June Happiness (And New Newsletter!)

Welcome, welcome! First off, I’d like to thank all of my long time subscribers here on WordPress. You guys have been through all the iterations of this blog from The Monstrum Chronicles, to Writers’ Abditory, and finally to The Kat At Night. It’s taken some time to finally find a steady pace and rebrand into a place where I feel most comfortable.

That being said, I’m expanding my blog into a new monthly newsletter in anticipation of the fall release of “The Wild Dark”. Said newsletter is being provided through my website and SquareSpace. While I’m going to try and duplicate announcements in both places as best I can, I’d really like to make the newsletter my exclusive place to readers to find upcoming content related to “The Wild Dark” as well as info about upcoming giveaways, pre-order happiness, and sneak peeks.

For those of you who don’t know about “The Wild Dark”, I’ll post the cover below along with a brief synopsis:

Elizabeth ‘Liz’ Raleigh has lost everything in the last few months: her job as a police detective, her partner, her fiancé, and her peace of mind. After a month of solitude at a cabin in the woods, she finally feels as though she’s ready to move on.

But in one terrifying night, everything changes. An unearthly forest realm has begun to creep over the world, swallowing up every sign of human civilization. The woods are fraught with disturbing architecture and monstrous wolves hungry for human souls. In addition, ghosts of loved ones have appeared to select people including Liz’s partner, Brody, who doesn’t remember how he died.

As winter closes in and chaos erupts across New England, Liz fights desolation, resurfacing guilt, and absolute terror as she tries to survive one of the North East’s most brutal winters.

Anyone here fans of survivalism? Winter camping? Apocalypses? Spooky woods? Murder wolves? A strong female protagonist? “The Wild Dark” might be for you! The button below will take you to the website where you’ll have the option to subscribe. (Scroll to the bottom of the main page to find the entry form!) I’ll probably be more diligent with promoting the book there than here. I’d like The Kat at Night to include my writing escapades, but to also be its own entity as well. There will be exclusive content in both places.

Subsribe to the Newsletter!

Again, thanks to all of you who keep me going. You’re amazing!

~KSilva

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“Test Your Might!” Mortal Kombat Film Review

I’ve been waiting YEARS for this movie. As a huge fan of the video game series and the original 1995 film, I was excited by the prospect of a more adult, more brutal take on the Mortal Kombat story, complete with fatalities, better acting, and a darker tone. Finally last Friday, at the end of a long day at work, I was able to sit down, put on HBO Max and enjoy the movie. And enjoy the movie, I did.

Was it everything that I was hoping for? No. Was it as terrifying as Kevin Tancharoen’s Rebirth trailer from 2010? No. Was it gory? Hell yes. Was it fun to watch? You betcha.

Spoilers ahead.

The Only Good Indians: SO SO GOOD!

Unique and scary as hell. Revenge is a messy business and that’s exactly the case in “The Only Good Indians”. Four men are individually reminded of the tragedy they incited on a fateful November day ten years prior by someone…or something that holds a grudge against them. Jones’s writing is vivid and brutal and had me turning pages in anticipation of what came next.

Spoilers ahead. Read on if you dare.

Malorie: A Review of the Bird Box Sequel

I’m going to say something that probably a few of you have already been feeling. So far, the year, 2020, has felt like a dystopian horror novel. We’ve had everything from massive Australian wildfires to a global pandemic to a disappointing almost presidential impeachment, to racial protesting for equality, to murder hornets, to more shark sightings, to a wild rabbit virus to Karens. Reading about a different dystopian landscape might not be the first thing readers want to do in light of all we’ve been through. But, when it comes to dropping into the world of Josh Malerman’s Bird Box sequel, it’s a thrilling story that just about everyone can get behind.

