horror – The Constellation of Moon

Moon Reads: Moonflow

Posted on October 3, 2025

Moonflow by Bitter Karella

Rating:

Nothing is perfect, and as such, the reviews in this blog are chaotic. My main aim is to share my thoughts, joy and opinions on a book, not make a publication perfect review. This blog endorses authenticity, showing up and joy over perfection.

Disclaimer: Receiving a review copy from the publisher does not affect my opinion of the book. If you think I review it highly it is due to me knowing my taste well and therefore not requesting books I won’t enjoy. And I am not obligated to review the book if I do not like it, so you may not see bad reviews due to me preferring not to hype down a particular book. I only do reviews of books I disagreed with if I think it is worth bringing a topic or warning to light.

Welcome to the first creepy post of October. I don’t know how much content have of this kind, but this felt fitting to be the first post for the month.

This sounded interesting in many ways when Orbit sent the monthly list of interesting books. Mushrooms, eldritch horror, a cult, and a lot of chaos, why not?

I think the best way I can describe this is that it was a trip! The story follows Sarah who studied to be a mycologist but didn’t finish and now grows mushrooms for people to consume and have a bit of fun. But life isn’t going great so when friend asks her to go on a trip to find spores for a new mushroom that gives the best trips when consumed, she agrees despite misgivings because she wants to try it again and also, the money will help her a lot to get back on track with life.

We also follow a few women who are part of the cult of the Green Lady, which is a feminist cult that exists in the Pamogo woods, that are meant to be difficult to navigate, shuffling themselves and known to belong to the Lord of the Forest. The cult is all about the feminine Green Lady and power to feminity, with lots of sexual power in it but only between women because apparently male energy is bad and corrupts.

Sarah makes it to outside of the woods where she meets her guide and then they start the trek, and Sarah starts getting weird messages that seem to be calling her deep into the woods. And you know, if you are already kinda lost, why not follow this random glitch message.

There’s a lot of chaos, some god events, a lot of sex and drugs, a lot about mushrooms (loved how they’d go all nerdy about things every now and then, which was funky), and a lot about what defines a woman and well, also cult behaviours and brain washing. As I said, it is a trip. But I laughed a lot, was terrified and the ending was just so creepy.

So it was horror well done, and very creepy. There is a lot I am sure on content warnings and I recommend you look for a list (I know there’s body horror, gore, killing, drugs, sex, transphobia, police brutality in a way, guns) because there’s loads going on, but it was a quick read, it just flowed and the ending felt fitting to the chaos ongoing in the Pamogo Woods.

Book Review

Moon Reads: The Anatomy of Fear

Posted on October 22, 2024

The Anatomy of Fear

Rating:

I found about this book because fo LL Macrae and decided to back it on Kickstarter. Now, I am not the biggest fan of horror, and so I was a bit nervous about it.

One of my favourite things is that it comes as an “anatomy” where each short story covers a body part, like liver or bone or eye, and therefore it goes into some horror for each part.

Overall, the stories are more the kind of horror that will creep under your skin and leave you feeling the chills rather than jump scares and film horror series. This is not a book of screams but rather of layers of horror that build a “body” of stories.

Some were easier to get into for me and despite the topics some were very enjoyable (obviously Bone by LL Macrae) and some were tragic, the tempo varies too and I will admit there were some that were just not for me, both by topic or just couldn’t get into the story as much as others (maybe I was spoilt by some really good ones that others that weren’t bad felt not as good).

So if you want horror short stories to layer a variety of authors and ideas, let the fear come and learn its anatomy with this book.

Book Review

Moon Reads: Love Kills

Posted on November 14, 2023

Love Kills by Danilo Beyruth

Rating:

This one is courtesy of Titan Comic, and I admit I thought at first it was a gamble because I may like it or maybe it really wasn’t for me. Horror is something I am picky with and therefore I know going in that it may not be for me.

Love Kills surprised me.

It follows Helena as an immortal lone vampire, and the series of events that unravel to bring Marcus (just a human^TM) together. The art is steady and cryptic but also detailed, trying to portray the life and bustle of Sao Paulo and the streets there, but also the contrast of the city with Helena’s life and world, which is noticeable.

Marcus is just trying to be a good person, move in the world, do better, when he gets involved in a fight that turns out to be about hunting territory, and then something even deeper that comes haunting from the past of Helena.

One of the things I liked was seeing all the relationships and how they interacted with our main character. Being immortal here isn’t shown as this wonderful thing but rather a burden and something heavy, with some goods and bads, and with the past following heavily behind.

