I started reading this one and I was convinced a book so short would not get a spooky story across so few pages and boy was I wrong.

A creepy - abandoned - mansion - wedding - tale of the best kind. You're throw right in and young thrill-seeking wedding guests (and the bride and groom) start playing games and do not take the power of the house seriously and then, well - all hell breaks loose.

I loved the vivid descriptions of the house and its roots in Japanese folklore. The friend drama was not my favorite but it didn't take away from the spooky story. It actually added to the question of who will be saved and who will be left behind?

I really loved the story, the gore, and the fun twist on the darkness of a weekend that is supposed to be bright and joyous - but I still wished it was much longer. I would have loved so much more of this one!

Take one well-established haunted house tale, steep it in Japanese folklore, and drape it in exquisite writing, and you have the dark pleasure of Nothing But Blackened Teeth.

Cassandra Khaw hooked me from the start with the legend of the abandoned mansion, built with the bones of young women buried alive, one layered upon one another, all to feed the ghost of a sorrowful bride waiting for her groom to arrive. Populate it with a feuding company of friends, there to celebrate a wedding of their own, and you've got one hell of a haunted house horror story.

"Like a wedding veil, a mourning caul. Like froth on the lip of a bride drowning on soil."

Of course, a concept can only carry a story so far, but Khaw uses those feuding friends to create an atmosphere of unease and discomfort, and then weaves such beautifully morbid language and imagery into the telling that you're compelled to keep reading. I wanted to know more about this mansion, I wanted to explore it, to tear down those walls, to discover where legend ends and truth begins. I wanted to know more about the characters, their backstories, their relationships, and why there was such tension between them. Most of all, though, I wanted more of that writing, more of the language that made me catch my breath and suppress a shudder.

"It wasn't so much a library as much as it was an archive of corpses, manuscripts chewed up by the centuries, edges winnowed by insects."

While there were a few predictable moments to the story, they were still interesting because of how Khaw acknowledged the tropes she was playing with, adding an element of doubt and suspicion to the story. I was impressed with how far she took things, how dark she allowed the story to become, and even more appreciative of how she refused to le it end on shock and horror, lingering just long enough to leave us with sorrow instead.

Nothing But Blackened Teeth is a story to be read slowly and carefully, preferably on a dark night with the wind howling outside the window. Exquisite.

Nothing But Blackened Teeth is a beautifully written, creepy and disconcerting horror novella that I'm still thinking about weeks after finishing! I adored Cassandra Khaw's writing and her descriptions of the horrifying elements, which were somehow both beautiful and jarring at once. I especially enjoyed the Japanese folklore and the setting of the story. The main reason this isn't a five star read is the pacing - the story jumped ahead several times, instead telling the reader about action that had happened off page, when I think it could have been a longer novel and fully fleshed out those events. I definitely recommend this as a spooky season read, and will be checking out anything else Khaw writes.

Whoever designed this cover nailed it just as much as Khaw nails the terrifying atmosphere in this novella. Nothing But Blackened Teeth presents us with a group of five friends gathering in a haunted Japanese Heian-era mansion for a destination wedding. Right off the bat, something doesn’t seem right. It smells of rot and decay, yet it looks like someone has come in to fix things up for the guests. And for someone who made the arrangements, Phillip, the rich, golden boy of the group, seems to know disturbingly little about the place. It only gets creepier as they start telling ghost stories and Cat, our narrator, starts hearing and seeing things. And the climax is absolutely horrifying.

Unfortunately, that’s about all that worked for me in this book. For me, the characters are always the most important part of a horror story. I need to be invested in them. Things start out promising; there’s tension between every member of the friend group, and Cat has just been released from the hospital after a suicide attempt. But it ends there. The characters remain stereotypes with no growth or development. We never get to find out what’s going on between each character and how their friendships started to fall apart. I couldn’t even understand why they’re friends in the first place because they all seem to hate each other. I just couldn’t care about them, which made it hard to actually be into the book.

I also found the constant breaking of the fourth wall a little irritating. It’s clear that Khaw is playing with stereotypes of the genre, and I did like how she subverts them. But having characters point out who is the hero and the moments when supporting cast members generally die just took me out of the story. It also seemed heavy handed to me, as if Khaw doesn’t trust the reader to figure out the way she’s twisting tropes on their own. Some people probably find it clever and funny. It just didn’t work for me.

