Tag: Book Review

Categories
Archives Book Reviews Posts

The Bride Wore Brains: Book Review

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Image from Amazon.com

Emily Wesley Stringer’s self-published debut novel, The Bride Wore Brains, is a fun dark comedy with a heavy zombie element.

Kat’s best friend, Claire, is getting married. Like any good Maid of Honor, Kat is doing her best to ensure that the wedding goes smoothly and that the bride has her day. When the guest begin to turn into zombies, however, Kat finds that her work is cut out for her.

This gorefest clocks in at just 70 pages, but the length doesn’t hinder the story in any way. The plot is solid, and I rallied behind Kat right away. The motley crew of characters that she fights beside are engaging and witty. I found the dialogue sharp, appropriately graphic (don’t act like you’re gonna sugarcoat your words during the end times), and I laughed out loud several times. My favorite character was the one named after a sex toy; I’ll let you figure out who that is when you read the book. The minutiae of wedding planning is laid out carefully and repeatedly, allowing for me to really empathize with the Maid of Honor and her impossible task of making sure the day goes off without a hitch. The clever banter between the members of the wedding party kept the talk of bouquets and catering from getting too monotonous, while certain doom lurked on the periphery of each scene, slowly ambling toward a bloody, showstopping (and wedding-stopping) climax.

Unfortunately, this wonderful story has its share of awkward syntax and grammatical errors; so much that I had to re-read whole paragraphs at a time. At times, this took me out of the story, and hurt the flow of the narrative. I’m not sure if this was some kind of stylistic choice on the part of the author or not. Regardless, it affected my reading experience a little bit, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention it to potential readers.

When it comes to genre, Stringer is fully aware of her audience. She knows that when we jump into a zombie story, no matter how light it is, we want blood and guts. When the dead walk, it ain’t pretty, and the cleanup is not all Windex and feather dusters. In this case, it involves a chainsaw and a machete. When it all goes down, the author is not worried about our precious sensitivities; tendons snap, blood gushes, and power tools slice with no censorship whatsoever. It’s in-your-face and it’s a good ‘ol time.

Another note about the climax: I like to listen to music while I read, and on this particular evening I had my player set on random. As bodies were dropping (and rising) and blood was being spilled, “Lovely Day” by Bill Withers, came on. I kid you not, this is the most perfect song for the wedding-day mayhem that occurs in this book. I laughed so hard my sides hurt, and I ended up putting the song on a loop so I could keep the on-point soundtrack going. I swear to the old gods and the new, if a movie version of this book is ever made, they better play this song during the slow-motion bloodbath.

Overall, this is a solid story full of pull-no-punches dark humor and gratuitous fun, but it could benefit from an editor to smooth out the grammatical errors and slightly clumsy prose, so that readers can get the best experience possible and just enjoy the gory, gory ride. I’d recommend it to fans of [REC]3, Shaun of the Dead, and the Evil Dead films.  Find it on Amazon.

Categories
Archives Book Reviews

Reach and Other Short Stories: Book Review

reach and other short stories

Reach and Other Short Stories
By Brandon Drake

Reach and Other Short Stories is a single author collection, not an anthology as suggested in the Preface.

It contains an opening scene of four college-aged men and women in a closed library. You may think, as I did, how this is reminiscent of other stories or movies which start out the same way. One of them reads something aloud they shouldn’t, releasing some horror into the world. I love that these characters made the same reference and took things a different direction. What follows are four short stories they find in a recently published book in the library with their light banter in between each tale.

Now, let me address the four stories without spoiling them. The first is titled, Rain. Mary encounters a kitten during a walk in an odd rain storm. While trying to rescue the cat, she discovers the true nature of the rain, to her dismay.

The second story is titled, Reject. Hal’s boring job is to open envelopes and check the contents. Any with missing elements or information are rejected. One particular envelope brings out Hal’s compassion with dire consequences.

The third story is Reach. Rob is overly sleepy; something continually wakes him.  Unable to find the source, he unravels. This story reminded me of the original Twilight Zone television series.

The final story is Resuscitate. After a car wreck, Jacob wakes in the hospital. He learns how texting and driving can lead to death…and beyond.

