At 130 pages, These Dark Abodes is the perfect one-sitting morsel to get ready for spooky season. Filled with body horror and questions of morality (and humanity,) I am already looking forward to reading this one again.

Lethe and Petunia are trapped in a never ending house without a door to the outside. They are tasked with serving the occupants of the house when they throw down and party each night. The jump scare part of this is that the occupants of the house peel out of their skin each night to dance around as skeletons.

Beautifully written and insightful enough to make me question the weight of my own skin. Check this one out if you like body horror, haunted houses, and questioning everything!

This is an ARC so quotes may differ from finished copy:

“She held sway over the house, its occupants, and controlled who could unzip from their skins.”

“Even so, everyone had a reason for wanting to leave their own body. A trauma to escape from, to unzip from their skins and celebrate a night without its heaviness.”

**Thank you to NetGalley and Psychopomp for the eARC of this terrifying title!**

I would quite like to try this one again eventually – the prose is gorgeous! But it – the prose, I mean – is also…sort of jangly? What I mean is, the word choices are exquisite, but the rhythm of the writing has me constantly twitching. I don’t know why – I can’t put my finger on it, even after going over the chapters I read with a magnifying glass. Which is why I think I might have a better time with this book if I tried it again later…

It’s dark, it’s creepy, there are indeed many mysteries that desperately need solving… It didn’t really read like horror to me – it wasn’t frightening – but I think it hit the note it was going for. The characters… I didn’t really connect with them, and I wish the one hadn’t been named Petunia, because the only time I’ve ever come across that is in The Series That Must Not Be Named, which is an unfortunate connection to make in my head and definitely didn’t help.

(Sometimes I think storytellers forget/don’t realise how important character names are. Or do most readers NOT think of other, more famous characters with the same name, when they meet new characters? Maybe it’s just me being weird.)

Definitely one I’d recommend to anyone intrigued by the blurb, though. If you DON’T have my weird ear for prose rhythm (and I’ve only ever met one other person who does) then you’ll probably enjoy this one.

Publishing date: 17.09.2024
Thank you to Netgalley and Psychopomp for the ARC. My opinions are my own.

The book as a meal: No food for me, whisky on the rocks only
The book left me: Feeling a deep sense of dread

Negatives:
Wished it was longer
The twist came a little suddenly

Positives:
Sublime vibes
Will stick with me for a long time
Great writing

Features:
A labyrinthine house with horrific hosts, a lowkey murder mystery, LGBTQ rep, a character that does not know who they are or how they got here

Why did I choose this one?
The cover is stunning, the combination of genres is right up my alley, and the blurb gave just enough intrigue to really want to read it. It seemed like just the book for me.

Pick-up-able? Put-down-able?
Very pick-up-able. This book got its claws in me almost immediately. You get thrown into it from the beginning and you really want to see what happens next.

What was the vibe and mood?
Claustrophobic. Wandering a labyrinth. The floor is sticky. The air is stale. The smell of alcohol, blood, and putrid meat follows my every step. I am not safe. I am not free. I am being watched everywhere I go.

Final ranking and star rating?
A tier, 4 stars. This book was just wonderful and I really enjoyed it. The only downer is the twist at the end and the fact that it was very short. I wished for more and I wished for a different outcome. Even so, I am thoroughly satisfied and I will be strongly recommending this in the future.

This is an eerie novella full of longing and oppression, and, just for fun, the world lapping at the edges of a never ending party for skeletons that's totally not hiding anything sinister and wrong. The mood is exquisitely gothic, and I am absolutely intrigued for what Ms. Manusos will put out next.

This short story/novella was really something! I totally did not ever think that book could be written on this particular concept. It was wholeheartedly entertaining and creepy in its own accord. I feel this book isn't scary as it is atmospherically creepy, but scariness is something rather subjective. I did feel a bit confused at places due to the writing style (then again, it could be just me) but it was not really that glaring that it made me not want to finish the book. All in all, it was a very likeable short story, the perfect palate cleanser, readathon read or even something one can read to quickly achieve their reading goals. The concept is just really great. Am truly in awe with it! (Original rating at 3.5 stars).

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC!

This book was a beautifully atmospheric book with absolutely lilting prose. There was so much worldbuilding in here for such a short novella, and I will say the substance of my critique is that I wish this were longer. There's a lot in here to see, and there's some really prosaic descriptions of appalling body horror in here.

I really did enjoy this book, but I wished it was longer and a bit more fleshed out. The characters could have done with a bit more development, but they are described well, and what we are given of them was nicely done and felt like it was piecemeal on purpose. This one is well worth the read, particularly if you can deal with body horror without flinching.

Lethe and Petunia scour St Edah's in search of a way out. Each day, they must serve its macabre inhabitants- ethereal gods and goddesses who shed their skin and revel as skeletons.

A beautifully strange take on an altered afterlife/underworld where skins are shed, skeletons dance, and few things are what they seem. Manusos weaves the reality of postpartum depression and complicated feelings of grief and love and longing into the tale.

This is a quick, horrifyingly interesting novella. It did not go as I expected in the slightest. You, too, will wonder where the main characters came from and why they can’t leave. It’s a scary mystery that unravels little by little.

Trigger warning: body horror, and lots of it. Don’t read this if you are squeamish.

Thank you to NetGalley and Psychopomp for an eARC in exchange for my honest feedback.