Hugo-nominated, Ignyte Award-winning critic Alex Brown takes on L.D. Lewis' The Dead Withheld, a queer, neo-noir urban fantasy from Neon Hemlock.

In JamReads you will find content about books, and why you should read them more. This content may include reviews, interviews and occasionally, some news of the literary world

Alt: Shawshank Redemption: Iconic Rain Scene

Hey, where did September go? Bring it back! This was the month I got to settle into staying home and getting back into routine, but I spent the first half with migraine instead. On the plus side, I had some awesome reads and I spent my weekends in a pottery learning new skills. Reading Round-up This month’s mood was rather Gothic in the broader sense, full of foreboding and dark secrets and untrustworthy new companions.

Confession is good for the soul. It's less good as the basis for an essay.

Buy The Fifth Inflection by Gautam Bhatia from Waterstones today! Click and Collect from your local Waterstones or get FREE UK delivery on orders over £25.

Jenny Hamilton reviews a fun but flawed new entrant in the horror canon.

This is the September 2026 issue of Salon Futura. Here are the contents.

I talk about Dragonlance a lot on my blog. I mean, a lot. I’ve talked about individual books, done buddy reads, and even managed to convince others to collaborate with me on a Dragonlance-the…

Across the first 24 weeks of 2026, there are 14 Black authors within the top 1,000; combined, they have earned £2.8m, just 0.9% of the total money taken by all authors in that top 1,000.

My 21 Days of Fear review: Hervé Commère seals each chapter shut, turning an advent calendar into a countdown of dread. A five star YA thriller.

by Cora Buhlert The Other Warlocks and Warriors Yesterday, I reviewed the sword and sorcery anthology Warlocks and Warriors, edited by L. Sprague de Camp.  However, there is another anthology, also en...

by Cora Buhlert The Art of Wrapping Modern art has long broken out of the confines of painting and sculpture and introduced new forms such as installations or happenings. And so the West German town o...

An all-consuming tale of ballrooms and bloodshed weds The Gilded Age with the Gothic vision of Guillermo del Toro.

MAY WE FEED THE KING REBECCA PERRY Transit Books ( non-affiliate Bookshop.org link) $17.99 ebook, preorder now for delivery 29 Septem...

The darkness isn’t empty. It’s hungry. At the edge of the City of the Void, a massive chasm extends miles into the earth, its treacherous terrain overrun with vicious monsters and carnivorous plant…

Tracy Fahey interview: Queens of the Crone Age, her noir collection Down We Go Together, open endings, and why horror film keeps making the Hag a villain.

The Hunger of Those Who Built It, Wendy Waring (Stelliform Press, 978-1-99846-605-4, $21.99, 376pp, tp) September 2026. Cover by Juliane Van Huizen. From a near future that tends towards the abstract ...

Hi! ICYMI I’m going to be in Australia in a week and a half. I’ll be at the Brisbane Writers Festival and the Canberra Writers Festival, and doing events in...

Traitors' Nest, Frances Hardinge (First Ink UK 978-1-52909-064-2, £16.99, 448pp, hc) August 2026. (Amulet 978-1-4197-9414-8, $19.99, 400pp, hc) September 2026. For the villagers who farm the valley where Frances Hardinge's Traitors' Nest begins, their world is arranged in a straightforward hierarchy. The lord in the castle sends commands through his bailiff, who talks to local leaders like the game warden Joett, who organizes the farmers accordingly, and sends their complaints …Read More

(Alternatively titled: "Please stop asking if my parents are proud of me" or "Something waits for me in the divine for resisting the urge to

Conversations on Writing does touch on how these big impossible questions can be found within the smallest choices we make as writers, within syntax, voice, point of view, and narrative. And the gestu...

A response to the response responses

The nitty-gritty: A driving narrative, gut-wrenching emotion and plenty of horrors, both human and supernatural, make Crone a standout book of 2026. I’m not sure what I was expecting when I picked up Crone, but it wasn’t at all what I got! And that isn’t a bad thing. This is my first time reading Keith Rosson, so perhaps I would have been better prepared if I’d read one of his earlier books, but wow, this guy can write.

Helloooo! I had a great day out at Edge-lit the back into work and hospital visits I think it’s caught up with me as I’ve caught a bit of a bug. Reading and reviewing is stalled and I’m hoping my s...

Reviews of science fiction, fantasy and horror books, films, comics and television shows

Pre-order now: