Jack Guignol
@jackguignol
Author of the Gothic Fantasy novel Ornamental Women (now available!) | Creator of Krevborna and PLANET MOTHERFUCKER | Tales of the Grotesque and Dungeonesque blog | co-host of the Bad Books for Bad People podcast | linktr.ee/Misterguignol
Book 59 of 2026: Hannah Whitten, The Nightshade God The Nightshade God is the last book in an trilogy I'd call solidly ok, but that I don't know who I would recommend it too. It also shows signs of being rushed--my guess is that the first book was so popular the author had to pump these out.
And yet, neither has blurbed Ornamental Women? Interesting. mybook.to/ornamentalwo...
This was EXACTLY my experience in a British postgrad program in literature. I think our version of this class was called "Research Methods." Luke Dumas nails this in A History of Fear.
Ornamental Women is a book you buy: a depressed, neurodivergent grave robber is trying to solve a mystery inspired by Pre-Raphaelite art. She's going to meet a famous monster hunter, his horrible girlfriend, and a lesbian black metal bard who talks like a valley girl. mybook.to/ornamentalwo...
Want a bookmark? talesofthegrotesqueanddungeonesque.blogspot.com/2026/07/orna...
C'mon, you want one of these, right? talesofthegrotesqueanddungeonesque.blogspot.com/2026/07/orna...
Ornamental Women bookmarks! If you bought a print copy of my novel, you can have one! If you haven't, there's still time to rectify the error! Look at little Serafina, she's cute talesofthegrotesqueanddungeonesque.blogspot.com/2026/07/orna...
I haven't seen anyone point out that this guy is apparently a dean--which checks the fuck out. The admin class in higher ed is pretty much just like this all the time.
Book 58 of 2026: Heather Parry, Carrion Crow This is a pretty wild Gothic body horror take on the idea of the "madwoman in the attic." Not for the squeamish, certainly, but it is as startling as a dose of smelling salts under the nose.
Book 57 of 2026: Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Certain Dark Things This is a really cool noir-flavored urban fantasy about a vampire on the run from another vampire in Mexico City. Quick read, but there's some real depth to the characters and setting elements.
I've been in touch with Mitch. He says it's very hot and dark where he is, and it's hard to sleep with all the screaming.
Book 56 of 2026: David Corrick (ed.), Ghosts and Robbers I needed a palate cleanser after the last one I read, and this collection of German Gothic tales really hit the spot.
Novel art by @munichartstudio.bsky.social all framed up and ready for the Krevborna wall of my office. mybook.to/ornamentalwo...
Book 55 of 2026: Eric LaRocca, Wretch Wretch felt like a short story padded out with unnecessarily long descriptions of mundane stuff (like using a computer), a pointless one-act play jammed in the middle (!!!), and an adult main character whose inner thoughts read like an edgy teen's posts--
Book 54 of 2026: Hannah Whitten's The Hemlock Queen This series continues to be solidly good, but I'm hoping it gets crazy in the last book and finally lets loose.
Book 53 of 2026: @cynthiasaysboo.bsky.social, Muñeca Muñeca is an excellent new Gothic novella! A woman takes a job as the caretaker of a paralyzed, non-communicative woman she believes has been bewitched with black magic. If I were still teaching Gothic lit, I'd add this to my syllabus for sure.
Book 52 of 2026: Jessica Alexander, Agnes, We're Not Murderers! This novel is unlike anything else I've read--it takes the shared corpus of Gothic fiction and uses it to weave a new tale that is a complicated, minimalist, mysterious, metafictional, and poetic palimpsest of all the best stuff.
We had a little launch party for my novel... With cake mybook.to/ornamentalwo...
Book 51 of 2026: Anya Seton, Dragonwyck I'll have more to say about this one on @badbooksbadppl.bsky.social but for now: this was sold to me as a novel trying to cash in on the success of du Maurier's Rebecca, but it is SO much more than that. Highly recommended.
Brotherhood of Blood is the most Hunter: The Reckoning movie ever made: there's a vampire named Fork, it makes about as much sense as a campaign pulled out of the GM's ass, and doesn't really have an ending (presumably because the players found a better game to join or the GM got too high to play)
Some of you have started reading Ornamental Women (thank you thank you thank you!) so you're getting to know the main characters...but have you considered what they would smell like as signature scents? Well, wonder no more. mybook.to/ornamentalwo...
Book 50 of 2026: Joe Abercrombie, The Heroes The Heroes is very good, but it wasn't my favorite Abercrombie novel. I prefer when you get in deep with a few characters, and this one has a perspective that roves between a lot of characters. I get the authorial choice there, but...
Book 49 of 2026: Hache Pueyo, Cabaret in Flames Very interesting noir-ish horror novella about a version of Brazil where ghouls secretly pull the political strings. It was good, but I actually wish this was one longer; I especially wanted more of the cabaret!
Book 48 of 2026: @johannavanveen.bsky.social's Bone of My Bone I absolutely loved this tale of a nun and a peasant with a secret on the run with the skull of a saint during the Thirty Years' War. Easily a contender for my favorite book of the year.
Book 47 of 2026: Eileen J. Garrett's Adventures in the Supernormal I paid $1 for this autobiography of a psychic, and I would have felt ripped off because the stuff about her life is all lies and the occult stuff is tedious, but the bit where she has a vision of a crying Hitler had me in stitches.