I really wanted to like this book however the execution just wasn’t right and it let the rest of the book down

This was a super interesting one, but it did live up to the hype of weird ass tropes. Smex scenes were fabulous, and started from the beginning with wet dreams, so you also get the tension of the slow burn relationship build (fab combo!). I have been specifically wanting a book set in rural Alaska (December vibes lol), but the scary mad scientist vibes were also spooky and interesting.

Overall rating:
2/5 ⭐️
🌶️/5

I really wanted to like this book. The premise had potential, but unfortunately, the execution fell short for me. Instead of building suspense or intrigue, the story often felt like it relied on superficial moments—more of a “hey, did you see that? Weird, right?” approach rather than creating a deeper, immersive experience.

The spicy scenes were also underwhelming. While I have no issue with kinks, including degradation, I felt this particular aspect was poorly handled and lacked the nuance or intensity it needed. Additionally, the plot was fairly predictable. While predictability isn’t inherently bad, in this case, it made the story feel dull and unengaging.

At under 300 pages, it should have been a quick read, but I found myself struggling to finish it. As someone who loves macabre, suspenseful thriller romances with a side of spice, this just didn’t hit the mark for me.

Me to me: "Oh this book looks great. Maybe spooky? Nice, let's try it."

Me to me once I read it: "what the FUCK was that?!"


Kudos. Fucking kudos, Halle. You blew my mind and I can't stop talking about it. I mean that ending was just 😤😤😤

Creepy. Gut-wrenching. Gloomy. Romantic. Psychotic. Insanely memorable.

Please read this book. Freak out with me. Everything about it was incredible. From the fungi research to the romance between Wes and Sydney. You'll giggle, yell, blush, growl, and scratch your head. But it's SO worth the ride.

Wow. This book kept me on my toes. It also creeped me out !! I was NOT expecting that plot twist. I would recommend this if you’re looking into getting into romantic suspense with mild horror.

While I think this book was really well written the premise didn't work well for me. From the offset the tension was building and it was obvious something else was going on but for me that made things a bit less believable in a way? The insta-lust romance also felt forced. Incredibly grateful for the opportunity to read and review this book!

I have read many of Karinas books in the past, so I knew a bit about what to expect.. Good writing, and some spooky gore. This book was very aligned with my expectations. It definitely had the horroresque vibes to it with the details and grotesque descriptions of what was occurring and what the main character witnessed. I also loved the romantic dynamic between the FMC and MMC, and while I knew a twist was coming, It was not easy to fully predict what the twist would be or how it would play out. Overall, I really enjoyed this book.

I 👏🏻 loved 👏🏻 this 👏🏻 book 👏🏻

Horror romance x science fiction in a dark, gothic psychological thriller? Say less. I already had a Karina Halle obsession, but Grave Matter quickly became my favorite book by Halle so far. I went to university on Vancouver Island, and Karina encapsulated everything so perfectly I felt like I was back in Parksville on a foggy day. The twists, the spice, and the overwhelmingly ominous feeling made this book impossible to put down. The mental health rep was exceedingly well done and THAT ENDING?! My god. I loved it. Horror/psychological thriller romance isn’t a genre I gravitate to, but I fear Karina has kickstarted my next obsession.

Read this book if you like a slow burn, professor x student trope, and wondering WTF !?! (in the best way) is going on.

Tropes

🍄 Dark academia
🍄 Age gap
🍄 Forced proximity
🍄 Teacher x student
🍄 Chronic illness rep

**Thank you to Karina Halle, Metal Blonde Books & Netgally to the eARC in exchange for an honest review**

This was not a book that I enjoyed whatsoever. It was almost a DNF but I powered through. I did not care for the writing style and or the premise. I have read similar fantasy/science fiction plot lines that I thought were handled better and I just couldn't get behind the creepy, toxic relationship depicted - just not my jam.

This is my first book by this author so i didn't really know what to expect when going into it, but i was not disappointed at all.
The reviews for this book really do it justice, and i knew i wanted to read a copy of this when i saw the content warning list. It's a whole page long and covers things from off page deaths, animal deaths (also off page), gore, bdsm and torture. If that doesn't sound like a wild ride then i don't know what does.

This entire book was crazy from start to finish, with the pacing and momentum of the book really picking up at the halfway point. It did take me a little while to get into it properly, but once i did i was fully invested and couldn't put it down.

Things were a little hard to understand at the beginning becasue there was just so much explaining, and so much info dumping about the different types of wildlife/fungi/the island that they were on. I think it was all of this context and info right at the start of the book (and honestly up to the 25% mark) that makes it a little slower to get through.

The only problem i had, which was entirely on me, was that i didn't really connect with any of the characters. Maybe because the focus of the story wasn't actually on them but on this creepy island and all the weird things going on there?
I did like that there was such a wide variety of characters, and that they weren't all the 'good guys'. It was really cool to see just how manipulative some of them could be, and even more enjoyable when you saw a different side of them come out on the page simply because things weren't going their way.

I also didn't really understand the chemistry between Kincaid and Sydney, but maybe that was the point?
It just seemed like the obsession/romance between the two of them kind of came out of nowhere, same as all the spicy scenes. I don't know i just felt like i missed some kind of connecting moment that actually brought them together?

Everything about this just felt kind of off in some way, but now that i've finished the book and actually thought about it, i really do think that this was the intention. Things just didn't add up or make sense until the end, and with the pacing being so off you really lose all sense of time within the book until all of a sudden really intense and graphic things are happening again.

It was 'off' in the best way possible and a really enjoyable psychological thriller/romance.

I really enjoyed this and flew through it. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this ARC!

Karina Halle can do no wrong!!!! Her books are so consistently great and easy reads!!! I loved this one so much!!

This book was absolutely wild from start to finish. It took me a while to get into it but once I did I was absolutely hooked. The plot twists? Insane. This book is the ultimate “wtf did I just read?” IN THE BEST WAY.

I’m giving this book a 2.5 ⭐️ rating because I liked the story but I couldn’t connect with Sydney, the FMC. I found her to be unreliable in her thought process and some of the things she said when she was referring to intimate details was just… not for me. Some of the spicey scenes seemed to happen at a time when they shouldn’t. They were just thrown in at random.
I didn’t find this story to be scary, gross in some places sure, but not scary. By the end of the book, I found myself not caring what happened to Sydney or Kincaid.

Thank you, NetGalley, for the opportunity to read this book.

Looking for a gothic, romance, mystery, thriller - wow, could I find anymore book descriptors 😁 - well this book seems to have in all and in spaces. It will even throw in a level of steam that I would recommend not reading it at work (can you say 'awkward', let me tell you😏).

The island of Winter Harbor has an Island of Dr. Moreau vibe with the feeling that something sinister going on just beneath the surface, of things not being as quite as they appear, but like a half remembered dream you can't put your finger on or trust that it's real and not a figment of your imagination.

Sydney is graduate student who has lost almost everything but this chance to work with a prestigious and cutting-edge research organization that is trying to cure Alzheimer's with the use of a rare fungus that only grows on a remote part of a certain island, thus begins our strange trip into a world where ghosts roam and the dead walk, trees whisper secrets while the humans tell nothing but lies. Who is friend and who is foe? What is truth or lie? Can any of it be real or is it a psychotic break due to inhaling toxic spores?

This story, like walking thru the woods, can seem to meander and have no real purpose, other times to be like stumbling wildly about, then there are the fearful panic-stricken times through the woods where things are too sharp, colors, sounds only for everything to become clear. This story has that feel, those ups and downs, moments that seem to have no purpose only for that purpose to slam you in the face. I will say that ending felt like resolution and very anticlimactic at the same time. I guess I want more after all the build up instead of a soft landing that I got. That's just me

** Thank you to NetGalley and the author for the opportunity to review this advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion **

This book was absolutely amazing. Once I started reading I didn’t want to stop. The characters were absolutely phenomenal. The story was unputadownable. I was so into this book that I read it in one sitting. Truly another brilliant read with characters that I will never forget

Summary:
Landing a dream internship in the field of mycology, Sydney joins a prestigious foundation for an intense summer of field work. But when she arrives, she begins to see apparitions, someone is watching her from her window and the internship feels more like busy work that the prestigious opportunity it should be. When another student starts to crack under pressure and goes missing, Sydney has to try to figure out what is reality and what may just be happening inside her own head.

Rating: 4/5
Spice: 2/5

Tropes:
Dark academia
Everyone has a secret
Paranormal entities

Triggers:
Psychological trauma
Death
Hallucinations

My thoughts:
This books feels very disjointed in the beginning, which now that I’ve read the entire story, I think is intentional. A good mix of dark academia, things that go bump in the night and an insane plot twist all equal a great spooky (and sexy!) read.

5.0

5 Dirty Little Pet Stars ⭐️
Spicy Level:🌶️🌶️/5

You ever have a book, that when you finished reading it your brain felt like it had exploded and you were just trying to play catchup… I have been sitting on this review for a while because my mind is completely reeling with trying to put together thoughts and words. Its mushroom and blowing in the air like millions of spores.

𝙎𝙮𝙣𝙤𝙥𝙨𝙞𝙨:
Sydney Denik is a graduate mycology student who’s life is falling to pieces. However she is given this once in a lifetime opportunity to work at the secretive prestigious Madrona Foundation as part of a summer research program studying Alzheimer’s.

However once she arrives in rural Vancouver things start to get weird. She starts seeing things and she starts wondering is she having visions, seeing ghosts. Or is she going mad with her mind playing tricks on her. While dealing with that she also has to struggle with the growing attraction she has towards one of the professors at the facility, who also happens to be her psychologist. All that she knows the longer she stays at the Madrona Foundation – the less things make sense.
If you want a book that is the epitome of “spooky creepy” vibes with a dash of dark academia and makes you yourself question your own sanity, then this is it for you! You find yourself just as confused and befuddled as Sydney…but YOU LOVE EVERY SECOND OF IT!

𝙏𝙝𝙤𝙪𝙜𝙝𝙩𝙨 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙁𝙚𝙚𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙜𝙨:
I ADORED Sydney, mostly because she's pretty brash at times and is pretty snarky and sarcastic. She speaks her mind very easily, often in places that I myself would never be caught dead speaking. I was giggling “listening” to her internal monologue and some of the things that she said. I personally related to a lot of her references and the pop culture she comments on. She just felt like someone I would like to be friends with. I also adored that she is so driven, tenacious, smart and intelligent. This entire book is told from her POV so there are aspects of unreliable narration which is handled so well that it keeps you engrossed but it is also done very tactfully as a display to the mental illness and neurodivergent characteristics Sydney has.

I was also super impressed by the depth of research Karina Halle put into this book. I am always apprehensive of books that feature a woman in STEM romances because they can often portray the field and representation of women very badly. However this is the type of book that does it justice! Karina Halle did such a good job. The research that went into the different mushrooms, their types, their pharmacology, and their toxicity, it felt like this was written by somebody who was an expert in the field but never felt overly technical. Its presence in the story added to the richness and the way the science was portrayed felt natural. It takes a very unique skill to blend and blur science and fantasy and make it feel like it could happen in our world.

I don't want to say too much about this BECAUSE I HONESTLY RECOMMEND THAT YOU GO IN BLIND!!!

BUT KNOW the reason this made such an impact is because I didn't see the twists and turns coming and the way that everything interconnected. I almost want to go back and reread it again to catch the things I missed.

𝙏𝙧𝙤𝙥𝙚𝙨:
▶ Obsession
▶ Forced Proximity
▶ Forbidden Romance
▶ Obsessive MMC
▶ TeacherXStudent
▶ PsychologistXPateint
▶ Age Gap
▶ Dark Academia
▶ Chronic Illness Rep
▶ Touch Her You Die
▶ Burn the World for You

𝙎𝙤𝙢𝙚 𝙆𝙞𝙣𝙠𝙨:
➢ BDSM
➢ Hand Necklaces
➢ Bondage
➢ Degradation and Praise

and 𝙈𝙞𝙘𝙧𝙤 𝙏𝙧𝙤𝙥𝙚𝙨:
▷ Rolled Sleeves/Forearms
▷ Use Me
▷ Good Girl
▷ Beg Me

THIS BOOK left such a lasting impression on my mind. It was perfection how everything came together! It's the type of thing that should be made a movie as it has all the elements that movies need: drama, suspense, romance, mystery/thriller allure, and just spooky vibes. Absolutely fantastic and the best book I have read from Karina Halle!

Thank you to Netgalley, Metal Blonde Books and Karina Halle for the gifted copy!
All thoughts and opinions are my own!

This book will pull you right out of any reading slump! It was so twisty and spooky and I just couldn't stop turning the pages, so eager to find out what happens next. The writing was so atmospheric! A very good level of spice as well. Would highly recommend to anyone especially fans of Mexican Gothic.

Wow, I totally loved this book! It is a bit out of my comfort zone, but i loved Karina Halle’s romcoms and i saw so many positive reviews for this one so I knew I had to read it, i’m so glad I did now!!
Grave Matter is one of those absolutely unputdownable books, with a mix of horror, gothic, romance and sci-fi.
The romance was sizzling and steamy but it didn’t take anything away from the plot and I really related to the fmc Sydney, since she was one of the best portrayals of ADHD i’ve read about so far.
Karina Halle just never disappoints🥰

Thanks so much to netgalley and the publisher for a free digital copy of this book! All opinions are my own.