Hello and welcome to the latest issue of The Ghoulish Times. My name is Max Booth and this is my free spooky newsletter about all things GHOULISH.

Next week is the release of our newest publication, Madeline Blondeau’s Penitents. I’m currently packaging webstore pre-orders with the intent of mailing out either this Wednesday or Thursday. Here is what it looks like:

Evangeline Gallagher did the incredible cover art. Every time I look at it, I forget how to breathe a little.

More about the novel:

“Gory, ferocious, and awash in bodily fluids, Penitents is a debut of both shocking violence and startling emotional clarity. This is a book that touches the heart with the filthiest fingers imaginable.”
—Lindsay King-Miller, This Is My Body and The Z Word

“This book will break you down completely and remold you from scratch like an acid trip baptism.”
—Sabs Cooper, Dead Beats and Tales from Nottingham

After weeks of arguing over an indiscretion, Ginger takes a weekend away from her girlfriends Jessica and Clara to clear her head. But when she has an ill-fated one-night stand with Beatrice—a gender critical conservative—the woman’s family kidnaps and assaults her. Ginger barely escapes with her life, but as her girlfriends come looking for her, they wind up in the crosshairs of Beatrice’s abusive father. Unfortunately for them, the former sheriff’s hobbies include trafficking queer runaways and producing snuff films with his once-deputy.

Penitents is a trans tribute to New French Extreme cinema and ’70s grindhouse horror roaring down the rain-slicked coast of the Pacific Northwest. Set against a backdrop of desperate hook-ups and polyamorous infidelity, this roaring revenge romp spans the course of one blood-soaked weekend around Astoria, Oregon.

Here is Madeline Blondeau signing author stickers for webstore orders:

Here is the full jacket art (Zach Chapman handled the spine and back cover design):

Penitents was also selected by Bloody Disgusting as one of the 20 Most Anticipated Horror Books of October 2026:

“Set in the Pacific Northwest, Penitents follows Ginger, a queer woman escaping the drama of her relationship for a little while, who gets into a one-night stand gone horribly wrong. Hunted by a former sheriff who dabbles in both human trafficking and snuff filmmaking, Ginger and her girlfriends are caught up in a life-or-death struggle across one horrifying weekend. This book is described as a ‘trans tribute to New French Extremity cinema and ’70s grindhouse horror,’ which is an instant lure for me.”

Pre-order Penitents and support a debut extreme horror novel from a very promising new author!

Additionally, I would like to remind y’all that we are still currently taking pre-orders for our new shirt design: GHOULISH BOOKS WILL KILL YOUR PARENTS.

We will be getting these printed at the end of the month and shipped out sometime in November. To be honest, we need to sell like 40 more shirts before we can cover the cost of printing, sooo… if this seems like something you’d put on your torso, consider pre-ordering!

We also have a sticker version:

MEDIA I HAVE RECENTLY CONSUMED OR AM CURRENTLY CONSUMING:

BOOKS - I finished Biography of X (audiobook) by Catherine Lacey and loved it. It’s obsessive and unhinged in a way that’s exactly my kind of shit. I also read The Pisces by Melissa Broder (not enough hot merman sex imho), Life for Sale (audiobook) by Yukio Mishima (kind of boring! I’m sorry!), and Thrilling Tales of Modern Men (audiobook) by Danny McBride (a very good time). Currently I am reading The Rouse by China Mieville, Acid Green Velvet by Grace Krilanovich, and Gideon the Ninth (audiobook) by Tamsyn Muir.

MOVIES - I haven’t watched a ton of movies lately but I did manage to go check out John Wilson’s The History of Concrete last week and had a lot of fun with it. Kind of an extended version of his HBO show. Ahead of the screening my partner and I both voiced the only concrete facts we know (my fact being the difference between concrete and cement and their fact being that those tiny dark stains on concrete are from chewing gum) and it was quite thrilling when the documentary brought up both of those topics. We felt like very smart people.

MUSIC - Not gonna lie, I’ve been greeping out pretty hard lately, and now so can you: