This is what I’ve been waiting for. My streak of 3 star reads has been broken!!

J. Ashley-Smith (@spooktapes) may be one of my new favorite authors. When I got to the last page, I felt a punch in the gut, like when you jolt yourself awake after falling off of something in a dream… a literal visceral reaction to being cut off from more of this writer’s work. I NEED MORE.

I highly recommend for readers who loved The Harpy!

The title and book cover alone grabbed me.

When you start this, it is a bit confusing until you get into it. Some chapters are in the present story time, some are past story time, and some chapter (in italics) are presumably the unrequited love's madness diary (if this doesn't make sense, it will soon). I almost DNF'd this because the time jumps were so confusing and I had to keep going back to figure things out, but glad I didn't DNF. Just stick with it.

It's creepy and haunting and subtle. A big thanks to the author, Meerkat Press, and NetGalley for a copy of the ARC

If James Blunt's "You're Beautiful' was a short story, it would be Ariadne, I Love You.

On the surface, this is a book about a man trying to deal with the loss of his manic pixie dream girl who lives through alcohol induced flashbacks and surreal hallucinations of his time with her and what might have been. But (not so) deep down, it parallels Nietzsche's philosophy and experience with proclaiming his love for a woman he'd never have.

The prose was good. Not masterful, but it still helped me connect with Jude, the main character, and his pain beyond just pitying. Jude isn't a very likable character, and I have a very low bar for what I consider to be 'unlikable'. He chain-smokes and is an alcoholic who thinks only of himself and leaches off of his friends instead of doing something to contribute. He also squanders opportunities, which personally I find to be really annoying. But if you pick up on some of the allusions to Nietzsche, his character makes perfect sense. This is what bumped this book up from 3.5 stars to 4 stars for me.

Without giving too much away, Nietzsche's philosophy was about figuring out why you envied something and then taking steps towards accomplishing it in order to find your true self. In a way, Jude's actions centering around his music with little regard for his responsibilities like rent stay true to that goal. Nietzsche also didn't like alcohol because he said it allowed people to avoid thinking about what was bothering them and hindered them from making progress towards fixing it. Jude drinks and smokes his way through the story in an attempt to escape the uncomfortable truth that he has lost his love, his muse, and there's nothing he can do to bring her back.

There's also references to "The Great Gatsby" and other events of Nietzsche's life that give this story a very tragic atmosphere. There were some flashback scenes that were a little lighter, if only for the purpose of making the darker moments hurt more. It's a story of a man falling apart and the tone of the story remained appropriate to the story through the entirety of the piece.

I mostly read fantasy and was looking for something that was more realistic, but still a bit speculative, fiction. I enjoyed this book and recommend it to anyone looking for a dark, contemporary piece of short fiction. Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the arc of this book.

Jude is an Alt-Country musician. He has gone down the wrong road in that he has drunk himself out of booze plus other worthless activities, lonely, and ending up in bed. He sees no reason to get up. When he gets a call for a comeback tour where the girl he loved is, he says yes. When he sees his former band mate with their family mourning Coreen’s death, he is defeated as he needed to see her. He didn’t understand why Coreen married that guy. However when he wanders off to sit down to read Coreen’s diary but who does he see as a ghost? They talk and does get some answers. He is still lonely. What will Jude do?

The book is a strange story. It has an eerie atmosphere throughout this creepy story. In the beginning it started out slow for me. It never really speeded up much yet it held my attention. At the end of the book, it seemed that Jude was crazy or was he? It’s a question that I can’t decide on how it ends. It’s interesting to read this book.

A quick little horror story, but it packed a punch! I’d love to read a full novel of this! It had just the perfect level of sorrow and horror.

Good, spooky little short novella that manages to be a slow build without being too slow. I actually wouldn't have minded lingering with this story longer, had it fleshed out into novel-length.

The shorter length of this book lends itself incredibly well to the story it has crafted for us to read.

I want to say I enjoyed this book, but I'm not sure if that's the right way to explain it, yes I thought it was a good read, but to enjoy something implies (to me) that it brought fun and delight to me while I was reading it. This book brought neither of those things, but in a good way...

Ariadne, I Love You was a haunting read, not in a scary way, but in a way that it will stick with me long after I'd finished reading it. It was as if someone had laid a blanket over you and wrapped you up in it to keep you warm, except the goal was to make you feel as haunted and as hollow as possible - that's how I felt when I finished this book.

Throughout the story we descended into madness alongside Jude, we felt his desperation and yearning for Coreen through the pages and you could feel the heartbreak that Jude felt for his lost love.

All in all, the emotions of this book started as a steady stream before bursting into the sea, with waves that crashed over you forcing you to feel the same way that Jude felt. It really got under your skin.

The ending of this book was something else, and it left me with this taste that there was more I wanted to read but I would be terrified of doing so because I just would not know what to expect.

I loved this one for how ambiguous it was, at several points it was open to our own interpretation as a reader and I liked that, it felt like it allowed us to put our own stamp on the story, and led me to enjoy it even more.

