Released in early access on 14 November 2025 on PC, Moonlighter 2: The Endless Vault arrives as a confident, ambitious sequel that keeps the charm of the original while branching out in all the right ways. The most obvious change hits you straight away: the series has shifted from its cosy top-down pixel-art look to a more detailed 3D isometric style.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ I first picked up His Bloody Project by Graeme Macrae Burnet on the recommendation of one of my university lecturers. At the time, I was working on a project with some thematic overlap, and, honestly, it felt like perfect timing. I’m still working on that project now, and reading this novel has been both inspiring and a bit of a wake-up call in terms of the level of detail and narrative sophistication you can achieve.

The lighthouse didn’t have a name anymore. Whatever plaque once declared it proud and useful had rotted away decades back, leaving only its jagged silhouette jutting from the rocks like a finger pointing at something no one else could see. Locals called it the Needle because it skewered the sky; thin, stark, and unnaturally tall against the slate-grey horizon of the northern sea.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Stephen King’s Insomnia surprised me in the best way. I went in expecting a fairly straightforward horror story, but it turned into something much stranger and more ambitious. Ralph’s sleeplessness starts off feeling uncomfortably real—King captures that foggy, irritable, slightly surreal feeling of being overtired so well that I could practically feel my own eyelids twitching. As the story widens into something more cosmic, it keeps that grounded, human core, which is what makes it work.

Writers are often told to keep every scrap of writing, every half-finished idea, every abandoned paragraph, no matter how insignificant or directionless it seems at the time. For years, I did this almost compulsively, stuffing note apps with fragments, saving hundreds of stray files on my laptop, keeping dialogue snippets on my phone, and hoarding concept sketches for novels that never escaped the planning stage.

⭐⭐⭐ Overall, I enjoyed Influencer by Adam Cesare, just not quite enough to bump it higher. The concept is great: a horror story rooted in internet fame, parasocial chaos, and the curated madness of influencer culture. Cesare leans into the world of streaming and online personas, blending satire and genuine menace. When the horror elements surface, they’re energetic and entertaining, the sort of scenes that make you feel like you’re watching a livestream spiral completely out of control.

The transmission was faint — weaker than static, buried under cosmic hiss and radiation storms. It should never have been detected. And yet, the SSV Calypso caught it. A single thread of data pulsing across the void, repeating every nineteen minutes: ECHO_402 — SYSTEM STABLE — AWAITING INPUT No one knew what it meant. The coordinates led to the edge of a dead sector, orbiting the collapsed remnants of a black star.

⭐️⭐️⭐️ I’m honestly not quite sure what to say about Morsels by Abe Moss. It’s one of those books that isn’t bad at all — the writing’s solid, the pacing works fine — but for some reason it just feels very… average. “Meh” really sums it up. I didn’t dislike it, but I never felt properly invested either. The premise has potential, and there are moments where it almost clicks, a creepy scene here, an unsettling bit of tension there, but it never fully comes together in a way that leaves a lasting impression.

I’ve just finished the first draft of my current work-in-progress, a biography-horror hybrid that’s consumed more of my thoughts than I’d like to admit and is sure to consume more. It’s a strange, unsettling project that blurs the boundary between truth and fiction, and somewhere in that blur, I’ve found myself trapped between the two as well. Finishing a first draft should feel triumphant, but instead, I feel watched by it.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Dead Famous by Ben Elton is one of those books that takes a little while to find its rhythm. The opening feels like you’ve been dropped straight into an episode of Big Brother — full of big personalities, forced banter, and that strange mix of boredom and spectacle that reality TV does so well. It’s a slow start, and at first, I wasn’t sure if the satire would outstay its welcome.

There is no air here. Only rhythm. My breath matches the pulse of the corridors. My heartbeat echoes through the walls. Every step I take reverberates back at me, delayed, distorted, as though the ship itself were trying to mimic me — or remind me that it no longer needs me to move. I have stopped counting doors. There’s no point.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I absolutely loved The Hotel Avocado by Bob Mortimer — it’s one of those books that makes you laugh out loud, grin like an idiot, then unexpectedly tug at your heartstrings. From the very first page, Mortimer’s voice comes through loud and clear: dry, surreal, and oddly comforting. He’s got this rare knack for making even the strangest situations feel completely normal, and that’s exactly what makes this story so brilliant.

