Grits, Guns, & Glory

Somewhere in the rural South, a big man with a bigger truck and an even bigger heart is doing the work nobody else will — hunting the things that go bump in the night while simultaneously managing family drama that makes your worst Thanksgiving look like a picnic. Bubba the Monster Hunter returns in this second season collection, this time with his brother Jason at the center of the chaos. The stakes are personal, the monsters are real, and the emotional undercurrent running beneath all the mayhem is surprisingly earnest. Hartness understands that the best horror-comedy works because you actually care what happens to these people.

What makes this collection sing as a reading experience is Hartness's rhythm — short, punchy episodes that build a larger world without ever losing their sense of fun. The prose has the cadence of a good campfire story told by someone who's read everything and pretends he hasn't. Each entry earns its laughs and its tension in equal measure, and the Southern Gothic atmosphere feels lived-in rather than performed. This is genre fiction that knows exactly what it is and delivers it with genuine craft.