Review: Fungoid

Fungoid by William Meikle
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Review: FUNGOID by William Meikle


Above all else in my love of the horror genre, I cherish implacability. [True in the mystery genre as well!] Prolific and accomplished author William Meikle masterfully delivers this element; in fact, I consider it one of his trademarks. In FUNGOID, a story determined to keep you wide-eyed awake, he brings together a seemingly natural process, adds the suspicion of human meddling, and a frisson of supernaturalism. Together, I raced through the pages as fast as my Kindle could handle.

Who can stop the rain? Who can escape airborne, determined, danger? None: not humanity, not wildlife, not the plant kingdom. Friends, the real Apex Predator is here!

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Review: Paranormal Canadian Tales: A Supernatural Journey

Paranormal Canadian Tales: A Supernatural Journey by Dawn Hunter Clark
My rating: 0 of 5 stars

Review: PARANORMAL CANADIAN TALES: A SUPERNATURAL JOURNEY by Dawn Hunter Clark
I've been reading ghost and haunting tales for about six decades, and love them no matter where they're set, or whether they're fictional or factual. But somehow, paranormal tales North of the Border (in Canada) seem to have a special frisson, a little (or a lot) something extra that makes them oh so deliciously shivery! Sample the collection of tales (and photos!) found in Dawn Hunter Clark's PARANORMAL CANADIAN TALES and I'm certain you will come to agree with me. Thanks to Ms. Clark for bringing us a keeper for our home libraries.

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Review: Haunted Northwest Georgia: The Legend of the Ghost Hearse and Other Spooky Tales

Haunted Northwest Georgia: The Legend of the Ghost Hearse and Other Spooky Tales by Beth Youngblood
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Review: HAUNTED NORTHWEST GEORGIA: THE LEGEND OF THE GHOST HEARSE AND OTHER SPOOKY TALES by Beth Youngblood

As a Georgia resident, in different communities, off and on since 1974, I was eager to pick up this collection of possibly-true tales {firmly true in the minds of the teller} and was very pleased to discover a set of recountings, told in the exemplary storyteller style so prevalent in the South. Author Beth Youngblood carefully sets forth a number of "hauntings," identifying the history and location of each, accomplanied by photos of the various sites. This is a great book to settle down with for an evening's read. Turn off the electrics and light candles: read to yourself or read aloud to share with family and friends. Especially timely in the "spooky" month of October. or throughout the early winter nights.

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Review: Nine Candles of Deepest Black

Nine Candles of Deepest Black by Matthew S. Cox
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Review: NINE CANDLES OF DEEPEST BLACK by Matthew S. Cox

This YA-themed, paranormal/occult thriller, is riveting. Author Matthew Cox develops his themes so subtly, placing his story in the hands of a small high school clique, seemingly harmless girls just having the normal identity crises and crushes of adolescence; oh, but... I was frequently reminded of the wonderful film "The Coven," in which a group of adolescent girls, seemingly unknowingly, mess with magic. In this novel, the ringleader eschews sweetness and light as oh too "new agey, Wicca, tree-hugging nonsense." She wants more: to compel the universe to provide the girls' true desires. She has wealth and charisma, and as a manipulator of the first order, she compels. The five open a portal so destructive it makes the hell mouth of Sunnydale ["Buffy the Vampire Slayer"] seem like a child's playground. This is a champion story not to be overlooked.

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DREAM WOODS by Patrick Lacey_Review

Dream Woods by Patrick Lacey
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Review: DREAM WOODS by Patrick Lacey

All my life, since early childhood, I've found the concept of amusement parks frightening. Why? I've never been near one. Until now: reading the excellent DREAM WOODS, I finally understand the root of my fears. How can I encapsulate the terror?

Patrick Lacey is a wonderfully subtle writer. Life, for his characters, proceeds normally [albeit dysfunctionally], until--smack!! The terror!! The frights take many forms, from childhood boogeyman made real, to murder, mutilation, and a portal to---read and find out.

Reader, do yourself a favor. Lock your doors, keep the emergency number on speed dial, put your home guard dog in the room with you; and just remember: sometimes memories are rose-coloured, and you really don't want to go back there again.

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Review: Dream Woods

Dream Woods by Patrick Lacey
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Review: DREAM WOODS by Patrick Lacey

All my life, since early childhood, I've found the concept of amusement parks frightening. Why? I've never been near one. Until now: reading the excellent DREAM WOODS, I finally understand the root of my fears. How can I encapsulate the terror?

Patrick Lacey is a wonderfully subtle writer. Life, for his characters, proceeds normally [albeit dysfunctionally], until--smack!! The terror!! The frights take many forms, from childhood boogeyman made real, to murder, mutilation, and a portal to---read and find out.

Reader, do yourself a favor. Lock your doors, keep the emergency number on speed dial, put your home guard dog in the room with you; and just remember: sometimes memories are rose-coloured, and you really don't want to go back there again.

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Review: Siren of Depravity

Siren of Depravity by Gary Fry
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Review of SIREN OF DEPRAVITY by Gary Fry


British psychologist-academic Harry is a man who has it made--on the surface. A lovely and devoted wife, a musician and academic; an adorable and clever daughter, just turned seven; a firm bond with his widowed mother. But just as scratching a painting reveals the brushstrokes underneath, scratching Harry's surface reveals horrors with which he has never really come to grips--horrors which suddenly begin to surface, like dinosaurs scrambling from a tar pit.

Horror readers will delight at the dark shadows of masters such as Lovecraft and M. R. James hovering like black storm clouds above this tale, and more than a few nightmares will be engendered.

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FRIGHTFALL 2016! Wrap-Up!! 11 Horror + 1 Children's Thriller

October 3-9 http://seasonsreading.blogspot.com/2016/09/frightfall-read-thon-time-to-sign-up.html

Books Read:

DREAM WOODS By Patrick Lacey (see review on this blog, Oct. 5)

Total Read:  11 Horror + 1 children's thriller for review

Review: The Obsidian Chamber

The Obsidian Chamber by Douglas Preston
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Review: THE OBSIDIAN CHAMBER by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child [A Pendergast Novel]

Authors Preston and Child have long since accustomed legions of devoted readers to labyrinthine plotting and indescribable characterization. In the newest Pendergast novel [October 2016] they have perhaps achieved their zenith. I read the novel in two days, but will be quite a while engaged in its absorption. Here the lives, past, present, and future, of Aloysius Pendergast, his ward Constance Greene, and his "late" brother Aloysius are extraordinarily delineated, along with a secondary cast of characters wrung through excruciating paces. The pace of suspense is near rocket speed, leaving wide-eyed readers breathless and enthralled.

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Review: The Haunted Halls

The Haunted Halls by Glenn Rolfe
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Review: THE HAUNTED HALLS by Glenn Rolfe

Indie author Glenn Rolfe continues to demonstrate his flair for unusual horror: horror tales that extend beyond the well-trodden traditional tropes. In THE HAUNTED HALLS, he explores new territory with prose that is nearly poetic in its lyrical imagery and sense appeal. I can almost hear a poetry recitation, or song lyrics.

THE HAUNTED HALLS juggles a plethora of characters, including multiple protagonists and many secondary and "extras," as well as multiple time sequences. With all the gore, violence, frights, and sensuality, I can readily visualize this as an exciting indie horror film.

I also marveled at the character of the antagonist: the main "haunt" of the Bruton Inn" of Hollis Oaks, Maine. If this young lady had dedicated her talents to more acceptable pursuits, she could be a corporate CEO, or maybe have discovered a cure for cancer. Instead, she is a juggernaut, an unstoppable force of evil, both in life, and after death.

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Review: Joe Coffin: Season Two

Joe Coffin: Season Two by Mr Ken Preston
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Review of JOE COFFIN SEASON TWO by Ken Preston


Another accomplished roller coaster-paced serial novel from a talented author who really knows how to put the thrill in thriller. If you thought SEASON ONE electrifying (and it was!), "you ain't seen nothing yet " More vampirism, more violence and galore gore, more internecine backstabbing, many more fatalities. This time, Joe is in more danger than just the vampires: there's his growing acceptance of journalist Emma Wylde, there's cops hot on his trail, another vampire, and a mystery.antagonist burning with hatred of Joe Coffin, the mountainous craggy Mob assassin.

I'm on tenterhooks in anticipation of SEASON THREE.

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Review: Joe Coffin, Season One

Joe Coffin, Season One by Ken Preston
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Review of JOE COFFIN SEASON ONE by Ken Preston

A nonstop, heart-in-mouth, no-holds-barred, supernatural thriller, JOE COFFIN SEASON ONE is also rife with complex character evolution, deep thought processes, emotional highs and lows--and oh yes, gore, violence, sensuality, profanity, and vampires. You read that right! JOE COFFIN SEASON ONE is a vampire thriller, but I don't think you'll find anything like it in any other vampire story, no matter how well done.
Joe Coffin, our eponymous protagonist, is a "man-mountain," an individual in size much like The Incredible Hulk, a man who came into his stature in adolescence, the product of an abusive childhood (and he is certainly not the only one of those in this story), a pariah in school, a man who brooks no nonsense, but is easily led astray (only by women). He is the right-hand man of the eighty-year-old patriarch of Birmingham, England's Slaughterhouse Mob, a paternalistic leader who demands loyalty of his crew and of their wives/girlfriends. Joe, of course, is also a killer, but he is a killer with thought as well as an assassin killing to order.
While in prison for an assault, Joe's wife Steffanie and toddler son Michael are brutally killed. On release, Tom Mills, another member of the Mob, directs Joe to the alleged killers, whom Joe then kills. However, Tom has his own complex web of deceit going on, and as Joe proceeds to detangle it, with the aid of determined journalist Emma Wylde, more is uncovered than anyone could expect: not Joe, Emma, or Emma's live-in DCI Nick Asher. For the killer of Joe's family, and several others, is undead: a vampire, soon to be titled by newspapers "The Birmingham Vampire." It's very difficult to put a vampire down for the final count, as our hero repeatedly discovers.

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Review: I Can Taste the Blood

I Can Taste the Blood by Josh Malerman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Review: I CAN TASTE THE BLOOD Anthology
(Josh Malerman; J. Daniel Stone ; Joe Schwartz ;Erik T. Johnson; John F. D. Taff; edited Anthony Rivera)

I CAN TASTE THE BLOOD Is at once anthology of five discrete novellas penned by five separate and individual authors, and also in a sense a themed collection. In no way a "shared-world" set, instead offered here is a unique collection of creativity. The five authors involved worked from only one shared premise, the title, "I CAN TASTE THE BLOOD." Exactly what that statement specifies, and how and why to work it, relied on the individual writer--and how successful they accomplished!!

The five novellas will turn you inside out, upside down, and strip you of your preconceptions, whatever they may be. Prepare to be transported to the farthest reaches of extreme horror; to find the difficulty in identifying truth; and to be absorbed by five novellas you cannot forget.

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Review: Eat the Night

Eat the Night by Tim Waggoner
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Review: EAT THE NIGHT by Tim Waggoner

Wow! I loved this novella! By the second chapter, I was on a rollercoaster, surrounded and suffused by metaphysics, philosophy, astrophysics, entropy, life-after-death, thought-creation, and a universe that rocks with Lovecraftian resonance. The story line is deep, the characters fully rounded, the plot snapping and unforgettable. I could read this over and over again.

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Review: Wretchedness

Wretchedness by Ambrose Ibsen
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Review: WRETCHEDNESS by Ambrose Ibsen

So far, I think this is the best I have read from this wide-ranging author, and that expresses high praise indeed. This novel is literary horror taken to an extreme. Although never specifically stated, I saw a very Lovecraftian viewpoint, as the author writes of a priestly caste existing BEFORE the dawn of recorded time, worshipping a god long dead, but recoverable, and planning made for an outcome then many millennia into the future. Their forsaken deity is reminiscent of Lovecraft's eldritch and outre Elder Gods, and the geometry it foments of Cthulhuian geometry with its awkward and mind-blowing angles. The result is not a fast-flowing horror-thriller, but a meaty, metaphysical, thought-provoking, novel. I think it will be especially enjoyed by fans of Jasper Bark, whose works also delve into unknown pre-written records cults in the geographic location we know as the Middle East.

