All posts by Katie Jane Gallagher

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About Katie Jane Gallagher

Author of the Beauty and Her Alien series and Specter.

Short Tuesday #1: “Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose” by Kelly Link

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Well, hello, everybody. This is the first post in my brand new blog series Short Tuesday, where I’ll discuss short written works. I’m not promising to post every Tuesday, since getting posts up for every Thursday and Sunday is already a fair bit of work, but I’ll try to post one of these most weeks. Whenever legally possible, I’ll also provide a link to whatever I’m reading so you can read along. I had a lot of fun reading short story anthologies last year; the idea is for this blog series to help me read more short fiction regularly. I figure it will be nice punctuation to all the long-form novels I read.

I also don’t want to be too legalistic and make this a fiction-only space—maybe I’ll also use this blog series to occasionally discuss essays, nonfiction chapters, and articles. Perhaps I’ll even try some poetry, though, quite honestly, poetry is always the absolute last thing I ever want to read.

So! Here are a few books I’m planning to slowly make my way through. Aside from the Peterson book, there’s a pretty obvious theme: I want to read weird stuff.

As you can see, it’s quite a lot to get through! The Weird, in particular, is a tome worthy of clubbing robbers over the head with. But slow and steady wins the race.

First up in the series is Kelly Link’s “Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose,” from her short story collection Stranger Things Happen. This has been on my TBR for years, ever since I heard Kelly Link might appeal to fans of Haruki Murakami. Plus I fucking love the cover—is that Nancy Drew? It has to be, right? You can read the short story here…

All right, so having now read the story, I’m not going to pretend I know exactly what’s going on. I do really like the ambiguous, shifting tone, as well as the POV switches. Doesn’t the third person narration almost seem like the man is being observed like an animal in a zoo? This in contrast to much of the first person narration, which felt very honest and sad—the MC missing a life he hardly remembers anything about.

Something I didn’t know until I looked for a little more information on the “Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose” online is that there is a John Singer Sargent painting by this exact name, and a beautiful one at that. I don’t see the connection myself aside from the twilight dreaminess of both works, but I appreciate the Easter egg.

The story’s tone really reminds me of another short story I read long ago in The Weird, about two people who keep finding mannequins washing up on a beach. Of course, I read that short story more than half a decade ago, so that’s really only my fuzzy impression of it. Maybe I’ll take a look at that one for next week’s Short Tuesday.

I also really liked the inclusion of the loolies! In my mind, they were some sort of pale, distant cousin of the Teletubbies. Link had an opportunity here to take this story into full-on creepsville, but I appreciate that she opted for something else instead.

In essence, this story is more about impressions than anything concrete. That could be frustrating to a lot of readers, but if you’re looking for something moody and odd, then give this one a go.

Chapter Three of The Gold in the Dark and a Writing Update!

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The third chapter of The Gold in the Dark drops today! If you need to catch up with the first two chapters, you can do that right here. New chapters post every other Sunday at 11 AM EST, and each one is accompanied by a beautiful, custom illustration drawn by a mysterious illustrator. (She’ll unveil herself eventually.)

I don’t have much in terms of a writing update this week, unfortunately. I won’t go into details, but suffice it to say that there are some personal circumstances that are eating up a lot of my time and energy right now. I’ll make it through, probably sooner rather than later, but it’s been hard recently to conjure up the right head space for writing.

So instead I’m focusing a lot on reading, especially ARCs. When I made an account on NetGalley around a month ago, I requested a bunch of books with the expectation that I’d be turned down for most of them. How wrong I was! So far I’ve been approved for all but two of them, so I now have quite the stack to read and review.

I’ve also started working on getting Specter off the ground again. It’s a lot of document formatting and admin work—you know, super thrilling stuff. Hopefully that will all be done soon so that I can move onto the actual fun tasks, like securing a final cover. Specter is tentatively slated for release in late May or early June, so if anyone wants to be part of my ARC team, drop me a line.

All right, that’s all for now, folks. Enjoy Chapter Three, and have an awesome rest of your weekend. ❤

ARC: The Hungry Ghost by Dalena Storm

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Thank you to NetGalley and Black Spot Books for sending me a free advanced reader copy of this book for an honest review. The Hungry Ghost debuts June 11th.

