Book Reviews, Find Your Next Read

Dark is When the Devil Comes by Daisy Pearce: A chilling, slow-burn horror that burrows under your skin

I knew exactly what I was getting into when I picked up Dark Is When the Devil Comes by Daisy Pearce—or at least I thought I did. After how deeply Something in the Walls unsettled me (to the point that I had to stop reading it before bed), I expected dread. I expected unease. What I didn’t expect was just how suffocating this story would feel once it took hold.

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Set in the English countryside, the novel follows Hazel, who returns to her hometown of Idless after a traumatic divorce, intending to quietly rebuild her life. But when she fails to reconnect with her sister Cathy as planned, concern quickly turns into something darker. The town whispers. The woods loom. And the sense that something has gone very, very wrong settles in almost immediately.

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Book Reviews, Find Your Next Read

Molka by Monika Kim: A slow-burn descent into voyeurism, power, and the cost of being seen

There’s a particular kind of dread that creeps in when you realize the person watching didn’t just stumble into power—they built it themselves. In Molka by Monika Kim, that realization lands early and lingers long after the final page.

Set in a seemingly ordinary Seoul office building, the novel introduces Junyoung, an IT technician who has taken surveillance far beyond anything sanctioned or accidental. The cameras he watches aren’t part of the company’s security system—they’re his. Installed deliberately, carefully, and invasively throughout the building, including in restrooms, they give him total control over the private lives of the women around him. This isn’t passive observation. It’s calculated, obsessive, and deeply violating.

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That distinction matters. It transforms Junyoung from someone abusing access into someone who has engineered an entire ecosystem of control.

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Gothic horror and generational curses collide in House of Monstrous Women by Daphne Fama

Daphne Fama’s House of Monstrous Women is a lush and terrifying gothic horror novel set in 1986 Philippines, where revolution outside mirrors the quiet rebellion unfolding within a house that may as well be alive. Set against the backdrop of the People Power Revolution, this novel layers political upheaval with supernatural dread in a way that feels both intimate and epic.

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Radios hum with news from Manila as protests rise and a dictator’s hold begins to crumble—but inside the labyrinthine Ranoco home, another kind of battle is taking place. The connection between the two is unmistakable: both are revolutions built on desperation and the dream of escape. The hopelessness that Alejandro feels about the People Power movement echoes Hiraya’s belief that she can never escape the legacy of her cursed family.

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