Overall, Nothing But Blackened Teeth is a quick, gory read for this Halloween season. I prefer longer horror stories with more build up and character development, so it didn’t work for me. But there’s definitely an audience for it, and I still suggest checking it out!

An interesting novella. I enjoyed the writing more than the story. The writing was very strong and beautiful, nice use of imagery. Although this is a ghost story, it did not scare me. I could definitely see it potentially becoming a film. I learned alot about Japanese folklore, yokais, the significance of blackened teeth, and the concept of hitobashira.

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I thought this cover was deliciously creepy in a way that reminded me of The Ring, and I was ready for a quick spine-tingling thriller set in Japan. Unfortunately, for me, the cover was the only part of the book that elicited any real response from me.

Let’s start with the good. Representation is strong in this book. It’s a group of four racially diverse friends. The main character is bisexual, says the word, and isn’t demonized in the book. Since it’s common for thrillers and horror to demonize queer characters, this was nice. The writing is poetic, which is a bit unusual in horror. The idea of a bride being so into haunted houses that she wants to be married in a house where the haunting is a bride was also fun. So why didn’t it work for me?

For horror to work for me, I need to know enough about the characters to kind of care about what happens to them. This jumps so quickly into the haunted house moment with the friends that I just….never really cared about any of them. To be honest, I still kind of easily get them mixed up in my head. By the time we know any of their motivations, a lot of the thrills and gore have already happened but it’s too late for me to care about them. It wasn’t even that they were a collection of common horror tropes so I knew what was going on and could sort of care. (I’m thinking about the tropes used in Scream or The Cabin in the Woods). It seems to me that part of the goal was to subvert tropes but in order for that to work, I need to really know the characters for the tropes to be subverted and for me to still care about the characters. Tropes work because they fill in the blanks for us. The cheerleader may be ditzy but she really cares about her friends, so we know she’s really actually upset when she can’t find one of them. But if the trope has been subverted just enough that we know that the cheerleader doesn’t’ care about her friends but we also don’t know what she actually cares about then all understanding of what meaning and impact the plot has on her is lost.

Others who don’t need strong character development to get into the thrills of a horror will likely enjoy this story more than I did, particularly if the basic plot summary given above appeals to you.

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Did this cover give me a nightmare? Yes. Did the book? No. Maybe it’s just me, but if a book throws four people in a haunted house to maybe die, I gotta know a little bit more about them to connect with them and maybe care. The language was beautiful, but I just couldn’t get into the story for this reason. Now for a haunted house where I cared about the characters, I can’t recommend Muppet Haunted Mansion enough 😂

Thank you Netgalley and Tor NightFire for providing me with a copy of Nothing But Blackened Teeth, this review is voluntary and all opinions are my own.

You ever read a book and instantly know you hate all of the characters and want them all to be dead by the end of the book, yah that's one of my grips with this book.

I'm not someone who can wrap her head around a group of people who clearly hate each other, hanging out, all because "they all use to date and be friends at some point" This was just chalk full of annoying petty fighting between all 5 characters, they were constantly attacking each other for stuff that happened in the past. And what makes this worse is we have no real solid idea what happened in their pasts with one another aside from who slept with who. Cat apparently had some kind of terrible low point in her life (this is never fully explained) and some how I'm suppose to believe that these assholes where there for her during that time, yah no I don't believe that. After the first chapter I was ready for some supernatural stuff to happen and people to start dying, but no I got more and more and more petty arguing and fighting and just all around asshole people page after page.

The supernatural parts, the yokai, the part I thought would be the saving grace of this book are basically nonexistent, they just roam around in the background, floating and not actually interacting with the cast, and instead it just looks like these are drunk idiots who's internal hatred for each other has reached it boiling point. There was no horror atmosphere at all because it all took a backseat to the petty bickering and fighting in the group of "friends".

The end was absolutely anticlimactic, if everyone had died by the yokai I would have been so much happier with it but I didn't get that, because the Yokai didn't do anything in this story. So what does happen comes across emotionless because again, these people clearly hated each other, yet I'm suppose to believe they where actually sad about who died and how it happened, no.