Still, overall, the story had me hooked and I needed to know more and more and to figure out what exactly was the reason why they were chasing Helena so much, alongside what would happen to Marcus, and what Helena’s choices would be.

If you want a one volume vampire graphic novel with a decent amount of city life, fights, mystery, suspense and chaos, this is a good choice, with added creepy vibe and a bit of gore.

Book Review

Moon Reads: Bride of the Tornado

Posted on August 15, 2023

Bride of the Tornado by James Kennedy

Rating:

Bride of the Tornado surprised me. I started reading this book on a flight because I wanted to read through and I wasn’t sure how captive I would be to it. Let me tell you, I was caught hard!

The story follows our narrator, who tells of the day the “tornado” season started when things changed for her town. And in it, they are meant to wear funny clothes, meet a tornado boy who is meant to be saving them from the tornadoes building outside town. At first, it seems like a joke the adults are trying to play on everyone. But all of a sudden it becomes real, and slowly it is like they are in a cult where the tornados keep them captive and are somewhat sentient.

And then there is the boy, who for some reason fascinates our narrator. She cannot avoid him and stop trying to find out more about him, while the rest of the teenagers want to party, leave town or continue life without the weirdness of the tornadoes trapping them in this town. But not her, she needs to know more.

What comes next was fascinating, bizarre and mind-twisting for sure.

I think the reason I liked it, and that may have made others not like it as much, is that we have an unreliable narrator. Someone who is telling us the story through a very specific lens, so you question why she is doing it this way, and what the truth is. Will her truth and the real truth match? And why is everything happening?

You also get this weird mix of a cult, teenagers just wanting to be allowed to exist, our narrator who fits and doesn’t fit in and in some ways is trying to figure out where exactly does she fit and who she is. And then you have the adults who definitely have their own secrets.

It was a quick read, and I kept wanting to know more once I got hooked by all the odd action. The beginning chapters are a long setup to explain some of the things that will come next and partly because the narrator has to tell you about these things that marked her, that led her to where she goes.

Now it isn’t super scary in the gore side, but it does deal with some interesting proposals and some weirdness, so it is more uncanny and creepy than properly horrific and therefore was way more my type of read than I initially thought it would be. And it was worth giving it a chance, so I suggest you do too!

Also don’t forget to check out the other blog tour stops!

Book Review

Moon Reads: Shades of Fear

Posted on October 31, 2022

Shades of Fear. Edited by Allison O’Toole

Rating:

Read before: No

Ownership: Backed on Kickstarter

As much as I am not into horror somehow I decided to back this project a while ago, and honestly I will say it was indeed terrifying, a little too much for me.

There are several mini stories in graphic novel form, each from a different artist and with a different focus one after the other.

One of the things I liked was the variety in this book and that each short story is intense and packs a lot into a few pages, but on the other hand, some would have benefitted from being a lot longer than they were as part fo the horror effect was lost on them or it came too fast as it was trying to do a lot. But over all, it was a good book, quite scary and horrific.

Some of the stories really stayed with me, one of them about an engineer in space, and some others more chaotic are still sometimes in the back of my mind, so if you like horror and scary books, this is definitely one to look out for, as it has a lot to offer and a variety of “genres” all of which are horror focused.

Book Review

Moon Reads: What Big Teeth

Posted on September 20, 2021

What Big Teeth by Rose Szabo

Rating:

Read before: No

Ownership: Review copy from the publisher and preordered

Content warnings: There’s a lot of types of violence, manipulation, gaslighting and abuse, alongside disturbing scenery, basically this is a horror book and it should be read with that in mind, it is not a cute story.

I have seen this compared a lot to the Addams family and as much as it is about a family of monsters and misfits and the value of family, that is as far as it goes in the similarities. For the most part, Eleanor is unsure of her place in the family, and she is not even sure if it was worth coming back or if they are welcoming her, afraid of her or just don’t care at all. This means that the book is mostly very dark humour set into horror and creepy mode.

Because Eleanor is trying to piece together why her family is reacting to her the way they are, and why they first sent her away, there is also a lot of internal retrospection and the book at times can seem quite intense in how Eleanor feels, but that is part of the charm of it since we’re very much into her head and trying desperately to discover the truth against time and against forces trying to get rid of the family from outside and inside.

What Big Teeth relies a lot on atmosphere, a narrator that is trying to piece her life together and many elements of what sometimes can make you love your family but at the same time make it toxic and therefore it deals with very intense topics even if you take away the fantastical and horror part of it. It is the strength and probably weakness of the book, as it means it won’t be for everyone due to the particular way it depicts things and how it portrays the not so good parts quite heavily.

