This is a short story collection and also the first book I read by Joyce Carol Oates. I cannot say I disliked it, but I am not moved by this either. The writing style is impressive, the literary quality of Oates’ world is obvious and outstanding. However, I will have second thoughts on whether to read any of her books in the future and here is why: The first story in this collection is “Cardiff By the Sea” is about a young woman who finds out that she inherited the fortune of her biological grandmother and that her biological parents died in an unusual way. The suspense is very strong and keeps you reading and reading. The portrayal of the two aunts are fantastic and the atmosphere creeped me out. However, the story ended in such a rushed, vague way that it left me so dissatisfied. 2-stars!
The second story Mia Dao is about Mia who adopts a wild cat and tries to adapt into her new life as her father leaves and there is a new stepfather in the house. Again, there are vagueness in the story and I did not feel particularly connected with Mia. 3-stars!
The third story Phantomwise is the strongest one in this collection, following Alyce who gets involved with her lecturer and another old professor, only to be abused by one. The violence against women is portrayed strongly here, underlining both psychological and physical abuse. 4-stars!
The last one is The Surviving Child. The story follows a woman marrying a man whose famous poet wife committed suicide whilst killing her own daughter, too. So the guy has a surviving son and the new wife lives in the same house where the first wife killed herself. The surviving child is disturbing in a way that you feel the quality and presence of Oates. 4-stars!
All in all, Oates is a great author for sure and plays an important role in the literature world. However, I just need more from a story, more satisfaction in terms of endings.
Thanks to NetGalley and the Mysterious Press for the ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

I have been a huge Joyce Carol Oates fan for years, and I eagerly look forward to every single one of her new releases. Cardiff, By the Sea did not disappoint. I particularly loved the suspense in Phantomwise: 1972.

I have mixed feelings on this one. The book is a series of four creepy, suspenseful novellas centering on men’s violence against women,

The first story was awful. Slow, dragged on and ultimately, I didn’t understand the ending. It’s too bad that one was first as the remaining three stories were much stronger.

The remaining three stories cleverly conveyed the terror and menace posed by predatory men. The stories took on issues of consent, harassment in school, abusive spouses, and predatory teacher-student relationships. They illustrated the creeping, often insidious nature of violence against women.

Thought-provoking read about the terrors in plain sight. I hovered between 3.5 and 4 stars. The first story was the longest and weakest. But the remaining stories are worth a read.

There was a strong, overpowering sense of foreboding in each of the novellas. Each dealt with a woman who was marginalized in some way and left to question her worth, her existence, her sanity. This heavy, uncomfortable feeling sat on my shoulders through all the pages. I found myself having to remind myself to take a breath and then to exhale, and then to shake my head and then to stare off into space.

The reviews I have read have been completely accurate and articulate.

I have little to add except several quotes from the four novellas that highlight my impressions and describe my reactions to Ms. Oates extraordinary writing:

“To be orphaned is to be never in the right place”

“Is this home? A I in the right place now?”

“Please help me. I am so lonely. Please”

Thank you NetGalley and The Mysterious Press for a copy.

Depression is hell. I'm normally an upbeat chick. I think so anyway. But, I do have bouts of depression that take the wind outta my colorful sails. In this state, consider me the equivalent of flotsam and jetsam. Yep. That's me - good Ole Flotsam. I don't even have the energy to be jetsam. Just a flot, flotting about. When I'm in this dead zone I try to stick to light reads - mood boosters. What to do when I begin a book, cheery as Mary Poppins, and depression strikes? Once I become as dreadful as Bloody Mary, well, there's no turning back. I blame the reading material for this unfortunate turn of events. I hate to fault Joyce Carol Oates for my recent black mood. We usually get on rather well. To be fair, I was chomping at the bit for publishers to approve my NetGalley request. Once I got the go ahead I dove right in. I was a happy girl. I like novellas and short stories. Ya get so much bang in one book, right? Listen, it fell apart for me with the first story, CARDIFF BY THE SEA. So, there's this woman hankering to discover her roots. She ends up at an old creepy home of even creepier great aunts. Had this been an audio version, I would have plugged my ears and sang lalala. Their conversations were Irrational (with a capital I) and nonsensical. Clare, the woman seeking her biological beginnings, is a thirty+ woman of intelligence. She becomes a fainting, blabbering idiot in the presence of the not-so-great aunts. Honestly, I was hoping the aunts would poison her and the story would end, yet it drones on. The conclusion? I haven't a clue. Written really odd. She sees things. She doesn't see things. They're there but not. A few moments of suspense that led me to believe maybe I'm the crazy girl for not enjoying a story by JCO.

