I'm A Voracious Reader : dark

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Wednesday, November 4, 2026

BBNYA2026 Semi-Finalist Spotlight: Her Quiet Hunt by Luisa Perez

Some monsters are born. Others are made.

Caroline Landers has always known the darkness lived inside her. Not hidden. Not controlled. Simply waiting for the right moment to be unleashed.

That moment came the night she crossed paths with Samuel Corby—a man who stalked her from the shadows, only to awaken a hunger in her that even she couldn’t tame.

Samuel is everything the world warns you about: obsessive, lethal, untouchable. But the most dangerous thing about him isn't what he does—it's how deeply he loves her. How completely he sees her for what she truly is... and still demands she belongs to him.

When a sadistic new enemy rises from the wreckage of her past, threatening everything Caroline has fought to protect, she doesn’t break. She doesn’t run. She does what monsters do best.

She hunts.

As secrets unravel, betrayals ignite, and another shadow steps forward—one who has loved her from the dark all along—Caroline must face the brutal truth:
She was never the prey.
She was always the predator.
And sometimes... you don't have to choose between your monsters at all.
You can have them both—and let the world burn.

BBNYA2026 Semi-Finalist Spotlight: Escape From Null by Rennae Kletzel-Gilham

Together until the end. It’s a promise Ash intends to keep.

As a marked one living behind the stone walls of Null, Ash grows up knowing one to prevent the curse from awakening inside her, she must die at the hands of the Keeper. Sixteen years of strict rules and cruelty is made bearable only through a secret friendship and a shared fate. Knowing she’ll be with Jace at the end is enough.

Until it isn’t.

Now her death is imminent and a desperation to live ignites in her soul. Torn between newfound hope and limited time, escaping into the forest is the only way to survive. Before she can convince Jace her plan is worth the risk, he’s ripped from her life to meet his end.

A powerful connection to something beyond the walls thrums just beneath her skin, showing her a glimpse of an altered truth—one where Jace still lives. Ash makes a daring escape to find him, but nothing is as it seems. Bone-white trees act as beacons of safety from the creatures now hunting her, and vivid dreams blur the lines of her new reality.

Embrace the darkness to save a friend.

Turn away from the shadows to save herself.

Shedding one version of who she is for another may be the only way to do both.

The church clings to a whispered prophecy to bring back the gods and end the horrors in the dark.

But none of them understands what is truly at stake.

In her tiny village, Sarah Brandt has her own problems. She has witnessed her friend’s murder and is now running for her life.

Her frantic escape takes her to a circle of Druid stones, where something ancient and powerful is waiting in the darkness. When she encounters the burning presence within the stones, Sarah’s world changes forever.

Now it isn’t just justice she seeks, but salvation.

Not for herself, but for all humankind.

BBNYA2026 Semi-Finalist Spotlight: Dogged by Michael R. Fletcher

WARDOGS ARE BORN TO DIE.

In the final days of the Demon Empire a lone wardog goes in search of the answer to the only question she cares about: Who murdered her mate?

Utterly unqualified to solve a mystery, Dogged Determination has but one advantage: She never, ever gives up.

From the heart of a massive empire to the deepest foreboding jungles, Dogged is an unstoppable force of will.

The Write Reads Blog Tour Spotlight: The Wraith Returns by Paul G. Zareith

Alien vampires, trapped in a time warp, find themselves being hunted by an immortal assassin of their own creation.

Guided by the will of the erased tree god, a warrior who should have never existed emerges in a world he no longer recognizes.

A Centurion races against time to save her brother from a dying world, but the only man who could unlock the cosmic prison was buried alive two hundred years ago.

An exiled alien prince plots to reclaim his throne, but in his path stands an enemy whose actions threaten the future of the entire Sultenate.

An ambitious researcher is willing to stake the lives of millions to become the next great power.

A celestial reconciler is ready to wipe out entire civilizations to restore space-time continuity.

Who will survive? And at what cost...

Discover in this grimdark epic saga.