On top of all this Khaw tries so hard to be clever with her lines and words that she constantly pulled me out the story because she threw in some word I have never in my life come across and the surrounding context did nothing to help explain what the word was suppose to mean. When authors do this it gives me this vibes of "I'm so smart and your not, look how smart I am" and it just turns me off from wanting to pick up more of their work. So much of the writing of this focused on trying to be clever that just it ruined the atmosphere of creating something scary.

If you want a book with 5 adults who hate each staying in a "haunted" mansion in Japan than sure check this out, if you are looking for scary atmosphere than this is not what you want.

The scary part of this was creepy and well done. Unfortunately the characters were all beyond unpleasant and I couldn't figure out why they were together. It's not a good sign when, at the end, you wish more or all of these people were dead.

Cat joins her friends—well, they were friends, now who even knows?—for a spooky wedding in an abandoned and possibly haunted Heian-era mansion. She and her friends want thrills, they want an experience, but they are not prepared for the bride buried in the foundations. They are not ready for her hunger.

“After all, isn’t that the foremost commandment in the scripture of horror? They who are queer, deviant, tattooed, tongue-pierced or other must always die first.”

Whaaaaaaat even was this novella?

I’m going between 3 and 4 stars, because beneath the creeping horror of the house and the never-bride-to-be, the friends group felt off and weird and half-formed? Of course, they were off and weird because they weren’t truly friends and all had complicated backstories, but Cat’s narration was disconnecting and odd. Her disconnect and unreliable narration is normal, however, because of her past year, her imaginative mind (she dropped out of studying Japanese lit), and her mental illness, but I still had a hard time getting a read on her thoughts.

It doesn’t matter how many corpses are lying in the soil with them. It’s not the same. The dead msis the sun. It’s dark down there.

Anywho, the horror aspect of a haunted house was solid. Ancient, decrepit mansion. Bones in the foundations. Yokai and many nods to Japanese horror and legend. A group of rich young party-goers looking to get married with an ~experience~ in an old Japanese mansion. And a lonely ghost who just wants to feel the warmth of the sun and the solid weight of living human flesh.

And intermixed in this tweak on horror-tropes is an interesting commentary on cultural exploitation and capitalism.

It was an enjoyable foray into horror, but I really wanted it to be longer so the characters (and especially their backstory) could be just a touch more fleshed out (hehe) so I could get that guttural punch when the shit hits the fan.

Trigger Warning: Death, body mutilation

I received this ARC from NetGalley for an honest review

Boy, this has the makings of a deliciously bad SyFy movie. You know it's terrible, but you can't help sitting through the entire thing from start to finish.

Before getting into the story, make sure you have extensive knowledge of Japanese culture, lore, and myths. Klaw incorporated a few tall tales in this haunting in excruciating detail, so have the Google search bar open and ready if you are not familiar. If you feel like you can brave the overly detailed imagery, at least have a dictionary beside your bedtable as well. Where simple words probably would have done the passages justice, Klaw likes to fancy up her vocabulary, making you scratch your medulla oblongata.

I wish there were more action in this short story. The most we have seen is a bunch of ghosts standing around whispering methodically throughout the entire haunting. The humans made most of the gore. It was a very underwhelming ending, and I was bored.

“It gets lonely down in the dirt….” Five young adults make the mistake of partying in a haunted, Heian-era manor in Cassandra Khaw’s hotly anticipated horror novella Nothing But Blackened Teeth. I had the pleasure of interviewing Khaw last month to get their thoughts on haunted houses and the horror genre. And then I devoured this bite-size novella in just a few sittings. If you’re looking for a horror story to eat like candy on Halloween, grab Nothing But Blackened Teeth when it comes out next Tuesday, October 19.

