A Post About Reading

Like probably almost every single writer in the world, I love reading. I’ve been more or less obsessed with it for my entire life. I’ve also wanted to be an author since I was nine years old, and one of the things I never anticipated was how that would change my reading habits.

Photo by Engin Akyurt: https://www.pexels.com/photo/books-in-shelf-2946979/

The most noticeable change, and probably the most predictable, is in genre. I’ve been writing since I was nine, but I’ve only been writing horror since 2020, and the more I’ve enjoyed writing the genre the more my reading habits have moved in that direction. I read almost exclusively speculative fiction, and horror as a genre crosses over really well with other speculative genres, but the number of straightforward fantasy or science fiction books I read these days is much lower than it was before I realized how much I love horror.

A change I would have expected less has been the emphasis I now find myself putting on reading newer books. I find myself much less likely to pick up a title that’s more than five or six years old, and much more likely to seek out new releases or, when I’m lucky enough to get my hands on them, upcoming releases. Part of this change, the smallest part, is maybe a little mercenary; I want to stay informed about the current market. A greater part of it, though, is that my books are part of the current market now, so the idea of not keeping up with the state of the genre feels similar to thinking about entering a conversation without knowing what anyone else is talking about. Or, worse, like actively ignoring what everyone else has to say. And the last factor in this change to my reading habits is that the more I am able to get out to book events, the more I am meeting and making friends with other authors, and I want to read the books that they are writing!

The other side of the keeping-current coin is that I do have to be careful not to start treating reading like work. It is, now, work-related, and one fun result of that is that if I am in one of my modes where I’m struggling to relax without feeling guilty for not being “productive enough” I can still enjoy reading and just quiet the nagging part of my brain by keeping in mind that reading is good for my job now. But I have to make sure I never start thinking of the hobby itself as work, I have to make sure that I keep reading for the love of reading and not let it ever start to feel like an obligation.

I also get to read more books for free, an incredible perk that I’m wildly grateful for—reading for blurbs, getting approved for ARCs on NetGalley, receiving copies of books by fellow authors I’ll be doing events with, and beta reading, it’s a lifelong bookworm’s absolute dream come true.

Beta reading, too, has changed the way I read books. I love beta reading. Aside from having the kindest, coolest, funniest, best friends, I also have astoundingly talented friends, and getting to beta read their manuscripts is a treat and a delight. There’s nothing like it. My beta reading style focuses on 1) constructive critique/advice and 2) gleefully pointing out every single thing I love about the manuscript in question/making my wild plot predictions and guesses in real time as I go. Getting to feel like I’m helping other authors is great, and getting to tell other authors line-by-line exactly what I love about their work is even better. And it’s trained me to be actively looking for and aware of what I love about every book I’m reading in a line-level, specific way as well as in the broad and general way I’ve always loved books.

I didn’t anticipate the ways that getting published would change my reading habits, and I have to be mindful about making sure those changes stay healthy and positive, but so far it’s been another incredibly neat aspect of this whole journey. And at the end of the day, reading is still my number one hobby. Reading a good book while enjoying a favorite meal or snack is still the absolute top-tier recreational pleasure in my life.

This blog post has been an excerpt from the most recent issue of my newsletter, C.J. Dotson’s Dreadful Dispatch, you can find the rest of the newsletter here.

My 2025 Reading Summary

I didn’t track my reading in any formal way this year, and I probably won’t remember to do that very well in 2026 either, but I do have a nice list of highlights, books that I read and loved this year. Some of them are available to go buy or get at your library now, and some are not out yet but you should pre-order them. And there were a few I can’t list properly because they were manuscripts I beta-read for friends and critique partners, but you better believe I’ll be shouting about them as soon as I can.

Highlights from my 2025 Reading

At Dark, I Become Loathsome by Eric LaRocca
Cold Eternity by SA Barnes
When the Wolf Comes Home by Nat Cassidy
Wake Up and Open Your Eyes by Clay McLeod Chapman
The Needfire by MK Hardy
The Faceless Thing We Adore by Hester Steel
Play Nice by Rachel Harrison
Good Boy by Neil McRobert
Atlas of Unknowable Things by McCormick Templeman
The Bone Queen by Will Shindler
We Sent Them Down Singing by Libby Edwardson
Vanishing Daughters by Cynthia Pelayo
You Weren’t Meant to be Human by Andrew Joseph White
We Are Always Tender with Our Dead by Eric LaRocca
Sister, Maiden, Monster by Lucy A Snyder
Trad Wife by Saratoga Schaefer
Abyss by Nicholas Binge
Mapping the Interior by Stephen Graham Jones
The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones
All the White Spaces by Ally Wilkes
A Cold Night for Alligators by Viggy Parr Hampton
The Staircase in the Woods by Chuck Wendig

Plus several novels that aren’t yet published, which I beta-read for friends, and which I can’t wait to recommend to you as soon as I’m able to.

What I’m currently reading:

The Shining by Stephen King
I saw a post recently that I can’t remember verbatim, but which was recommending re-reading your old favorites periodically. It said something like, “The book never changes, but your perspective will.” And it hit just right, that sentiment, as I’ve been re-reading this one. I like The Shining more now than I ever have, and it was always a book that was important to me.

What I’m excited to read next:

The Secret Attic by Chelsea Conradt
Our Winter Monster by Dennis Mahoney
rekt by Alex Gonzalez
Wolf Worm by T. Kingfisher
Dig by J. H. Markert
A Veritable Household Pet by Viggy Parr Hampton
Edenville by Sam Rebelein
Wretch by Eric LaRocca
Sick Houses by Leila Taylor

(since writing this list I’ve already thought of three more books that I’m adding to it, but actively updating the list would be a whole job, so suffice it to say that I’m looking forward to those books up there in my immediate future, and also I’m already excited about books I will be reading up to a year from now, and I will likely never be able to list them all)

This post has been an excerpt from my newsletter, C. J. Dotson’s Dreadful Dispatch. Read the rest here!

Book Recommendation: You Weren't Meant to Be Human

Andrew Joseph White’s You Weren’t Meant to Be Human has a trigger warning list longer than my arm, it deserves a trigger warning list that long, and you should look at it before you pick this book up. (I know that some people view trigger warning lists as spoilers, so I’m putting my suggested TWs for this book at the very bottom of the most recent issue of my newsletter)

That being said, if you can handle the potential triggers, you absolutely should pick this book up. It’s one of the most engrossing horror novels I read in 2025.

The simple but evocative cover for the wildly unsettling, upsetting, well-written horror novel You Weren’t Meant to Be Human

I’m a sucker for stories in which the monster/entity entices its victims to become one with it, stories in which the creature or eldritch horror or what-have-you, either directly or through an avatar/mouthpiece, tells its prey, “join us, the world is cold and you’re alone, so why not stop resisting and join us, it will be better this way.” Usually when we encounter stories like that, the protagonist knows that this is a false promise, and the reader (or viewer) knows that this is a false promise, and the conflict revolves around that. White’s book opens with a protagonist, Crane, who did not know that this was a false promise, a protagonist who has already given himself to the creature. You Weren’t Meant to Be Human takes us into that world just as Crane learns for himself that the promises have been hollow all along, but the threats are entirely real.

This book is grimy and violent and it doesn’t pull any punches. It’s raw and at times completely heartbreaking, it’s viscerally real, and so well-written. I loved it, and I would recommend it to fans of Eric LaRocca. It is definitely not for a casual horror enjoyer but it is an incredible book.

I Think About Social Media Too Much

I think about how bad it is, how harmful for humanity as a whole (this could be an entire blog post all on its own, actually), how my kids aren’t allowed on it now and how I wish I could keep them from ever being on it. I think about how invasive it is, how pervasive it is. I think it could be a major part of our downfall.
I also think about my own social media accounts and how I might be perceived and how I should act and what I could do to drive engagement and widen my audience and how much it bothers me that I don’t know how to do those things well.

I wish I didn’t have to worry about social media at all. When I was 9 and first dreamed of being an author someday, it never could have occurred to me that something like social media would even exist, much less how important it would feel or how many other authors I know feel like they have to constantly be able to market themselves. I worry over ways I could do social media better even though I know I’m not very good at that sort of thing. I imagine quitting it entirely, and then I fret about how if I quit social media I won’t be doing everything I possibly can to try to make my career successful. And by that logic am I already not doing everything I possibly can? Because I could probably research how to get better at social media if I could just force myself to engage with it properly.

But what’s worse than all that, lately, is that now that I have books to promote, I catch myself subconsciously treating time I’ve spent on my socials as if it was productive time. This is especially noteworthy when there’s a sale or when I have an event coming up. I can spend hours on Canva trying to make the best possible images to post to Instagram to promote my work, and by the time I’ve wrapped it up and made my posts, I’ll have used my entire early morning writing time on it. This should feel bad to me, but instead I’ll get up from my writing chair feeling as if I’ve done something productive. That’s an awful development, the kind of mindset that will make it way harder for me to be actually for-real productive with my limited free time. And I didn’t even really consciously realize until pretty recently that this shift in my outlook had even happened.

If I did finally tell myself something like, “Hmm, my Instagram and BlueSky accounts aren’t going to move the needle much, I’m just going to deactivate them” … I mean, I’d just reactivate them in a week. I’d do it mostly because social media is designed to be as addictive as possible and I’m not immune to its malignant allure, but also because there’s part of me that keeps treating it like I’m a kid again trying to figure out how to “be popular.”

And wow, that’s a mindset I have already grown out of once, over the course of my entire teens and early twenties, and now I have to do it again? Sigh. Well, at least it’ll be easier this time. I’m not going to delete my accounts, but starting right now I’m also going to try to stop worrying if I miss a trend that would’ve been perfect for talking about my book, I’m going to try to stop treating social media like something vital and important, and I’m going to try to not think about the apps at all when I’m not actively using them (I think this will be the most challenging but I’ve gotta try). Making shouting-about-my-book posts isn’t something I need to be stressing myself out over like this, it’s a task to add to my checklist, a task to find a way to manage just like any other chore. Maybe if I think of it like that—if I internally split “social media” as a category into two separate things (the Chore of Making Book-Marketing Posts on one hand and, on the other hand what it was always supposed to be, a fun little way to keep in touch with people)—I’ll be able to engage with it in a less unhealthy, less unproductive way. (I can’t in honesty say “in a healthy, productive way” because I believe that there is not really a healthy way to be on any social media site but again, that’s a whole-ass rant all on its own.)

Wish me luck…

THESE FAMILIAR WALLS Cover Reveal!

I am so beyond thrilled to share the cover for my second novel, THESE FAMILIAR WALLS! This dual-timeline haunted house novel comes out on April 14th, 2026. You can add it on GoodReads here, or head over here to pre-order your copy today!

In 1998, desperate loneliness pushes preteen Amber to ignore the misgivings of her family, particularly her younger sister, when she befriends the troubled new kid in the neighborhood—a boy with dead eyes, a fascination with fire, and no remorse. Their turbulent relationship is brief but creates lasting consequences.

Twenty-two years later, in 2020, he resurfaces to kill Amber’s parents, and is in turn betrayed by his accomplice and killed in Amber's childhood home.

After the deaths, Amber inherits the house and, in an effort to save money, moves in with her husband and two children, hoping to reclaim some sense of stability in the grief and chaos surrounding her. Instead, she finds that the familiar walls are haunted by more than just bitter memories and lockdown stress. She shifts in and out of dreamlike trances, her reflection won’t blink, and a menacing voice whispers to her from the gathering shadows. Although she tried to brush off the strange happenings as stress-fueled hallucinations, Amber is soon forced to admit that something much more real—and more dangerous—haunts her family. But Amber has deadly secrets of her own, and she must resolve these long-buried truths or lose the life she’s contrived for herself.

These Familiar Walls Updates

Hello! An announcement!

My second horror novel, THESE FAMILIAR WALLS, has a release date now—April 14th, 2026. I’ll be posting pre-order links next week!

And we’re having a cover reveal! In six days, on Wednesday, June 18th, keep an eye out on bluesky and Instagram for the hashtag #TheseFamiliarWalls to see the spooky, lovely cover for THESE FAMILIAR WALLS. Or pop back over here on Thursday, June 19th, and see the cover right here on my website.

About THESE FAMILIAR WALLS:

In 1998, desperate loneliness pushes preteen Amber to ignore the misgivings of her family, particularly her younger sister, when she befriends the troubled new kid in the neighborhood—a boy with dead eyes, a fascination with fire, and no remorse. Their turbulent relationship is brief but creates lasting consequences.

Twenty-two years later, in 2020, he resurfaces to kill Amber’s parents, and is in turn betrayed by his accomplice and killed in Amber's childhood home.

After the deaths, Amber inherits the house and, in an effort to save money, moves in with her husband and two children, hoping to reclaim some sense of stability in the grief and chaos surrounding her. Instead, she finds that the familiar walls are haunted by more than just bitter memories and lockdown stress. She shifts in and out of dreamlike trances, her reflection won’t meet her gaze, and a menacing voice whispers to her from the gathering shadows. Although she tried to brush off the strange happenings as stress-fueled hallucinations, Amber is soon forced to admit that something much more real—and more dangerous—haunts her family. But Amber has deadly secrets of her own, and she must resolve these long-buried truths or lose the life she’s contrived for herself.

Signed Hardcover Giveaway!

