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Book Review: We Are Monsters by Brian Kirk

July 2, 2015 Leave a Comment

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25327397Title: We Are Monsters

Author: Brian Kirk

Genre: Horror

Age Group: Adult (18+)

Rating: 3 stars

Purchase: Amazon

Review copy provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

The Apocalypse has come to the Sugar Hill mental asylum.
He’s the hospital’s newest, and most notorious, patient—a paranoid schizophrenic who sees humanity’s dark side.
Luckily he’s in good hands. Dr. Eli Alpert has a talent for healing tortured souls. And his protégé is working on a cure for schizophrenia, a drug that returns patients to their former selves. But unforeseen side effects are starting to emerge. Forcing prior traumas to the surface. Setting inner demons free.
Monsters have been unleashed inside the Sugar Hill mental asylum. They don’t have fangs or claws. They look just like you or me.

In We Are Monsters, psychologist Alex spent a great deal of time working on a cure for schizophrenia. The medicine seems to working, but only for a while, and then the patient gets worse. Alex is determined to make the formula a succes, though, even if that means going behind the back of Dr. Eli Alpert, the chief psychologist of the psychiatric hospital they both work in. When a new patient arrives, a violent criminal who killed several people because voices in his mind told him to, one of Alex’s co-workers persuades him to use the formula on this man, nicknamed The Apocalypse Killer, but then things start going wrong, and Alex finds out his formula might be a lot more dangerous than he ever thought possible.

The book isn’t bad, and the concept is actually pretty original, about a formula going wrong. The setting of the mental asylum, Sugar Hill, works well too, and I enjoyed reading about how the doctors had to deal with a streak of madness too, and what that did to them. However, I didn’t enjoy the characters that much. They all seemed, with the exception of Eli, rather egotistical, and not the right people fit to take care of the mentally ill. Especially Alex only had his own concerns at heart.

The first part of the book is a little slow-paced, but the pacing picked up in the middle when all hell brooke loss. The author did an admirable job with the descriptions of the characters and scenes. Some of the conversations dwindled on for too long now, and I couldn’t relate to most of the characters. Eli was the only one I could somewhat relate to, and even then, he seemed too honorable to be real, like he was a perfect male version of a Mary Sue whereas all the other characters had way too many flaws.

Filed Under: Dark Fiction, Horror, Reviews Tagged With: , , , ,

Book Review: Little Girls by Ronald Malfi

June 27, 2015 Leave a Comment

22891406Title: Little Girls

Author: Ronald Malfi

Genre: Horror, Suspense, Ghosts

Age Group: Adult

Rating: 5 stars

Purchase: Amazon

Review copy provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

From Bram Stoker Award nominee Ronald Malfi comes a brilliantly chilling novel of childhood revisited, memories resurrected, and fears reborn…When Laurie was a little girl, she was forbidden to enter the room at the top of the stairs. It was one of many rules imposed by her cold, distant father. Now, in a final act of desperation, her father has exorcised his demons. But when Laurie returns to claim the estate with her husband and ten-year-old daughter, it’s as if the past refuses to die. She feels it lurking in the broken moldings, sees it staring from an empty picture frame, hears it laughing in the moldy greenhouse deep in the woods…
At first, Laurie thinks she’s imagining things. But when she meets her daughter’s new playmate, Abigail, she can’t help but notice her uncanny resemblance to another little girl who used to live next door. Who died next door. With each passing day, Laurie’s uneasiness grows stronger, her thoughts more disturbing. Like her father, is she slowly losing her mind? Or is something truly unspeakable happening to those sweet little girls?

In Little Girls, Laurie moves back to her parental home after her father commits suicide. The old man suffered from dementia for years, and as his estranged daughter, Laurie barely has any emotions toward him passing away. But when she goes back to the place she used to call home, before she and her mom moved out, memories of her childhood start to resurface. She starts questioning her father’s suicide – did he really jump through the window at the top floor of the house, in the belvedere? Was his paranoia during the last few months of his life real? Was something trying to get into the house, as he suspected?