Cat pretty quickly gets the feeling that coming to the manor was a mistake. Once upon a time, Philip, Lin, Faiz, and Talia were her best friends—always seeking thrills together by chasing down ghosts and cavorting in abandoned buildings. But something changed; they grew apart and lived their own lives while Cat was left to wallow in her worsening mental health. When the gang gets back together for one last haunted house to celebrate Faiz and Talia’s nuptials, something isn’t right. The group is divided by secrets and insecurities—and the ghosts of this house want to drag them even further apart. Legend has it that a young bride was buried alive in the foundations of this Japanese mansion, waiting for her groom who never came. Each year, another girl joins her beneath the walls to assuage the cold and loneliness. If Cat and her friends aren’t careful, they could easily become just another part of this local legend.

The scariest parts of this horror story are based in reality: Japan really does have a history of burying people alive beneath the foundations of buildings or other large structures like dams and bridges. The practice is called hitobashira, and it was thought to protect the structure from natural disasters or enemy attacks. The characters in Nothing But Blackened Teeth even reference a real-world example: Matsue Castle, said to have involved the sacrifice of a young maiden whose ghost makes the castle walls tremble if anyone dares to engage in her once-favorite activity—dancing—in its vicinity. The activity that seems to upset the ghost of this story’s manor is a happy couple getting married, like the young bride never managed to do. Another factual element of this story is teeth blackening. Throughout Japanese history, it was fashionable—particularly for married women and new brides—to use a dark ink to glaze one’s teeth. This practice is reflected in legends of the ohaguro-bettari, a type of specter from Japanese folklore that appears as a young woman in a bridal kimono whose face is devoid of all features but that signature inky mouth. In Nothing But Blackened Teeth, the eerie smile of the manor’s ghost is described in visceral detail, including even the stench of vinegar and rust that wafts from her mouth, hinting at the ingredients that were historically used to create this ink.

But the novel does not just draw on Japanese legend and folklore; the characters show a modern meta-awareness of horror genre conventions. At one point, just as things start to get spooky, Lin comments on what archetype each of the friends would fit into as characters in a horror movie and who would die first. Later, Cat argues vehemently against splitting up, since that never ends well in films. But even as the characters realize that they’re falling into cliché roles, that awareness is not enough to make them change their behavior and prevent further bloodshed. And that is because the true horror of this story doesn’t come from its ghosts. Instead, it is their toxic, festering friendships that inevitably propel these characters toward violence.

If you’d like to join in this misguided mission at a Heian manor, you can find Nothing But Blackened Teeth on shelves later this month (October 19). Or you can preorder it now and support The Gothic Library in the process using this Bookshop.org affiliate link. Once you’ve finished it, let me know what you think in the comments!

I was feeling in a spooky mood having just finished two horror films and thought - I definitely should read that Cassandra Khaw novella that I've been holding onto. It was the perfect thing to read at 1 AM when the shadows are at their densest and I love the way Khaw writes prose - I'm a big fan of Hammers on Bone.

I don't think I liked any of the characters but I was so interested in what happened next that I was engaged throughout - 5 stars, no complaints.

Nothing But Blackened Teeth is nothing short of a creepy and chilling tale. Set in a massive, abandoned home with ghosts lurking within its very foundations is a foolproof way to evoke a sense of unease as readers wait for the inevitable explosion of every horror tale.

Khaw does an excellent job building that atmosphere. Through Cat, readers gain a solid enough understanding of the taut relationship between her and her friends. As the story unfolds, the tension between the group adds to the suspense Khaw weaves into the fabric of her story. It follows that this group would remain friends after enduring so much together, but readers also wonder, why would they? Is it the house exacerbating whatever bad blood still exists, or maybe the group is simply tired of tiptoeing across thin ice. Regardless, it leaves readers wanting to learn more, to see how this will play out.

Another interesting aspect is how Khaw literally spells out horror tropes just as activity in the house escalates. More interesting still is that Cat, her narrator, fits into the "you die first" category, yet she's integral to the story. Khaw writes with a clear understanding of the genre. And she uses that to her advantage. She brings readers on a journey that checks all the boxes, yet she doesn't fall prey to the often predictable nature of horror. By the book's conclusion, she leaves readers craving more.

