Every Tuesday, a member of the horror community shares what they are reading with us! This week, it’s author Gwendolyn Kiste. She writes:

Christa Carmen has long been my go-to author anytime someone asks me for horror reading suggestions. I absolutely adored her first collection, Something Borrowed, Something Blood-Soaked back in 2018, and her new debut novel, The Daughters of Block Island, is every bit as amazing. I was fortunate enough to blurb this book, and now that it’s available on Amazon First Reads—and will soon be available in paperback as well—I’m so excited to start telling everyone to put this novel on their reading list immediately.

The set-up is all about two sisters who have been separated from one another, and the haunting island in New England that will ultimately weave their lives together in terrifying ways. As with most horror stories, there are some seriously heavy themes, including addiction and trauma, and Carmen handles these issues with great care and emotional depth. The prose is crisp and enthralling, and the unnerving subtlety of the horror elements is reminiscent of both Shirley Jackson and Daphne du Maurier.

I relished this ode to classic gothic horror, and I have no doubt that other genre fans are going to enjoy it as well. And as always, I can’t wait to see what Christa Carmen writes next.

Preorder The Daughters of Block Island here. If you are an Amazon Prime member, you don’t have to wait! It’s available now on Amazon First Reads.

And be sure to preorder Gwendolyn Kiste’s brand new novel The Haunting of Velkwood!

Read previous “What I’m Reading” posts here.