It is not that there is no love in the family, it is more a case of many secrets crashing against each other, some due to selfishness and some done in what a family member may have thought was a way to save the family or to protect them, and it shows that love sometimes is hard to show and it gets tangled with a lot of things when you live with your family for most of the time and it is the only thing you know.

Book Review, Books

Mexican Gothic Review

Posted on July 19, 2020

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-García

Rating:

After reading Gods of Jade and Shadow, I knew Silvia was an author I would keep loving in future books, and Mexican Gothic just settles that even more.

If you are interested, I did a live tweeting thread as I read it with all my opinions, and the memories it brought back as I read.

https://twitter.com/themoonkestrel/status/1279354577054302208

If you’re feeling lazy and your question is “is this a legit Mexican Gothic novel?” then the answer is ABSOLUTELY! As a Mexican with family from nearby the area that inspired the book and that lived for a third of my life or so near abandoned mining towns, this book struck deep in my memories of Mexico, of my childhood and teenage years and the stories my family would tell. Yes, there aren’t really any tacos, sombreros or anything that screams Mexican to a foreigner, but from a subtle mention of a Zote bar of soap to other elements in the story, it was as Mexican as can be and even better.

This is how you do great own voices representation, and how you write a POC book. You don’t need to go guns blazing stamp in your face that this is indeed about Mexico, you just subtly reveal the depth of Mexico by the small hints, by the story. The gentle hints at a life lived in a country both by someone of Mazatec origin (one of the many native people of Mexico) and by colonist (English) attempting to make money out of cheap labour and taking away our silver, are superb.

Now for the actual story, we start with Noemí having her socialite life disrupted by an odd letter from her cousin and she’s suddenly thrown into this gothic decript house where things are just a bit too odd and she can’t seem to understand fully well what’s going on.

We kow something is dodgy with the Doyle and the way they are treating her cousing and her too, and yet, what is wrong exactly because you can’t just say “they’re dodgy” as grounds for say a divorce or for sending your cousin to a psychiatrist.

If you need to compare to something this is like a wonderfully modern lavish Rebecca but 10 times better, with the horror part of it developing gently around you until suddenly you’re overcome by it and you need to read until the end because how can you not find out what is exactly going on.

Now, for sanity and to warn other readers, one trigger warning I HAVE to give is sexual assault, attempted many times, but the main attempt was quite intense (extremely well written) and it hit me like a ton of bricks. Which it is absolutely meant to. And given the context and the way it was written, it had a powerful effect on me but not as badly as such scenes would have in other books. Other items to consider into your content/trigger warnings: gaslighting, manipulation, colonialims, heavy racism, eugenics.

So now I will take about the racism/eugenics and hard topics part. As I read Mexican Gothic I had moments of anger due to the view the Doyles have on race and the superior vs inferior being (this becomes a major plot point and it is done with a masterful weaving of threads to form a spectacularly spooky rebozo) but I also cheered for the intensity that Noemí mustered and how she had a way of speak her mind. She did not stay quiet. And I loved her for it.

I keep praising Silvia’s writing but you can see she has honed her craft. The writing is that of someone with experience and knowledge, she can weave that tale and have you deeply wrapped in it. And the story can be brutal, it can hurt you deeply and yet, you will love it because it does exactly what it needs to do and even more. It is a credit to her mastery of words that despite how much anger I mustered about the topics in the book, I came out of my reading it satisfied.

All I can say from here is that everyone should read this book. Even if you aren’t into Gothic books, or horror, or Mexico, honestly, you need to read this because it is absolutely a master book worth every word in it.

PS. that mouse in the picture came from Tequisquapan, México. It’s a nice little reminder of my country without it being too in your face.

Book Review, Books

Beneath the Rising Review

Posted on April 1, 2020

Beneath the Rising by Premee Mohamed

Rating:

I don’t usually read books that cross into “scary” land because I am not big on horror. But I like Premee and her twitter, and the fact that Johnny (one of the main characters) is a young female “genius” sold me to it.

One of the strengths of the book is setting the mood and the progression of the story. We start with a very “normal” (or as normal as having a genius world saving best friend can be) part of the story and Nick trying his best to figure out what comes next as Johnny goes further away and is less and less around due to all the amazing discoveries and inventions she is making, while he is the one working a bakery job to help his family.

Almost immediately I had a lot of things I wanted to quote as Johnny talks about how it is to be female, young and a scientist and have to compete against the established older male scientists. I don’t talk a lot about what I used to do for work and what I do now, but I used to be very similar to Johnny (sans the Ancient Ones). I was the one everyone expected great things. Had a big research career before I even graduated university. Doing big things, and everyone expecting great things… in Johnny’s words “everything”. So it was easy for me to engage with this book and to feel it to heart. Which made the scary a little less scary and more like “oh, that is scary but kinda interesting”.