This debut novel from Dalena Storm had my immediate attention with its title. Hungry ghosts are paranormal entities in the Buddhist tradition that emerge only in specific circumstances, such as when someone is violently killed—something I’m sure Storm knows, having graduated from Williams College with a BA in Asian Studies. In the picture below, you can see the hungry ghosts’ bulging, distended bellies—the better to eat you with, my dear. 🙂

Anyway, even though there are only a couple mentions of Buddhism in this fast-paced book, nevertheless the reader is presented with a hungry ghost, who drifts upward to the human world from a lower, hellish void and inhabits the body of an American woman in a coma. Spoiler alert that you can probably spot from a mile away: once she inevitably wakes up, the eating commences.

I appreciate the swift pace of the story; at two hundred pages, this is a book on the short side, but there’s nothing wrong with that—in fact, I think there’s a conversation to be had in modern publishing about books being too lengthy for the story they’re seeking to tell. I found it to be a nice palate cleanser—something quick to tear through in a couple hours.

The prose could use some editing, admittedly. There’s a top-down feel to the writing, where we’re told moment to moment what the characters are feeling and thinking, rather than being fed sensory details and internal thoughts via close third POV. I like a straightforward writing style to an extent, but here it grew to be too much for my tastes, to the point where some sentences felt almost utilitarian.

There were also a few leaps of faith in terms of the plot that had me raising my eyebrows, but these were counterbalanced by some genuinely surprising and horror-filled moments where I was fully on board. A couple scenes in particular will probably stick with me a good long while. If you’re looking for a page-turner and are interested in the Buddhist take on ghosts, then maybe give this a shot.

Just a real quick reminder to everyone that Chapter Three of The Gold in the Dark will be posting this Sunday at 11 AM EST! All right, that’s all, folks. ❤

ARC: Dead School by Laura Gia West

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Thank you to NetGalley and Black Rose Writing for sending me a free advanced reader copy of this book for an honest review.

I requested this book on NetGalley in large part due to the beautiful cover and the title. Dead School? How cool of a concept is that?

Unfortunately, I didn’t even make it to Dead School. This book reads like a rough first draft; I’m a bit confused about how this is considered to be a manuscript in finished form. There are punctuation and verb agreement errors aplenty, as well as some exceedingly strange word usage. Characters “waver” papers in the MC’s face and “clog” down the stairs. (And I don’t believe this is referring to clog dance, but in this book, anything is possible, I suppose.)

All this can be forgiven if the story is good. For example, I have been extremely forgiving in the past of translated works. Metro 2033, which is shoddily translated but utterly fantastic, is one example that springs to mind.

Yet there is nothing to redeem the story in terms of substance. The MC is unlikable and acts nonsensically, as do all the characters flitting around her. We start the opening chapter with the MC in the car with her parents on Valentine’s Day. They are heading to Red Lobster to eat dinner, toting along their cat. With a bit of handwavium, we’re led to believe that the local Red Lobster manager is super cool with animals and will allow such nonsense at the table.

Okay. Fine. Second page of the book, my fingers are already starting to desperately tighten around my suspension of disbelief, which has grown oddly slippery… But let’s press on.

Wait, stop! Fuck Valentine’s Day and turn the car around, Dad—we have to go back to school! The MC suddenly has a blinding desire to beat her stage fright and perform in the school talent show, which is taking place LITERALLY RIGHT NOW. The MC’s parents oblige her, because… you know… the author wants them to.

And then our MC nails her performance, even though she hasn’t gone to any of the rehearsals. (Not joking.) The students in the audience, all of whom the MC despises, are moved to tears—she’s just that amazing. All is looking up—soon the MC will be the school’s new Queen Bee. Because she attends a prestigious performing arts school, our intrepid MC knows that there are talent scouts in the audience, pens at the ready to sign her for a record deal. Too bad a stage decoration then falls on her and kills her.

All this ridiculousness happens in the first chapter. I read a bit of it aloud to my husband, and his assessment is that the book has an uncanny valley feel. The characters just all act so bizarrely, as if a thousand YA novels got mixed together in a blender and an algorithm spit out the common elements it thought define human behavior. Needless to say, I only made it a few chapters in before I had to call it quits.

