James Nicoll Reviews

Trang Thanh Tran’s They Bloom at Night is a stand-alone horror novel.

Perhaps the oligarchs will get their wish and flee to the Moon and Mars¹. The common folk have no such escape. Indeed, Nhung — Noon to her Anglophone neighbors — cannot even escape Mercy, Louisiana.

Hurricane Arlene rolled over Mercy almost two years earlier, leaving ruins and a red tide in its wake. The red tide refuses to go away, leaving Mercy a toxic wasteland. A wise person would leave.

Unfortunately for Nhung, her mother Non Bien Tien refuses to relocate. Nhung’s father and brother vanished at sea. Nhung’s mother is convinced that the pair were reincarnated by the water spirit Sông as marine animals somewhere near Mercy. Nhung’s mother will not abandon family.

Harbormaster Jimmy Boudreaux is the last rich bastard standing in Mercy, which makes Jimmy functionally the local government. Among his many commercial ventures, loans to would-be boat owners. Jimmy financed the Wild Things, Nhung’s family’s fishing boat. Therefore, Jimmy has a lot of leverage over Nhung and her mother.

Jimmy has a little job for Nhung. People keep vanishing in Mercy. Rumor has it that a monster is responsible. Maybe the monster exists. Maybe it does not. Either way, it’s Nhung’s job to track it down and capture the creature.

Accompanied by Jimmy’s knife-happy daughter Covey, Nhung sets out to search for a monster that may or may not exist. Failure will cost Nhung and her mother the Wild Things. Success means confronting something beyond human ken.

Something with an intense interest in Nhung.

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Trang Thanh Tran’s 2024 She Is a Haunting is a stand-alone modern horror novel.

Jade Nguyen was accepted by UPenn, but failed to get a full scholarship. Jade is painfully aware that, were her mother to learn of Jade’s financial shortfall, Jade’s mother would take out loans and work even more hours at her nail salon. This is unacceptable to Jade. She adds her financial situation to the list of secrets Jade keeps from her mother.

The alternative is almost as unacceptable. To spare her mother, Jade embraces it: appeal to her estranged father, the man who abandoned Jade’s mother, Jade, and Jade’s siblings. Her father agrees to fund Jade’s education… at a price.

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