Nothing But Blackened Teeth

A group of friends gather at an abandoned mansion from the Heian era to celebrate a wedding. The house is an unusual choice of venue. Its foundations rest on the bones of a bride, and its walls hold the remains of the girls who were sacrificed to keep her company.

The night begins with food, drinks and games, the kind of evening thrill-seeking friends plan for themselves. It does not stay light. Secrets come out into the open, and the relationships between the guests start to strain under the weight of them.

The house keeps its own secrets. In the shadows waits a ghost bride with a black smile and a hungry heart, and she is lonely down in the dirt.

This is a haunted house horror novel steeped in Japanese folklore. It takes the familiar setup of friends trapped with a restless ghost and turns it in unexpected directions. The mood is creepy and bleak, with twists that hurt.

Grief sits at the centre. So do the way relationships can feed on the people in them and the cost of what people do.