Let me be clear: I normally try to find the positive in things—sandwich method, etc.—but I cannot be charitable with this book. There is nothing to be charitable about. Even the famous quotes from historic figures attached to each chapter heading are cringey; what does Shakespeare have to do with any of this? I’m reminded a bit of how the infamous indie game Crying Is Not Enough (epic Let’s Play right here) stuck famous quotes on its interminable loading screens… But that game was bad yet had heart, and this book is just terrible.

Nice cover, though.

My One and Only Duke by Grace Burrowes

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I thought it wasn’t possible. I thought it was simply not meant to be.

But lo and behold, despite the fact that it’s February in Connecticut and we just suffered a snowstorm, in my heart doves are cooing, angels are singing, and double rainbows wreathe the sky.

Yes, as is only fitting for my Valentine’s Day post, I am happy to report that love is finally in the air—I have found a good romance novel. Let’s give credit where it’s due; Grace Burrowes was suggested to me by my mom and sister, and they have good taste. They knew exactly what I was talking about when I moaned that all the romance I’d ever tried was crap and that the writing quality got in the way of the falling-in-love bits.

And I promise, I will still read the stupid Phillips book, and I’ll even do my damnedest to do so with an open mind. But for now… in the present moment… let’s forget about that and focus on Grace Burrowes instead.

She can write! The dialogue is excellent, the characters interesting and natural-feeling. There was no jarring head-hopping, nor any stray details that vaulted me out of the nineteenth-century London setting. The narrative voice felt perfectly suited to the story; I frequently found myself looking up words in the dictionary, since hello, nineteenth-century London, but I didn’t have to do this to a ridiculous degree—and you know, I like looking up these older words that have fallen out of favor! Learning is cool, and so are immersive books in a historical setting that’s written just. perfect.

And the story was exciting. The basic premise is that Jane, widowed and pregnant, and Quinn, slated to die by hanging, find their fortunes turning on a dime when it’s discovered that Quinn is the long-lost heir to a ducal title. I don’t want to give anything else away, but the opening first act was like watching someone tie a ribbon into a perfect, beautiful bow. Everything came together as it should, Burrowes delaying the reader’s reward until the last possible moment. You can just tell that you’re in the hands of an author who won’t let you down.

So now I feel like I’ve at last kind of joined the romance community, like a chick hammering its first chunk of the eggshell away. I’ve added I don’t know how many romances to my TBR in the last few days, all of them tangentially related to Burrowes. (Thanks, Goodreads!) Who’s next? Eloisa James? Meredith Duran? Mary Balogh? I feel like a kid in a candy shop.

Love, at last! Hurrah! ❤

An Unexpected Romance: Recommendations for Genre Fiction Fans Who Don’t Read Romance

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If you’ve been around KJG Enterprises for a while, you might know that I have some struggles with the romance genre. Full disclosure: my honest, perhaps controversial opinion is that romance is most satisfying as a book sub-plot, rather than as the primary focus.

But this doesn’t mean I hate the romance genre!!! In fact, I’m eager for my aforementioned opinion to be proven wrong, which is why I’ve made it my mission this year to dive deeper into the romance genre as a whole and do my best to discover some authors whom I really connect with. I want this, truly I do, and I’ll probably have a post going up this Thursday that may surprise you! (And me!)

So in honor of fast-approaching Valentine’s Day, I offer you my top suggestions for fans of genre fiction who don’t read romance. All of these are five-star books for me, and each one is completely different from the others.

Sirena by Donna Jo Napoli

This 210-page book is perfect for anyone looking for a quick, moving read with a Greek mythology focus. It’s YA, but YA from before Twilight exploded the scene. If you’re looking for a book with a small cast and intimate atmosphere, you should definitely pick up a copy.

Plus there are beautiful mermaids. Need I say more?


Crocodile on the Sandbank by Elizabeth Peters

If you want a master class in character voice and slow burn, read this book. First published in 1975, Crocodile on the Sandbank sparked Peters’s cozy Egyptology mystery empire. It reads as an older book, but a hilarious older book. Amelia and Emerson are two of the greatest characters I have ever read, and, and, and… It’s just the best. Get it. Read it. The End.



