The most immediately striking thing about this book is the gracefully ghastly cover, which is striking and stark in red, black, and white, and so wonderfully suited to the story. Kudos to the illustrator and publisher for producing such a memorable design. This novella translates to an audiobook of just over two hours, so it is perfect for a long drive or commute. The brevity suits the narrative, although some readers and listeners may crave the immersion of a full-length novel. Skillfully narrated by Suehyla El-Attar, this tale combines Japanese lore and horror movie tropes in a heart-pounding, jump-scare filled tale of ghostly vengeance about a murdered bride who can only be appeased by sacrifice. A group of young adults stay in the haunted mansion for a wedding and battle the demons of jealousy, insecurity, and heartache, then come face-to-face with the hungry specter who demands blood in exchange for the life of the bride-to-be. Which friendships will survive and who will be sacrificed?

NOTHING BUT BLACKENED TEETH

This book is a fast-moving train. And if you don’t jump on right away, it’ll be over before you know it.

So, I’m listening along, getting right into the juicy parts of the story, and then it says:

“EPILOGUE”

What??!!

Has this ever happened to you?

I don’t often look up the length of books before reading. I do not ever want to be dissuaded from reading a book based on the size. So, I didn’t notice this one was rather short.

NOTHING BUT BLACKENED TEETH is a new release horror by Cassandra Khaw. It features a haunted mansion, a group of friends all with bad intentions, and a ghost bride. It was a lot of fun!

Such a great book to get you in a spooky mood!

I just wish it were longer. And that’s never a bad thing!!

Four Stars

Thanks to @macmillanaudio for this advanced ALC in exchange for my review!

This book will be featured in my October 2021 Women of Horror feature: New Releases
Friday, October 1, 2021
@undertheradarbooks_

Romantic and jealous tensions between a group of friends reach a boiling point in an eerie, remote gothic setting in this quick and compelling horror novel. The prose of Nothing but Blackened Teeth is poetic but cuts straight to the point without wasting any time or including any lengthy flashbacks to give readers a break from the horror and tension of the story,

Narrator Cat and her friends have rented a historic Heian mansion for a weekend destination wedding between beautiful and forceful Nadia and her subdued fiance Faiz. Gorgeous "golden boy" Phillip and pot-stirrer Lin round out the cast of characters and add to the conflict while our narrator mostly stands apart from the action, a distance partially caused by her spending the previous 6 months in the isolation of a mental hospital. The inevitable and expected happens to this group of friends with the hubris to stay in a violently, famously haunted house, but this story provides some freshness to the classic gothic ghost story by drawing from Japanese mythology.

My favorite element of the novel was how truly horrifying and surreal the setting becomes as our narrator becomes more intoxicated. I highly recommend this compelling horror novel for a Halloween season read!

I loved this one--the length was great for the impact it had, and it was creepy and gruesome and I loved how it just completely went off the rails for the characters. They weren't especially compelling but I don't think that was the point, so it worked nicely. The ghosts in this were fun, and our ghost bride in particular was so unsettling and eerie in her presence. This was quick and engaging and will definitely make for a great Halloween season read.

I don’t know if it’s because fall is so close that I can almost taste the pumpkin spice in the air (we are team pumpkin spice here, by the way). But for whatever reason, I’m really in a horror and thriller mood lately. Nothing But Blackened Teeth is the perfect horror novella to read this fall if you too are in the mood to get into some creepy, atmospheric reads.

And since this is a dark, atmospheric book, let’s set the scene first: an abandoned Heian-era mansion with a dark history. It’s said to be built on the bones of a ill-fated bride, and the walls are packed with the remains of sacrificed girls who keep the bride company. The perfect place to hold a romantic wedding, right? Well, the group of friends at the center of this novella think so anyway. They’ve all traveled to Japan for a destination wedding, and the bride and groom have their hearts set on exchanging their vows at this haunted mansion. Shockingly, what starts off as a night of food, drinks, and fun amongst friends… gets a lot more sinister. Lurking in the shadows is a ghost bride with dark desires.

Reading this book is like journeying though a real-life haunted house. Was that a creaky floorboard or the wails of the dead? Did you really just see what you thought you saw out of the corner of your eye? This is how Nothing But Blackened Teeth will make you feel. Get ready for twists, shocks, and surprises, all in a taut 124 pages.

Japanese Folklore is something that I love to read about. The stories are just so bone chilling. So I’m always ready to read something that combines folklore with the current day.

Going into this I was expecting this to be a straight to video horror film but in book form. Where the story is more hilarious than scary and that it would contain both. This didn’t have much of anything and it was a huge letdown.