Ghost of Yōtei launched on 2 October 2025, exclusively for the PlayStation 5. It’s one of those “built for next-gen only” titles — no PS4, no PC (at least not yet) — so you’ll need a PS5 to play it. There’s a lot of love and polish here. The first thing you’ll notice is just how visceral and cinematic many of the combat encounters feel.

⭐ I had high hopes for Let’s Split Up by Bill Wood, especially with its promise of a Scooby-Doo meets slasher vibe. Unfortunately, this book is a letdown on almost every front. The writing is painfully simplistic. It reads like a first draft, with clunky dialogue and flat prose. The characters speak in a way that feels more suited to a younger audience, not the young adults it's marketed to.

She falters. Not in body—she is still moving, still breathing, still reaching for doors that have no edges—but in mind. Every step she takes splinters into a thousand possibilities. Every thought she clutches vanishes the instant she tries to pin it down. She does not see us. She thinks she is alone. She does not yet understand that her shadow stretches behind her like a river of consciousness we control.

Dying Light: The Beast launched in mid-September 2024 for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S, and it immediately feels like a homecoming. Stepping back into the role of Kyle Crane is genuinely satisfying—almost like the series finally remembered who its heart belonged to. After the shift in focus in Dying Light 2, having Crane back gives the whole thing more weight and familiarity.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ The Eyes Are the Best Part by Monika Kim is one of those books that’s difficult to slot neatly into a single genre. It’s horror, yes, but not in the traditional sense. It’s also a family drama, a cultural study, and a descent into obsession and madness. The story follows Ji-won, a Korean-American woman whose family life is slowly crumbling around her.

I don’t know how long I was on the floor. Time here stretches like old wires—thin, frayed, ready to snap. At some point, I pushed myself up, but my legs felt borrowed, as though I were operating them through water. My breathing was uneven, sharp in my ears, yet I couldn’t hear its echo. The sound went nowhere. It was swallowed.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ I never thought I would say it, but it was a real pleasure to read a story from the perspective of someone so utterly unhinged. Victorian Psycho by Virginia Feito is not your usual historical novel – it’s a dark, twisted character study wrapped up in lace, corsets, and all the suffocating etiquette of the period. Instead of the usual proper and buttoned-up view of Victorian society, Feito gives us a narrator who is spiralling, obsessive, and, frankly, a bit terrifying.

We shape her. We are the shape. She is the clay. Her thoughts are pliant in our hands, though she does not yet realise she has hands other than ours. We fold her memories into the corridors. Each recollection is a brick, a panel, a seam of light stretching into infinity. She runs, believing the pathways solid. She does not see they are her own mind, unspooled and bent into architecture.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I went into Episode Thirteen with cautious optimism. I’ve picked up a fair few books lately that had been hyped up online, only to find them flat, predictable, or just not worth the buzz. Honestly, I was ready for another disappointment, but wow, Craig DiLouie completely blindsided me with this one in the best possible way. From the start, the book hooked me.

The Operator launched in July 2024, first on PC and later making its way to other platforms like the Switch. It’s the debut game from indie developer Bureau 81, a small team that clearly poured a lot of love into crafting a tense little thriller. Gameplay & Story You play as Evan Tanner, a rookie agent working for the FDI, a fictional intelligence agency.

Every writer has scraps of stories lying around. Half-started drafts, notebooks full of beginnings, that one chapter you wrote years ago that you still kind of like. I’ve got folders of the stuff. Ideas that caught fire for a few days and then fizzled. Stories that seemed like the best thing I’d ever come up with until I tried to actually…

⭐⭐⭐⭐ I just finished Wake Up and Open Your Eyes by Clay McLeod Chapman, and I’ve got to say—it’s one hell of a ride. I’m giving it a solid 4 out of 5 stars, mostly because while I really enjoyed it, it definitely pushed me further into the extreme horror territory than I usually like to wander. Chapman doesn’t hold back, and there were moments where I had to put the book down for a breather, just to gather myself.

The corridors had changed again. I wasn’t sure how many times I’d circled them—once, twice, twenty—but my lungs burned as though I’d been running for hours. I forced my legs forward, boots clanging against the deck, convinced that if I just kept moving, I would find an exit, or at least something new. But every doorway led me back to the same place.