Green Rider series by Kristen Britain

Is it too mean to include the Green Rider series in this post? It’s been a long while since I read the first book, but if memory serves correct, then heed this warning: I believe there’s hardly any hint of the true romantic pairing in the first book. If you want the slowest of burns (and I’m talking thousands of pages), then read this series.

But it’s worth it. I have never cared so much about two people ending up together so much as the MC Karigan and her beau. (Trying to avoid spoilers here.) Twilight got nothing on this. But again, it takes forever for any real pay-off, so… Yeah. You’ve been warned.

Sunshine by Robin McKinley

Consider this a last-minute addition to the list. Sunshine is not so much romantic as sexy, but I do think it deserves to be here.

First up, you gotta like vampires. If you are a fan of paranormal romance, urban fantasy, and hilarious stream-of-consciousness 1st POV, then this is one for you. Perfect atmosphere, excellent world-building… If any of this is calling you, buy this right stat now.



So those are my unconventional Valentine’s Day picks. I’d love to hear your own unexpected romance recommendations. Slow-burn Western? Sweet and tender sci-fi? Feel free to leave a comment down below with your own romance picks.

Chapter Two of The Gold in the Dark and a Writing Update!

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The second chapter of my debut novel, The Gold in the Dark, drops today! If you missed the first chapter, click here to read it! New chapters release every other Sunday at 11 AM EST, accompanied by beautiful, custom illustrations.

I also wanted to write a quick blog post with an update about what I’m currently writing! Now that the serial release of The Gold in the Dark is smoothly underway, as well as the fact that the edits for my second book, Specter, are complete, this allows me to finally start drafting a new book! I don’t want to give too much away, but I will say that this next story will be set in a modern-day school with a fantastical horror element. I’m in love with the story, but it’s sort of high-concept, and I’m hoping to pull it off successfully. I think I’ll have to especially pay attention to story structure and character development. Maybe it’s because this next book seems so daunting that I’ve had an idea in the last couple days for another story, one that’s relatively pared-down and simple, with a character relationship focus. The places our minds go when we’re scared of diving into a difficult task, amiright? But my writing buddies convinced me to let that one marinate a little longer and focus on the story that I’ve only been planning for, oh, six months or so. They’re good peeps, my writer friends. 🙂

(By the way, does anyone know of any human-alien love stories, less emphasis on sex and more emphasis on sweet romance? Asking for a friend…)

It feels good to be drafting again in a painful sort of way, like stretching stiff muscles. This new book, at least right now, feels a little bit more poetic than my normal, perhaps more stream-of-consciousness as well. My first chapters tend to differ a lot in tone from later chapters, so we’ll see if that voice sticks around. I’ve done enough planning; now I get to see where the words take me. That might sound weird, but anyone who writes will know what I’m talking about.

Anyway, enough blabbering. Enjoy the second chapter. I’ll see you guys on Tuesday for a Valentine’s Day-themed post. ❤

ARC: The Dead Queens Club by Hannah Capin

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Thank you to NetGalley and Inkyard Press for sending me a free advanced reader copy of this book for an honest review.

As soon as I read Vicky’s review of this book, I knew it needed to be placed front row center on my TBR. I’m no Tudors historian, but I love me some Henry VIII, from Showtime’s The Tudors to Margaret George’s tome The Autobiography of Henry VIII: With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers.

The premise is simple: Henry VIII drama transported to a modern high school setting. These high schoolers are the cool you can only dream of—oodles of money, absent parents, an arsenal of witty one-liners on their lips. We’re treated to first person narration by the MC, Cleves, who is no-holds-barred hilarious. Let’s get real: nobody talks like this in real life, but it doesn’t really matter, since you just want Cleves to keep on spitting jokes. Also be prepared that there are some near break-the-fourth-wall moments; for some readers this is all in good fun and for others this might get annoying.

“I don’t give a flying fuck whether or not you slept with him.”
“Really?”
“Really. We’re done talking about guys, okay? Let’s pass the damn Bechdel test.”

