Tag: Women Serving Up Justice to Bad Men

Writers on Writing

Creepy characters we love to hate (and secretly can’t)

Mandy Webster

There’s something fascinating about a character who creeps you out, makes you uneasy, or shocks you with their actions—but somehow, you can’t bring yourself to hate them completely. These are the villains and morally gray characters who blur the line between right and wrong, forcing readers to wrestle with their own sense of judgment. They unsettle us, intrigue us, and make our hearts race, which is why they are perfect companions for October reading.

Sure, she’s pretty. But there’s also something uncanny about her. Do you trust her?

In thrillers and suspense novels, some characters are written to be frighteningly clever, ruthless, or unpredictable, yet their motivations or circumstances make their actions feel, at least in part, understandable. In How to Kill Men and Get Away with It by Katy Brent, the protagonist’s cunning and dark choices are chilling, but her perspective invites empathy and even admiration for her ingenuity. Bad Men by Julie Mae Cohen and This Girl’s a Killer by Emma C. Wells present characters whose morally questionable or violent actions are layered with complexity—making you uneasy, yet unable to fully condemn them.

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Blood, sisterhood, and sanity: Blood on Her Tongue by Johanna van Veen #spooktober

Mandy Webster

If you’re looking for a haunting, atmospheric read to carry you through the end of #spooktober, Johanna van Veen’s Blood on Her Tongue offers the perfect blend of gothic unease and creeping dread. Set in the Netherlands in 1887, this novel follows Lucy, whose twin sister Sarah has fallen into a disturbing illness that blurs the line between madness and possession. As Sarah’s behavior becomes more erratic—and more violent—Lucy must decide how far she’ll go to protect her sister, even as something monstrous seems to take hold of her.

Get your copy of Blood on Her Tongue from my independent online bookstore today!

The story unfolds in shadow and candlelight, in grand halls filled with whispers and secrets. Van Veen’s prose feels appropriately decadent and claustrophobic, wrapping the reader in the same feverish confusion that grips Lucy. The decaying corpse unearthed on Sarah’s husband’s estate provides more than a physical mystery—it becomes a mirror for the moral rot beneath the surface of polite society, particularly the suffocating gender expectations that hem Lucy and Sarah in.

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Call for Submissions

Call for Submissions: Be My Weird/Wyrd Valentine

Mandy Webster

Love has always had a dark side—and we want to see yours. Elderfly Press is now accepting submissions for Be My Weird/Wyrd Valentine (working title), an anthology exploring the uncanny, unsettling, and sometimes downright horrifying side of romantic relationships.

We’re looking for stories, poems, essays, and black-and-white art that dive into the strange corners of love and desire—where passion turns perilous, intimacy hums with unease, and devotion blurs the line between beauty and terror. Whether it’s romance that defies reality, affection tinged with dread, or longing that transforms into something unrecognizable, we want work that lingers in the mind and twists the heart. Let the strange, the eerie, and the passionate collide—show us the love that frightens, bewilders, and enthralls.

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Call for Submissions

Now accepting book-length submissions

Mandy Webster

At Elderfly Press, we are committed to publishing bold, literary works that unsettle, provoke, and linger long after the final page. We seek book-length fiction and creative nonfiction that confronts the hidden violence of the world—psychological, social, or supernatural—and gives voice to stories that challenge the patriarchal status quo.

We are especially drawn to:

  • Literary thrillers and suspense novels with a sharp edge.
  • Horror fiction that unsettles through atmosphere, voice, or psychological depth.
  • Creative nonfiction—including memoirs—that could be read with the intensity of a thriller or horror novel.
  • Works that expose the dark underbelly of the patriarchy, pulling back the veil on power, violence, and survival.
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Facing the long shadows: A review of Madwoman by Chelsea Bieker

Mandy Webster

Some novels get under your skin. Madwoman by Chelsea Bieker goes even deeper—straight into your bones—where it sits heavy, resonating with truths too often ignored.

Get your copy of Madwoman from my independent online bookstore today!

At its heart, Madwoman is a story about the devastating, lifelong impact of domestic violence, especially on children. Clove has carefully built a life meant to erase her past: a loving husband, two children, a safe home in Portland. She believes that with enough self-help tools, supplements, and daily gratitude meditations, she can outrun the terror of her childhood in a Waikiki high-rise.

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Finding power in the dirt: A review of The Peculiar Garden of Harriet Hunt

Mandy Webster

In The Peculiar Garden of Harriet Hunt by Chelsea Iversen, a woman’s solitude, survival, and subtle rebellion are rooted—quite literally—in the soil beneath her feet.

