Title: The Dark Game Author: Jonathan Janz Genre: Thriller, Suspense Publisher: Flame Tree Press Publication Date: April 11, 2019 Blurb: Ten writers are selected for a summer-long writing retreat with the most celebrated and reclusive author in the world. Their host is the legendary Roderick Wells. Handsome, enigmatic, and fiendishly talented, Wells promises to teach his pupils about writing, about magic, about the untapped potential that each of them possesses. Most of all, he plans to teach them about the darkness in their hearts. The writers think they are signing up for a chance at riches and literary prestige. But they are really entering the twisted imagination of a deranged genius, a lethal contest pitting them against one another in a struggle for their sanity and their lives. They have entered into Roderick Wells's most brilliant and horrible creation. The Dark Game. FLAME TREE PRESS is the new fiction imprint of Flame Tree Publishing. Launched in 2018 the list brings together brilliant new authors and the more established; the award winners, and exciting, original voices. My Review:
Overall: 4 out of 5 Stars Cover: 3 out of 5 Stars ***Disclaimer: These views are my own opinion. I will always recommend people to read the novel and form their own opinion. I loved everything about this book. It gave me the feeling of Clue meets Stephen King. At first I wasn't sure how I would go into it when reading the start of the novel. It seemed to move a bit slow with cliche dialogue and "oh move on already" scenes but as I read further, I found myself pleasantly surprised. Again, I won't bother going into the synopsis simply because the blurb does so well at outlining the plot of the story. Immediately, I felt like I was drawn into a written game of Clue. As an avid fan of the board game, I had many verbal "ah-ha" and "I knew it" moments, which I have come to love in mysteries and thrillers. What truly won me over was the sheer beauty of the author's voice. This novel had a gorgeous use of voice. Something I rarely see and crave in today's horror. It is a treat to see such wonderful imagery and deep characters. If you've followed my reviews, you know I crave deep, flawed characters. This book delivered so well, I will definitely return to the author's other titles. I identified with Rick and Lucy on such a deep level which does not happen for me often anymore. However, the lack of world-building hindered the novel greatly. While I adored the character depth and suspense, the world itself lacked as much care as the characters. Another thing that bothered me was some of the dialogue. It seemed forced and unnatural. It became difficult at times to tell who the speaker was. BUT! All in all, this book, guys...I can't recommend it enough. I enjoyed it thoroughly despite the few technical errors (which let's face it, authors are human. Reviewers need to remember this). Mr. Janz, you have another lifelong fan. You are a true storyteller. Something rare in these modern times. Thank you NetGalley for the ebook. Goodreads // Amazon // Website
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Title: The Tunnelers Author: Geoff Gander Genre: Horror Blurb: 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.” My Review
Overall: 3.5 out of 5 Cover: 2.5 out of 5 ***Disclaimer: These views are my own opinion. I will always recommend people to read the novel and form their own opinion. I enjoyed this flash fiction very much. It offered more in 45 pages than many of the horror novels by today's authors have in over 200. I will not go into the synopsis with this one simply because the blurb offers enough insight into the novelette to paint a clear picture. What I really liked about this story was the sense of tension. It is something I find often eludes today's horror authors but is vital to a horror story. The author achieves this by writing the story in a series of report entries - something I have not seen until reading Nick Cutter's The Troop. When reading a story, I often look for engaging characters and worlds capable of painting a picture in my mind. This small fiction did just that. The author promised a Lovecraftian experience and in my opinion, did just that. I love the introduction of the creatures as a pseudo-faceless malice rather than a full blown assault. It is something Lovecraft and Poe do very well but a lost art in today's horror stories. A critique I will mention for future stories is to make sure we know who is telling the story. I believed it to be Dr. Armstrong until finishing the story. The cover also lacks much to be desired. Though it does indicate some tension, it did not really grab my attention enough to pick up the book had I not been asked to review it. All in all, I am very excited to see more of this author's work. It will be a pleasure to review future titles by this author. Goodreads // Amazon // Website
Review: Overall: 3 out 5 Cover: 1 out of 5 Empty Eyes follows the story of Ian, a boy who suffers constant bullying by the same group of boys. One night, at a carnival, he finds himself driven into an extremely spooky house where he meets two children with black eyes. They give Ian what they call "a gift" which slowly begins to change Ian into something he usually wouldn't be. This is the second title I've reviewed by this author and I must say, while I am once again not given the feeling of horror I would like to feel, I found it a great improvement over The FireFly. The monsters had the creep factor similar to something one might see in R.L. Stein's Goosebumps. Middle grade is not something I usually read. I didn't care for any of the characters nor the world. Both were incredibly flat and not very identifiable. Now, I feel I need to point out, while bullying is a very real problem, I'm getting rather agitated that this part of the story seems to be given more care and development than the horror itself. If as much detail is given to developing the actual plot than the bullying, the stories might benefit. As it stands right now, I nearly DNF'd both novellas because of the overall premise given to the bullying. I don't feel such details are necessary for the story itself. For the love of everything decent, please get a better cover artist. This looks like a child's drawing rushed and pinned to the front of a novel. I realize book covers can get expensive but Fiverr has some awesome artists who charge as low as 10$ for exceptional covers. A novel's cover can make or break the novel and with repeated lack of care, I can't say I'll be returning to the next titles.
Title: Craven Manor Author: Darcy Coates Genre: British Fiction, Occult, Supernatural, Ghost Story Blurb: Daniel is desperate for a job. When someone slides a note under his door offering him the groundskeeper’s position at an old estate, it seems too good to be true. Alarm bells start ringing when he arrives at Craven Manor. The mansion’s front door hangs open, and leaves and cobwebs coat the marble foyer. It’s clear no one has lived there in a long time. But an envelope waits for him inside the doorway. It contains money, and promises more. Daniel is desperate. Against his better judgement, he moves into the groundskeeper’s cottage behind the crypt. He’s determined to ignore the strange occurrences that plague the estate. But when a candle flickers to life in the abandoned tower window, Daniel realizes Craven Manor is hiding a terrible secret… one that threatens to bury him with it. My Review:
Overall: 4 out of 5 Stars Cover: 5 out of 5 Stars The author Darcy Coates has created a beautiful masterpiece with this novel. From the time I started it to the final pages, I could not stop reading this absolutely magnificent breath of fresh air. After being left jobless and near homeless, Daniel does whatever he can just to get to by while living with his "slob" cousin in their small apartment. It become very clear Daniel wants to move out and live on his own. His salvation appears in the form of a mysterious letter left in front of his apartment offering for him to go to Craven Manor, a mansion long avoided by the townsfolk for fear of what happened there. Daniel takes the job as the groundskeeper and comes face to face with the ghost of a little girl named Annalise and the strange master, Bran. Events turn more bizarre the further Daniel gets dragged into the world of shadows. I cannot say enough good about this novel. For each page I turned, I felt like I was walking the halls of Craven Manor myself. Coates replaces needless dialogue with luscious descriptions, immersing the reader into the world she wants them to see and feel. A limited cast of characters allowed the author to focus on making them deep and relatable, full of flaws and a bit angsty. I loved Bran's character. Everything about him screamed "personal prison" and guilt. When he finally became free of his burden, I could feel the weight lifted off of him. Something I cannot say, sadly for many characters nowadays. Craven Manor takes everything you can love in a ghost story, turns it on its head and makes it more deep than anything I've had the pleasure to read. The cover drew me in before I even cracked the spine. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes the descriptions of Stephen King and the twists and turns of Edgar Allan Poe. Coates promised us a terrible secret and by the moon, she delivered one. Goodreads // Amazon // Website Title: The Troop Author: Nick Cutter Genre: Horror, Suspense Blurb: Once every year, Scoutmaster Tim Riggs leads a troop of boys into the Canadian wilderness for a weekend camping trip—a tradition as comforting and reliable as a good ghost story around a roaring bonfire. But when an unexpected intruder stumbles upon their campsite—shockingly thin, disturbingly pale, and voraciously hungry—Tim and the boys are exposed to something far more frightening than any tale of terror. The human carrier of a bioengineered nightmare. A horror that spreads faster than fear. A harrowing struggle for survival with no escape from the elements, the infected…or one another. Part Lord of the Flies, part 28 Days Later—and all-consuming—this tightly written, edge-of-your-seat thriller takes you deep into the heart of darkness, where fear feeds on sanity…and terror hungers for more. My Review:
Overall: 3.5 out of 5 Stars Cover: 3 out of 5 Stars I can honestly say this book is very much "old school" horror. It relied on gore and definite shock value to catch the audience's attention. I think that's probably one of the things I appreciated the most. Parasitism is a huge fear of many people. The idea of something "growing" inside of us and the fact tapeworms could indeed carry some biological warfare capabilities further added to the "gulp" factor. The way the book was written was decent. It flowed well - though a little draggy at times- and let's face it, could have used a better inciting incident. No doctor is going to take a young boy in the room with a stranger - never mind the sick value. That was unrealistic and probably one of the worst parts of this book. Oh and the "random" military appearances. Someone would want to find some answers. Now, what really - and I mean really - irked me was all the references. I saw so many similar things from many different sources. Ephraim trying to cut the worms out - The Ruins anyone? Shelley being impregnated and going "hive-mind/daddy crazy" - Um.... Slither anyone? King's Dreamcatcher. The Invasion. Lord of the Flies. Just too many things die hard horror fans could pick up on. This being the case, I know inspiration happens but can we at least not pack so much into one place? Also, I wanted more worm, less Lord of the Flies. If the author wanted to go Flies then something I think would've helped would be to explore the human condition. Where was the character depth? They were cardboard for goodness' sake. I knew Shelley was psycho and would lose his mind. I knew Max would be the lone survivor and that Newton was the voice of reason. Good grief, Ephraim should've given more of a fight - worms or no. He was built up to be a badass for night's sake. He obviously didn't trust Shelley from the start so why on Earth do something so drastic as to listen to him and cut into himself? Just no. All of this said, I actually enjoyed this book. It didn't terrify me, really, but I'm an avid horror fan so I guess I'm a bit numb. I will be reading more of the author's titles. I think there's definitely some potential here. Amazon // Goodreads // Website
My Review: Overall: 1 out of 5 Cover: 3 out of 5 ***Disclaimer: These views are my own opinion. I will always recommend people to read the novel and form their own opinion.*** Duane is given an assignment to write about the local legend of the Beast of Black Pond and the mysterious disappearances. The teacher warns the boy to be careful as the place is blocked off due to it being dangerous. Here is my first problem with this story. What teacher in their right mind would tell their student to investigate a place blocked off to keep people safe? None that I would let my children go to school and learn from. It was unbelievable and unrealistic. Duane would be better off doing internet and library research and then out of curiosity want to see what the legend was about. Second, the beast seemed restrained to a single place. If the solution to save his life was to stay away from Black Pond, why wouldn't Duane do it? Why do back and subject himself to numerous accounts of terror? It didn't make sense. Once again, the fatal flaw in this story is the overwhelming amount of detail given to the bullying. This will be the last title I review by this author. I am sorry but the bullying is given too much care over the actual storyline. As a middle grade, reminding some school-age kids of the daily struggle they have when a book should provide a form of escape is beyond my comprehension. I felt no connection to the characters, the world had little to no build to it and the final confrontation with the supposed monster was minute at best. I do appreciate the cover. It was much better than the others in this series. It gave a bit more of a suspenseful and creepy feeling. I sincerely hope future titles are given more care to the plot instead of the minutiae of the details. Horror is supposed to illicit a feel of terror, hopelessness and I am not seeing that in any of these stories.
Book Name: The Haunting of Rookward House Author: Darcy Coates Genre: Horror, Occult, Ghost story, British Fiction Blurb: She's always watching... When Guy finds the deeds to a house in his mother’s attic, it seems like an incredible stroke of luck. Sure, the building hasn’t been inhabited in forty years and vines strangle the age-stained walls, but Guy is convinced he can clean it up and sell it. He’d be crazy to turn down free money. Right? The house is hours from any other habitation, and Guy can't get phone reception in the old building. He decides to camp there while he does repairs. Surely nothing too bad can happen in the space of a week. But there’s a reason no one lives in Rookward House, and the dilapidated rooms aren’t as empty as they seem… A deranged woman tormented a family in Rookward forty years before. Now her ghost clings to the building like rot. She’s bitter, obsessive, and jealous… and once Guy has moved into her house, she has no intention of ever letting him leave. My Review:
Overall: 5 out of 5 Cover: 5 out of 5 Darcy Coates has done it again. Another fantastic read. I loved everything about this book. Like Craven Manor, Rookward House gave a sense of character to the house itself. Something I have only seen executed well in stories by Edgar Allen Poe. The story starts out introducing Guy, a man who finds out through a rather messy spring cleaning that his mother has owned a house she never seemed to know she had. Without knowing the dark secret of said house, Guy goes to begin fixing it up so he can sell it and get his mom out of debt. To add to the tension, Guy is suffering from demons of his own including an anger issue and a bad break up whereas he backed over his former lover. Enter the Rookward House, an abandoned, broken down structure where the most horrifying murder takes place involving a receptionist embodying "hell hath no fury." Throughout his attempt to fix the house up, Guy encounters a ghost who appears to have mistaken Guy for her former lover. Here comes the chaos. The ghost is dead set (pun intended) on having Guy for her own. Something that makes me a returning Coates fan is her ability (as I said before) to give inanimate objects a life of their own. This is something I haven't seen in anything outside of Lovecraft or Poe, yet Coates manages to do this perfectly. I would recommend her work to anyone who loves riveting plot lines, the scariest ghosts and continuous tension rivaling that of Neil Gaiman. Wonderful characters, plot twists that flow perfectly with the story and an immersive world, Rookward House is another horror gem in a sea of B-rate plots and cookie cutter characters. Goodreads // Amazon // Website Title: Little Darlings Author: Melanie Golding Genre: Horror, Thriller, Mystery Blurb: Everyone says Lauren Tranter is exhausted, that she needs rest. And they’re right; with newborn twins, Morgan and Riley, she’s never been more tired in her life. But she knows what she saw: that night, in her hospital room, a woman tried to take her babies and replace them with her own…creatures. Yet when the police arrived, they saw no one. Everyone, from her doctor to her husband, thinks she’s imagining things. A month passes. And one bright summer morning, the babies disappear from Lauren’s side in a park. But when they’re found, something is different about them. The infants look like Morgan and Riley―to everyone else. But to Lauren, something is off. As everyone around her celebrates their return, Lauren begins to scream, These are not my babies. Determined to bring her true infant sons home, Lauren will risk the unthinkable. But if she’s wrong about what she saw…she’ll be making the biggest mistake of her life. Compulsive, creepy, and inspired by some our darkest fairy tales, Little Darlings will have you checking―and rechecking―your own little ones. Just to be sure. Just to be safe. My Review:
Story: 2.5/5 Stars Cover: 2.5/5 Stars ***Disclaimer: These views are my own opinion. I will always recommend people to read the novel and form their own opinion. Little Darlings by Melody Golding takes the most basic principle of changeling lore and puts it in a novella that could have been cut in half starting from the beginning. Lauren Tranter has just given birth to twin boys Riley and Morgan Tranter. Her husband Patrick has become a proud father. The problem is, Lauren receives a visit from a strange woman carrying a basket filled with rags which seems to be emitting the cries of twins. The woman asks Lauren to take one of her babies for one of the woman's or she would wind up taking them both. No one else seems to see this woman and declares Mrs. Tranter insane sending her to the medical ward on multiple occasions. The beginning of this novel dragged on so long, I nearly stopped reading it. It seemed to focus more on the build-up and less on the actual story itself. I find I enjoy this in certain novels and novellas but here it just didn't work. I experienced none of the terror one could easily pull from a story like this. It saddened me because I found this book rated 4 stars on Goodreads. I do not understand why. When the babies are finally taken by the changeling woman, things get a bit more interesting but this occurs towards the end of the novel. Thanks to a book given to Lauren, she knows how to get her own children back from the changeling. Now, this being said, I did find the writing ok, not great but ok. Dialogue seemed to drag on endlessly in some places. I identified with none - and I mean none - of the characters on a deep level. However, as a mother of two myself, I understood how Lauren felt being left to care for the babies while her husband did mostly nothing. I experienced this myself and went through some horrible PPD. I almost wished this story was told from the views of an older Riley and Morgan. I think it would have made a better story honestly. The world was shallow, I had no feeling of immersion. I wanted so badly to feel the tensity of the story but there just was not enough to keep me interested and I DNF'd it on page 180. However, I will be returning to some of the author's works because I like to give each title its own chance. I think Melanie Golding has some great potential. Goodreads // Amazon // Website |
AuthorMy name is Iona Caldwell. I'm the author of the British Occult Fiction, Beneath London's Fog set to be published by FyreSyde Publishing October 2019. When I'm not busy weaving worlds of the arcane and dark, I'm spending time out in nature. I love books. My biggest inspirations are H.P Lovecraft, Stephen King, Neil Gaiman and Edgar Allen Poe. I blog about many things but mostly everything bookish. Archives
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