I'm into it right now because the author has spun the whole novel out of a chance meeting of Marlene, Leni Riefenstahl and Anna May Wong, who were all hugely significant figures in the 20th century. It's a sprawling story about real people including Marlene Dietrich-but with plenty of adventurous fictionalising. I'm reading Delayed Rays of a Star by Amanda Lee Koe to help with a podcast I'm developing with a collaborator. Zmith is the literature programmer for London's Fringe! Queer Film & Arts Fest and is always working on a novel. His short fiction has been published online and in print, and a recent short story was specially commended by the Wasafiri New Writing Prize. He is also a co-producer of The Log Books, a podcast about LGBTQ+ history in Britain. Kristianne Huntsberger, partnership program manager, Shelf AwarenessĪdam Zmith is the author of Deep Sniff: A History of Poppers and Queer Futures (Repeater, September 14, 2021). This little romance is heartwarmingly funny and won't trigger nightmares. While he resists chasing squirrels and eating garlic, she learns to avoid wearing silver jewelry or biting too hard when necking with her beau. This collection of comic shorts depicts the early days of our vampire's romance with a vaguely lumbersexual werewolf. Anderson's heroine is your average 300-year-old immortal negotiating the 20-somethings dating game. If you dislike being frightened even more than I, fear not Fangs by Sarah Anderson (Andrews McMeel, $14.99) is the vampire book for you. This quick and satisfyingly eerie novel is a great pick for a Halloween night or for the traditional Christmas Eve ghost story read-aloud. The fast attachment of the two girls turns sinister and leads the narrator's desperate little community to a mysterious secret in the ruins of the neighboring Karnstein estate.

In the shadowy land of Styria, fragile Carmilla is graciously offered recuperation in the home of our young narrator and her father. Originally serialized in 1871, more than two decades before Bram Stoker's more ubiquitous Dracula, LeFanu's novel not only creeps through classic folkloric fragments of vampire legends, but also weaves in themes of Victorian lesbianism and questions the passivity of women in literature of the time.

I await each weekly installment of Jemaine Clement's hilarious What We Do in the Shadows and regularly boost the 1980s goth staple The Hunger on the monthly Bowie Book Club Podcast.Ĭarmilla by Sheridan LeFanu (Pushkin Press, $18.95) is one of the earliest vampire novels. The exception to my horror trope avoidance is vampires. I avoid horror movies and true crime podcasts and while October may be my favorite month, I cringe when fright masks, severed rubber limbs and oozy fake blood pop up around the neighborhood.

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