Book Groups and Author Visits

5th/6th January

Our first January talk dives into the movie The Substance, so for our first book group of the year, we’re reading a book which (similarly) dives into the horrors of the beauty industry.

Our narrator produces a sound from the piano no one else at the Conservatory can. She employs a technique she learned from her parents—also talented musicians—who fled China in the wake of the Cultural Revolution. But when an accident leaves her parents debilitated, she abandons her future for a job at a high-end beauty and wellness store in New York City.

Holistik is known for its remarkable products and procedures—from remoras that suck out cheap Botox to eyelash extensions made of spider silk—and her new job affords her entry into a world of privilege and a long-awaited sense of belonging. She becomes transfixed by Helen, the niece of Holistik’s charismatic owner, and the two strike up a friendship that hazily veers into more. All the while, our narrator is plied with products that slim her thighs, smooth her skin, and lighten her hair. But beneath these creams and tinctures lies something sinister.

12th/13th January

Author Visit: 12th January 7pm

This week, we’re joined by author Arden Powell to discuss their short horror romance Flesh and Bone.

ne month ago, Everett did something unforgivable. Now, he and his partner Marshall are paying the price. As they drive their cattle west to a ranch in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, something stalks them under the light of the full moon.

Haunted by a lifetime of shame, Everett’s guilt over what he did with Marshall is coming to eat him alive. Equally dangerous is the monster following him, which will sink its teeth into anything and anyone. After it gores Everett, he begins to feel that same awful hunger for himself. If Everett wants to survive the night, it’s not only the monster he needs to fight. It’s his own bloodthirsty urges that want to tear him apart. Worse, they’ll tear Marshall apart just as easily.

Marshall would do anything for his best friend, and the man he has secretly loved for years. Now, he doesn’t just have to save Everett from the creature hunting them. He has to save Everett from himself, and that might mean putting a bullet through Everett’s skull before the man he loves becomes something unrecognizably monstrous.

19th/20th January

This week’s talk focuses on queer archives (and vampires) so what better excuse to read a queer vampire novella?

Araminta Chase is a fuck-up. Falling out of a window to avoid someone? Life as usual. Landing on a vampire? That’s a new one. And the vampire wants to know exactly why Minty was where she was, when she was. “I’m afraid of commitment” won’t cut it.

When Minty’s accused of murdering that same vampire, shit really hits the fan. She’s nabbed by the very people she works for, an agency that acts as a go-between for monsters and the human world. Killing a vampire is a no-no for non-agents. Worse, Minty’s body count is supposedly at two.

Minty didn’t kill anyone, but she doesn’t want to clear her name. What she wants is her kid brother, a thirteen-year-old werewolf named Sid. But a mysterious research institute called Better Choices, Better World has been looking for him for a long time, and Minty’s “crime” was all they needed to sniff him out. They wanted him, now they’ve got him.

Well, Minty wants him back. And she’s got new teeth.