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Tag Archives: Horror

ARC Twisted Vengeance by Jeff Bennington

4 Stars!

Another great Thriller from Jeff Bennington!

The first book I read from Jeff was Reunion and It is one of my favorites. I love his type of scary! Paranormal, evil, invisible and uncontrollable. Twisted Vengeance does not disappoint!

Here is the book summary: Detective Rick Burns’ life is falling apart. His four-year old son is dead, his brother butchered, he’s in love with the one woman he can’t have and he’s investigating a slew of unsolved murders of violent, domestic abusers.

When a mysterious boy enters his life, things only get worse.

The boy knows the victims. He knows about Rick’s fears. And he knows about Debil, the serial killer with a lust for death.

Determined to help the detective find the perpetrator, the boy ushers Rick into a nightmarish chase where reality and the supernatural are blurred, nearly costing him his life, his love, and his reputation in a storm of domestic vengeance that is so twisted you won’t be able to stop reading until you discover the awful truth.

Twisted Vengeance opens in the midst of an investigation in to some very horrific murders. Detective Rick Burns is already on the case and called in to the newest crime scene.

There is no tough-cop morgue humor going on here. This murder is heinous and all investigators on scene are having a hell of a time coping. Especially Rick.

Rick has seen and experienced a lot of tragedy in his life. From witnessing the death of his mother as a toddler, losing a child and the loss of a brother whom he looked up to he has seen it all. Or so he thought. He considers his brother to have been an excellent detective and struggles with comparing himself to his brothers image.

When a young boy mysteriously shows up and starts leading Rick to new crime scenes, he starts to question his own sanity.

I have to say again, I really like Jeff’s idea of scary. It suits me. Nothing is more frightening than an evil you can’t explain. Serial killers and monsters, while intrinsically unexplainable, can be categorized and usually killed. You can’t kill a force of evil. *shudder* And while, in movies, you can get a Priest or a scientist or the Ghost Busters to save your butt, Jeff doesn’t provide that kind of warm and fuzzy fix in his stories. I’m glad because it takes an awful lot to creep me out.

The so-called ‘victims’ at the crime scene are abusers and leave no room for sympathy but an officer of the law must remain impartial and even though you want to tell Rick to stop wandering off alone following a creepy kid to God knows where, you can’t and therefore you are stuck along for the ride.

Twisted Vengeance will be ready for release soon and I highly recommend it. Nothing says Halloween like a good scarin’ and Jeff Bennington will bring it!

The Other Room by James Everington

15 Sep

The Other Room by James Everington
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Book Summary: The Other Room is a collection of weird horror fiction, containing twelve stories of the uncanny and the surreal.

A naive student finds that his crumbling bedsit can be as haunted as any Gothic mansion.

A man stumbles across another world which is the mirror image of his own.

A young woman who everyone thinks is beautiful wonders why, given what she sees in the mirror each morning.

Influenced by writers such as Ramsey Campbell, Shirley Jackson, and Robert Aickman these tales, like all good horror stories, are as much about the psychology of the protagonist as the fate that awaits them.

The Other Room contains both new and previously published stories that will challenge your conceptions of horror and literary fiction.

The Other Room is brain candy. Each story challenges you as you try to guess what is really going on. The first story, which shares the title of this collection, was reminiscent of The Twilight Zone complete with the feeling that things aren’t right in a very bad way. I found myself trying to trump the author and predict the ending. Didn’t work.

I read on to the second story, it had a different feel altogether. A sense of impending doom with no obvious reason why. I found that with each story, James Everington created an atmosphere of expectancy and uncertainty. More importantly, James Everington involves the reader by insisting they draw their own conclusions at the story’s end. I spent time digesting the story, pondering the implications of what the characters experienced. To me, this made The Other Room brilliant. There is nothing I like more than for the story to continue on it’s own after the last word is written.

Although this collection of short stories is described as Horror Fiction, I think Speculative Fiction is a perfect fit as well.

My new goal in life is to read a full length novel written by Mr. Everington. I know the experience will be with me for a long time.

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Crude Sunlight by Philip Tucker

02 Sep

Crude Sunlight by Philip Tucker
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Not only has Philip Tucker created an atmosphere of fear in this novel, he also highlights the weakness of human self interest and the damage it can do to the people around you.

Here is the book summary: Down in the depths below Buffalo’s abandoned State Insane Asylum the shadows writhe and wait, hungry for a new cycle of revenge and despair.

Into their web of madness disappears Henry, forcing his older brother to begin a search that will lead Thomas into the darkest corners of his soul.

For the dangers that lurk in the interstices of Buffalo’s haunted heart care not for flesh but for the substance of the spirit, the resilience of the mind and the strength of one’s will to survive.

And Thomas, fleeing as he is his own troubled life, soon finds his very sense of self under attack.

Accompanied by Julia, his younger brother’s tormented ex-girlfriend, Thomas forces himself to walk the same downward spiral that claimed Henry.

But the hunger that Henry awoke has broken stronger men than Thomas, shattered their minds and consumed them whole in the darkness. What hope does Thomas have in the face of such ravening despair?

CRUDE SUNLIGHT is a tale of modern psychological horror that will appeal to fans of SILENT HILL, THE RING and Shirley Jackson. Complete at 85,000 words (about 350 pages), CRUDE SUNLIGHT will haunt you long after the final page has been turned.

Crude Sunlight appears, at first, a story of a haunted insane asylum and I expected people to get killed off one by one until the hero finds his brother and they ride off into the proverbial sunset.
By the way, that would have been fine with me because I love scary, gory horror but Philip Tucker went deeper.
The building with the creepy sounds and sights is NOT the focus of the story. Thomas is. His lack of prior involvement in his younger brothers life causes him to wait months before making an effort to find Henry. Assuming Henry is off partying it up or what have you, Thomas is in for a surprise when he stumbles onto the knowledge of what Henry was doing in the days preceding his disappearance.
Julia, Henry’s ex-girlfriend seems indifferent to Thomas and his belated quest to find his brother but Mr. Tucker gives us a glimpse of Julia’s soul which suggests differently. It is also disturbing.
The antipathy in Thomas’s life has put his marriage in jeopardy and the search for Henry starts out as an excuse to get outta town and avoid his own problems.
He ropes his best friend into helping him, when he knows things could tun out bad, but is not overly worried at involving him.
When things do get wildly out of hand, Thomas has to re-think his true purpose and decide exactly how much he cares for friends and family and what he is willing to do for them.

Do not mistake the character work I am describing as a complete picture of Crude Sunlight. It is a real and clever part of the story Philip Tucker has crafted but beware, this story is gonna scare the crap out of you. Philip Tucker doesn’t create monsters you can kill or control or reason with. The evil that Thomas has to face will make the hair on your arms stand up.
This story has all the makings of a great Horror read with a dash of Speculative Fiction and human psychology thrown in to make things a little more real. I loved it and I am positive fans of this genre will too!

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