Next story, MIAO DAO. A bullied young girl finds comfort in a bevy of stray cats, one in particular. Nope. I'm a cat lover. I have two Ragdolls that offer me immense comfort. Scientifically, it's proven that cats can lower blood pressure and assist with their person's anxiety levels. Lets just say that my sweet fluffalumps did nothing to improve my faltering mood during this story. Again, just odd.

PHANTOMWISE is the third story. I've got nothing intelligent (or stupid) to say. I skimmed through it. If it had a yearbook title it would be "MOST UNLIKABLE".

And, finally...THE SURVIVING CHILD. Maybe this hit too close to home for me. My youngest child died at the tender age of eight. My grief almost took me with her. At this point in the book, my depression had reached its peak. I finished what was supposed to be a suspenseful, psychological thriller-esque. However, it was either my mindset (i started in a skippity-doo-da mood) or this clearly missed the mark.

Don't get me wrong. I dig Joyce Carol Oates. I own plenty physical copies of wonderful books she's written. I just didn't mesh with this dark novella. It was, dare I say, kind of flaky. Glad to have it behind me. Had this not been an ARC, it's safe to say I would've DNF'd at the sea.



*E-copy courtesy of Grove Atlantic and NetGalley.

This is quintessential Joyce Carol Oates. The stories are exquisitely written, yet they leave you with no sense of a happy ending or of troubles being conquered. I find that Oates' work in the past 10-15 years has delved more into the unsatisfied side of life - everything is not happiness and light or happy endings (not that her work ever was, but it seems darker to me). There's a rawness and an energy to her writing that makes it so believable that one sometimes has to set down the book.

A must for fans.

There's no question that Oates is a gifted writer. Her descriptions and characterizations are superb. These stories are unusual and compelling. My favorite is the title story which evokes a sense of mystery and unease. It felt like an old fashioned gothic mystery. I must admit I was surprised by the ending which, for me, was a 'wait, WHAT?!' moment. I'm still not sure how I felt about it.

The other stories didn't feel quite as 'finished' as the first but they were still enjoyable to read. This book is an interesting addition to Oates body of work

Reading Joyce Carol Oates just makes me want to read more Joyce Carol Oates. So this little treasure collection of four novellas satisfies that need in me. Once I’ve finished the first, there are three more to devour! Oates is masterful at keeping one guessing. So skilled, never obvious, always surprising. This is a wonderful and satisfying read—a place to escape the real horror that is going on in our world, allowing me to hide out in fiction/mystery. And now I’m off to read more Joyce Carol Oates!

This is a collection of 4 short stories, though the first (and best) one takes up almost half the book. I really enjoyed the first story, Cardiff, by the Sea, and would have been thrilled to have an entire book with those quirky sisters. Even though the subtitle of this book is "Four Novellas of Suspense," I can't really say that they were all that suspenseful and a couple of the later stories were pretty depressing.

Overall, great writing and a ton of amazing female characters.

Many thanks to NetGalley, Grove Atlantic/Mysterious Press for gifting me a digital ARC of the short story collection by Joyce Carol Oates. 4 stars for creepy stories that will leave you wanting more!

This book contains 4 short novellas all revolving around creepy, mysterious happenings to the female subjects of each story. The first was my favorite - a young adopted woman gets a call that her biological grandmother left her an inheritance in Cardiff, Maine. She travels there, stays with her two very eccentric great-aunts, and tries to investigate the past she knew nothing about. There is the story of Mia, a teenager who is uncomfortable with her body and the attention it receives. She only finds comfort in an abandoned lot overrun with feral cats. Another story has a quiet college student taken advantage of by a professor and in other ways by an elderly poet. The last story involves a young woman about to move in her fiancé's house where a horrible tragedy took place leaving his son as the only survivor.

Each of these stories have twists that you won't expect, even though the ending may not be totally as fleshed out as you may wish. That's always why short stories aren't my favorite genre but - Joyce Carol Oates! Her writing is so beautiful and you won't be able to resist this collection. You will find yourself caring about each of these female protagonists and their stories.

