Noncorporeal IV - a haunting anthology full of twists

Noncorporeal IV: Phantom Dusk 

Creation as an act of vengeance… creation as a determination to reclaim the life that was lost or stolen...

Horrifying twists on ancient tales and urban legends fill this anthology of noncorporeal bodies that haunt the twilight hour. 

The settings span a broad expanse of time and space, from old American graveyards to a crevasse on a long-forgotten moon. These are tales of ghosts and memories, and even machine intelligences, with protagonists both corporeal and non-.  They range from simple small-town hauntings to complex multi-generational monster-hunts - or monster-hiding - from the distant past to the impenetrable future, each penned by one of USA‘s celebrated short story writers.

As often the case with collections, some of the stories are spellbinding, and others are a little less so. Some are homey and others are pure horror. But tastes vary and a story that I love might be one that a different reader shrugs and skims past. Let it suffice to say that there is excellent variety around the central theme. Something to satisfy almost every taste.

This 4th-in-series kickstarter anthology was crowdfunded in 2026 by Kevin A. Davis and produced by Inkd Publishing.

Noncorporeal IV: Phantom Dusk seeks to satisfy the reader who loves the spooky tales that will keep you reading late into the night.

Find Inkd Publishing on Facebook  and Instagram too for many crime and horror anthologies to browse and for submission opportunities.  

I’d like to thank Beverle Graves Myers, whose writing I have admired since the very first Tito Amato mystery, for hooking me up with the publisher and this review copy.

#NewRelease #anthology #horror #ghosts #phantoms #dusk #danger #monsters #clowns #haunting #halloween #reunion #teenagers #revenge #justice #UnfinishedBusiness #Inkd

Yesteryear: a maddening, absorbing read for women

Yesteryear

by Caro Claire Burke

Pub Date: Apr 07 2026

This novel is an exploration of the endless conflict between internalized patriarchal womanhood and feminist personhood: snarky, scary, and far too relatable for far too long. For who among us has not swallowed rage rather than feed yet another spousal argument that's going nowhere? Who hasn’t told herself lies about loving her children when she is so exhausted she hates the very thought of them? What woman has not donned her makeup like it’s armour, thick enough to keep her alive if not to protect her completely from the day that’s coming at her?

The writing is crisp, the characterization subtle and efficient. The story of one determined decision after another keeps up the pace. But be warned: those final chapters are a terrible and terrifying mind-bender for any woman. 

Depending on where you’re starting from in your own life, the first part of this book will turn you green with envy or make you so nauseous you could lose your lunch. It’s a look behind the excruciatingly curated life of a tradwife influencer, narrated by a woman so sanctimoniously godly you want to cheer each time a bit of human anger slips through. 

Soon, though, the cracks start to appear behind the façade of the perfect man, perfect marriage, perfect family, perfectly photo-ready home with all mod-cons hidden behind time-warp doors. I won’t spell them out for you; discovering them as they peep through is the necessary spice to keep you spooning up the bland Eden our narrator is very consciously selling (Spanish-made linen-finish stock pot $244 – not a direct quote). 

But when Natalie wakes up actually in those Good Old Days she’s been cheerfully - or desperately - re-creating for the camera, she’s far less equipped to cope than she should be. Because, it turns out, making soap in your kitchen aided by your adorable daughters is a whole different ball game when there’s no producer to get things set up, no nannies to tend the children, when your body’s wrecked by repeat pregnancies with no health care, and your husband is not only just as incompetent but a whole lot less tolerant of wifely suggestions. 

From there we cycle by turns through this disastrous new present and the pre-influencer years that turned Natalie into a woman ready to sell her entire personality for a few more clicks on her Instagram reels. A scholarship gets her into one of the US’s premier colleges, and that’s where we see Natalie as an intelligent, envious outsider rather than the center of her impeccably stylized world. The first time we see the life she constructed her own bridge away from. And then we watch as she deliberately paves a path forward that attempts to live up to the impossible standards of her patriarchal religious family and in-laws, not to mention her online followers.

