Hey bookworm friends. Here I am with another spotlight for #BBNYA2025 and it’s the penultimate one I’ll be sharing; the tour is almost done! Today’s showcase is for Coal Gets in Your Veins by Cat Rector. This is one of the few I’m sharing that I didn’t read an excerpt for. But it sounds too intriguing not to share! The premise is creepy and compelling. Also, as a Canadian, I want to read more local authors and even better if they’re indie!
About Coal Gets in Your Veins
Author: Cat Rector
Genre(s): Horror, Fantasy, Paranormal Romance
Age Category: Adult
Page Count: 400 Pages
Pub Date: October 1, 2024
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Blurb
Penny Harbour was once a booming coal mining town, full of industry and possibility. But jobs like that come at a price. Accidents. Cave-ins. Explosions. The residents fed the ground with their blood, and coal dust settled inside them. Eventually, the world moved on from coal. The mines closed, the jobs left, and the grief stayed rooted in the people.
Laurel is trying to carve out a decent life in what remains of the town. Her family has lived in the Harbour for generations. She’s seen the best and worst it has to offer. But no matter what she wants for herself, her husband’s boot is still on her neck. She’s survived him for two decades, and she’s just about out of reasons to stay.
Just up the hill, Spencer is wading through his eternity mourning the deaths of his great loves. Penny Harbour is his own personal purgatory. He’s a queer vampire in a dying, conservative rural community, and everyone’s blood is full of grit and ashes. It’s the perfect place to slip into isolation and punish himself for all he’s lost.
But Penny Harbour has a life all its own. Children with a penchant for lighting fires. Unmarked graves when mines used to be. Traditions built to lift each other out of grief. Personal hells that live behind closed doors. And when the town sinks its teeth into someone, it would sooner rip their throat out than let them go.
Part romantic vampire horror, part rural Atlantic Canadian memorial pyre, Coal Gets In Your Veins is a novel about generational trauma and what it will do to keep its claws in you.
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This book is part of a queer paranormal horror series with romantic themes and handles heavy, complicated topics such as generational trauma, spousal abuse, grief, and cheating. A full list of trigger warnings can be found on Cat’s website.
Purchase Links
⟡ Amazon US│Amazon UK│Amazon CA ⟡
About Cat Rector
Cat Rector grew up in a small Nova Scotian town and could often be found simultaneously reading a book and fighting off muskrats while walking home from school. She devours stories in all their forms, loves messy, morally grey characters, and writes about the horrors that we inflict on each other. After spending nearly a decade living abroad, she returned to Canada to resume her war against the muskrats.
When she’s not writing, you can find her playing video games, spending time with loved ones, or staring at her To Be Read pile like it’s going to read itself.
Find her on most social media platforms as @Cat_Rector
About BBNYA
BBNYA is a yearly competition where book bloggers from all over the world read and score books written by indie authors, ending with 15 (17 in 2025) finalists and one overall winner. If you want some more information about BBNYA, check out the BBNYA Website. The award is brought to you in association with @The Write Reads.
Let’s chat in the comments!
What are you currently reading? Or, what’s a Canadian book that you’ve loved?
Great spotlight! I’m not sure if this book would be for me, but I do want to pick up more Canadian authors next year… The last one I read was The Restoration Garden by Sara Blaydes, which I loved.
Thanks so much, Yvonne! That’s super fair 🙂 The Restoration Garden sounds intriguing, just looked it up! Glad you loved it and here’s to us both reading more Canadian authors!