Mexican Gothic: “Absolutely Chilling” Review

Absolutely chilling. That’s the best thing I can come up with to describe Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s latest release, Mexican Gothic. When this book popped up on my radar over a month ago, I knew it was going to be incredible. I haven’t read any of Moreno-Garcia’s other books, but I had heard a lot about Certain Dark Things when it came out and had it on my list of vampire books to check out eventually.

Mexican Gothic had a strong marketing campaign. It started appearing all over the place when I was searching for random things online. The more I read about it, the more I convinced myself it was going to be a killer read. The quintessential gothic styled novel, updated for today’s reader and presented in a location underutilized in that genre and with unsettling, brooding characters. As soon as my pre-ordered copy hit my desk, I dove in. Glorious terror and creepiness abounds in Mexican Gothic.

Beware: a few spoilers lie ahead.

Bird Box: A Review

I know I’m in the non-unique position of having read Josh Malerman’s Bird Box after having first seen the Netflix film adaption. Bird Box was a book that I always had on my list of “must-reads” but just never got around to. With the news of the upcoming sequel, Malorie, releasing later this month, I decided it was high time I order and read one of the top horror novels of the last few years (as it has been purported by many reviewers). I wasn’t disappointed.

Warning: spoilers ahead.

This Book is Full of Spiders: A Review

Oh my god. Wow. Where to begin?

My book tastes are all over the place. Of course,  most people know that my affinity is for the weird and wonderful: horror, fantasy, suspense, humor… you name it. If it has a unique voice, a plot that I can’t anticipate, and memorable characters, I’m onboard for sure.

My boyfriend recommended that I read the first book in David Wong’s trilogy, John Dies at the End, months ago before COVID quarantine officially began. My diligence at reading books has been pretty on and off. I can race through and love a book and then start another one soon after and take months to finish it. I’d like to say that work, owning a cat, writing, house chores, and all other aspects of my life get in the way of reading, but it’s a simply not true. I love reading. I don’t do enough of it. So, I chose to sit down with John Dies at the End over a month ago and read it.

It was nothing like I’d ever read before and I loved it.

Spoilers are probably ahead. Best be warned.

New posts, new book, new everything!

We’re changing things up a bit here at The *all new* Kat at Night blog. Along with re-branding comes serving new content for the masses. I’ve decided on a few different blog series to incorporate into The Kat at Night that might be some fun for both me and you. I also have a new book coming out in the fall which we’ll talk about a little bit, as well as some upcoming events you can find me at in the spring!

But now, a moment to speak about old series posts here. I will not be continuing Inspiration Through Music, though I would like to incorporate a music-themed blog here on the site. Cooking Adventures will be getting a bit of a make-over in that I will be returning to blogging my adventures versus vlogging them. My video equipment is unfortunately outdated and unable to make a video in a timely fashion. The last Cooking Adventure video I made took me nearly a week to edit because of corrupting video files. Suffice to say, I will try to provide plenty of photos to illustrate the future adventures well.

Now, onto new blog series!

We Switched Names…Again

That’s right. Hopefully, this will be the last time.

Getting back into the swing of things here at (now) The Kat at Night, we will be exploring this blog as it transitions into a discussion about writing dark things, particularly my affinity to doing this. We’ll also have the odd discussions here and there about other things dark like films and music, cats, coffee… you know… generally dark things.

The purpose for all of this tom-foolery? Rebranding is hard. I had, at one point, hoped that I might be better at reaching out to the writing community and possibly get others to post guest blogs or be able to connect on a more vast scale with writers of every genre. Those are pretty big goals to achieve on a fledgling blog that gets very few views because of intermittent posts by its only author.

Returning to a more simple, practice of sharing myself with the writing world is more my speed, and definitely more up my alley.

So, here we are with The Kat at Night.

I’ll be posting at night (of course) on subjects relating to dark fiction and my approach to it and soon enough, others approaches to it, too. I had thought maybe I would have the workings for a podcast here but decided against the latter. We’ll start with a blog and move on from there.

Until our next (actually first) post under a new name,

KSilva