There was one major thing that pushed me to rate this lower than I normally would: the writing style. Now, I won't deny that Khaw writes beautifully. Her descriptions are vivid, and choosing to write with a first POV only enhances the story. However, I felt that the style was too florid at times to fully mesh with the overall tone of the story. I found myself getting too lost in descriptions and having to re-read some passages. There were points where I fell out of the story. Despite the skilled lyricism of of Khaw's writing, it would've better served the story had this been presented in verse over prose; it would've allowed some of the more singular moments and explanations to thrive on their own without taking anything away from what was happening.

On the whole, this is a book well-suited to those who immerse themselves in the genre. Regardless of my own hangups with the writing, I did find myself enjoying the story. I wanted to learn more about the house, and the group, and how everything would come together. The book lends itself to reading in one sitting. And though it's short, Khaw manages to bring a fleshed out story to the table.

I was instantly drawn to this book by the cover. It is very eye catching. Thus, I wanted to read this book. As short stories go it was a fast read but it felt lacking. I have read other short stories that pack a punch within the few pages that you don't feel like anything is missing. This one suffered

It did give off creepy vibes but that is about it. It did not make the hairs on my arms stand up in fear. I get where the story was going...some. Yet, I was not engaged with the characters enough to care about them. The ending I had to re-read twice. It was because I could not believe it ended that way. I was waiting for something grander that did not come.

An excellent example of the cover being better than the book. I feel the scare factor was a bit diluted by an ambitious prose and that this would be more terrifying as a movie (words I’ve never uttered). I loved the length of this novella but I wish the horror factor was a bit more dragged out rather than the dynamic of the friend group. I love the premise and setting but overall the book left more to be desired.

Highly recommend this compact, taut, unsettling novella from Cassandra Khaw. I've read my share of haunted house stories, but none that deal with the Heian period of Japanese history or Japanese folklore at all, which made for a fresh, new (to me) angle. At the same time, the classic elements are all there - to the degree that the characters, themselves extremely knowledgeable about horror story tropes, are genre-aware enough to be concerned about things like which of them is the kind of person who always dies first. The prose is sharply original and gorgeous (creepily so), though it occasionally veers into the overwrought, weighed down by its own cleverness. Still, lush and eerie as rotting flower petals, it's a chilling little story, rich in both its use of language and how rooted it feels within the horror genre.

Thank you to NetGalley and Tor Nightfire for the advance review copy!

**3.5-stars rounded up**

Nothing But Blackened Teeth has wormed into my mind and it won't go away. I cannot stop thinking about it! I finished this story early this morning and have slowly raised my rating incrementally as the day has worn on. I started at 3-stars, in 12-hours, I have rounded up to 4-stars. Who knows how high this could go!?

What could be better than a long-abandoned, reportedly-haunted, Heian-era mansion as a intimate destination wedding location? For Nadia and Faiz, nothing. Nadia has always wanted to get married in a haunted mansion and after their friend, Phillip, buys them all first class tickets to Japan, now is their chance.

The group, made up of Nadia, Faiz, Cat, our narrator, Phillip and Lin, do not all get along. In fact, I wondered frequently why they were traveling together. Nadia and Cat hate each other, as do Lin and pretty much everyone else, except for Cat. There is tension and messy history; it's a whole thing. As if the haunted mansion wasn't enough, the stress of their interactions raised my heart rate.

As this is an novella, it is pretty clear right from the start that the reportedly haunted mansion, is indeed quite haunted. This story revolves around a Ohaguro Bettari, which translated, if I am informed correctly, actually means, nothing but blackened teeth. This is a type of Yokai that I have never come across before and I found it fascinating.

Additionally, I have really only ever read about Yokai in Japanese-inspired Fantasy stories, which of course, is generally Dark Fantasy, but reading about Yokai in the Horror genre was completely new for me. I loved that aspect. The haunted house vibes and the way that was presented was so engaging. I couldn't stop turning the pages. It was really well imagined.

I think my main issue with this story was the presentation; the writing style, or the narrative voice. I'm not sure which. The writing seems so overdone. The use of ridiculously obscure vocabulary and nonstop, unnecessarily overwrought prose really rubbed me the wrong way while I was reading it.

The more I think about it though, I don't think this was the author showing that they are the most intelligent person in the room, I think it is the personification of Cat's character. I could be interpreting this completely wrong, but I feel like Cat's character, who doesn't seem to like herself, had her intelligence as the one thing she could count out. Towards the end, as she was having one of her numerous fights with Nadia, she says how smart she is. I am smart, she exclaims.

