I have a confession. When Lee Stackhouse invited people to sign up for Advance Reader Copies (ARCs) of her new book…I didn’t read the summary she posted for it in her subscriber chat. I saw she was looking for readers and saw the title FLY and threw my name in the ring.
This is a thing I’ll do sometimes: go into something as blind as I possibly can. I grew up at a time when Friday evenings were spent wandering a video store and you had to pick from whatever was available. When you went to the library, you could get recommendations from the librarian, sure, but it was more rewarding to wander the stacks and find a cover or title or author name that leapt out at you. You could find a new favorite TV show simply by flipping through channels and catching a funny bit that would make you invest.
We as animals love pattern recognition. Algorithms and recommendation engines are great at serving us content we will enjoy; but they absolutely fail at giving us another thing our animal brains enjoy: breaking a pattern so we can discover a new one. So, I’ll do it myself. I’ll take a left turn instead of a right when a go to the store. I’ll go to a restaurant because I like the color blue they use in their logo. I’ll sign up to read a book I know absolutely nothing about.
The irony of doing this and then writing a review is not lost on me. So before maybe I’ll just say I’m happy I read it on a whim and you can decide to continue reading this post or not. The book is available for preorder on Amazon now and will be available in about a month (April 1, 2026).
By the time Lee had sent me a copy to read, I had learned the story was going to be a horror/thriller of some kind. I normally shy away from scary stories because I am a weenie and don’t like to be afraid (I’m particularly against zombies and demons, no thank you.) Frankly, I was excited I’d thrown myself into something that should make me uncomfortable. That’s often where you find the best surprises.
FLY is a novella; at only about a hundred pages or so, it’s a quick easy read. It tells the story of five college-aged kids who sneak into an abandoned building to party. It’s pretty obvious that this is isn’t going to end well for them; but these kinds of stories thrive on the anticipation. I didn’t find myself getting emotionally invested in any of the characters and used my own imagination to fill in some blanks where they were concerned. I don’t think this is a problem: the whole premise of the story is to give you the sense of being a prey animal being hunted, so those kinds of details are tertiary. But, if you like your horror to have high emotional stakes, you probably won’t find that here.
Ms. Stackhouse achieves what she sets out to do. Somewhere around the third chapter, I found myself a little disturbed and said “mm, I probably ought to wait til it’s a little brighter outside before I keep reading this.” I found myself expecting the story to resolve in one way, but it ended up taking a different tack that made me a little queasy by the end. Thanks for disturbing me, Lee. I really appreciate it ;)
If you like the fight-or-flight sensation of being stalked by a ghost you’ll enjoy this, too. Check out Lee Stackhouse ‘s publication in the mean time!
thank you so much for reading <3