THE CUT comes out in only three weeks! If you are hoping to get your hands on a copy a little early but missed your chance at a paperback ARC from the GoodReads giveaways, then I have good news for you! I am giving away five signed hardcover copies of THE CUT, and each will come with a bookmark in the shape of a hotel do-not-disturb doorknob hanger!

Part of THE CUT takes place on a Lake Erie beach overlooked by an ominous power plant. I based that place on a real beach near where I grew up, a beach with a power plant looming over it, a beach where I once saw something in the water that inspired the first little writing idea that grew into this book. Now I want to know about your own local, eerie places! Your haunted bridges, your cursed trees, your abandoned amusement parks, your—I don’t know—your evil dog houses? Surprise me with your local creepy lore! And if you have (and feel comfortable sharing) any personal unsettling experiences in your nearby uncanny locations? Even better!

HOW TO ENTER THE GIVEAWAY
After reading the rest of this post, including the nitty-gritty below, head over to the contact page on this very website, here, and send me a message telling me about the most scary location near you, or your own personal story about that scary location if you have one you’d like to share. My five favorite stories will each win one signed hardcover copy of THE CUT, one bookmark in the shape of a do-not-disturb hotel doorknob sign, and the option to have their story included in the next regular issue of my newsletter, C.J. Dotson’s Dreadful Dispatch.

THE NITTY-GRITTY
- There is no fee or purchase of any kind necessary to enter this giveaway
- Entry into the giveaway does not guarantee a prize; only five entries will win
- This giveaway is open only to residents of the USA and Canada
- Entries must be sent through this website’s contact page, not through social media, e-mail, this post, etc.
- Entries must be submitted by the end of the day on April 1st, 2025
- Entries must include:
1. A 5,000-word-maximum recounting or story about a creepy place near you, in your own words (no plagiarism, no AI)
2. An email address at which I can contact you in case your story is one of the five winners
3. Indicate whether you would want your story, if it is a winner, to be featured in the next regular issue of my monthly newsletter, C.J. Dotson’s Dreadful Dispatch. If you like, you may also include a brief 300-word-maximum bio in case your story is one of the winners.

Please note that I will only be reaching out to and notifying the five winners—if you do not hear from me by the end of the day on April 2nd, 2025, then please consider that an indication that your story, however creepy and fun, was not one of the winners.

And that about wraps it up! I look forward to reading your unsettling tales and learning about your eerie locations!

THE CUT comes out 4/8/25 and is currently available for pre-order here.

A Known Place Made Strange by Darkness

I grew up in a neighborhood that had begun its transition from rural to suburban sometime just before my family moved in, a neighborhood that was fully suburban by the time I moved out on my own. I then spent my early adulthood until my mid-thirties living in cities.

Now I live by the woods. The forest presses right up to the back of my house. I like the quiet here, I like the way everything looks and feels and smells.

And I like the way it scares me a little bit at night, when I leave my house after dark for one reason or another. There’s no streetlights on the road where I live. When it’s dark here, it’s really dark. Especially under the trees, leaning over my house, watching my small self as I move around at night.

Fear of the woods and what lives in the woods is probably one of our oldest human fears. When I walk outside at night and get that little shiver of discomfort, I feel like it’s something I share with the people who have come before me, all the way back to the first of us. And I think that this fear, of a place unknown or of a known place made strange by darkness, is probably one of the roots of storytelling.

When I go out near the woods alone at night and know that I’m safe but feel that cool touch of unease on the back of my neck anyway, it makes me feel storytelling’s connection to fear, and it makes me feel my connection to storytelling in a living, breathing way.

Man, now I want spring to come faster, so I could go camping and tell stories around a fire.

THE CUT is now available to request on NetGalley!

The title kind of says it all, doesn’t it? My debut horror novel THE CUT is now available to request on NetGalley!

You can find it at https://www.netgalley.com/catalog/book/446259 right now!

If you’re unfamiliar with NetGalley, it’s a website where publishers make eARCs (electronic Advanced Reader Copies) of soon-to-be-published books available for request so that people can read the book early and post their reviews online. Reviewer accounts are free to make, then you request a book, and if the publisher approves your request you get access to the eARC. The more books you read and review the higher your rate of approval. It’s a great website.
And I’m not just saying that because I think you should make an account and request THE CUT. (But you should make an account and request THE CUT, and I hope you dig it!)

THE CUT Cover Reveal!

Here’s the incredible cover for THE CUT!

The jacket designer is Olga Grlic and she did an incredible job. I simply cannot get enough of staring at this cover!