I’ve been holding onto this one to read in October for the spooky atmosphere and horror vibes. It doesn’t disappoint. There are four short stories that are different lengths. The first one is the Cardiff story and centers around an adult woman who had been adopted as a child at the slightly older age than usual adoptions, close to 3 years. She doesn’t have much memory of her family and doesn’t know the circumstances of her adoption but has been curious. One day she receives a phone call from an attorney who is acting as the executor in her birth-grandmother’s will and estate. At first she is not sure if she is interested in following her curiosity and seeing what the family is like but she decides to go to Cardiff and check it out. When she arrives, she is immediately thrust into the care of her aunts, who are a bit eccentric. She also has an uncle who comes into the house periodically. The mystery begins to unravel as to why she was adopted and what and why she is receiving an inheritance.
The overall themes throughout all the stories are some of the different yet similar ways that women can suffer at the whims of the men in their life. This theme unfolds differently in each story. In the second story about young Mia and her broken family life, present her with an opportunity to care for and develop a love for feral cats living near her home. Over the years, we follow her family and the changes that occur as well as the constants.
Story three centers around a bright young woman who is studying to become a poet. She meets a slightly older teaching assistant/tenure track teacher who challenges her academically but who she develops a relationship with leading to a difficult situation. She can’t seem to resolve the relationship or other issues and finds herself under the spotlight of attention from a highly respected visiting poet whom she can learn a great deal. She becomes attached to him as well.
The final story was my least favorite, although still good. It focuses on the surviving son of a murder/suicide and how his life unfolds following such harrowing experiences.
Each story has different strengths and I enjoyed them all with the first three grabbing me the most easily.
I adore Joyce Carol Oates and her writing style. She has great and difficult/dark central themes for each story that have an overall theme for the collection that is based on various ways women suffer at the hands of men. I think she does a terrific job of bringing in dark themes with family dramas and moving stories and a clear unifying theme.
Highly recommend.

#CardiffByTheSea #Netgalley #GroveAtlantic #MysteriousPress

I’ve been a fan of Joyce Carol Oates for a long time, so I was very excited to be approved to read this ARC, which I read immediately and have just finished on the release date.

JCO has a very distinctive writing style, which can take time to get used to and may not appeal to everyone. I know I had a hard time reading my first JCO novel about 13 years ago, but I was glad I persevered as I consider her one of my favourite writers now. That said, I haven’t loved every novel of hers that I’ve read and I think I actually prefer her short fiction, which tends to be quite dark and a bit creepy.

Cardiff, by The Sea comprises four novellas and as I mentioned are very dark, as her shorter fiction tends to be. The novellas are not equally weighted – a frustrating thing about eARCs is not being able to see how long is left in the chapter – the titular novella is 43% of the book, Miao Dao and Phantomwise: 1972 approximately 20% each, and The Surviving Child the remaining 16%.

The strongest story by far is Cardiff: a young woman, adopted at an early age learns of an inheritance from her biological grandmother. She travels to Cardiff, by The Sea, Maine, to find out more and meet members of her biological family. It doesn’t sound especially suspenseful and sinister, but it is! I couldn’t help but think of American Horror Story as I read this – I could totally imagine this story on the show (especially as Great Aunt Elspeth with her ‘preposterous flamelike hair’ was made for Frances Conroy to play). The ending was a little ambiguous, at least to me (welcome to reading JCO) but despite the confusion this story gets a firm 5 stars from me.

Miao Dao: I didn’t know where this story was going to a long time: a girl feeling marginalised and victimised bonds with a feral cat. Again, there’s a little bit of ambiguity in the ending. A good story, but I’m not sure if it was all necessary to get to where it ended up. 4.5 stars.

Phantomwise: 1972: The weakest in my opinion. I found myself wanting this one to hurry up and finish. And what is a Kinch? 3 stars.

The Surviving Child: A woman becomes stepmother to a young boy after his mother killed herself and his little sister. Is the house haunted? Or is she? Another story that had me thinking of AHS, this time of the Murder House season. 4 stars.

Unmistakably JCO, this novella collection is a great pre-Halloween read. Great stories with just the right amount of creepy! A high four stars (lowered by the last two stories).

Thank you #NetGalley and #GroveAtlantic for the ARC.