The more time Laurie spends in her old childhood home, the more secrets she uncovers. She starts hearing noises form the belvedere too, like something trying to crawl its way in. On top of that, her daughter Susan’s new playmate, Abigail, bears a striking resemblance to Sadie, a girl Laurie used to be friends with before she changed and became wicked and started scaring Laurie.

While Laurie’s husband Ted isn’t convinced something sinister is going on, it’s up to Laurie to put the pieces of her past back together. Why is Sadie here? To get vengeance? And if so, how can she escape? Are the noises from the belvedere real, or are they all in her mind? Is she going insane, or being haunted by things from the past?

At first glance, this might not sound like the most original horrorr story out there – a man committing suicide, a dead girl from the past, noises in the middle of the night – but trust me, it is. It takes these well-known tropes and completely turns them around, mixing them with a few surprises I never saw coming, and which results in a story that is highly entertaining and scary at the same time. I don’t want to give any spoilers, but if you expect you’re usual ghost story, you might be in for a surprise.

The book focuses on family secrets, on the dark things of our past we’re sometimes too afraid to face. Laurie is a believable character, a woman suffering from the secrets she was forced to hide, who is hurt by her husband’s affair and afraid her daughter might change into a person she barely recognizes. She’s easy to relate to because her fears sound genuine. She’s flawed, questions her sanity, and doesn’t always do the right thing for her family, but she tries. God, she tries so hard. You have to give her credit for that. Rather than just telling a ghost story, a lot of the creepiness of the book comes from Laurie’s past, from the dark side of human nature, and as such it works remarkably well.

The ending…God, the ending. It’s magnificent in its simplicity. I had to reread it because the punch was given so swift my mind couldn’t wrap around it. A fitting ending for this book, delightful and creepy.

I’d highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys haunted-house books, who likes a slow build up and who doesn’t mind getting scared. Because this book genuinely scared me, and that’s not an easy feat.

Filed Under: Dark Fiction, Horror, Mystery and Suspense, Paranormal Mystery, Reviews Tagged With: , , , , ,

Book Review: Within by Keith Deininger

June 25, 2015 2 Comments

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25486840Title: Within

Author: Keith Deininger

Genre: Horror, Dark Fiction

Age Group: Adult (18+)

Rating: 4 stars

Purchase: Amazon

Review copy provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Something’s wrong in the eclectic mountain town of Mesa Rapids. Something’s always been wrong. Sometimes its citizens behave in strange ways—sometimes to the point of violence…

When the wealthy and enigmatic art collector Harold Klimt moves into the long dilapidated house known as the Upshaw Mansion, most don’t think twice about it. But when Mr. Klimt begins to throw lavish parties for the town’s elite, Colin Thorne—a young, aspiring artist still grieving over the recent death of his childhood friend—sneaks inside the house to explore, suspicious something’s wrong.

What he finds are the buried secrets of a town with a troubled history and something else…a plane of horror so vast that it threatens to alter reality.

Soon after that, Mr. Klimt offers Colin a job—painting a mural in the basement of the Upshaw Mansion. As Colin becomes more and more obsessed with the dark vision he is creating, the horror begins to bubble to the surface of not only his psyche, but the entire town.

If there was ever a book that deserved to be called a mash-up between Salem’s Lot and The Shining (two of the finest horror books out there, if you ask me), then it would be Within. The book mixes a haunted house trope with the haunted town trope, and it has the same creepy atmosphere of both aforementioned books. Keith Deininger successfully mixes reality with nightmare in a bizarre, twisted book that will haunt you long after.

Mesa Rapids is no ordinary town. THe inhabitants have always known, but things got way worse after the wealthy art collector Harold Klimt moves into the Upshaw Mansion, a house that stayed without occupants for far longer than is normal. When Klimt starts throwing ravish parties in the style of The Great Gatsby. Just like Gatsby, Klimt is a mysterious figure, but he’s of a far more sinister kind.

