother: Her father’s remains have been found.
It seems impossible to Jen, who had always believed her father was alive, and she returns home determined to find out what happened. When her ex-boyfriend suggests a camping trip in the woods in her father’s memory, it feels like the opportunity Jen has been hoping for: to find her father. To find the truth. But what she finds in the ancient, impenetrable forest may be deeper, darker and deadlier than she could have imagined—and it has no intention of letting her leave.“
When I read on NetGalley that this book was being compared to Midsommar… it was an insta-request to read on my part!
Rating:💀💀💀💀
Smile so Red and Other Tales of Madness by Mia Dalia (2025)
[ 🗣️Thank you to Brigids Gate Press & Netgalley for the ARC] Format: ebook 📖
“From Mia Dalia, the author of Estate Sale, Haven, and other literary nightmares, comes a uniquely terrifying collection of dark psychological fiction, featuring novelettes and short stories that range from horror to suspense to mystery to coming-of-age to thrillers.
SMILE SO RED – a man finds a strange graffitied house in the woods and a smiling darkness that follows him home. SPINDEL – a twelve-year-old boy suspects that one of the neighbors on his paper route might be a local serial killer and sets off to investigate. BLUES FOR THE SOUL– a library worker tries to help a troubled young boy and uncovers a terrible truth about his family. DEVIL’S CHORD – return to the world of Smile So Red with a meta journey set to the earworm tune of your worst nightmares. STUMP – a bullied young boy and a downtrodden family man from the same apartment complex unwittingly entrust their secrets to the same remnant of an old tree in the local woods. FLAMINGOS – two sisters must confront their troubled past when a buried memory is triggered by the seemingly innocuous plastic lawn birds. THE TRUNK – striving to achieve the American Dream, a first-generation immigrant from a war-torn country buys a new home and finds something in the basement that has other ideas for him. REDDEST – another return to the world of Smile So Red, albeit from a very different perspective.
Go on. Turn the page. Pick a nightmare. I dare you.“
Fascinated by the cover of this Horror short story collection, I couldn’t wait to see what sort of nightmares I was going to encounter!
I wasn’t familiar with Mia Dalia’s previous works (Tell Me A Story and Do You Know The Muffin Man?), but after reading this latest one, you can be sure that I will be reading her books moving forward.
Rating:💀💀💀💀💀
Subscribe to the blog for more volumes of the Morbid Monthly Reads
We Are Always Tender With Our Dead by Eric LaRocca (2025)
[ 🗣️Thank you to Titan Books & Netgalley for the Read] Format: eBook 📖
“Michael McDowell’s Blackwater meets Clive Barker’s The Great and Secret Show in the disturbing first installment of a new trilogy of intense, visceral, beautifully written queer horror set in a small New England town.
A chilling supernatural tale of transgressive literary horror from the Bram Stoker Award® finalist and Splatterpunk Award-winning author of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke.
The lives of those residing in the isolated town of Burnt Sparrow, New Hampshire, are forever altered after three faceless entities arrive on Christmas morning to perform a brutal act of violence—a senseless tragedy that can never be undone. While the townspeople grieve their losses and grapple with the aftermath of the attack, a young teenage boy named Rupert Cromwell is forced to confront the painful realities of his family situation. Once relationships become intertwined and more carnage ensues as a result of the massacre, the town residents quickly learn that true retribution is futile, cruelty is earned, and certain thresholds must never be crossed no matter what.
Engrossing, atmospheric, and unsettling, this is a devastating story of a small New England community rocked by an unforgivable act of violence. Writing with visceral intensity and profound eloquence, LaRocca journeys deep into the dark heart of Burnt Sparrow, leaving you chilled to the bone and wanting more.”
Okay okay, you’re probably asking “What are you doing reading another Eric LaRocca book after what you experienced in ADIBL?!” 💀
And to that I say… I am morbidly curious about everything, and I do love Eric’s writing style and disturbed stories. So, I grabbed my emotional support Mothman plushie, and braced myself for the first installment of the Burnt Sparrow series.
Rating:💀💀💀💀
The Pale House Devil by Richard Kadrey (2023)
Format: audioBook 🎧
“A gripping, snappy creature feature from the master of horror noir about two detectives—one dead, one living—hired by an embittered old landowner to banish a bloody cosmic monster from his ancestral home, perfect for fans of Cassandra Khaw, Charles Stross and Lucy A. Snyder. Ford and Neuland are paranormal mercenaries—one living, one undead; one of them kills the undead, the other kills the living. When a job goes bad in New York, they head west to wait for the heat to cool down.
There, a young woman named Tilda Rosenbloom hires them on behalf of wealthy landowner, Shepherd Mansfield, to track and kill a demon haunting a mansion in remote northern California.
