Overview
Golden Pineapple Diaries (189pg) is a collection of queer horror short stories including a range of subjects and themes. Most notably: a haunted piano, drag queen witches, vampires, and a teenage serial killer.
This book includes A Silent Note, a previously released novella, as an opening story, followed by six new short stories.
But it’s more than just a short story collection.
Think of Golden Pineapple Diaries less like a set of short stories, and more like a Frankensteined novel, because that’s essentially what it is. Every story in this book is connected. They all reference each other and tie into the same plot, and they follow a specific timeline. So, while most of them can be read as stand-alone stories, they do work best when read in order.
This collection also serves as a prequel to a vampire series the author is working on called The Unfortunates.
(There’s also a sneaky reference to the author’s debut novel, Atomic Love)
Rating and review
I gave this book 4/5 stars
A Silent Note
This is a great one for the music lovers.
Marques Saint, while on a trip to Italy, has insisted on buying Mascagni’s piano, much to the disgust of the locals. The piano is hasn’t played a note in over a hundred years, and is an important piece of history in the area, having belonged to a famous pianist, survived being on board a sinking ship, and was rumoured to have been dragged back to land by the pianist himself who, after refusing to play, was left behind and not on the ship when it went down.
Marques purchases the piano and has it taken to his home in Colorado, where his partner, Sebastian, is about equally as horrified as the museum’s caretaker. However Marques pushes on, and becomes obsessed with the piano, its history, and creating a new masterpiece.
There’s a strange air about the piano, and odd things happen whenever its involved.
This one definitely kept me invested, needing to know what would happen and how it would play out.
Rage
Bring on the teenage serial killer.
Meet Rensy Tate, as he goes on a murder spree through town, beginning with his grandfather, and ending only after enough blood to fill a kiddie pool has been released from the bodies that held it.
Dragwitch
Do you like drag queens?
Do you like witches?
How about drag queen witches?
Skittles, Bubble, and Pumpkin Split are ex con drag queens working in a food truck, selling ice cream and cupcakes.
Until an old lady comes along asking them to perform a spell for her and everything gets very messy very fast.
Ellie Whispers
This one hints at the existence of a scribe.
It’s intruiging, it’s beautiful, and it fills in some connections between the first three stories and what’s left to come.
It simultaneously answers questions, and creates more.
Rensy Revisited
Rensy’s back and on the run.
This is where the vampires come in.
See also: return of the drag queens.
This one starts out with questions, leading us through uncertainty, and ends with a bang. After all, where there’s Rensy, there’s violence and blood.
Carmella
The original queen of the dragwitches makes an appearance, and a few gaps in the story are filled in and questions are answered. We get a bit of insight for what’s to come.
Joanie Flynn & The Electrocuties
Taking a step away from all the horror, we meet Joanie.
Joanie is a music lover, trying to be more involved in the scene without being a musician herself, and fighting to get smaller bands discovered (even stopping a certain Marques Saint when she sees him).
She’s about ready to run off to follow her current band obsession when she gets caught up in another though and feels a need to divert and follow it through.
Content warnings
- animal death
- infant death
- murder
- graphic violence
- drug use and addiction (It’s not technically drugs, but something used and described in the same way)
(these are specifically in Rage and Rensy Revisited)
Who I’d recommend this to
If a Frankensteined novel with a wide cast of characters and themes, spooky content, queer rep, and hints at more to come sounds like your vibe, you should definitely give this one a shot.