Showing posts with label Book Review. Show all posts

Three friends, an empty fuel tank, a desolate dirt road, and a hike through the woods in the middle of a snow storm...


monstrous cartoon teeth covered in bloodThree friends, an empty fuel tank, a desolate dirt road, and a hike through the woods in the middle of a snow storm; what could go wrong?

Only everything.


A mysterious beast stalks Fred and his friends through the snow, forcing them to seek shelter with two strangers in a remote cabin.


And so begins a waiting game. Food dwindles, tempers flare, and survival of the fittest becomes more than just a saying as the beast closes in.

West of the bustling metropolis of Phoenix, along Interstate Highway 10, is the magnificent and mystical desolation o...


West of the bustling metropolis of Phoenix, along Interstate Highway 10, is the magnificent and mystical desolation of the mountains of Southwestern Arizona. It is as alien as the planet Mars, and just as foreboding. Yet hidden away between the peaks & valleys and desert vistas, is a most incongruous edifice – part diner, part carnival atmosphere, with equal measure of whimsy, and just a smidge of nightmare. And it lay smack dab between the Eastern boundaries of imagination, and the Western shores of spooky. You can’t get to it by car or plane; and you won’t reach it by helicopter or even horseback. Nor is it on any map in existence. In fact – you won’t find it at all. 

Unless you’re dead. For this is Uncle Billy’s Chicken Hut & Salvation Emporium. Welcome. You say your spirit can’t move on until you find that 1995 issue of Jugs Galore with Miss February – before your wife does? Come on in! Never got a chance to see the dream realized of eating oysters on the half-shell? You’ve come to the right place! Not quite sure you’re actually in the dead mode? Uncle Billy will steer you on the right path! You know you’re dead, but you’re not quite sure how it happened, or where to go? Uncle Billy will set you straight!

A redhead with a drawl, a lawyer with pink hair, and a homeless seventeen-year-old have no business forming a pack.   In a world where magi...


A redhead with a drawl, a lawyer with pink hair, and a homeless seventeen-year-old have no business forming a pack. 
In a world where magic is commonplace, and your neighbor is just as likely to be an elf as a troll, three humans are unwillingly changed into werewolves. 

Unprepared and unwanted. 

The pack may have chosen Amber as their Alpha, but that’s not a title she is supposed to have. In order to be legally recognized as an Alpha she must pass the Trials, and it won’t be easy. If she fails, her pack will be disbanded and forced into a halfway house for bitten werewolves, aka The System. 

But the pack needs a sponsor in order to even enter the Trials. 

With everything to lose, the brand new pack must learn to work together before it’s too late.


Monsters come in many forms, and not everyone knows a monster when they see one. After three hundred years of monstrous, feral elves pl...


Monsters come in many forms, and not everyone knows a monster when they see one. After three hundred years of monstrous, feral elves plaguing the island nation of Selkirk, everyone believes they know what a monster is. Humans have learned to live with their savage neighbors, enacting a Clearing every four years to push the elves back from their borders. The system has worked for centuries until after one such purge, a babe was found in the forest.
As Tallis grows, she discovers she isn’t like everyone else. There is something a little different that makes people leery in her presence, and she only ever makes a handful of friends. 
But when the elves gather their forces and emerge from the forests literally hissing Tallis’s name like a battle mantra, making friends is the least of her troubles. Tallis and her companions find themselves on an unwilling journey to not only clear her name, but to stop the elves from ravaging her homeland.

Having won his emancipation after fighting on the side of the colonies during the American Revolution, Salem Hawley is a free man. Only a ...


Having won his emancipation after fighting on the side of the colonies during the American Revolution, Salem Hawley is a free man. Only a handful of years after the end of British rule, Hawley finds himself drawn into a new war unlike anything he has ever seen.

New York City is on the cusp of a new revolution as the science of medicine advances, but procuring bodies for study is still illegal. Bands of resurrectionists are stealing corpses from New York cemeteries, and women of the night are disappearing from the streets, only to meet grisly ends elsewhere.

After a friend’s family is robbed from their graves, Hawley is compelled to fight back against the wave of exhumations plaguing the Black cemetery. Little does he know, the theft of bodies is key to far darker arts being performed by the resurrectionists. If successful, the work of these occultists could spell the end of the fledgling American Experiment… and the world itself.

The Resurrectionists, the first book in the Salem Hawley series, is a novella of historical cosmic horror from the author of Broken Shells and Mass Hysteria.

It's dragons vs firefighters vs the Phoenix in the scorching fantasy sequel to Smoke Eaters. With ex-firefighter Cole Brann...



It's dragons vs firefighters vs the Phoenix in the scorching fantasy sequel to Smoke Eaters.

With ex-firefighter Cole Brannigan in command of the Smoke Eaters, the dragon menace is under control. Thanks to non-lethal Canadian tech, the beasts are just tranquilized and locked up. But for Tamerica Williams, a job filled with action and danger has become routine. She's so bored she nearly gets her whole team killed, and Brannigan has to step in. When a new threat emerges, the legendary bird of fire - the Phoenix - spreading fire like a plague and whipping dragons into a frenzy, it's a perfect task for Williams, but killing the Phoenix just brings it back stronger. Is that too much excitement, even for Williams?

The day she killed her boss...  Everything changed.  She never laid a hand on him to take hi...



The day she killed her boss... 


Everything changed. 


She never laid a hand on him to take his life. She didn’t have to. 

As her boss lies on the floor with a dozen witnesses staring and paramedics working in a futile effort to save him, a mysterious stranger approaches Angie with a bizarre offer. 

It’s a job with the ExtraTerrestrial Protection Agency, a secret organization. Can Angie trust a group whose very existence is ultra classified? 

She has to decide in a hurry because her newly released power starts drawing attention from life-draining, telepathic, Mindworms and alien scientists obsessed with abducting humans. Most terrifying of all, she’s stalked by one of the most fearsome predators in the galaxy. 

If you loved Men in Black or Ilona Andrews’ Innkeeper Chronicles series, buckle up for a wild ride with Angie Faust in Cursing. Get it now!

Vain Lily Blackwood and her shy brother Silas wonder if their family will ever settle in one place long enough to lead a normal life....


grayscale picture of man standing in front of big creepy house
Vain Lily Blackwood and her shy brother Silas wonder if their family will ever settle in one place long enough to lead a normal life. When a mysterious stranger arrives claiming to be their uncle, they discover their parents have been hiding a secret that turns their world upside down. 

The two are kidnapped to Nightfall Gardens, the family’s ancestral home, a place shrouded in ancient mystery, where they meet their dying grandmother and learn of an age-old curse placed on Blackwood females. 

Lily must take over as protector of the house and three haunted gardens that hold mythical beasts, fairy-tale nightmares and far worse. If she doesn’t, the evil trapped there will be unleashed and bring on a new dark age. 

While she deals with malevolent ghosts inside the house, Silas is put to work in the gardens, where one wrong step means death. 

Along the way, they search to unlock the secrets of the house and to stop the creatures in the gardens before time runs out and the world is destroyed.



Goodreads/Amazon


Cup of coffee and drawing book with picture of a cat on a desk with words Mini Review in script

Why Did I Pick This Book?
Um, that cover of course! That cover says dark, gothic fiction. I didn't even realize that it was a MG book. I came for the cover, but I stayed for the story. Curses, fairy-tale nightmares, mythical beasts, ghosts? Yes, please! 

What About the Characters? 
I loved Silas' bravery. Lily was a bit stuck on herself but she grew on me. The "monsters" were creepy and splendid. The house was it's own deadly being — constantly morphing to the surprise of everyone. The staff was fantastic. I loved the housemaid. She was gross and funny all at once. 

Should you read it?
Did you like The Last Apprentice: Revenge of the Witch by Joseph Delaney or Coraline by Neil Gaiman? Then you should definitely read it!




Roman Toguri finds himself burying the body of a nun in Boone, North Carolina. As the skies darken and i...



Roman Toguri finds himself burying the body of a nun in Boone, North Carolina. As the skies darken and it begins to 
storm, he is forced to shove the corpse into his trunk and take it home for the night, unaware of the torment that playing God will bestow upon him.

What if a single act of rebellion had the power to change your fate? Rowan and Abel Hayes’ birth ended a centuries-old family curse, bu...


What if a single act of rebellion had the power to change your fate?

Rowan and Abel Hayes’ birth ended a centuries-old family curse, but being a curse breaker has its drawbacks. Now they live a life full of rules.


When Rowan breaks a rule, she sets a powerful chain of events into motion that she never could’ve imagined. Abel is kidnapped, and it’s up to Rowan to save her twin. Can she rely on the aid of an old friend who once betrayed her? Or will new enemies prove too strong for her to handle?


(New Adult, contains language and sexual content. 18+)





A distant daughter.  A peculiar device. A family lineage full of secrets. When werecat Pawlina Katc...


werecat cartoon character on blue background
A distant daughter. 

A peculiar device.

A family lineage full of secrets.

When werecat Pawlina Katczynski finally resurfaces, her location previously unknown to anyone close to her, the reunion is short of welcomed. Instead, she finds herself thrust tooth and nail—tooth and claw—into a feud between opposing werecat clans as her family and their enemies reignite a battle that has raged for years.

Always Gray in Winter invites the reader to join the feud and see if blood is truly thicker than water...

An American reporter rides along with a British park ranger through a park filled with multidimensional unicorn...





An American reporter rides along with a British park ranger through a park filled with multidimensional unicorns. A princess and a poisoned zombie queen must find the queen’s murderer before the queen decomposes...or eats someone. The cutthroat world of competitive unicorn riding gets even more intense after a relationship might end the career of a rider. A man’s life is ruined after he is unjustly accused of defiling a noblewoman, but he is led to the lady by a magnificent beast. A brash bookseller must navigate demons, black market couriers, pretty girls, and gumshoes while searching out a most unusual artifact.

Sharp & Sugar Tooth: Women Up To No Good is a horror anthology of dark fiction and  darker appetites, edited b...


Sharp & Sugar Tooth: Women Up To No Good is a horror anthology of dark fiction and darker appetites, edited by Octavia Cade. Containing 22 stories of “bad” women, and “good” women who just haven’t been caught yet, it features 22 fearless writers who identify as female, non-binary, or a marginalized sex or gender identity. It’s the third in the Women Up To No Good series, which can be read in any order.


It includes original stories by Kathleen Alcalá, Betsy Aoki, Joyce Chng, Katharine Duckett, Anahita Eftekhari, Amelia Gorman, Jasmyne J. Harris, A. R. Henle, Erin Horáková, Kathryn McMahon, H. Pueyo, D. A. Xiaolin Spires, Rachael Sterling, Penny Stirling, Sabrina Vourvoulias, and Rem Wigmore, and reprints of stories from Apex, Electric Velocipede, Fantasy, Lightspeed, and Nightmare Magazines by Chikodili Emelumadu, Crystal Lynn Hilbert, Catherynne M. Valente, Damien Angelica Walters, Alyssa Wong, and Caroline M. Yoachim.

Contributors are based in or hailing from Australia, Brazil, Canada, New Zealand, Nigeria, Singapore, the UK, and all over the United States. Between them, they have won the Andre Norton, Eugie Foster Memorial, Hugo, Lambda, Locus, Mythopoeic, Nebula, Prix Imaginales, Rhysling, Romantic Times’ Critics Choice, This Is Horror, James Tiptree Jr., and World Fantasy Awards, and been shortlisted for the Bram Stoker, John W. Campbell, and Shirley Jackson Awards!

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Kathleen Alcalá, “The Doll’s Eye”
Betsy Aoki, “And When We Die They Will Consume Us”
Joyce Chng, “Dear Son”
Katharine Duckett, “Gimme Sugar”
Anahita Eftekhari, “The Fool’s Feast”
Chikodili Emelumadu, “Candy Girl”
Amelia Gorman, “She Makes the Deep Boil”
Jasmyne J. Harris, “What the Bees Know About Discarded Girlish Organs”
A. R. Henle, “Strong Meat”
Crystal Lynn Hilbert, “Soul of Soup Bones”
Erin Horáková, “A Year Without the Taste of Meat”
Kathryn McMahon, “The Honey Witch”
H. Pueyo, “I Eat”
D. A. Xiaolin Spires, “Bristling Skim”
Rachael Sterling, “Alice Underground”
Penny Stirling, “Red, From the Heartwood”
Catherynne M. Valente, “The Lily and the Horn”
Sabrina Vourvoulias, “A Fish Tale”
Damien Angelica Walters, “A Lie You Give, And Thus I Take”
Rem Wigmore, “Who Watches”
Alyssa Wong, “Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers”
Caroline M. Yoachim, “The Carnival Was Eaten, All Except the Clown”

Charley is a cleaner by day and a professional gambler by night. She might be haunted by her tragic past but she's never thought o...

Charley is a cleaner by day and a professional gambler by night. She might be haunted by her tragic past but she's never thought of herself as anything or anyone special. Until, that is, things start to go terribly wrong all across the city of Manchester. Between plagues of rats, firestorms and the gleaming blue eyes of a sexy Scottish werewolf, she might just have landed herself in the middle of a magical apocalypse. She might also be the only person who has the ability to bring order to an utterly chaotic new world. 

This is the first book in The City Of Magic series.



Troubled psychic Fia leads a double life. As a ground pounder for Search And Rescue, she finds the lost and vulnerable...

blue gravestone with underwater feelTroubled psychic Fia leads a double life. As a ground pounder for Search And Rescue, she finds the lost and vulnerable living and brings them to safety. As a servant to an ancient and indifferent Psychopomp, her mission is no less crucial – to help the suffering dead cross over to the afterlife. Her worlds collide after a distraught woman with a gun disappears into the woods and the rescue becomes a body recovery. 

When a frantic hammering erupts from the empty SAR team trailer, Fia appeals for help to Cam, irascible Brit, mentor and Psychopomp aficionado. But nothing is what it seems and a straightforward case soon goes sideways. Will Fia and Cam be able to uncover the shocking truth behind the final act of a desperate woman and free her tortured earthbound spirit? 

The second novel of the ZACKIE STORIES.

All passengers, please prepare for departure… An employee, a cop, and five prisoners; a prisoner, a stowaw...


All passengers, please prepare for departure…
An employee, a cop, and five prisoners; a prisoner, a stowaway, and a madman.
These are the people waiting at the Lawton bus terminal. Mostly late-night travelers who want nothing more than to get to their destinations, and employees who want nothing more than to get through the graveyard shift.
But when a strange, otherworldly fog rolls in, the night changes to nightmare. Because something hides in the fog. Something powerful. Something strange. Something... inhuman.
Soon, those in the terminal have been cut off from the rest of the world. No phones, no computers. Just ten strangers in the terminal... and The Other.
The Other is the force in the mist. The Other is the thing that has captured them. And The Other wants to play a game.

The rules are simple:
1) The people in the terminal must choose a single person from among them. That person will live. The rest will die.
2) Anyone who attempts to leave the terminal before the final vote will die.
3) The final vote... must be unanimous.
A nightmare. And getting worse, because the best way to make a vote unanimous... is to kill the other voters.
Welcome to the end of the line. Welcome to the Terminal.

Rusty Moss has raised his niece Mia since she was a baby. Now that she's almost eighteen, he's worried that the life he's...


Zombie bear with ribcage showingRusty Moss has raised his niece Mia since she was a baby. Now that she's almost eighteen, he's worried that the life he's given her—living off the grid in a cabin deep in the woods—is holding her back from her full potential. But that angst gets pushed aside when the undead forest animals arrive.

At first, it's just a squirrel—shockingly violent and almost impossible to kill. Followed by a grizzly bear, also aggressive and resilient, even when point-blank shotgun blasts to the face are involved.

Now the cabin is surrounded by all manner of zombie creatures. They have no way to call for help. The truck that could take them to safety is three miles away, stuck in the mud.

But Rusty and Mia have their courage. They have their wits. And, most importantly, they have an axe and a fully fueled chainsaw...

When a traumatized mining foreman is placed under the psychiatric care of Dr. Vincent Armstrong, the doctor thinks...



When a traumatized mining foreman is placed under the psychiatric care of Dr. Vincent Armstrong, the doctor thinks he has started just another shift. But as the victim begins to remember what drove him temporarily insane, Armstrong’s interest becomes personal, and he makes a series of discoveries that threaten to tear apart his carefully constructed scientific view of the world, and show in horrifying clarity that his patient is anything but delusional. 

As Armstrong’s world falls apart, his recovering patient learns that he has not escaped the horrors he encountered underground, and that no place on earth is truly safe from the “Tunnelers.”


Gregory and his little sister Imogen love spending Halloween with their parents. But this year is different. If he pro...

Gregory and his little sister Imogen love spending Halloween with their parents. But this year is different. If he proves he can take care of Imogen all by himself, he’ll finally have the allowance he’s dreamed of. 

That was before the basement door opened on its own. Before the strange door appeared in the basement and Imogen was taken from him by the monster. 

Now everyone in town is blaming him for her disappearance, but no one is listening to his story. Where did the door come from? What was that creature? And most of all, can he find his sister before it’s too late, or will he bury his memories of her along with his parents?



With Lingering, your departed loved ones are only ever a phone call or text message away.* Say a...




With Lingering, your departed loved ones are only ever a phone call or text message away.*

Say all those things you should have said. Get their advice, hear their comforting words. Let them celebrate your achievements and soothe your fears like they used to. 

Everyone is welcome, and consultations are always free. 

*Some conditions may apply. Please call our office for details.