The entire collection is short and a light read. I’d recommend it as something for a long trip or beach. I would suggest to the author to work on tightening up the writing. He has a particular love for words such as ‘that’, ‘had’, and ‘was’…to the point of distraction to the reader. Every author has their favorite overused words so learning what yours are and consciously avoiding them is part of being a writer.  Mister Drake did ask  for honest feedback in his Preface so hopefully he’ll find this part of the review worthwhile.

Categories
Archives Book Reviews

Marvelry’s Curiosity Shop: Book Review

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

     The Twilight Zone is one of my favorite shows ever. I’ve watched season after season, over and over, year after year. It never gets old for me. I’m attracted to short, weird tales that manage to enthrall and shock me in 30 minutes or less. Likewise, I also enjoy short story collections for the same reason. Bite-sized stories of suspense and the unexplained will always have a place on my bookshelf.

Marvelry’s Curiosity Shop, by John Brhel and Joseph Sullivan, is one such collection of stories. 12 fantastical tales of terror and mystery await in a retired stage magician’s shop. Dr. Marvelry (pronounced, “Marvel-rye”) has traveled the world and collected scores of curious objects. From the book summary:

“A phonograph that seemingly replays a tragedy. Fertility dolls that are more than decoration. A bedeviled mannequin. These are just some of the relics this eccentric shopkeeper has collected over the years.”

He seems like a nice enough man, but Dr. Marvelry seems to have no problem selling these cursed items to unsuspecting customers, without really giving them proper warning about the objects’ power. Seems kind of messed up, right? I had some trouble trying to figure out Marvelry as a character, whether his intent was malicious or not. In any case, he himself was featured in a couple of the stories, and was largely sympathetic.

As for the stories, they were a load of fun. My favorite tale in particular was “Seams of Consequence”, about a vintage sewing machine that served its purpose a little too well. It could have easily been an episode of The Twilight Zone, right down to the eerie, but fitting, ending. “A Gift Ungiven”, about a professor that purchases an ancient Native Amercian artifact, would have been a favorite had the ending been given more thought. Unfortunately, many of the stories ended sooner than I had hoped, usually with a character giving exposition in the final paragraph to explain the climax. Stories as strong as these deserve to be explored to their full potential, even if it means upping the word count a bit. I’m hoping that, in their next collection, the authors max out the narratives a bit more to let readers feel the full impact of the spectacular climaxes. I’m definitely looking forward to reading more by Brhel and Sullivan.

The stories are told in a narration that takes some getting used to, but still consistent. Think of someone telling you tales by a campfire; there’s going to be much more “tell” than “show”. Once I got past that, I found the stories to be quite enjoyable. The authors took the time to weave the cursed objects, characters, and places within one another’s stories, which really brought the collection together, rather than just slapping together creepypasta-style tales together with a common theme.

I would recommend this book to fans of The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, and Alfred Hitchcock Presents, who want some light reading that’s creepy, but won’t give them nightmares. With the exception of one story with sexual themes (“A Made Match”), I think a YA audience would have a good time with the book, as well. Find it on Amazon.

Categories
Archives Book Reviews

The Blood on My Hands: Book Review

Blood On My Hands - Cover

When I was first given The Blood on My Hands to review, the story sounded interesting. It is the autobiography of a child with a serial killer for her father. I suppose the premise is to survive that kind of horrific childhood. To that end, the author did so with great strength but certainly not unscathed. I began reading with high hopes.

Unfortunately this is a difficult story to get into so I was quickly disappointed.  I’ll be up-front and admit my dislike for first person narratives and passive sentence structures. I hoped this book would be an exception because it is an autobiography. Instead, it reinforced my reasons for disliking those writing styles. I strongly believe this story, which is indeed powerful, could’ve knocked me out of my chair had I been allowed to see and feel the child’s experiences along with her instead of simply being told about them.  Where are all five senses within its description?  I saw many missed opportunities for the author to grab me by the throat and drag me in.

Among elements which brought me out of the story were an unnecessary prologue; time jumping both forward and backwards; unnecessary minutiae about parents’ and grandparents’ pasts; and concepts beyond the scope or vocabulary of a young child. While it is certainly possible for a child to contemplate suicide, the idea of a four year old considering taking her own life brought out my skepticism in the middle of the prologue.

I do applaud Ms. O’Leary (a pseudonym) for coming forward with her story. I know it took some raw courage to do so. As a book, this one didn’t do much for me. It might make an interesting movie though, where the visual aspects could fill in the details.  Hey, read it for yourself and decide what you think.

The Blood on My Hands
By Shannon O’Leary
ISBN-13: 9781519695871
ISBN-10: 151969587X

Categories
Archives Book Reviews

Review: The Turning

Note: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

The werewolf is one of the most tragic monsters in literary history. Their condition is a curse, a constant struggle to deal with and suppress their primitive nature. Once the moon turns man to beast, his hunger is voracious, his lust is insatiable, and his violence is brutal. As humans, acting upon these urges has been generally frowned upon and sometimes shunned in societies both past and present. But we are wild creatures; always have been. We’ve hunted and gathered, we’ve been fruitful and multiplied, and clawed our way to the top tier of the food chain to ensure the survival and thriving of our species. Unfortunately, we’ve tamed ourselves in the past few centuries. The domestication of man has come at a cost: the suppression of our wildness. The werewolf represents our most basic instincts: consume, copulate, kill. Wolf lore has portrayed this beast as representing society’s struggle with our animal nature, and our attempts (and failures) to hide what we really are.

The Turning, by Micky Neilson, is a howling homage to the awesome werewolf lore we all grew up on. Neilson assumes that you’re already familiar with the old-school rules (the cursed is at the mercy of the moon, has superhuman strength when turned, can be killed by silver bullets, etc.) and goes a step further by adding new twists, like an anaphylactic-like reaction to colloidal silver. The story follows Brandon Frye as he deals with his curse after being bitten. Brandon does what most would do, once bitten: tries to avoid hurting others, by any means necessary. For him, this means going off the grid, closing himself off, and taking pills to suppress his more primal symptoms. In his quest of self-isolation, he boards a cruise ship to Alaska, where he meets the tame and sensible Ginny. Ginny is a passive player in her life and rarely listens to her gut, until she takes a chance on the handsome, masculine stranger with a mysterious past. Their romance is sudden, passionate, and sexy as hell. Neilson does not shy away from sexual themes, and is not afraid to explore the concept of sexuality as a repressed primal impulse through Ginny and Brandon’s relationship. Their graphic trysts are sure to cause a few raised eyebrows and earmarked pages for readers.

I gotta be real, I re-read the juicy parts a few times. Don’t judge me.

As Brandon and Ginny enjoy each others company on the high seas, a hunter is in pursuit. Brandon is the target of a different kind of predator, who is part of something big; something foreboding. Despite being a mortal human, this predator is a formidable foe for our lycanthropic protagonist. Alexander stalks his prey methodically, enjoying the thrill of the hunt. Unlike Brandon, Alexander is conscious of his primal “needs”, and revels in satisfying his impulses, to the point of getting deep,depraved gratification from slowly extracting life from others.

I want to take a minute to talk about how much I loved this villain. Alexander made me squirm at his sadism, and cry out whenever anyone crossed his path. One of the scenes that stood out for me was when Alexander was having drinks with a woman whom he was using for information about his prey. He never referred to her as a woman, or even human. He called her, “the cow”, “the pachyderm”, animal terms befitting the subhuman she was, in his eyes. The author put some serious work into this character (as he did with all characters in this story, even the minor ones), and it shows. He serves as a revolting antithesis to Brandon, and I really, really wanted to see him get his just desserts. This guy was a real piece of work.

I can’t say much more about the plot without spoiling things for the reader, but I will say that the climax was action-packed, and the ending made me gasp, “Dude, NO WAY!”

The only negative comment I have isn’t really all that negative; the book ended too soon. I need more. Fingers crossed for a series!

TL;DR: If you are a fan of the old-school werewolf movies like An American Werewolf in London or Silver Bullet, or if you just need a solid supernatural page-turner that’ll make you laugh out loud and hit you with some serious feels, I’d highly recommend that you pick up this book on Amazon. Snuggle in on the night of the next full moon, and enjoy the ride…