With this being a horror novella, I was sure that this would be one of those books where they got to the good stuff quick. Where they would gently throw light banter your way before throwing a grenade of horror. I was so wrong. It took forever to get anywhere. It just drug on and drug on and by the time anything remotely "scary" appeared I was already bored.

Nothing But Blackened Teeth was so disappointing. The author tried to combine so many things together but it just didn’t work out. Talk about boring. The characters were awful and the story was just as terrible. The only thing I liked was the cover.

Horror fans will find this disappointing but non-horror readers will find this spooky.

I'm still not perfectly sure what I just read. I want to give this a higher rating. I feel like it should get a higher rating. Maybe I'm just missing something completely, or I'm not smart enough to 'get it', but this was like watching a B horror movie. Only with masterful cinematography.

The prose was nice, but there were points where it went so completely purple I wasn't sure what the author was trying to get across. They were able to capture the tension and darkness of the mansion and the yokai well, but it wasn't enough to make up for the unnecessary blocks of grotesque flowery text. Sometimes it was to the point that it separated dialogue so much that you forgot what the characters were even talking about.

Which brings me to the characters. Were we supposed to like any of them? Because I didn't. It felt like I was supposed to feel some level of sympathy by the end, but I was just annoyed and confused. For that matter, none of the characters even read as if they liked each other. How am I supposed to believe that this group of people are friends when they're constantly walking a razor's edge about to attack one another?

One good thing is that, being so short, it's a very quick read; you could go cover to cover in an hour and half. I really feel like there's just something I'm missing here. Reading this was the equivalent of trying to remember a word, or person, hoping that you'll wake up in the middle of the night suddenly knowing the answer.

The plot was extremely basic, but so simple that I'm not even entirely sure I knew what was going on. They were there to do a wedding ceremony at a haunted mansion, but, the ceremony was just at random? Were they there to party, or actually get married?

While the main yokai was intimidating, she also felt kind of useless if that makes sense. Like a mannequin left in place of an actor for a CGI effect. I don't know, clearly the author was going for something and I just wasn't catching on. I'm more disappointed than anything else, but hopefully others will enjoy this one.

Tor Nightfire is on fire. That’s what you need to know. This is my second book from the publisher, first I’ve read from the author and this didn’t disappoint. I enjoyed the authors writing style and the characters all felt real. Their interactions and the dialogue was on point, and I really enjoyed the setting on this one. I would recommend this one for sure.

This book is brilliantly written, but oy so gruesome. I really loved how it's about getting married in a haunted house, because honestly everyone on the planet knows nope nope don't do that. And indeed, don't do that.

It's a short story, with the writing honestly leading itself towards poetry. I think my only criticism is that it's a fast read - which is only a criticism because I wanted a bit more out of the book than I got. It's honestly not my favorite, but that said it's very clear that Khaw is a really strong writer, and their writing is absolutely beyond. It's for sure worth a grab, especially to get you into spooky season... read this one in the afternoon for sure.

A spooky if somewhat inconsistent novella. It kept me reading, and in some ways its uneven tone contributed to the sense of unreality that permeated the setting. However, this was a story as much about the cracks in friendships as the horror stalking the group, and the interpersonal dynamics were a little too muddled for me to follow smoothly. All that said, this was a strong little novella, and I look forward to reading more by this author! 3.5/5

Cassandra Khaw’s writing is stunning even in its gruesomeness. Seriously, this book was immaculately written. But so much of the actions of the characters made me insane with anger.

This is just a snippet of the existence of these five individuals… just a slice of their life and I felt thrown in. But that didn’t bother me as much as how much these people who (mostly) all claim to be friends, actually in action, despise one another.

This is told from Cat’s perspective. Cat has joined her best friend, Faiz and Nadia, his bride to be, in Nadia’s dream to get married in a haunted house. Red flag, Faiz… am I right? Along with their other friend, Phillip and Cat’s friend Lin, they all gather together in this decrepit Japanese mansion.

And things go from bad to worse immediately. The house seems to feed off of their worst feelings outwardly toward one another. And the animosity among them grows in intensity, taking one of them as its own possession.

This was weird and twisted and I read it in bed and in the dark. I definitely recommend that for the highest level on atmospheric enjoyment.

I knew very little about Japanese terminology going into this book, but that absolutely did not take away the creepiness of this book! If anything, it added to it. This was everything I could have asked for in a Horror novella.

I was looking forward to reading this story. Unfortunately, due to its formatting not available in the Netgalley reading app, I was not able to read it.

I kept reading about “Nothing But Blackened Teeth” in all the upcoming horror previews that I’ve come across. First and foremost, let’s be honest: That cover? Epic. The story inside? So brutal and bloody but so enjoyable. A quick read, I’d tell friends to spend an afternoon with this story.

