Aardvark Book Club

Aardvark is a book subscription service that focuses on new releases in various genres, but they seem to all lean towards the dark and spooky side a little bit. Aside from the Romance selections perhaps.

They even put out their own horror anthology which I picked up in my first box for $4.

They do currently have a sign up deal where your first book is $4 and then the rest of the subscription is $18.

For $18, you receive a custom Aardvark version of the book and the first couple of books I received are beautiful. The dust jackets are really nice and a little matte feeling which is my favorite texture for a book cover!

Underneath the dust jacket, the book covers are also stunning! There aren't any sprayed edges which is totally fine with me - I like to face my books spine out in the shelf anyways.

Shipping is fast and free!

There is NO waitlist which I really liked and their picks are more aligned with my taste than any other subscription available at the moment that I can find.

I used to have Book of the Month but the picks fell really flat for me and didn't seem as diverse as Aardvark's. Shortly before I signed up for Aardvark, I received an invitation from Fairyloot after a year of being on the waitlist but the type of books they select also do not really align with my tastes overall so I declined the invitation and signed up for Aardvark instead!

Another great feature of the Aardvark site is they have a first page preview of the book. You can get a sense very quickly if the author's writing style is for you and I wish more places did this!

October/November Picks

These are my three picks so far and I'm really excited to see what they continue to select! The Local Heavens was an add-on.

Kill the Beast by Serra Swift

"The Witcher meets Howl’s Moving Castle in this debut original faerie tale of revenge, redemption, and friendship—for fans of T. Kingfisher, Naomi Novik, and cozy fantasy with a dash of gritty adventure."

Local Heavens by K.M. Fajardo

"A corporate hacker. An elusive billionaire. A society trying to survive the American Nightmare. A queer cyberpunk Gatsby reimagining. Out Oct 14th."

One Bad Night & Other Stories by Aardvark

"Aardvark Book Club launched in October 2022, and since then we’ve been cultivating a healthy obsession with all things horror. We’re celebrating our three-year anniversary with this original horror anthology featuring past 8 Aardvark authors."

Stories from Kay Chronister, Del Sandeen, Kylie Lee Baker, Rachel Harrison, CJ Leede, Jennifer Thorne, S.A. Barnes, and Stephen Graham Jones