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Chuck Clay

@ChuckabillyClay

Literary Lollapalooza - Sept & Oct 2025

17 books ・10 views 👀
The Autumn Springs Retirement Home Massacre
Philip Fracassi
Notes:
“The Autumn Springs Retirement Home Massacre” by Philip Fracassi, a new slasher/whodunit from Tor due out September 30! Fracassi is new to me, but he’s a favorite now. Solid slasher motifs, and a wise view at ageism. I gobbled this delightful book down in record time. Wonderfully drawn characters, solid suspense, and a wicked humor. The scenes of violence are disturbing and the sense of dread palpable. Rose DuBois is a Final Girl for the ages: 80 year old single mother and grandmother, a whip-smart, tough as nails heroine. If you like mystery/thrillers or slasher films I highly recomend this book. If you like your books aural, the audiobook production is also top notch featuring the uber-talented January LaVoy. Thanks to Tor and NetGalley and Philip Fracassi, Rose is my Final Girl.
Spread Me
Sarah Gailey
💙📚 💙🩸
Notes:
💙📚 💙🩸
Trust me: you want this. It’s sexy, provocative, and gets under your skin in the best possible way. Thanks to #NetGalley and #SarahGailey and #MacMillanAudio for the advance. Excellent narration by Xe Sands.⭐️⭐️⭐️ 1/2 Recommend. #SpreadMe
52 Pickup
Elmore Leonard
Notes:
I’ve been intending to read Elmore Leonard for a very long time. At various times since I was a young boy gobbling up Raymond Chandler novels, Leonard has been a known quantity to me. I saw that interest refreshed in the 90’s as the films of Quentin Tarantino brought about a late-career renaissance to one of his favorite authors and influences. At several points I’ve owned second hand dog-eared paperbacks, that through life’s stages and phases have all been lost along the way. But then #NetGalley and #HarperAudioAdult provided me the opportunity to check out a couple of new audio production releases of classic Leonard novels. 52 Pick-up (1974) is a classic American crime novel set in and around Detroit, MI. The plot centers around businessman Harry Mitchell caught in an attempted blackmail scheme. But the action is mostly driven by the machinations of Leonard’s cadre of criminals and lowlifes, bumbling and inept as they butt heads with Mitchell, who simply refuses to play along. Strongly recommended for fans of hard-boiled crime fiction. Produced by HarperAudio Adult, perfectly narrated by Johnny Heller who manages to capture the rhythm and texture of Leonard’s gangster prose.
Fire in the Hole: Stories
Elmore Leonard
Notes:
Short stories by Elmore Leonard include “Fire in the Hole”, the basis of the FX series “Justified” starring Timothy Oliphant and Walton Goggins, and a Karen Sisco (Out of Sight) story, along with other crime stories, westerns; it’s a good introduction to Leonard’s style for a beginner or lovely little gems of character and plot for the avid reader. Narrated by Tae Diggs for HarperAudio Adult. “Fire In the Hole (2012) is a collection of 9 short stories featuring beloved characters Raylan Givens (FX’s Justified) and Karen Sisco (Out of Sight). The title story being the basis of the FX original series “Justified” starring Timothy Olyphant and Walton Goggins. The stories are a broad assortment, showing off Leonard’s versatility as a writer. It is a mixed bag, with certain stories standing out well above others. But it is a fine showcase for those new to the world of Elmore Leonard looking for an accessible starting point. Read with sly silkiness by Tae Diggs.”
The Haunting of Paynes Hollow: A Novel
Kelley Armstrong
Notes:
An eerily effective modern day haunted house tale, with Sam unexpectedly getting left the great big house in Payne’s Hollow by her recently deceased grandfather, a right bastard of an old cuss, who includes one caveat: Sam has to stay at Payne’s Hollow in the house for a month, without so much as an hour spent outside the house at any given time. The locals remember her family and the secrets they left behind. One of which is the property caretaker, the brother of boy who died mysteriously when Sam was a young girl many years ago. The book ties together Irving’s Sleepy Hollow, the headless horseman, nekkers, and Selkies into a modern tale of familial secrets and the dark heart of the human spirit. Occasionally, the story starts to feel like it might be teetering over into romantic territory, but Armstrong rightly resists these urges, leaving things comfortably platonic. The immaturity of the character (or quite possibly the author) annoyed me upon my first read, but now with distance behind me I’m not sure what I found so offensive. Maybe it was the sense that Armstrong might really be on the cusp of something, she’s just not quite there.
What Stalks the Deep (Sworn Soldier, 3)
T. Kingfisher
Notes:
The third tale in Kingfisher’s Sworn Soldier series featuring Gallacian Alex Easton. In this tale Easton is reunited with old friend Dr. Denton (What Moves the Dead) in America, to help find a missing friend in the haunted coal mines of West Virginia. Easton really doesn’t want to go to America, and really takes no pleasure in going far beneath the earth’s surface in search of whatever’s making that wet slapping sound against the cave walls, but a sworn soldier does what they swear to do.
One of Us
Dan Chaon
Notes:
Dan Chaon’s latest novel “One of Us” is a dust and shadow filled tale of the circus sideshows of the past and two orphaned twins attempting to find their identities amongst the geeks and gillies. Dark, mysterious, and full of danger. Thanks to #NetGalley #DanChaon #MacmillanAudio ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Recommend
Hansel and Gretel
Anon9780062644695
Notes:
King’s retelling of the Grimm’s fairy tale with illustrations by Maurice Sendak. The illustrations are from Sendak’s costume and scenery renderings for a planned opera based on the children’s fairy tale classic. The text is King retelling one of the Grimm’s darkest stories while weaving in his own literary tapestry. The witch here is no nameless witch of the forest but Rhea of the Coos. A beautiful and chilling children’s picture book.
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Cager Klarxon
Notes:
This is my first LGBTQIA+ horror, and while I was expecting lots of sexual content, graphic descriptions of body horror, bodily fluids, etc I was not expecting or prepared for the story that followed. Marshall is a sex worker who gains online notoriety under the name Marcus. Marcus has no limits; Marcus only wants more more more. When Marcus accepts an offer from a secretive group called The Twelve, he unwittingly makes a Faustian bargain and become a nexus point to a digital dimension. Ultimately becoming something different and something altogether frightening. This short novel offered something new for me, as it is my first LGBTQIA+ horror novel. Just to be clear, I had no issue with content. I like the premise, unfortunately I don’t think the author was completely successful. The second half gets increasingly hard to read, due to the character’s transformation into a digital deity and thus more and more incoherent and inconsistent. As we lose Marcus into the threads, we feel less and less empathy for our character and therefore the story. The narrator, TroySF, is fine, as a beginner. The problems I had with the audio was recording quality and lack of production. This is obviously a debut, maybe (probably) self-published, and when you’re young (or green) you do what you can with what you have. So kudos to the author on this milestone!
The Best American Science Fixtion and Fantasy
Nnedi Okorafor, editor
Notes:
20 short stories compiled and edited by Nnedi Okorafor, representing a panoply of SciFi/Fantasy themes and styles. Favorites from this collection include stories by TJ Klune, Joe Hill, Olivie Blake, Isabel J. Kim, and Russell Nichols. Read by a variety of narrators, and all are wonderful. An excellent audio recording.
Dead Man Blues: A Novel
S. D. House
Notes:
B&N Monthly Pick for October A mystery/thriller set in the 50’s in a small river community on the Tennessee/Kentucky border. This book reminded me a great deal of the Travis McGee mysteries of John D. MacDonald, right down to the laidback anti-hero who lives on a houseboat and solves local murders. This one has a worthy murder, and furthermore, our hero has to team up with the local sheriff to solve the crime. The same sheriff his wife left him for recently. Fans of mysteries are recommended. ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
You Like It Darker: Stories
Stephen King
Notes:
A collection of short novels and short stories continuing to showcase Stephen King’s recent short fiction. The audio book, narrated by Will Patton with Stephen King, is a 2025 Audie winner for best Audiobook Production and is absolutely phenomenal. I can’t recommend anything read by Will Patton highly enough.
When the Wolf Comes Home
Nat Cassidy
Notes:
Jess is a struggling actor in LA. She works over nights at an all-night diner, where she accidentally gets stabbed by a used hypodermic needle while cleaning the diner restroom, setting off a string of life-altering incidents that will leave her shook. First, the Boy: alone, scared, and on the run from an abusive father. Then, the blood starts flowing and the bodies start piling up and it’s an all-out race for safety (and possibly sanity) before the Wolf comes home.
Strange Case of Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde: Unabridged Gothic Novel with Student and Book Club Study Guides
Robert Stevenson
Notes:
R.L. Stevenson’s horror classic about an unknown brutish figure named Hyde, trampling children and beating men to death on the steets of Victorian London. Locals are astonished when the older, respectable Dr. Henry Jekyll reveals a dark secret he’s kept hidden.
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (Chinese Edition)
Suzanne Collins
Notes:
Suzanne Collins returns to Panem and the world of the Hunger Games with this prequel about Coriolanus Snow and his tribute Lucy Gray. Collins continues to world-build, deepening and widening her own mythology while presenting an important and emotionally wrenching story of love, class, and warfare. Narrated by Santino Fontana, who is fine, but after the incredible music production from the film adaptation, I have to admit Fontana’s singsong couplets are very annoying. But otherwise a very solid audio presentation.
Holly
Stephen King
Notes:
Holly Gibney (the Bill Hodges trilogy, If It Bleeds, and The Outsider) returns in a new standalone tale about sickness and health. Taking place in the heart of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is a story of people believing what they want to believe, and causing terrible pain and death in that pursuit. My first attempt to read this was stalled midway through as I got “annoyed” by all the COVID references. Time away did me and the book both a world of good. I found it wasn’t King’s prose stagnating, but my own blunted imagination.
Night of the Mannequins
Stephen Graham Jones
Notes:
A fast little read from SGJ about a prank turned deadly obsession. This was my Halloween night treat and it was delightfully unhinged.