Halloween month is over and whilst Australia doesn't celebrate the event anywhere near as much as our friends in the USA, it is a great time of the year to focus on some spooky and frightening fiction. So it comes as no surprise that my pick of the month is a Halloween-themed read which, while not exactly horror, does bring the chill factor in its own right:
Blood Sugar by Daniel Kraus (published 2019 by Hardcase Crime / Titan Books)
From the opening stanza, I knew this wasn't going to be any ordinary Halloween book; seeped in slang, the story set among squalor, Blood Sugar is at once creative and all consuming. The story is a heartfelt one hidden behind a veil of malicious intent and a twisted form of vengeance. I read this in 2 sittings (would've been one but I fell asleep after a late night reading session), I simply couldn't put it down - one of my top reads of 2019.
Some other reading highlights for October include a couple of paperbacks from hell in Pin by Andrew Neiderman and Hobgoblin by John Coyne - both 80's horror which bring something a little different to the table. I recommend both. Pin was close to taking out my pick of the month.
October was one of the more varied months for my reading choices; pulp, horror, sci-fi, and crime fiction were all represented which made for some good, and not-so-good reading. Another notable standout was the excellent sci-fi, Delta-V by Daniel Suarez - a space nerds' wet dream.
I tallied 11 books for the month of October, slightly down on the previous months but around the mark to achieve my 2019 Goodreads Reading Challenge of 150.
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