02/21/2026 - Danielle's Dark Corners

Happy Saturday! Today, I bring you reviews for two absolutely incredible new releases. I cannot praise either one of these enough. Both are so easy to give five stars to. The two authors who wrote these books are both absolutely brilliant and deserve all the praise possible. ENJOY!

THE DENIZENS

By Brennan LaFaro

WOW! What a read! This book had me in a chokehold from the first couple of pages. What an absolutely amazing story. Grief, small town, the dead that don’t die, secrets, the occult, and more. This book has it all. And LaFaro executed it beautifully.

The first half of the book is such a good build-up, then BOOM, the second half goes HARD in the best ways possible. The characters in this book are done really well, and you end up being hooked and invested in their personal ventures. This isn’t a trope I would normally pick up, but I am so glad I went in blind and took a chance on it because while yes, there are zombies, it’s done in a way that I wasn’t expecting and in a way that I absolutely love. LaFaro has officially gained me as a loyal reader who will scream from the top of rooftops that people need to read this book, and anything he’s written in general.

THE DENZIENS is a book that will stick with me for a long time. Between the grief of the MMC and the other characters, the atmospheric buildup, the other characters and the overall writing style, this book needs to be read by everyone asap. I think it will be a top read for a lot of people this year, including me. I can’t say enough good things about this book and really hope to see it get the praise and hype that it deserves! It’s a new release and yet another book I recommend people move up on their TBR. You won’t regret it!

SYNOPSIS:

Just because it’s dead doesn’t mean it’s allowed to rest…

A small southern town surrounded by a living cemetery was the last place Sam Everett expected to find himself after the sudden death of his wife. Desperate to get away from the city and its memories, Sam flees to the tight-knit community of Maylene’s Hollow.

Except the Hollow holds a secret. The town won’t allow its dead to rest. Forced to wander the earth for hundreds of years, the denizens of the woods have had enough.

With the help of a mysterious widow who may also be a murderer, the town’s matriarch who seems to possess magical abilities, and an ornery giant who believes the dead may be right to rebel, Sam must learn to let go of the dead in order to truly live.

“Mesmerizing, with a quiet but profound sense of dread” -- Rachel Harrison, USA Today Bestselling author of Play Nice and So Thirsty

"The Denizens destroys you from the get-go, then has the audacity to resuscitate you with a simple flip of the page. LaFaro has the uncanny knack to equally decimate and resurrect his readers, chapter after chapter, a grief-stricken Prometheus, weighing his writing down with an ache that just keeps us coming back for more." -- Clay McLeod Chapman, author of Wake Up and Open Your Eyes

"The Denizens is a gripping, yet somber apocalyptic novel filled with the occult, the roaming dead, and disparate relationships mended and strained.” -- Ai Jiang, author of Linghun and A Palace Near The Wind

“Brennan LaFaro builds dread with the best of them, and The Denizens is a creeping and macabre passage through grief and regret, terror and devotion, hope and pain. What lurks on the outskirts of Maylene’s Hollow will come for you no matter how prepared you think you might be.” -- Christa Carmen, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of The Daughters of Block Island and How to Fake a Haunting

“Brennan LaFaro delivers a haunting Southern Gothic where grief, small-town secrets, and ancient horrors converge. In Maylene’s Hollow, the living and the damned walk side by side—and once you enter, the denizens never let you leave. Exceptionally terrifying!” -- Cynthia Pelayo, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of The Shoemaker’s Magician

Amazon: https://a.co/d/6I8Xw2O

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/239865779-the-denizens

HARMED AND DANGEROUS

By Jasper Bark

True crime lovers, this one is for you. Well, it’s for everyone in my opinion. But if true crime is your jam, you will love this book! The FMC, Kyra, is a true crime junkie who is obsessed with serial killers (relatable, lol). The storytelling is truly Brilliant. But I wouldn’t expect anything less from Bark. He is a master at his craft, and it shines bright in HARMED AND DANGEROUS.

Sitting over 500 pages, this book was the most entertaining thing I have read in a long time. It’s a Southern Gothic paranormal thriller, and it’s perfect. The world-building was incredible. The characters were curated masterfully. The tone and overall vibe are just a total grand slam. As I said, this one is over 500 pages, and it holds your attention the entire time. From page one, you’re sucked in and it doesn’t stop until the very last page. Even then, I wanted more.

There are so many aspects of this book that it would appeal to so many readers. There’s comedy, time traveling, paranormal, true crime, serial killers, small town horror, and characters who are relatable with incredible development. The world-building mentioned above also needs to be said again because it’s done that well.

I saw a review stating that Bark could make laundry instructions entertaining and I couldn’t agree more. He is quickly becoming a comfort author for me. Someone I know I can pick up a book from and be guaranteed to enjoy the hell out of the entire thing.

I couldn’t recommend this book more if I tried. I couldn’t recommend Bark in general more if I tried. HARMED AND DANGEROUS is a brand-new release, so grab it asap and bump it up on your TBR. Trust me, it will be worth it!

SYNOPSIS:

A Paranormal Thriller for readers of Stephen Graham Jones, Tananarive Due and Grady Hendrix

Put yourself in Kyra’s place.

You're seventeen years old, lost and alone in a remote town in Louisiana. You're searching for the birth parents you never knew. The heat is crippling. The river often floods, washing houses away and lifting corpses from the ground.

The locals treat you with suspicion. You don't belong here. They're hiding something. All over town, in nooks and hidden alcoves, there’s evidence of a forbidden faith. They keep the old ways here, but no one will tell you what they are.

There's an intangible presence following you. Hiding in your peripheral vision. You can't see, hear or touch it, but you know it's there, waiting for its chance to claim you.

Then the episodes start.

Your vision goes and when it returns you're seeing the world as it was fifteen years ago. Physically you're in the present, but everything you see happened a decade and a half ago.

Suddenly you realize.

You’re seeing through the eyes of the serial killer who murdered your birth mother. He takes control of you, forcing you to watch as he stalks and brutally murders her.

And there’s nothing you can do to stop him. Because he died by lethal injection more than a decade ago.

***

Harmed and Dangerous is the eighth book in the Bark Bites Horror series. A stand-alone story that you can start right away!

Bark Bites Horror is a spine-tingling series of stand-alone books that take the horror genre to a whole new level. Get ready for a Goosebumps for grown-ups and a sexed-up Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark! This is your favorite new obsession. These are the terror tales you’ve been waiting your whole life to read. The Draw You In trilogy forms books 5 to 7 of Bark Bites Horror.

This is Horror 2.0, re-gened, re-tooled and recreated for a fearless new audience! Think you've seen everything in horror? Think again. Bark Bites takes you places you've never been and shows you sights few mortal eyes would dare behold.

Don’t be the only weird kid on your block to miss out!

Amazon: https://a.co/d/04MQI6du