Colin Thorne is a young, aspiring artist who Klimt offers a job: to paint a mural in the basement of the Upshaw Mansion. But as Colin grows more and more obsessed with the painting, the horror that envelops his psyche transcends into the town.

The author does an admirable job painting the characters. Even Klimt feels like a real person rathe than a character in a book. The town itself is so real it feels like a character too, and its descend into madness is beautifully depicted.

However, the book leaves a lot of questions unanswered and whereas I don’t mind an open ending in horror books, I do like my books to have at least some kind of closure on the most important topics, which was lacking here. Too many issues remained unresolved.

Despite that though, the book delivers a haunting tale of madness and nightmares, which I’d recommend for fans of atmospheric horror.

Filed Under: Dark Fiction, Horror, Reviews Tagged With: , , , ,

Mini-Review: Dead of Winter, Thief of Souls, Witch Island

June 21, 2015 Leave a Comment

minireview

Time for some mini-reviews! What are mini-reviews, you ask? As the title suggests, these are short reviews, consisting of one paragraph tops, about a book. It’s a way to catch up on the books I’ve read a while ago, but never got around to reviewing.

Title: Dead of Winter

Author: Brian Moreland

Genre: Horror, Dark Fiction

Rating: 4 stars

Purchase: Amazon

A predator stalks the frozen woods.
At a fort deep in the Ontario wilderness in 1878, a ghastly predator is attacking colonists and spreading a gruesome plague—his victims turn into ravenous cannibals with an unending hunger for human flesh. Inspector Tom Hatcher has faced a madman before, when he tracked down Montreal’s infamous Cannery Cannibal. But can even he stop the slaughter this time?
In Montreal exorcist Father Xavier visits an asylum where the Cannery Cannibal is imprisoned. But the killer who murdered thirteen women is more than just a madman who craves human meat. He is possessed by a shape-shifting demon. Inspector Hatcher and Father Xavier must unravel a mystery that has spanned centuries and confront a predator that has turned the frozen woods into a killing ground where evil has come to feed.
Dead of Winter tries to combine a lot of different tropes: cannibals, curses, demons, all into one. But while that’s a good idea in theory, in practice it doesn’t always work that way. It takes a skilled author to pull that off. Luckily, Brian Moreland happens to be a skilled author, and his creation of the Cannery Canibal, a serial killer eerily reminiscent of Hannibal Lecter, shows that he knows how to create characters that, albeit mad, are believeable. The plot is complex and challenging, but in a good way. Definitely a must-read for fans of horror.
 

Title: Thief of Souls

Author: J.G. Faherty

Genre: Horror, Dark Fiction

Rating: 3 stars

Purchase: Amazon

“Demons don’t forgive.
Perry didn’t want to be a thief. He simply needed to make back the money he lost on a bad business investment. Just three houses, then he can stop. But someone must be running a scam on him, trying to frighten him into turning himself in. He hears noises at night, small fires start in his house, and his dreams are filled with terrible nightmares.
Soon Perry begins to fear it’s no mere scam-something unholy and inhuman is playing a game of cat and mouse with him. Perry has stolen an ancient idol…and the demon who inhabits it. However, when he tries to return the idol, he finds out it’s much too late. The demon intends to teach Perry a lesson, a lesson that will destroy everything and everyone that Perry loves.

Thief of Souls had a lot of potential, but it never really lived up to that, at least not for me. Perry makes a bad choice, and something inhuman, demonic even, is out to get him, and to destroy him, hurting everyone he loves in the process. Not a bad premise, but the book never conjures up a creepy atmosphere, or even something remotely scary happening. There are some parts that could be scary, but ultimately I didn’t connect to Perry enough to be really scared for his wellbeing.