As Ford and Neuland investigate the creature they uncover a legacy of blood, sacrifice and slavery in the house. Forced to confront a powerful creature unlike anything they’ve faced before, they come to learn that the most frightening monster might not be the one they’re hunting…”
I had previously requested to read The Flesh King on NetGalley and then discovered that it was the second book in Richard Kadrey’s Discreet Eliminators series.
And so, thankfully, the first book The Pale House Devil was available to read (via Spotify Prem) to give me the backstory I needed before diving into the next installment.
Rating:💀💀💀💀
Bat EateR and Other Names For Cora Zeng by Kylie Lee Baker (2025)
Format: eBook 📖 + Audiobook 🎧
“Cora Zeng is a crime scene cleaner, washing away the remains of brutal murders and suicides in Chinatown. The bloody messes don’t bother her, not when she’s already witnessed the most horrific thing possible: her sister being pushed in front of a train.
Before fleeing the scene, the murderer whispered two words: bat eater.
Months pass, the killer is never caught, and Cora can barely keep herself together. She pushes away all feelings, disregards the bite marks that appear on her coffee table, and won’t take her aunt’s advice to prepare for the Hungry Ghost Festival, when the gates of hell open.
Cora tries to ignore the rising dread in her stomach, even when she and her weird co-workers begin finding bat carcasses at their crime scene clean-ups. But Cora can’t ignore the fact that all their recent clean-ups have been the bodies of East Asian women.
Soon Cora will learn: you can’t just ignore hungry ghosts.”
I’ve been meaning to read this book since it was released at the start of the year, so I suggested it as a possible option to vote on for our September Morbid Curiosities book club read and well, it won!
So we tackled this one as a book club last month, using the Fable app, discussing thoughts on the book, posting highlights and sharing quotable passages. This was also the first book I’ve read that took place within the pandemic, which was quite an interesting reading experience.
Rating:💀💀💀💀.5
To haunt my previous reads, check out this archive.
While I didn’t get a chance to finish The Flesh King last month (but stay tuned for the October recap 👀) I am glad I was able to finish as many books as I did.
With moving an entire apartment and setting back up your home office to go immediately back to your day job, I was swamped and unable to attend to as many books as I wanted (or promised myself I’d get a chance) to read. That’s okay though, because books will always be around and ready for when you’re able to read them 🖤
If you’d like to see what other books I’ve read, creep my books 👀
plus consider possessing your inbox with NEW blog posts…
High and Low vibes of September 🍎
Out of the six books I read, I didn’t really feel like any of them were too concerning (with the exception of knowingly going into the Burnt Sparrow series with my hands over my eyes) or struck me as “bad” vibes…
But, there was definitely one book that struck my emo-heart and stood out to me with the most overwhelmingly authenticity and courage to display such personal vulnerability on paper (or in my case, via audiobook.)
✨ VIBED THE HIGHEST WITH…
Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner (2021)
Why did this book exceed my expectations?
To listen to someone’s experience with losing their mother and the complicated feelings in dealing with that… I knew it would hit me hard in the feels (and I should have expected Michelle, lead singer, guitarist and songwriter of Japanese Breakfast, with her lyrical power to punch me with them) but oh my goodness…
The way Michelle Zauner writes her memoir, recalling those moments with her mother that have shaped her as an adult (plus those darker moments, too, that have also had an impact) is so hauntingly beautiful that you really need to pause between the chapters to process the whole story’s emotional impact on Michelle going through all of this during that time. Conflicting, emotional and empowering; I’m so glad I finally had the opportunity to read this memoir (and so happy it was chosen as the last book for our August Get Outside and Read, Buds! book club)
☠️ HIT MY LOWEST Vibe WITH…
They Fear Not Men In The Woods by Gretchen Mcneil (2025)
What happened during the reading experience?
When I initially read that this book was being compared to Ari Aster’s Midsommar, I was very intrigued! I’m a big fan of Ari Aster’s classic horror movie and have also recently read another Horror book with a similar comparison and was not disappointed…
However, it took me a little longer to see the comparisons within this book. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t a bad book and I would still recommend that you read it if you’re into Ecological (and Body) Horror, it just wasn’t what I was expecting upon reading the premise of this book.
I do appreciate DAW Books & NetGalley for allowing this ghoul access to the advanced reading copy to read this summer 🙏🏻
If you’ve made it this far, I appreciate that you’ve read about my monthly reading habits 🙈
Drop a 👻 in the comments and share your reading highs and lows for September…
Also… do YOU have a morbid curiosity? You should join the support club(s) 👀📚
Drop a 🖤 Break a name