A collection of four suspense novellas by Joyce Carol Oates is the perfect way to get ready for the horror of October 2020. In the eponymous first novella, adopted academic Clare finally meets members of her biological family when her grandmother dies, leaving her property in Cardiff, Maine. As she learns more about her parents and the circumstances of her adoption, she wishes she'd remained ignorant.

Young Mia adjusts to her parents' divorce, but cannot accept her mother's new husband, an increasing threat to her safety. Her attachment to a feral cat saves her. In another story, a young undergrad, reeling from the effects of an ill-advised relationship with a TA, plunges into a bizarre relationship with a famous poet old enough to be her father.

And in the final story, another academic gets involved with a widower, whose poet wife had gassed herself and her young daughter, leaving a scarred son that Elisabeth eventually forms an attachment to.

These haunting stories have a dreamlike quality to them, heightening the sense of unreality. Joyce Carol Oates proves again that she is one of the greatest writers alive today. #CardiffByTheSea #NetGalley

Whenever I read a Joyce Carol Oates book, I get a sense of something hidden just around the edges, waiting to jump out at me, but it's often more my fear of that happening than it actually happening. Cardiff, by the Sea, is no exception. Four stories are told in a set of atmospheric novellas tied together with several themes; literary figures (authors and poets), mold, mildew and decay, disreputable men, father figures, upstairs or attic rooms that have mysterious connotations, and mostly, abandonment, or fear of abandonment.

For Clare, in Cardiff, it's the thought that she has been abandoned by her birth parents. What she discovers when she inherits a house and property is far worse. She invents stories in her head, backing them up with research, the whole time forgetting what she has left behind.

For Mia, in Miao Dao, it's not just her father who abandons her, but her fear that the feral cat she has befriended will leave and not come back. But she finds a loyalty as fierce as her own.

Alyce, in Phantomwise, is afraid to reveal her pregnancy, for fear her (non)lover will abandon her. But her of need to be taken care of causes her to enter a relationship that she knows is wrong, and would be considered odd if revealed. But she is in more danger than she knows.

In The Surviving Child, Elisabeth marries a man whose wife commits suicide, killing her daughter in the process, while her son survives. The path to her suicide is revealed in the verse of her poems, almost like a foreshadowing.

While JCO's books are very literary, her style is quite unique and does not make for light reading. I found these stories hard to get through because of all of the (asides), poetic interludes, and meanderings. But I will always treasure Oates for the places she allows us to go in our minds...

𝐒𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐨𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐢𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐠𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭-𝐚𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐬 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐬𝐩𝐢𝐞𝐝 𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐮𝐩𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐬 𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐨𝐰𝐬. 𝐅𝐚𝐭, 𝐝𝐢𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐞𝐝 𝐬𝐩𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐥𝐮𝐫𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐰𝐞𝐛 𝐰𝐚𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐬𝐩𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐥𝐲 𝐥𝐢𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐝 𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐲.

The atmosphere is always as alive as Joyce Carol Oates’s characters and it is much the same in 𝘊𝘢𝘳𝘥𝘪𝘧𝘧, 𝘉𝘺 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘦𝘢. The aunts- ‘fat, dimpled spiders lurking’ sent chills up and down my spine because there is always the suggestion of a threat in the sentences, by deftly describing the people. In the title story, when an ‘academic in Pennsylvania’ (Claire) discovers she, an adoptee, has inherited a house in Cardiff, Maine it sets off fireworks of emotions. Someone cared enough about her, she who was discarded and unwanted by her unknown, biological parents, to put her in a will. The shock of it, the possibility… but she cannot imagine the nightmare that awaits her, the horror of the past, nor the peculiar, eccentric family hungry for her arrival. Do they long to welcome her into their warm arms or do they have something far more sinister planned? I could smell the house as I read the story and feel her struggle between passivity and resistance. Clare is a capable, intelligent woman who has had little thought of her origins or ancestry but suddenly feels content to slip into the ‘childish comfort in sleepiness’ despite her fears, the alarms beneath her skin once she is within the walls of her family home. What will she discover? What bones, family skeletons await?

