The birds are singing. The trees are budding. We've had a week of almost uninterrupted glorious sunshine.
I've always been a spring person. Around this time of year, the world seems to shake off a cloak of gloom. I start looking around and noticing things again, remembering reasons to be cheerful. This year, though, I'm finding myself loath to say goodbye to winter -- the quiet, dark nights; the calm eeriness of a frosty morning; it being acceptable to hide under a big woolly jumper at all times. Perhaps it's because the emergence of spring makes me feel like I should have something to show for all those dark months, a shiny new project unveiling itself like a crocus peeking out of the ground. Instead, I'm still plodding along, picking my way through the slow-but-satisfying work of edits a chapter at a time.
Which is to say, zero news this month. Instead, I thought I'd take a look back at what I've read over the first quarter of 2025, and tell you about some of my favourites.
1. Lycanthrope by Zoë Brigley
The poems in this pamphlet draw associations between wolves and women, and the ways both are demonised. The language is often colloquial, but gorgeous, making music out of folklore and text messages alike. Beautiful, visceral, and full of wildness.
2. Hungerstone by Kat Dunn
I
Hungerstone
elsewhere, so I won't repeat myself here except to say that Dunn's
Carmilla
-inspired novel is its own thing far more than a retelling, ripe with tension, atmosphere and sensory detail.
3. Pink Slime by Fernanda Trías
Some of my own work has been described as "quiet dystopia", but as I was reading
Pink Slime
I was struck by how apt the description felt for Trías's novel. It's the tale of a fortysomething woman in a dying coastal city, unable to stay where she is but unwilling to leave behind the life she's grown attached to -- even if it's not that great.
4. Festival of the Ghost by João Morais
A bereaved young man searches for his dead sister's PhD thesis -- and in the process, learns he has the ability to see past events replay in front of him, and becomes embroiled with a gang of serial killer cultists. This compelling novella, set in an almost-but-not-quite recognisable Cardiff, won a recent New Welsh Writing Award. I devoured the whole thing in one sitting.
5. Learn to Howl by Jennifer R. Donohue
I'd previously enjoyed Donohue's cyberpunk heist series,
Run With the Hunted
, so although werewolf fantasy
Learn to Howl
is a very different genre, I was hoping for something similar -- an enjoyable romp with touching moments. And that's exactly what I got. It's very much a 'Part 1', and I'll be picking up the rest of the series stat, but it's pacy and heartfelt, with a vivid cast of weirdos.
I won't do my usual recs this month, as I've probably already bombarded you with too many books. I'll just mention a couple of things I've enjoyed watching, too.
One is speculative whodunnit series
Paradise
, which can be watched on Disney+ on this side of the pond. It's not doing anything staggeringly original (without giving away spoilers, suffice to say there's only so much that can be done with this particular type of story) but there are some great central performances.
The other was
The Last Voyage of the Demeter
. I somehow managed to miss it when it was in cinemas, but I'm really glad to have watched it now. It imagines the titular voyage taking Dracula to England, from the point of view of the crew who have no idea what they've got on board. As you'd expect, there are no happy endings to be found here -- it's nasty and unrelenting, but without ever tipping over into slasher-style comedy.
I'll be away on my holidays at the end of April, so I'll be taking a break from the newsletter until May. Until then, take care.
JL