Title: Witch Island

Author: David Bernstein

Genre: Horror, Dark Fiction

Rating: 3,5 stars

Purchase: Amazon

A witch’s curse from beyond the grave! Witch Island used to be feared. Even the bravest would not dare go there. Legend said a witch had been burned alive at the stake, and upon her death she cursed the town. Terrified residents performed rituals to keep her spirit trapped on the island where she was buried. Now, over a hundred years later, a group of high school seniors have decided to forgo the local graduation parties and have a small gathering of their own-on Witch Island. They don’t fear the legends. They scoff at them. But the group will soon learn these particular legends are nothing to scoff at. And Witch Island will prove far worse than they could have ever imagined.

In Witch Island, you have all the classic ingredients of a horror movie: teens staying the night on an island cursed by a witch. It doesn’t help that half of these teens are descendants of the families who hurt aforementioned witch. You know you’re in for trouble when you read that plot. The book offers a ton of violence, some gruesome scenes that are definitely not for the squeamish, and also some background story of the witch. The parts talking about the witch’s story were my favorite. The teenagers just weren’t that much fun. It’s a fast read though, and if you slasher movies or anything of the like, you’ll enjoy this one.

Thanks to Samhain Publishing for providing review copies for all three of these.

Filed Under: Mini-Reviews Tagged With: , , ,

Book Review: Nightmare in Greasepaint by L.L. Soares and G. Daniel Gunn

June 4, 2015 3 Comments

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25396943Title: Nightmare in Greasepaint

Author: L.L. Soares and G. Daniel Gunn

Genre: Horror, Novella

Age Group: Adult

Rating: 3 stars

Purchase: Amazon

Review copy provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Some family legacies are best left buried.
Will Pallasso has brought his wife and young son, Billy, back to his childhood home to settle his late mother’s affairs…and remove all traces of his haunted past. But now hideous memories are coming back to Will, and Billy has started suffering from night terrors. Returning to this house was a big mistake. Some memories should not be disturbed, and some nightmares will not stay buried forever.
Especially nightmares that wear greasepaint spattered with blood.

In honor of Terror Thursday, a new feature on my blog, in which I review a scary book or movie on Thursday (the name is pretty self-explenatory), I present to you the first horror book that’ll be reviewed as part of this new feature: Nightmare in Greasepaint.

Nightmare in Greasepaint is a classic horror story that transports the reader back to their childhood, and matching childhood feares. Will’s mother, Lucy, passes away and he, his wife and teir young son, Billy, travel to his mother’s estate to sort out her affairs and possibly sell the house. For Will, the moment he sets foot inside the house, he’s transported back to his past, and the more time he spends in there, the more he starts to remember things he would’ve preferred to forget. Especially the basement seems to call for him, and hosts a buried secret from his childhood that could destroy him, and his family.

The book starts out well, and takes some time to build suspense and tension, and to set the mood. The story isn’t half bad either, not the most original horror book I’ve read, but it certainly has some original, refreshing elements. However, the book has two major flaws: the ending is flat and unbelievable (well, I don’t mind if it’s over the top in a horror book, and I certainly don’t expect a story that falls within the realm of normal possibilities, but this just wasn’t consistent with everything that happened beforehand) and way too rushed, and the characters are hard to connect to. They’re not real people, especially Will, who is supposed to be our main character. There’s some head-hopping, and I’m not sure if that’s the cause for that, but it certainly didn’t help either.

An okay horror book, not really scary but it does have a fun story and it’s a quick read.

Filed Under: Dark Fiction, Features, Horror, Reviews, Terror Thursday Tagged With: , , , , ,

Book Review: The Family Tree by John Everson

May 29, 2015 Leave a Comment

23116267Title: The Family Tree

Author: John Everson

Genre: Horror

Age Group: Adult (18+)

Rating: 3,5 stars

Purchase: Amazon

Review copy provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Its roots are old…and twisted! The blood of the tree is its sap. It has sustained Scott Belvedere’s family for generations. It’s the secret ingredient behind the family’s intoxicating ale and bourbon, among other elixirs. But only when Scott inherits The Family Tree Inn, deep in the hills of Virginia, does he learn anything about his family, its symbiotic history, or the mammoth, ancient tree around which the inn is literally built. And after he stumbles upon the bony secrets hidden in its roots, while in the welcoming arms of the innkeeper’s daughter, he realizes that not only is blood thicker than water-it’s the only thing that might save him from the hideous fate of his ancestors…