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Review: Green and Pleasant Land

Green and Pleasant Land by Steve J. Shaw
My rating: 0 of 5 stars

Review of GREEN AND PLEASANT LAND [GREAT BRITISH HORROR 1]

Inaugurating what promises to be a fine series, GREEN AND PLEASANT LAND is an exceptional anthology, first in the GREAT BRITISH HORROR Series. Edited by Steve J. Shaw, this title features several outstanding authors unafraid to extend the cutting edge of horror. The eponymous phrase is well-known and often used, but in the stories contained herein, even though the land is sometimes green (when not foggy, misty, windy, or overcome with rain), it certainly is never pleasant. But then, isn't that the essence of great horror?

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Review: Tales from The Lake Vol.3

Tales from The Lake Vol.3 by Monique Snyman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Review: TALES FROM THE LAKE VOL. 3 edited by Monique Snyman [Crystal Lake Publishing]

Every anthology I've had the immense pleasure of devouring from Crystal Lake Publishing has been highest quality. The new Volume 3 is no exception: deep, heartfelt, thought-provoking and thoughtful, and literate. The 19 stories in this collection are not here just to raise chill bumps. They are explorations of the human condition (and various inhuman conditions). They will expand your imagination and extend your perspective. When finished, looking back, you will be thankful you read. [Includes a thoughtful and wise introduction by Editor Monique Snyman, plus 19 tales.]

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Review: Marvelry's Curiosity Shop

Marvelry's Curiosity Shop by John Brhel
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Review: MARVELRY'S CURIOSITY SHOP by John Brhel and Joseph Sullivan

A delightfully entertaining paranormal, supernatural, magical set of vignettes, tied inextricably to the illustrious Dr. Marvelry, and his gently eccentric boutique, Marvelry's Curiosity Shop, a bastion of antiques and occult marvels in New York State, owned by an acclaimed former magician.

The vignettes are delightful, suspenseful, occasionally scary. There's a firm moral caution contained here as well: "Don't mess with something if you don't know know the provenance--and if you do know the provenance, still don't mess with it." Or: "Be careful what you wish for."

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Review: Devils In Dark Houses

Devils In Dark Houses by B. E. Scully
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Review: DEVILS IN DARK HOUSES by B. E. Scully

This is literary horror in fine fettle, a collection of subtly horrifying vignettes, interwoven into a thought-provoking, terrifying tapestry certain to lodge itself into the reader's mind and linger there for an extended duration. This is the Pacific Northwest as you've probably never witnessed: gritty, deep, complex, and riveting. Each vignette Is complete in and of itself, connected by the framework of two city homicide detectives, Cass Shirdon and Monte Martinez.

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Review: Teacher: A Lasting Impression of Evil

Teacher: A Lasting Impression of Evil by Jacob Mesmer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Review of THE TEACHER by Jacob Mesmer

A tautly-plotted, frightening, horror novel with strong paranormal overtones, THE TEACHER is a fairly quick read, since the reader is easily absorbed into the storyline. Ian Ruby is a brand-new first-time teacher, a mathematician and statistician, and yes, geek. So nervous about communicating well with his classes, yet that quickly becomes the least of his worries, as he clashes with a villain like no other. Gruesome and bizarre crimes are committed, with some of the perpetrators apprehended and convicted, while several are killed by the police at the scene. When Ian is tapped to do a statistical study, what he uncovers is both terrifying and ultimately personally dangerous.

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Review: Fear Gorta

Fear Gorta by Cory Cline
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Review of FEAR GORTA by Cory Cline

"Gorta" is an Irish term referring to a severe or extreme food shortage, for example with crop failures. As I read this story, with its "legend" of the Hungry Man, I was strongly reminded of the rationale behind the Native American Wendigo. In both cases (Wendigo and Hungry Man), greed becomes overwhelming, causing a sort of eternal yearning, hunger, need. Two little boys and two adolescent bullies collide in a clearing in this story, a supposedly haunted clearing, where once a farmer lived, who met death in an untimely and gory way. Not at all for the faint of heart, but if you love your horror out front and bloody, try this one. It's horror leavened with coming of age and lightened with humour, and a very quick read.

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