My Year in Books 2024: July

Time for my mini-reviews of the books I read in July. Only two books on this month's list, I'm afraid, but in case you're interested, here are my review posts from the rest of the year so far: January, February, March, April, May, June

Death by Laura Thalassa (2021)

In May, I posted about the first three books in Laura Thalassa’s Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse erotic romance series. You may remember, it was a bit of a revelation for me (pun intended). I loved the first three books, particularly Famine, and I was planning to wait to read the final one. I didn’t actually wait that long in the end. Death is, as I expected, a bonkers thing of beauty. The final horseman – the one we’ve been told is the worst of the four, and a ‘dour asshole’ (quote from Famine) – arrives on earth to make the Last Judgement. But Death isn’t quite the creature we’ve been led to expect. Yes, he’s terrifying. But he’s also the embodiment of the concept of Death, so his very existence is intricately connected to life. He’s also really sexy, of course, but why wouldn’t he be? Death is at once foreboding, apocalyptic, noble, melancholy, lonely and horny. And when he meets Lazarus, a woman who for some reason cannot die, he begins (of course) to question his purpose. I loved this one – Death is surprisingly easy to fall in love with, for all his utter oddity. But my favourite thing was when a familiar trio turned up to try and thwart their brother’s plans. I genuinely gave a little squeal when Famine arrived with characteristic drama. Which was embarrassing, as I was reading the book on the tram at the time. I can’t explain it, but I genuinely love this series.

The House That Horror Built by Christina Henry (2024)

The next book was one of the novels included in a recent Abominable Books box. The blurb sounded right up my street. Harry is a single mum who gets a job cleaning for Javier Castillo, a reclusive horror film director who lives an isolated life in his Chicago mansion. The house is filled with horror memorabilia, including props from Castillo’s own films. However, there is also a cloud of mystery around the director’s retreat from Hollywood and the nature of the scandal that led to it. When Castillo encourages a more social relationship, inviting Harry and her son Gabe to dinner at his house, it starts to become clear that there may be another presence in the mansion, and Harry starts to become anxious about her and her son’s safety. The set-up for this one is really great, and the titular house is atmospheric and evocative. Harry is a well-drawn character, and her reasons for staying in a job that is both demanding and kinda creepy are plausible. However, the book runs out of steam in the final third, and the pacing starts to go off as we move towards the conclusion. The problem is that the mystery just can’t be sustained. Castillo’s retreat from Hollywood happened just a few years before the book begins, so it’s a matter of a simple internet search to uncover the scandal. From there, it’s fairly easy to work out what might be going on, and the book tumbles towards a rather abrupt ending.