The Family Tree is a rather unique horror story set in The Family Tree Inn, an inn that has been in Scott Belvedere’s family for ages but that he’s only recently inherited. So far the story sounds pretty familiar, but then it introduces a few enticing twists: the sap of the tree, its blood, is the secret ingredient behind his family’s ale, and it has more side effects than Scott has knowledge of. He moves to the inn to find out more about his heritage and to learn about his family, but he never suspected to end up knee-deep into a nightmare. As he discovers one secret after another, and he gets the feeling something isn’t quite right about the inn, he stumbles upon a horrifying truth that might cost him his life.

Let’s start with the good. The author includes several erotic scenes in the book, but they make sense – they’re there for a reason, it’s not just sex just for the sake of adding in sex. The characters are real, and they each have their own quirks and personality, however the reader doesn’t connect with them, which is probably a good thing. If anything, the more I got to know the characters, the more alienated I felt from them.

The downside was that I couldn’t relate to Scott either, who is probably the only character one should really relate to while reading this book. That’s the only downside I could find to the book though: the writing is excellent, the pacing is fast, and the story screams originality. Too bad I couldn’t relate to the main character, else I would’ve given this a higher rating.

Filed Under: Dark Fiction, Horror, Reviews Tagged With: , , ,

Book Review: Aberrancy bu Su Halfwerk

May 27, 2015 1 Comment

AberrancyTitle: Aberrancy

Author: Su Halfwerk

Genre: Horror

Age Group: Adult

Rating: 4 stars

Purchase: Smashwords  |  B&N

Review copy provided by Enchanted Book Promotions in exchange for an honest review.

Robert Williamson, esteemed judge, adoring husband, and doting father, has his flawless life snatched away, leaving him damaged beyond repair—damaged by a witch whose taunting presence spells his destruction.

Before exacting his revenge, Robert is hell-bent on digging out explanations.

His demands are wild, his interrogation method peculiar, and what he seeks most might well cost him what remains of his sanity—and he knows it.

Despite horrible odds, Robert refuses to give in.

Aberrancy is a gripping dark tale of lives lost…to a different kind of evil.

In Aberrancy, Robert Williamson used to have it all. He was a doting father, had a loving wife, he worked as a judge and enjoyed his job. But then, all of those things are taken away from him, one by one, leaving him alone, a man destroyed, a man willing to do whatever it takes to get his vengeance. What little sanity he has left, he’ll use to receive his vengeance, whatever tools at his disposal, he’ll make use of them. He’ll do whatever it takes to destroy that what almost cost him his life.

I won’t get into detail as to what or who caused him this much damage, but it’s made clear early on in the book who he suspects is behind it. Aberrancy, at first, reads like a psychological horror, if you rely on the blurb, but it’s actually more a mix of psychological and supernatural.

The story has an interesting set ups, with the main narrative jumping back from present to past time, and often interrupted with interludes, mini-stories, woven throughout. It makes for an interesting reading experience, and it allows further view into the mind of the main character.

The novel has quite a few original concepts, and as such, stands out from most of the horror books out there. It’s a quick read (barely reached 80 pages in the pdf format) but it’s not a book you’ll easily forget. The writing is great, and the story has a slow build-up but features plenty of creepy or gorey moments throughout to keep the reader entertained.