𝘔𝘪𝘢 𝘋𝘢𝘰: The ground shifts beneath twelve-year-old Mia’s feet when her father leaves the family. Warmth, comfort and love is found with ‘wild kitties’ , a feral colony of cats living on a vacant lot next to her family home. Through them she learns the art of ‘hiding in plain sight’, a necessary strategy for surviving school and the tortuous realities of the body’s physical maturity. Secrets bloom inside of her, secrets from her mother who concerns herself more with her little brothers and their pain over father’s abandonment. Aching with loneliness, hurt by her father’s departure, she craves connection. A new man enters Mia’s mother’s heart, lifting the cloud of bitterness and misery, but for Mia it is a’ stricken kitten’ that claws its way into hers. The furry creature shields her from every threat, particularly the violence of the male species, sleeping beside her every night so Mia never feels alone. Miao Dao (the kitty) and the new man are not friends… not all animals, nor people, can be domesticated. Resentment mounts, but will it all end in blood?

𝘗𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘰𝘮𝘸𝘪𝘴𝘦: 1972 That ‘he’ noticed her leaves nineteen-year-old Alyce exhilarated. Through a slow, smooth seduction, her life will finally begin and her lover is not Philosophy 101, as all the other students could attest too. It is charming Simon. How easy love, desire can slip into shame. She didn’t know love would be like this, not as tender as she had imagined. Impregnated and terrified of what to do next, salvation arrives in the form of a true gentleman, visiting professor and acclaimed poet- as she begs, “God help me. Even if You don’t love me”, he throws her a lifeline. But is the old bachelor too late? A tale of haunted hearts and brutality.

𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘶𝘳𝘷𝘪𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘊𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘥 is lucky to have slipped out of the hands of death, a delicately boned, beautiful boy of ten. Though he is wounded and disturbed by his mother’s suicide and murder of his little sister, Elisabeth (his father’s fiancé) longs to warm the boy’s cold hands and fill his broken, empty heart upon their first meeting. Not a trace of her fiancé’s dead wife (N.K.-the famous poet) remains, unless you account for the boy. Surely this should give her comfort moving into the home of Alexander Hendrick, ‘distinguished man and director of a wealthy arts foundation”. Older, formidable, the exact type of man she has been longing for since her youth, ‘who could intimidate her and yet make her laugh.’ Now she is his wife, being there, in this house where N.K. wrote ‘her most savage poems’ unsettles her. Soon, the garage, the scene of untold horror and brutality carried out by N.K.’s very own hands lures Elisabeth. In truth lies the darkness of one’s heart and the dead wife is alive in the mysteries.

I came to the end wanting to read more stories. My experience reading this book of four novellas is akin to hiding in a closet while bad things happen. The main characters are always the one’s caught suspended in web’s spun by those with darker souls. Their desires, dreams, and naiveté always cost them a pond of flesh because despite one’s goodness the world is full of sharp teeth, even for kind, sweet people who deserve better. Deserve, what a loaded word. I’m a huge fan of Oates’s work, no one writes like her! No matter how serene the surroundings may be, she is aware of the freshly disturbed earth… Read it, yes!

Publication Date: October 6, 2020

Grove Atlantic

Genre: Suspense
Publisher: Grove Atlantic/Mysterious Press
Publication Date: October 6, 2020

How does a reviewer review anything written by the living legend, Joyce Carol Oates? Is there any new critique one can possibly add? It is fair to say that Oates is one of the great writers of our time. For decades, she has written in a variety of styles and genres. Particularly effective are her portrayals of violence and evil in modern society. She is a master storyteller in all genres: “We Were the Mulvaneys,” is the family saga that explores its breakdown, “Blonde,” is the ultimate study of Marilyn Monroe written as a bio-fiction, or in “The Accursed” she is at her gothic best. “Cardiff, by the Sea” consists of four previously unpublished novellas. (I am interested in learning when the author wrote these stories). In these four, we get a good understanding as to why she has been dubbed the “grand mistress of ghoulishness.” Or her more personal nickname of, “Princeton’s Dark Lady of Fiction.”
Oates’ protagonists are usually feminine as they are in this book. The title novella, “Cardiff, by the Sea,” which is my favorite in the collection, reads like a fever dream. A young woman in academia, who was adopted at the age of two, receives a phone call from a lawyer concerning her birth family. She inherited a house in Cardiff, Maine from her biological grandmother whom she has never heard of before. She travels to Maine and for the first time and meets her great-aunts and their nephew who is her uncle. Let the terror begin. The aunts in this short reminded me of the eccentric aunts in the black and white Cary Grant movie, “Arsenic and Old Lace.” The aunts in the film are portrayed as sweet loving old ladies who just happen to poison lonely men to put them out of their misery. Also, the psychopath uncle from the old movie reminds me of the uncle here in Oates’ imagination. In “Cardiff” the aunts speak so rapidly, without a breath in between words, that the young woman as well as the reader can get a headache. I believe that this is a trick by the author to confuse us. No one is poisoned in the novella but this is best that I can do to get my point across without spoilers. However, I can share, while the young woman stays with her biological family she remembers her traumatic early childhood. These memories are written in a manner that reads as if they are outbursts from the young woman’s unconscious. She, nor the reader, is ever sure if they are real or fake memories. Either way, they are blood curdling scary.