If you’re looking for a standard whodunnit, this isn’t it. Really this book is all about character development, voice, and teen drama. Yeah, there are some dead queens and a finger-pointing blame game, but the sleuthing is kept pretty minimal until the end… This being said, I will say that the end does get intense, in an awesome way. I got actual chills. Yet the multidimensional characters and rock-solid voice are the real reason to open this book. I’m very curious to read the author’s future works; will we see a modern adaptation featuring some other infamous historical figures? Julius Caesar, perhaps? The Medicis? I’m game if Capin is.

Two Can Keep a Secret by Karen M. McManus

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It’s no secret in the writing community that second books are tough. Most often, you’ve spent years perfectly crafting your first manuscript… Then it sells, and you’re given the task of putting together another viable book in a year and change that will match the expectations of your fans. In my opinion, it’s the main reason why sequels are, generally speaking, never quite as satisfying as their predecessors. And I’m willing to bet that this is the reason why Two Can Keep a Secret is just sort of… blah.

There are pacing issues, for one. The book starts off very slow, and it often feels like readers are not being shown the exciting stuff. I don’t think I’m giving too much away to say that at the end of Chapter One the MC is present when a dead body is discovered… But then Chapter Two begins at the next morning, without giving us in-the-moment, heart-racing details about that discovery. If there’s a formula to modern YA, it’s that distance=bad. That’s the reason for the close 3rd POV/present 1st POV push. Show us everything exciting in a way that feels like we’re there with you. Flashbacks from the day after are not going to cut it.

But the real unfortunate issue here are the characters. That was what made One of Us Is Lying so awesome, right? I still remember the characters in that book, especially Addy. But here, the characters simply aren’t very memorable, and there are a whole heck of a lot of them. If you set the book down for a couple days after the first sixty pages as I did (not hard to do, since not much is going down action-wise), guarantee that you’ll come back to it and not be able to keep the names and relationships straight. Even Ellery, the main POV, reads pretty weak. Sucks to say it, but her true-crime fixation is going to draw inevitable comparisons to Stevie in Truly Devious—and Stevie takes the gold medal for YA true-crime aficionado any day of the week.

Couple this with some predictable plot twists. I called two of them pretty early on, thinking that I was being led astray by McManus and it couldn’t all be this easy, could it? I didn’t predict the main baddie, but many of the other surprises didn’t land with as big of an ooh! aah! punch as you would hope.

So I don’t really recommend this book, but I understand that it’s a sophomore effort. I’ll be reading future works by the author (I think there’s a One of Us Is Lying sequel in the works?!), but Two Can Keep a Secret is a pass for me.

The Queen’s Wing by Jessica Thorne

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You know when you read a fantastic first chapter and you get that sinking feeling? That the rest of the book can’t possibly keep this up type of feeling? The Queen’s Wing keeps the momentum going. By the last few chapters, I was stopping every couple of pages to shake my head at my husband and mutter, “How is she doing this? This is just so good.”

He called me jealous. I’m just happy to have discovered a new favorite author.

I’ve seen some comparisons online between The Queen’s Wing and Sarah J. Maas. I actually don’t think that comparison is apropos. I’d pitch this as science-fantasy à la Marissa Meyer’s Lunar Chronicles series, with voice and pacing similarities to Uprooted by Naomi Novik. Don’t let the cover fool you; this book doesn’t read as over-the-top, fluffy YA. It is NOT The Selection. Sure, there’s a princess and a love triangle, but the MC has such a deep sense of duty and self-awareness that this really should be classed in that mystical “new adult” realm that never really materialized in the way we thought it would.

And the romance is perfect. If you want a love triangle done right, this is it. You won’t end up hating the MC for being a selfish asshole, and nothing feels forced.

Plus there are loads of crazy plot twists and surprises—surprises that actually surprise you. So many books like this are predictable; this one is not. Yet none of the plot twists broke my immersion.

Once again: it’s perfect. Read it. I’d be shocked if this isn’t a top book of the year for me. And by the way, Thorne is coming out with a sequel in a couple weeks, and she also writes under the names R. F. Long and Ruth Frances Long, so there’s a back list for fans of The Queen’s Wing to catch up on. Thanks to Lauregalie for turning me on to this book, and happy almost weekend, everybody!