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Filed Under: Book Tours, Dark Fiction, Enchanted Book Tours, Horror, Reviews Tagged With: , , , , ,

Book Review: Scarecrows by Christine Hayton

May 18, 2015 1 Comment

25234465Title: Scarecrows

Author: Christine Hayton

Genre: Horror, Dark Fiction

Rating: 2 stars

Purchase: Amazon

Review copy provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

They do more than frighten birds. Much more.
Early one morning in the fall of 1964, Robert searched for his missing six-year-old daughter, Cathy. He found her asleep in a nearby cornfield, covered in blood and holding a small axe. A few feet away lay the mutilated body of her classmate Emily.
Assumed guilty of murder, Cathy lived in a hospital for insane children. She always gave the same account of what happened. She talked of murderous scarecrows that roamed the cornfield on moonlit nights. Her doctors considered her delusional. The police, her neighbors and the press thought she was dangerous. And so she remained incarcerated. No one believed her. That was a mistake.

Scarecrows ia horror novella that, although failing to be terrifying, does make one feel grossed out at times, and does have its scary moments. The book reads much like a murder mystery however, and doesn’t quite reach the scare level I expected it would. That is surprising, considering scarecrows are some of the scariest things out there.

Cathy is barely six years old when she commits murder. At least, that’s what local authorities believe. Cathy was found asleep in a cornfield, covered in blood and holding a small axe, with the mutilated body of her friend Emily only a few feet away. Assumed guilty, Cathy is put into a mental hospital for insane children. But Cathy never stopped telling her story of what really happened: scarecrows did it.

And the Scarecrows aren’t quite finished yet. With doctors slowly believing Cathy wasn’t responsible for the murders, and with other strange things happening around town, the question rises whether Cathy was telling the truth after all.

With a premise like that, it’s tough to see how it could go wrong, yet it does. Part of that is because the characters don’t seem realistic. Even though they found Cathy covered in blood, her parents seem all too eager to accept her guilt. Wouldn’t a parent fight for their kid’s innocence, especially when the kid indicates they didn’t do it and never before portrayed violent behavior? Then, the behavior of the psychiatrists is questionable too. One of them even decides to live on the farm where Cathy lived, dedicating months to this single case without having any real connection to it prior to this. And the original psychiatrist’s storyline goes nowhere, leaving us with a dead end as suddenly we get this new psychiatrist seemingly out of the blue.

Cathy is impossible to connect with. She’s six years old (and eight after being released from the mental institution) but she appears much older. None of the characters are easy to connect with, and the dialogue feels unnatural and stiffed.

The book focuses on the scarecrows mostly in the second part, but still never reaches beyond the level of a murder mystery. It’s not horror since there’s no real suspense. At times, the book is painstakingly slow, and other times, the narrative jumps all over the place.

It’s not a bad story, and as a murder mystery it has an interesting eough angle, but as a horror book, it falls flat, providing no sense of creepiness whatsoever.

Filed Under: Dark Fiction, Horror, Reviews Tagged With: , , , ,

Book Review: The Bear Who Wouldn’t Leave by J.H. Moncrieff

May 6, 2015 Leave a Comment

25118244Title: The Bear Who Wouldn’t Leave

Author: J.H. Moncrieff

Genre: Horror

Age Group: Adult (18+)

Rating: 4 stars

Purchase: Amazon

Review copy provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Sometimes evil looks like a fuzzy teddy bear.Still grieving the untimely death of his dad, ten-year-old Josh Leary is reluctant toaccept a well-worn stuffed teddy bear from his new stepfather. He soon learns he was right to be wary. Edgar is no ordinary toy…and he doesn’t like being rejected. When Josh banishes him to the closet, terrible things begin to happen.Desperate to be rid of the bear, Josh engages the help of a friend. As the boys’ effortsrebound on them with horrifying results, Josh is forced to accept the truth—Edgar will always get even.

The Bear Who Wouldn’t Leave brings a pretty basic and familiar plot – a young boy gets a teddy bear and it turns out to be a demonic creature from hell that wants to hurt him – and turns it into an even more twisted version than the original. Familiar, yet with some imaginative new twists, this is a nostalgic horror novel that fans of the genre will definitely enjoy.

