August reads

 Let's see what we got into in August, shall we?

• Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt.  I have been trying to get this book at the library for YEARS, despite it more than three decades old.  A captivating true crime story, set in the charming (and at that point, undiscovered, which the popularity of the book put an end to) city of Savannah, Georgia, in the 1980s.  The cast of characters is fantastic.  Great, great fun.
• A Local Habitation by Seanan McGuire.  The second book in the October Daye urban fantasy series.  I like these well enough but they're pretty lightweight, despite the stories' high body count.  If nothing else, the faerie world building is interesting.
• When the Wolf Comes Home by Nat Cassidy.  Jess, a struggling actress in L.A., finds a small boy, a runaway, outside her apartment.  Not long after that, a bunch of her neighbors are dead and the two of them are on the run, trying to get away from a terrifying wolf-bear-thing.  But this is not your typical werewolf novel.  There are no silver bullets.
• The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah.  This novel, set in the wilds of Alaska in the 1970s, follows a family hoping to get away from the culture/politics of the lower 48 states and finding themselves woefully unprepared for what an Alaskan winter actually means.  Back to the landers, indigenous folks and doomsday preppers abound.  This book did not make me want to immediately book a trip to Alaska, if I'm honest.
• Midnight Timetable by Bora Chung.  A novel comprised of interconnected short ghost stories, based at a research center that houses cursed objects..  This isn't my favorite format - I prefer linear plot and lots of it, with heavy world-building, but I got sucked in nonetheless.
• Desperation by Stephen King.  A reread as I was in between library visits.  Set in a small mining town in Nevada, this is a bloody and brutal King story, tinged with the supernatural.  Sort of a duology with The Regulators but you don't have to read both, and I vastly prefer Desperation.
• Spread Me by Sarah Gailey.  I find Sarah Gailey hit or miss.  Didn't love this one, a The Thing-esque science fiction/horror novel set in a remote research station.  The team brings in a strange specimen that they find buried in the desert.  They shouldn't have.
• The Brides by Charlotte Cross.  Now this one I liked a lot.  You know how in Dracula, the Count has his brides, vampiric "sisters" who seduce men and eat them?  This novel, weaving together multiple storylines, introduces you to those women, shows you how they got there and, what they left behind.  Good fun.