Unfortunately, this book didn't work for me. It was overly wordy, secluded me as a reader with the Japanese words and folklore (this isn't going to be a problem for everyone but for me, I don't want to look things up when I'm reading which is what I had to do to follow along), and there were essentially no repercussions for the bad things that happened. The ghost story aspect was good but I wanted to see so much more come from it. I mean look at this COVER. It's what nightmares are made out of **shivers**

That being said, there are many readers who absolutely loved this novel. Please make sure to check out their reviews before deciding if this is the book for you or not. Just because it wasn't my cup of tea doesn't mean it won't be yours.

I feel like there's an intent here that I'm missing.

The story is set up like a horror movie. The characters discuss their circumstances like they're in a horror movie. They treat each other like a bunch of people who are supposed to be friends but really aren't (like in a horror movie).

I don't like making this assumption, but sometimes you read something and it feels warranted. Was this originally supposed to be a horror movie? Or is it a novella that's trying to say something about horror movies?

Because all I got from Nothing But Blackened Teeth is that the author REALLY wanted us to hate these people. I'm all for unlikable characters in general, but... jeez. You kind of want everyone in this story to die as soon as possible so they'll stop being awful to each other for no reason.

Just like in a horror movie?

This was creepy and the writing was really gorgeous. That said, I was super confused about the dynamic between the characters (each one caught up in petty lust/hate toward each other) and felt that it took away from the actual horror elements of the story. I did enjoy having a bisexual main character tell the story to us, and how her sexuality and view of horror tropes connected to her reality. This is a good and fast read if you’re looking for something spooky!

At the top of Cassandra Khaw’s "Nothing But Blackened Teeth" (Tor Nightfire), five friends have just arrived at a decaying mansion in rural Japan for a wedding. A strange setting for such an affair, to be sure, but not for this group. While other crews might vacation on sandy beaches or snowy mountains, these five friends are connected through their mutual love of ghost hunting. So all-consuming is this interest that two of their cohort, Faiz and Nadia, have decided to make their union official in this ancient Heian-era building. Thankfully, the wealthy and white Phillip was only too happy to foot the bill.

For protagonist, Cat, this trip marks her reentry into society after an extended hospitalization for an otherwise unnamed bout of ennui. Even though Cat agreed to the trip, she can’t quite shake the discomfort of being thrust back into a world that kept moving on without her. Her best friend, Faiz, seems changed; his fiance Nadia can barely stand to be in the same room with her. Even the near-perfect Phillip and always affable Lin seem uneasy around her—unable to get over their past transgressions, whatever they may be. Although it’s never discussed directly, it’s clear from the friends’ interactions that their shared history is fraught with failed relationships, hookups, and unspoken hurt. Khaw, however, isn’t interested in elaborating on these aspects of the story. Instead, "Nothing But Blackened Teeth" prefers to keep its focus squarely on the inevitable haunting. And in that regard, Khaw delivers nicely.

At its core, "Nothing But Blackened Teeth" is a literary exercise in haunting prose. Khaw’s poetic style mesmerizes the reader as her precisely chosen similes flow past the eyes like a refreshing steam in a forest of lush metaphor. Khaw wants to tell a story, but she’s far more interested in ensuring the reader feels it. Every sensation and interaction is detailed with such keen description that it’s impossible not to feel yourself getting sucked into her world. But this attention to analogy isn’t without its drawbacks. Khaw’s deeply poetic style may cause some readers to lose track of the action in some places.

If you’re looking for something to break up the never ending parade of monsters, gore, and plot-driven pop-fic, take a step off the beaten path and pick up "Nothing But Blackened Teeth" and experience something as fresh as it is fearsome.

This was much better than All Consuming Worlds, but still didn't feel right. I just don't think Khaw's style is for me.

First, can we acknowledge how amazing this cover is?

This doesn't read like a novel to me, more like an episode of a television show where you get new people each time and it's just a story. Kind of how Supernatural has it's main storyline but each episode gives us a smaller plot line and characters to unravel, then never see again.

It's a pretty short read and its reads so flowery. It's riddled with metaphors and the like. It does read very beautifully if you enjoy that style.

I liked that we get a horror story wrapped up in a fairytale (rumor) surrounding a haunted palace. It was quick and crazy how it unfolded and I was just along for the ride. I thought it was interesting. I say if you like horror, especially the old cheesy horror, read this. Keep an open mind.

Thank you to Netgalley and Macmillan-Tor/Forge for allowing me the advanced copy to read and give my own opinion in review.