Josh Leary is barely ten years old when his life turns upside down. His father passed away, and now he has to deal with his new stepfather. But Michael, his stepfather, is a wicked, cruel man, and Josh’s mother seems blind to the truth. When his stepdad gives him a fuzzy, menacing-looking teddy bear, Josh knows he’s not doing it to be nice. The bear is wicked. At first, Josh suspects his stepdad is behind it when the bear moves on it own, escaping the closet he threw it in, but when more and more strange things start happening, he realizes the bear may have some terrible powers of his own. Meanwhile, Josh’s life spirals out of control as his stepfather grows more dominating and subjects him to harsh punishments, and his relationship with his mother deteriorates. Can he save his family?

While the story of the demonic teddy bear is certainly entertaining, it was the underlying story that really grasped my interest. Josh and his mom have a great relationship at first, but Josh is immediately wary of his stepdad, and time and time again, his mom dismisses his pleas and chooses his stepfather over him, while all along, Josh was right. When Edgar the teddy bear starts destroying things around the house, Michael blames Josh, and although she doesn’t want to, Josh’s mom believes him. Then the punishments starts, and God, sometimes it’s awful to read. That’s the true horror – not the demonic bear, but what Josh’s mom lets this man, this stranger, do to her son. That’s what chilled me to the core.

Josh is an easy character to connect to. For a kid, he’s really mature, and he has the same fears all of us do. Michael is a cruel man, and he’s easy to hate, which was probably the author’s intention too. Josh’s mom is timid and fragile, but at times she shows some bravery. Other times, you just want to shake her and yell at her to choose for her child, to protect little Josh. She was a frustrating character, but again, I believe it was done intentional, and it was done well.

The writing is great, and the plot is entertaining. Only the ending felt a little rushed. A solid read for horror fans.

Filed Under: Dark Fiction, Horror, Reviews Tagged With: , , ,

Book Review: Revel’s Ending by Vic Kerry

May 5, 2015 1 Comment

24617832Title: Revel’s Ending
Author: Vic Kerry
Genre: Horror
Age Group: Adult (18+)
Rating: 3,5 stars
Purchase: Amazon
Review copy provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Let the bad times roll…

Ashe had everything going for him. He had a successful career, a stable life, and a beautiful fiancée, until she died…and was resurrected.

Now everything is falling apart.

In addition to Mardi Gras floats, the streets of Mobile are filled with walking corpses. Somehow Ashe knows it’s all connected back to him. Can he and his friends stop the sinister forces at work, or are their revels ending—along with their lives?

Revel’s Ending offers an interesting take on zombies. Ashe used to have it all – a successful career, a beautiful fiancée…But then she passed away, and hours later, got up in the morgue and started walking away. He hasn’t heard anything from her since. Is she still alive? If she dead? How can the dead walk around? Ashe finds himself growing more depressed and worried with each passing day. Luckily he gets some help from his assistant, who tries to cheer him up, and brings him to the Mardi Gras floats in Mobile.

Then Ashe is summoned to another case of a corpse getting up and walking about. The woman in question is the same woman Ashe met before, at the Mardi Gras parade. What the heck is going on? And how is it all connected to him? Ashe must find out what is happening, and soon, because he, his assistant, and a friendly priest who offered to help, are in grave danger. And maybe the rest of the world too, if they don’t stop this terror in time.

With a slow start, the story takes a while to get going. But once it does, it turns into an interesting, thought-provoking story. Ashe is a well-rounded character, with believable emotions and easy to relate to. The secondary characters are each unique in their own way, and they’re certainly not stereotypes. The story is intense, and whenever you think you know something, another secret is revealed. Although I figured out who was in league with the bad guys early on, it was still surprising to see how it all played out.

Now, the ending. Well…it didn’t do it for me. All this build up, all this tension, and then the climax never really seemed to happen. The big bad seemed too one-dimensional too, almost like he got added as an afterthought. While he did show personality now and then, he remained a stereotype. I liked the premise of the book, and the whole buid up, but the ending was a bit of a letdown.

Nevertheless, it’s an entertaining read, and if you love horror, you shouldn’t skip past this one.

 

Filed Under: Horror, Reviews Tagged With: , , , ,

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