Book Review | When the Reckoning Comes by LaTanya McQueen

When the Reckoning Comes is a debut horror novel by LaTanya McQueen.

A haunting novel about a black woman who returns to her hometown for a plantation wedding and the horror that ensues as she reconnects with the blood-soaked history of the land and the best friends she left behind.

More than a decade ago, Mira fled her small, segregated hometown in the south to forget. With every mile she traveled, she distanced herself from her past: from her best friend Celine, mocked by their town as the only white girl with black friends; from her old neighborhood; from the eerie Woodsman plantation rumored to be haunted by the spirits of slaves; from the terrifying memory of a ghost she saw that terrible day when a dare-gone-wrong almost got Jesse—the boy she secretly loved—arrested for murder.

But now Mira is back in Kipsen to attend Celine’s wedding at the plantation, which has been transformed into a lush vacation resort. Mira hopes to reconnect with her friends, and especially, Jesse, to finally tell him the truth about her feelings and the events of that devastating long-ago day.

But for all its fancy renovations, the Woodsman remains a monument to its oppressive racist history. The bar serves antebellum drinks, entertainments include horrifying reenactments, and the service staff is nearly all black. Yet the darkest elements of the plantation’s past have been carefully erased—rumors that slaves were tortured mercilessly and that ghosts roam the lands, seeking vengeance on the descendants of those who tormented them, which includes most of the wedding guests. 

As the weekend unfolds, Mira, Jesse, and Celine are forced to acknowledge their history together, and to save themselves from what is to come.

I love reading debut horror, and I'm excited to read more from LaTanya McQueen.

When the Reckoning Comes is atmospheric and chilling. I mention this often, but when it comes to horror, ghost stories are my favorite. The ghosts are used brilliantly in When the Reckoning Comes, but they are also what makes the story confusing. It's hard to distinguish what's actually happening in the physical world, but the hauntings are so effective in telling the story McQueen wants to tell.

I read When the Reckoning Comes with the Ladies of Horror Fiction discord group. It was the group read pick for February, and it was the perfect choice. I listened to it on audio which I recommend because the narration is fantastic.

⭐⭐⭐⭐★
4/5 stars

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Book Review | The Between by Tananarive Due

The Between is a horror novel by Tananarive Due.

A brilliant novel of horror and the supernatural in which a middle-class family’s very existence is threatened by inner and outer demons

When Hilton was just a boy, his grandmother sacrificed her life to save him from drowning. Thirty years later, he begins to suspect that he was never meant to survive that accident, and that dark forces are working to rectify that mistake. When Hilton's wife, the only elected African-American judge in Dade County, Florida, begins to receive racist hate mail from a man she once prosecuted, Hilton becomes obsessed with protecting his family. Soon, however, he begins to have horrible nightmares, more intense and disturbing than any he has ever experienced. Are the strange dreams trying to tell him something? His sense of reality begins to slip away as he battles both the psychotic threatening to destroy his family and the even more terrifying enemy stalking his sleep.

Chilling and utterly convincing, The Between follows the struggles of a man desperately trying to hold on to the people and life he loves, but may have already lost.

I was pleasantly surprised by The Between! I have had Tananarive Due on my TBR for so long. The Ladies of Horror Fiction team decided to choose her debut novel for our Women in Horror Month readalong and wow! If this is her debut, I am in for a treat with the rest of Due's catalog!

There were so many layers to The Between and they were all expertly woven together. It's a relatively short book at a little less than 300 pages. I don't want to give anything away so I'll just say this is an excellent place to start if you haven't read anything by Tananarive Due yet.

⭐⭐⭐⭐★