Her wit and snark gets full play in the college scenes, (An artificially intelligent Eden: a warm, incubated landscape designed to keep the worst kids in America safe and warm and well-fed until they matured past the urge to peck each other’s eyes out.”) standing in sharp contrast to her ‘Good Old Days’ chapters where every misstep compounds the last disaster and the consequences of raising her voice to a man are far more painful than the mocking laughter of her college roommates was. 

Whatever you thought of her before, you can’t help pitying College Natalie almost as much as her Good Old Days disintegrating psyche. She’s so sure her narrow religious upbringing is all she’ll ever need, and she’s walking calmly toward what any reasonably aware woman can tell is unmitigated, soul-crushing disaster, brushing away all her forebodings with slogans and faith. And there are moments later when Natalie’s inner voice becomes her personal Greek chorus, repeating, rephrasing, foreshadowing as her beliefs-based choices take her ever closer to an inescapable doom. You really, really want her to wake up and see there are other paths.

#Netgalley #influencer #Christianity #tradwife #novel #NewRelease #feminism #childabuse #producer #familyfarm #manosphere #politics #PenguinRandomHouse #CaroClaireBurke #debutauthor #DiabolicalLies #sex #pregnancy #mentalillness #contentwarning #Yesteryear 

Death by the Dozen by D.B. Borton

Death By the Dozen

D.B. Borton 

 February 2026

There’s something inimitably cheery about a case in which both a kidnapped, pet pig and a set of gilded pigs with wings/urban art project feature heavily. It's delivered in a nice breezy, American-cosy style, with a main detective who is a grandmother. The dialogue feels very true to the age of most participants and the various careers and venues. There are many one liners related to pigs, inevitable references to pigs flying, and some "your mama" jokes for local Cincinnati color. And a hilarious parade of St. Patrick’s Day pigs! 

Just so you know, the first corpse hits the headlines quite a distance into the book. So don’t think you’re not getting your body’s worth in this cosy feeling mystery even though it takes a while to land.

While our main protagonist is a grandmother, there’s a slight resemblance to the Nancy Drew, archetype in her sleuthing technique, which is amplified when the teenager, Morgan, grandniece of the author ADA, joins in her sleuthing, and again when a secret in the old barn enters the picture. 

Then comes the possible mad woman in the attic, adding a literary overtone to the tale. It’s a bit of social commentary as well, because in the 1800s and early 1900s, women could be committed to insane asylum for reasons that had nothing to do with how mentally acute they were, and everything to do with whether they add inherited property that their husbands wanted to get control of. Or if they were being replaced with a younger model in an era in the reasons for divorce were limited. There is also a bit of a statement here about how easy it was for women to be erased from the historical record, by name changes on marriage and by death in childbirth, or simply by dying and being buried away from their home parish where people all their lives would have remembered them. Women as property, and as unremarkable property at that. Soon replaced, soon forgotten. Even when they were writers of children’s books and local news articles.

Another interesting piece of social commentary, not at all overdone, is how street people see their lived environment differently than the people who only come and go in it before heading off to homes and offices elsewhere.

Bits of Cincinnati’s economic and riverine history are embedded throughout the narrative, including excitement from river pirates going after the steamboats that were still a major source of transportation into the 20th century. Several of the suspects have roots in that history, making it a neat bit of authorly interweaving between factual and fictional events. Historical clues are equally important to solving the mystery as contemporary ones are.

Now the not so great: 
For one thing, there are a lot of characters to learn in the first couple chapters. And it’s sometimes hard to tell where characters are while they’re having their very interesting conversations, because the author doesn’t ground the reader in the setting, just mentions and moves along. The other quibble I have with this story is that it’s only mentioned briefly that it’s set in 1988, Cincinnati’s bicentennial year, the one time, at the very start. Periodic reminders throughout would have helped make sense of the ages of some of the participants, as characters who could remember the 1940s would still be youngish retired people in 1988, but would be very decrepit if not dead by the 2020s.

Overall a comfortable sleuthing mystery with interesting social historical commentary and some humourous pet shenanigans.

#NetgalleyUK #cosy #mystery #Cincinnati #riverboats #historical #pets #petpig #seniorsleuth #granny #womenshistory #insaneasylum #murder