On the whole, Ariadne, I Love You was a truly atmospheric read, forcing emotions to crash over you until you had no choice but to feel every aspect of the story, and watch yourself as you crashed into madness alongside Jude.

*Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance copy for review*

The short length works in the stories favor, forcing you directly into the weird, damaged mind of Jude, who is in a bad place after the death of his best friends wife Colleen. We find out in quick succession that Jude was in unsuccessful and unhappy before he met Colleen, but then had a short and meteoritic rise to fame. Now that that's over, Colleen is dead and Jude is determined to self destruct.

We're right there with him as he struggles to right himself and come to terms with his relationship with Colleen, but the dark almost fetid atmosphere that hangs over him doesn't let our hopes get too high. A weird, trippy little ride.

This is a neat, short spooky novella about yearning and the things it can conjure. Most of it centers around an alcoholic alt-country star, his infatuation with a woman who became his muse, and how he is dealing with her death. Fun fact - in looking the summary up, I found out that Jude is supposed to be a male POV, but because it’s first person, and Jude is never definitively referred to by other people in the story with pronouns, I thought Jude was a woman and this was a story of lesbian love/yearning. No offense to Mr. Ashley-Smith, and it’s entirely possible I missed something, but I’m going to stick with my interpretation. The spookiness comes in in the form of the Australian outback, and what can be summoned by something like, say, longing for your dead muse, the differences between the person she actually was and how you idealized her, and your own downward addictive spiral even before she died. Very gothic, and a solid read. Page through it if you get the chance.

A quick, dark, and atmospheric read about loss and longing. Very spooky with interesting rising tension, but I didn’t find myself very connected to any characters. Quality writing but the setup came off as a little bit manic pixie dream girl vibes.

Dark, atmospheric, and disturbing. It's rather short so I had no problems reading it in one go. On the other hand, it's also quite slow in places and not as exciting as I expected it to be. Worth a shot anyway.

Dark and skin-crawlingly uncomfortable, "Ariadne, I Love You" deals people who are falling apart with very little explanation as to why. Although, it is what you may expect from a guitar-toting, philosophy major burnout who falls in love with angry, monologuing women.

This novella has hints of inspiration throughout, occasionally surprising readers with a clever metaphor or use of foreshadowing. The writing is sophisticated and displays a range of vocabulary and good understanding of theming. If anything, the writing is overly descriptive, particularly of the environment and actions of the characters. Very rarely does Ashley-Smith crack into his characters' heads and give insight into the emotional rationale behind their self-destruction.

When we do have a glimpse into the thoughts of our protagonist and narrator, Jude, it's in the context of deeply distressing dreams about his friend's wife, Coreen — the woman he loves. Coreen's monologuing about philosophy was entertaining, but her character was unstable, with no indication from our narrator as to which version of her was the true version.

This novella is about a man who is projecting his fears and insecurities onto a dead woman. This is hardly a spoiler — it's perfectly evident throughout where the plot is heading (although there are dark and unexpected scenes on the way there). The author even seems to come to that realization himself in the final pages of the book, but I'm not convinced he wrote the entire narrative with that final recognition in mind.

Longing is a powerful emotion. Though if set upon a backbone of hope, or of anticipation, it can be a glorious whirlwind, without a solid backbone it can fester, becoming something dying, stinking, rotten.

In many ways, Ariadne I Love You, the latest novel from British-Australian writer J. Ashley-Smith, is an exploration of this rotting longing, the story of a man so obsessed with an unrequited love that his once successful, now failing musical career was based around it. For some time, this longing creates numerous opportunities for him, but as is often the case, it eventually eats him whole, until he finds himself in a lowly camper, outside a mysterious forest in the heart of Australia, where something dark is waiting, luring him in, calling to him, desperate to feed on that deep longing within him.

Perhaps what I most appreciate about Ariadne I Love You is how efficient it is with its storytelling. Often, outside of some of my favorite works of the format, I find that writers seem to have difficulties when trying to tell compelling, fleshed-out stories in under 100 pages, but Ashley-Smith has taken the “keep only the bones” approach, seemingly cutting out any fat until only a lean, mean, utterly engrossing sorrow machine is left.

This isn't a book for the gorehounds, or the fast-paced slasher lovers, or those wanting a quick fright before they turn out the light, this is something different entirely. Like so many of my favorite authors, here Ashley-Smith brings us the kind of horrors that more about chilling the blood than spiking the nerves, Ashley-Smith studies horror based inside the human soul, the kind of spirit-crushing horror that nibbles at you in the darkest corners of your psyche, the fear that if just one little thing leans just the wrong way, any of us could start spiraling down a hole of desolation, sorrow, and insanity that we may not be able to find our way out of out.

Sure, the novel takes too long to get to the supernatural, and sure, there were elements that might have hit harder had the novel been fleshed out a little more, and there's a twist at the ending that's a bit strange, but on the whole, Smith has created a tale of creeping dread, of slow-burn sorrow, the kind that studies the darkest parts of humanity that makes works of people like Chad Lutzke or Kathe Koja sing.

Thanks to Netgalley and Meerkat Press for the opportunity to review this work!

Thank you to NetGalley and Meerkat Press for the opportunity to read and review this novella. I appreciate it.
#NetGalley #MeerkatPress #JAshleySmith
Jude is a has-been musician who spends most of his time drinking and smoking. Occasionally, he gets a paying gig. He is in love with his best friends’ wife and that’s what drags him out of his bed and on a plane to Australia. Coreen is dead though, and Jude begins his final decline.
This story is beautifully written. The author has a gift for words. The imagery and atmosphere was deliciously gritty and horrific. This short read gave me the shivers more than once. Normally, I get very annoyed when a story leaves it up to the reader to determine whether or not a ghost is involved or whether or not the protagonist is insane. This story, however, gave me just enough to feel confident with my own interpretation. This was a pleasure to read.
As lovely as the writing was, it could have been a little more to the point. This story is short but, honestly, it could have been every bit as effective if it were just a touch shorter.

I received this ARC from NetGalley. A short story of love lost, mental illness and addiction. A fascinating read into the minds of all the characters and their emotions and how this brings them together and tears them apart. Brilliant!

Sadly i did not enjoy this book. I liked the topics but did not enjoy the writing style. I could not connect with the main character at all. I had the feeling I did not know the character enough to understand the decisions he made. For me its really important to understand the person i am reading about if I don’t have this connection I will not enjoy the book.

Jude is a musician, who started out on his career during his college days with Ben. His chain-smoking also started out right about then. Ben has been talking non-stop about his Australian girlfriend, Coreen. Jude meets her on one evening, and there is no turning back. He falls for her and spends every moment possible with her, talking with a cig in his hand. He eventually moves in with Ben and Coreen. Ben gets irritated with Jude by the day and eventually throws him out of the apartment. He then sees Coreen on Ben and Coreen's wedding, after which he bolts out. He comes back years later to a shady train car which belonged to Coreen, and he is sure he feels someone else around.

It is a short, gripping read, with expertly placed chapters narrating the past and the present. Read this if you're into ghost stories. oh wait, was there really a ghost?

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the eARC.

A big ‘thank you’ to Meerkat Press and Netgalley for letting me grab an e-ARC of this; while I am still digesting everything I read here, I can say with confidence that I absolutely adored it, and will be picking it up in physical form to re-read once it drops later in the year.

Firstly, I just have to gush about the cover for a second. It’s not only gorgeous, it’s also a rather on point representation of the content you’ll find within, which I always really appreciate.

Now with that out of the way, I am just so wholeheartedly impressed with everything this novella, which barely took me an hour to read, manages to accomplish. For starters, it’s definitely my kind of horror: quiet, underlined with a steady dose of wrongness, with solid symbolism sprinkled in between scenes of darkness and decay. The author is clearly a very talented wordsmith who knows how to handle and play with imagery, making for a disturbingly visual read as things progress from bad to worse. On its surface, this is a non-linear tale of grief, unfulfilled desire, and self-destruction – however, through its prose, ambiguity, unreliable narration, and usage of very interesting motifs (with even more interesting implications), it just comes together in a way where all I can really say is: “yes, it’s all those things, but so much more than that.”

“Ariadne, I Love You” lands at 4.5/5 stars, meaning I consider it a favourite of the year. Equal parts dark and macabre, sad and interesting, and atmospheric beyond belief, this is so easy to recommend!

Ariadne, I Love You is a story about lost love more than anything else. It’s one of those novellas that kind of worms it’s way in and sits for awhile, which is how books should be. Ashely-Smith combines horror and sadness for a read you won’t want to miss.

Atmospheric, creepy, and a questionable narrator makes for a short (but engrossing) read.

Thanks so much to NetGalley and Meerkat Publishers for an eARC in return for an honest review!

I love novellas, I like scary stories, I’m somewhat reluctantly intrigued by new authors. So this should have been right up my alley and really the only reason it took me a minute to check it out is that one of the reviews described it as poetic. Well, good news…this novella isn’t poetic unless you’re using that as a synonym for a thing of beauty. Because then, yeah, sure, poetic.
The poetry of succinct perfection. The poetry of telling a story so well and so completely, despite such a tight page count. This is exactly how one a novella should be.
To be fair, there are a few chapters of italics featuring something like stream of consciousness rants of a disturbed psyche, but they are actually very relevant to the plot. And the plot is simple enough, tale as old as time, it’s a love story. In a shape of a triangle. Boy meets and loves his best friend’s girl. Boy writes songs and gets famous, girl marries the best friend, has kids, dies young. Boy goes mad with grief. Just how mad…you have to read to find out.
Is it a tale of a downward spiral of a man trying to smoke and drink himself to death over an unrealized romance or a tale of a man haunted by love’s ghost? It’s subtle enough and well crafted enough of a book to offer options.
I absolutely loved it. The desperate energy and atmospheric beauty of it all. Loved how much the author fit into a novella and how well he did it. Loved the writing itself. It plays like the darkest of love songs against the soundtrack of a starless night. Just as hauntingly and starkly. Bravo. Recommended. Thanks Netgalley.