Since the entire narrative is pretty much her inner monologue, I started to think about the story in that way, as that being her voice. Her way of seeing the world actually used those big words. That's her crutch and it started to make sense that way. After I had that realization, I became more forgiving about those aspects of the story that so heavily turned me off initially.

As this is a novella, there's not a lot of build up and it did seem to end rather abruptly. As Horror novellas go, however, I would say this is a really strong one. It will definitely stick in my mind for along time to come.

Thank you so much to the publisher, Tor Nightfire, for providing me with a copy to read and review. I would definitely be interested in picking up more from Cassandra Khaw!

Five school friends descend on an ancient Japanese mansion looking for the thrill of a haunted mansion. They get more than they bargain for in this novel by Cassandra Khaw..

There's so much going for this novela. Kwah sets an intricately developed world for an immersive reading experience. Interweaving the Japanese cultural significance of the yokai with Cat's recent mental breakdown is a lovely juxtaposition. However, due to the story's short length, I felt the actual horror story took a backseat to the relationships between the characters. Again, because of the short length, I didn't feel like I understood the characters enough to have so much focus on them. II was there for the horror story, and I felt like I was cheated a bit.


I received and ARC of this book in return for a free and fair review.

This is a terrifying and chilling story that brings Japanese mythology to life. Set in an ancient mansion with a dark past, a group of college friends gather for a weekend of drinking and celebration. What should have been a joyous weekend celebrating the marriage of Nadia and Faiz turns into a gruesome nightmare when they awaken the spirits of the house.

From the cover, we know that we are in for a wild and horrifying adventure and Khaw does not disappoint. This is by far one of the scariest novellas I’ve read this year and I loved every single sentence. Khaw’s writing is quiet and almost delicate but packs a massive punch. The characters within are college friends who have grown both incredibly close and also far apart. Brough together for the wedding between two of them, stresses of the last year threaten to ruin the mood of the weekend but politeness and booze both help to smooth things over. It’s one friend’s massive amount of money that allows the friends access to such an ancient and haunted home, but it’s that same wealth that creates such friction between them. Our narrator Cat has recently experienced a mental health episode that may or may not be coloring her version of past events so her narration may or may not be reliable. And while the friends seem like such a close group-they were all gifted first class flights to Japan to stay in an ancient mansion that required government permits to visit, there is an unbearable tension between them. As their secrets unfold, the secrets of the house reveal a devastatingly dark history.

A horrifying, haunted mansion story that will chill you to the bones, Nothing But Blackened Teeth, is a must read for all horror fans.
Thank you to Netgalley and Tor Nightfire for the opportunity to read and review this title. All opinions and mistakes are my own.

This was one of the creepiest books that is perfect for the Halloween season. It's about a group of friends who think an abandoned mansion is the perfect place for a wedding venue but there is a ghost bride lurking with a black smile. I really enjoyed this novel which was short and easy to read. It has about 120 pages so you can read this in one sitting. I loved the Japanese folklore blend into the book as you learn a new folklore that you probably would have never heard about without reading this. I enjoyed the author's writing and how they made the story flow and have everything perfectly set up in 100 pages instead of 300-500. The setting was wonderfully done in a way that even I was creeped out from and I enjoyed the conflicts thrown in this book.

There are many characters in this book and if I remember correctly it was written from all of their povs including the ghost bride. If not, I just remember it being written in prose form which the author nailed as they got all the vivid details. There weren't any side characters and the antagonist of the story was the best. For the characters, I wish they were well written just like how the story was written as the characters didn't really have a character development in the book. There wasn't really romance to look at except some flirting going back and forth but this story shows the theme of friendship and betrayal. There is so much betrayal with all the friends and some who have developed and grew their friendship in a way.

The ending was well done with this novella and I didn't expect it to be like that. I have to say that this is probably one of the scariest books I have read which means I might never pick up a Stephan King book. I just had a minor problem with the characters for this book but overall this was a great read. I don't know which book to relate this to as I don't often read scary stories but I think this is a great Halloween read!