Skulls in the Stars

Book 27 for my 2026 goal of 36 books for the year! Still comfortably ahead with my reading. My link to the book is through my bookshop.org affiliate account, which means I may earn a small commission if you buy from there.

It is almost impossible to imagine how horrible life must have been during the Black Death. The plague killed between 30% and 60% of the population of Europe rapidly and in particularly nasty ways, causing a complete collapse of the social order and infrastructure. I cannot even fathom struggling to find food when you can’t even go to your neighbors for help because they might infect you with an illness that will kill you faster than starvation.

To the people of the era, it must have felt like they had been abandoned by God; in his 2012 horror novel Between Two Fires, Christopher Buehlman weaves a story that treats this quite literally.

The novel originally came out in 2012, but it was rereleased this year in a lovely new edition with a foreword by Joe Hill and a gorgeous cover and sprayed edges. I’ve seen it on the shelves for a few months and finally decided I needed to read it.

Book 23 for my 2026 goal of 36 books for the year! Now a little ahead with my reading schedule. My link to the book is through my bookshop.org affiliate account, which means I may earn a small commission if you buy from there.

I’ve been enjoying reading some horror by Mexican authors lately such as Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia and so when I came across V. Castro’s Queen of the Cicadas (2021) in one of my bookstore wanderings I pretty much knew I had to grab it. The fact that it is very recognizably published by Flame Tree Press, one of my favorite publishers, sweetened the deal.

From the title, one might expect that it is a story of Mexican folklore analogous to La Llorona, and it does feel that way at first, but the story becomes so much more as it evolves.