My least favorite and the most bizarre in the collection is “Miao Dao.” The story centers on a young teenage girl who’s one of the first in her class to reach puberty. Bad things have been happening to her as she has begun to mature. Unfortunately, her new breasts make her a target for boys who like to bully by “accidentally” bumping into her while making lewd remarks. Simultaneously her parents divorce and she now lives with a lecherous stepfather. She shuts down from all in her life and becomes almost a hermit. Her only friends are a pack of feral cats living in her neighborhood. Oates does such a good job of making us feel the girl’s loneliness, and how these cats become her lifeline. She has taken to sneaking out at night and sleeping with them. And, here is where things get weird. Her new friends become her fierce protectors. One of them grows large and turns into a ferocious cat that may or may not have killed one of the boys who tormented her. In this novella, the famous author reminds me of a modern day Kafka. In his novella, “The Metamorphosis,” did the salesman really turn into a bug, or was his transformation a psychological interpretation of his feelings towards his family and his life. In a way, the same could be said here. Did the cat magically grow strong enough to become able to kill a human or is Oates using its transformation as an analysis of her character? On the other hand, is her character the actual killer and there is nothing mystical at all going on? Damn, Oates is good. The reason I was a bit disappointed in “Miao” is that the teen is written more like a girl obsessed with feral cats than a girl expressing her feelings through them. Still, the author gets her point across.

The other two stories revolve around plotlines that Oates has looked at before. One is about a female student who is obsessed with her older professor including all the crap that goes into such a relationship. The other explores motherhood when a female poet has a fatal attraction to a man whom she marries. They are both top quality reads and as always between the horrors, Oates makes you think about aggression against women by the hands of men. “Cardiff” carefully goes back and forth from psychological suspense and supernatural events, but the tales are always creepy. I do not believe that I have ever not recommended a book by my favorite author. This one is no different. As usual, when reading, “Princeton’s Dark Lady of Fiction” you will probably end up having nightmares.

Beautifully written suspense like only Joyce Carol Oates can. 4 novellas in this book that will send shivers up your spine. A quick read that is hard to put down. Put this one on your Halloween list and make sure you turn down the lights.

I really wanted to like this. But I just couldn't connect with the writing style. I feel like this is more of a personal thing, rather than a book thing.

Joyce Carol Oates' new book contains four novellas of suspense with young female protagonists.

In Cardiff, By the Sea, a young academic who was adopted as a child learns she has inherited property on the rugged coast of Maine from a paternal grandmother she never knew she had. Hasn't she always wondered about her biological parents/family and why she was put up for adoption at nearly three-years-of-age? Be careful what you wish for!

In Miao Dao, a twelve-year-old girl struggles with her changing body, school bullies and her dysfunctional family life. Her only friends seem to be a pack of feral cats living in a densely-overgrown cul-de-sac in her neighborhood--particularly one pure white cat she names Miao Dao who becomes quite devoted to the girl. But can feral cats ever be tamed?

In Phantomwise: 1972, a college student begins an affair with one of her professors that leads her into danger.

In The Surviving Child, a young woman marries a wealthy older man whose first wife, a renowned poet, committed suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning, killing their daughter but sparing their son. The family home on Cape Cod seems to be haunted by a malevolent presence that is affecting the new wife's happiness. Or is she imagining it all?

These four novellas were all very effectively written with just the right amount of scary atmosphere. The characters were well drawn and in the span of each story, I came to care about each young woman and the situations they were facing.

I received an arc of this new book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. Many thanks!

Utterly creepy , with such a sense of foreboding; always a joy to return to a story by Joyce Carol Oates. These stories all deal with predatory males, so just be warned if that’s a trigger for you. But wow. As you read the stories, there’s such a sense of unease; I constantly wanted to tell the characters “STOP! Don’t do it!”