Another strength is the relationship between Johnny and Nick. They are friends, but could they be more, and how can you keep a relationship (of whatever kind, friends or more) when the people in it are so different and understand each other’s challenges so little? Nick struggles to understand how despite Johnny being white and a genius, she still has barriers men wouldn’t have. And at the same time, Johnny fails to see what being brown and not being rich does to Nick. There are moments were they are as close as close can be and then you realise that at the same time ther eis this big chasm between them. It was masterfully done and it is proof of the craft that Premee can write an apocalypse/end of the world horror and at the same time have this intense view of a relationship as it moves and tries to define itself into adulthood.

Gosh, the Ancient Ones in themselves and the whole part of the plot that goes around it kept getting more and more interesting. The connections between cataclysms and ends of civilizations was also a bonus point for my history focused heart and just seeing all the little hints about geeky or nerdy stuff kept me smiling despite also being scared and worrying about the fate of the world and about Johnny and Nick.

And those last few chapters, well, that was magnificent and sad and intense and a big relief. A lot of emotions to be felt throughout it, and I couldn’t help but side a little with both of them and not be sure what exactly I wanted to happen because it was so hard to think what would be the best outcome for everyone involved.

Also, Ben and the genetically modified dung beetles that wouldn’t roll dung but might steal satsumas or other round objects made me giggle. The sarcams levels are great too, if you need a serving of that.

If you like history, science, geniuses and friendships put to the test with an end of the world, this is definitely your book. It gets my scarydorsement and my full endorsement as a read worth reading.

Book Review, Books

Wilder Girls Review

Posted on March 28, 2020

Wilder Girls by Rory Power

Rating:

I had seen very varying reviews of the book, but the premise had caught my eye a couple of years ago so I got it. I don’t regret it.

The book straddles the line of horror slightly and makes for a difficult one to place in a neat category. We meet Hetty, who is doing her best to survive in Raxter and to not succumb to despair. And she only really has two friends, Byatt and Reese.

Even before Byatt disappears, the panorama of how the girls are “infected” by the Tox and have this odd changes in their bodies, and they get ill and some die (and some have already died). Plus, it is hard to know who to trust out of the limited adults left taking care of them. As much as they still live in a school, there’s little of the school as a system left and it is all about survival.

There are a lot of secrets, a lot to learn about the Tox and as Hetty ends up being able to see odd things ahppening that are harder and harder to explain each day and to make sense fo them given their cirucmstances, tough choices have to be made.

And then Byatt disappears. This opens the point of view of Byatt, who shows us where she has been taken and what is going on in her world.

I found there was a lot left as secret but if you look back it slowly makes sense as you discover the truth. The idea is to make you feel as lost as Hetty and Byatt do when they’re going through. Which I did.

I did not like the ending being a bit open and not really getting much anywhere, it felt at first like it had ended and then suddenyl not sure. Are there more books to come? I don’t like having books play the “maybe a next book at some point” game.

But still, it was a good read and interesting concept.

Book Review

Through the Woods Review

Posted on May 21, 2019

Through the Woods by Emily Carroll

‘It came from the woods. Most strange things do.’

Five mysterious, spine-tingling stories follow journeys into (and out of?) the eerie abyss.
These chilling tales spring from the macabre imagination of acclaimed and award-winning comic creator Emily Carroll.
Come take a walk in the woods and see what awaits you there…

Rating:

This book is gorgeous and creepy. Probably the best way to describe it in a single sentence.

The artwork sticks to a very red, white, black and sepia palette (with a few pops of colour) but still manages to convey very well the stories and sometimes the phrase “an image is worth a 1000 words” applies perfectly here.

One of the reasons this hasn’t got more stars is that most of the stories are left open ended or rather, in a confusing ending where you keep second guessing what exactly happened and why. I know that the attempt is to scare you and be creepy, but it also left me very unsatisified at the end of each story. I think if I had known this would be a very “just a tidbit of story, without a proper ending” kind of book, I wouldn’t have minded as much, but from the blurb it seemed to have proper short stories.

My favourite is probably the first one which at least seems to have a start and potential end, but it is still very much in the air with lots of maybe, and what if.

I’d probably say that if you like horror and creepy stuff, this is a nice illustrated book to have around. But if open endings aren’t really your thing, avoid this. Or go at it with caution. The art is still super gorgeous and the stories are different and “refreshing” in their own way.