A reading diary about dark romance, serialized fiction, and the stuff we reach for when the lights are out and sleep isn't coming.
Long-form notes on what's working and what isn't in the books I've been reading lately. Gothic revivals, serialized experiments, the quiet corners of dark fiction where the good work is happening.
Six years into the BookTok era, the influence runs both ways. A close look at what the platform changed about how books are bought, written, and recommended — and where the resistance is starting.
Something interesting is happening in the way dark romance and thriller novels are being released: chapter by chapter, on weekly schedules, with cliffhangers that would make a Victorian proud. I have thoughts.
Rebecca, Jane Eyre, and the 2020s revival. The current generation of gothic novels is doing something specific with its inheritance, and it is worth paying attention to what.
120 pages is enough. In fact, for certain kinds of stories, it is the right length. Here are five novellas that did more in three hours of reading than most 500-page novels accomplish in a week.
What is romantasy? A clear, honest definition of the fastest-growing genre of the decade, what it actually requires, and what separates the great books from the merely successful.
Saturday mornings, before most people are awake, one email goes out. Two or three short entries, a recommendation, sometimes a question. No ads. No tracking pixels. Just the journal.