Friday Featured Spotlight ~ The Write Reads Blog Tour: The First Sin by Cheyenne Brammah

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The Write Reads Blog Tour Spotlight ~ The First Sin by Cheyenne Brammah

In the sweeping expanse of the Årdrakin Empire, the people fight and die for honor as elite warriors of the galaxy. But long ago, a prophecy was spoken that presaged the apocalypse. Everyone knows and fears the truth: one day, the empire will fall.
Tårik is a guard for small, independent Clan Tsinna. Instead of pondering the end of his civilization, Tårik’s greatest concern is maintaining his honor while escorting a group of impertinent dignitaries across the treacherous Barren Gale. When the Mother Goddess speaks a passage from the prophecy to him, he has the good sense to be frightened, but he doesn’t heed the significance of Her visit.
Then disaster strikes, and Tårik is branded as an exile, leaving him with no home, no honor, and no future. Forced into a desperate struggle for survival, all Tårik can focus on is living just one more day until luck—or maybe fate—gives him the opportunity to join a new clan. But even this is fraught with danger and uncertainty, and it takes him to an inhospitable world far from the empire where survival seems all but impossible.
Faced with new challenges, including trying to navigate first contact with the low-tech locals, Tårik believes the prophecy can’t reach him. Yet it continues to loom, signaling that his fate and the fate of the empire are irrevocably entwined.
This is a dark, spicy, adult science fantasy set in a world that includes war, violence, and other mature themes that some readers may find disturbing. Reading guidance can be found at the beginning of the book or on the author's website.

TWR Ultimate Blog Tour Book Review: Eerie Exhibits by Victoria Williamson

Five unnerving tales of the weird and uncanny from award-winning author Victoria Williamson.

A room full of screaming butterflies.
An unsettling smile on the face of a carved sarcophagus.
A painting that draws its viewer into the disturbing past.
A stuffed bear that growls in the dead of night.
And a shell that whispers more sinister sounds than the sigh of the sea…

Dare you cross the threshold of the old Museum and view its eerie exhibits?

The Sea-Wolf ~ Audiobook Review

The Sea-Wolf is a 1904 psychological adventure novel by Jack London about a literary critic Humphrey van Weyden. The story starts with him aboard a San Francisco ferry, called Martinez, which collides with another ship in the fog and sinks. He is set adrift in the Bay, eventually being picked up by Wolf Larsen. Larsen is the captain of a seal-hunting schooner, the Ghost. Brutal and cynical, yet also highly intelligent and intellectual, he rules over his ship and terrorizes the crew with the aid of his exceptionally great physical strength.

Dead To Me ~ Audiobook Review

Seeing dead people and solving their murders is Darby Adler's bread and butter.

What's not on the menu?

A nosy Fed poking around her crime scenes who seems to know a hell of a lot more than he's saying--especially about the ghosts surrounding Darby and the murderer who's desperate for her attention.

Friday Featured Spotlight ~ BBNYA2023 Blog Tours ~ Finalists 13 & 12

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Friday Featured Spotlight ~ BBNYA2023 Blog Tours: Finalists 15 & 14

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BBNYA2023 Blog Tour ~ 15th Place Finalist ~ Sorrow's Forest

At twelve years old, Mackie King had done something no one had ever done before: he had snuck into the forest, where Queen Sorrow reigned and had unintentionally stolen one of her devils while she slept in a death-like sleep.

In as little as an hour, the devil named himself Blue, fit almost seamlessly into the Kings’ life, and the Township of Lakeview.

Now, Mackie and Blue are grown, Queen Sorrow has awakened, and she wants her devil back.

In a fit of uncontrolled rage and desperateness, she snatches any that match Blue’s likeness. When their identities are revealed, she ruthlessly casts the bodies aside. Each murder is met with the town’s hopeless ignorance. A dark enchantment is sweeping over the land, dulling the minds of the townspeople to the supernatural violence.

Mackie has always been resourceful, but it will take every bit of ingenuity he and Blue have to thwart Queen Sorrow and her minions, save the town, and free themselves from the shadow of the bittering forest.

BBNYA2022 Blog Tour ~ The Reaper's Quota

Meet Grim Reaper #2497. Behind on his work, he must complete his quota of thirty Random Deaths or face termination in the worst way. Faced with an insurmountable task and very little time to complete it, Reaper #2497 struggles to hang on to the one thing he's not supposed to have - his humanity.

Whispers of Innocence

The baby is quiet. Too quiet.

When Madeline checks on her seven-month-old daughter, she discovers the reason for the baby’s silence. Abigail is dead. Madeline is soon living every mother’s worst nightmare amid a cacophony of sirens and police interrogations.

Accusations and old resentments can’t stay contained under the pressure of guilt, tears, and the horror of picking out a baby-sized coffin. A line is drawn through Madeline and Brian’s marriage, and a battle begins.

But defining heroes and villains is as difficult as untangling the truth from the web Madeline and Brian have created to protect themselves. Abigail’s killer isn’t the only monster hiding in the shadows. And among the dark secrets, everyone will crumble under the consequences.