Get your copy of The Peculiar Garden of Harriet Hunt from my independent online bookstore today!

Set in Victorian London, this gorgeously atmospheric novel tells the story of Harriet Hunt, a woman left to tend her crumbling family estate and the lush, almost sentient garden that surrounds it. Her father has mysteriously disappeared, and society has all but cast her aside. Her only companions are the magical plants she lovingly tends: wild vines, blooming plums, and a pulse of earth-bound power that seems to know her better than anyone else ever has.

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The Dead Husband Cookbook is a wickedly satisfying feast of justice

Mandy Webster

Some recipes call for salt, sugar, and spice—but in Danielle Valentine’s The Dead Husband Cookbook, the secret ingredient is retribution. When infamous chef and TV personality Maria Capello’s husband vanishes under suspicious circumstances, the whispers never stop. The media paints her as a murderer, a woman who cooked up her culinary empire on the bones of her missing spouse. But Maria never talks. Not for decades. Not until now.

Get your copy of The Dead Husband Cookbook from my independent online bookstore today!

Thea Woods, an up-and-coming writer, gets the job of a lifetime: working with Maria on her explosive memoir. She’s whisked away to the Capello family’s secluded farm, where the air smells faintly of nostalgia—and something far more unsettling. It doesn’t take long before Thea realizes that Damien Capello isn’t the only man who has gone missing in this family’s orbit. And the deeper she digs, the more she begins to understand that Maria’s perfect “coastal grandmother” persona hides a recipe of equal parts love, loyalty, and something darker.

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Last Woman Standing: This feminist revenge thriller will make you feel seen—and maybe a little dangerous

Mandy Webster

There’s a specific kind of fury that comes from realizing you’ve spent years swallowing your own rage to make room for a man’s ego. Dana Diaz, Amy Gentry’s protagonist in Last Woman Standing, is a stand-up comic trying to make it in a world where men still hold the mic—and the power. She’s talented, hungry, and has learned how to laugh off a thousand microaggressions just to survive. But when something happens to her—something she’s not even sure counts as assault because there was no physical contact—she doesn’t laugh it off. Not this time. Not after meeting Amanda Dorn.

Get your copy of Last Woman Standing by Amy Gentry from my online bookstore today!

The setup of Last Woman Standing is irresistible: a revenge pact between two women who agree to go after each other’s harassers, à la Strangers on a Train. But instead of a train, they meet at a comedy show. Instead of cold, calculated revenge, what unfolds is messy, complicated, and disturbingly real.

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The vampire will set you free: Hungerstone by Kat Dunn is the feminist horror novel we’ve been starving for

Mandy Webster

What if the monster you feared most didn’t destroy you—but helped you come back to life? Kat Dunn’s Hungerstone is a lush, gripping gothic horror that reimagines the classic vampire tale as a meditation on the pain and power of being a woman in a world that demands your self-erasure. Set against the smog-choked backdrop of the industrial revolution, it’s a story of hunger—emotional, physical, and existential—and what it means to finally stop starving yourself.

Get your copy of Hungerstone by Kat Dunn from my online bookstore today!

At the center of the novel is Lenore, a woman ten years into a crumbling marriage to a powerful steel magnate. Her entire identity has been shaped around being a “good wife,” which, in her case, means tending to her husband’s ego while ignoring her own needs—even as the physical toll of that denial becomes too loud to ignore. She’s in pain but refuses to put herself first. She’s exhausted but doesn’t know how to stop performing. In many ways, Hungerstone is the story of what happens when a woman finally admits that her life is hurting her.

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Bad Men by Julie Mae Cohen is dark, funny, and seriously messed up—in the best possible way

Mandy Webster

What do you get when you cross a lonely heart, a true crime podcast, and a vigilante sociopath with a fondness for elaborate meet-cutes? Julie Mae Cohen’s Bad Men is a delightfully deranged feminist thriller that manages to be equal parts clever, unsettling, and charming—yes, charming—in spite of (or maybe because of) its body count.

Get your copy of Bad Men by Julie Mae Cohen from my online bookstore today!

Saffy isn’t your average heroine. She’s a serial killer heiress with a strict moral code, targeting men who harm women. She’s meticulous, disciplined, and has no time for romance. Until she meets Jonathan Desrosiers, a true crime podcaster known for solving the very kinds of violent crimes Saffy doles out her own brand of justice against. The irony isn’t lost on her—or on the reader. Saffy is used to watching men from the shadows before she makes her move, but when it comes to Jonathan, she orchestrates a complicated and hilarious meet-cute that’s as risky as it is romantic.

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