Home » 2023 (Page 5)

Book Review: Fettered and Other Tales of Terror by Greye La Spina, edited by Michael J. Phillips Jr.

Fettered and Other Tales of Terror by Greye La Spina, edited by Michael J. Phillips Jr.

From Beyond Press, 2023

ISBN-13: 979-8987574331

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition

Buy: Bookshop.org | Amazon.com

 

 

 

Greye La Spina (1880-1969) was a prolific American writer, who published in various genre magazines (e.g. Weird Tales) more than one hundred dark short stories and novelettes, most of which, sadly, have been lost.

 

During her lifetime she was extremely popular, more than HP Lovecraft (who, incidentally, had a low opinion of her fictional work).

 

Tracing her stories is indeed a hard task nowadays, so praise to From Beyond Press for making available again to the public some of her production.

 

The present volume collects four stories and a novella, providing to today’s readers a pleasant, small  taste of her body of work.

 

“Fettered” is a dark novella dealing with the theme of vampirism, certainly a bit outdated today, but addressed by La Spina with a vivid and disquieting approach, able to unsettle even the readers well-used to this particular topic.

 

“The Last Cigarette” is a very short but effective story featuring a suicidal man whose plans are ruined by an unexpected occurrence.

 

“The Remorse of Professor Panebianco”, despite its unlikely pseudoscientific basis, is a powerful, intriguing story able to fascinate and disturb.

 

In the tense, dramatic “The Scarf of the Beloved”, a grave robber has to face a terrible truth, while in the engrossing “Wolf of the Steppes” a dangerous werewolf is finally discovered and defeated.

 

The themes addressed in the included stories are traditional enough, but I have the feeling that this is the very reason why these specific tales have survived or have been saved throughout the years.

 

Reviewed by Mario Guslandi

Posted on October 26, 2023 by , Reply

Book Review: Hares in the Hedgerow (The Gardening Guidebooks Trilogy #2) by Jessica McHugh

Hares in the Hedgerow (The Gardening Guidebooks Trilogy #2) by Jessica McHugh

Ghoulish Books, 2022

ISBN: 9781943720767

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition

Buy:  Bookshop.org

 

Little did readers of Rabbits in the Garden, the first book to introduce Avery and her crazy mother Faye in The Gardening Guidebooks Trilogy, realize the full extent of the horror to come. As Avery tries to face her demons in the next book, Rabbits in the Hedgerow, by beating them out of her willing counselor while raising her sister’s daughter (Sophie), she slowly learns her mother Faye’s backstory as leader of a demented cult devoted to St. Agnes.

 

The central character in the new narrative, Sophie, is in terrible danger because she has been the victim of her boyfriend Liam’s machinations to bring her into the cult as its central figure. Sophie is blinded by her love for Liam as well as what she believes are her mother’s past crimes. Luckily, however, Sophie is smart enough to sort fact from fiction in time to make important decisions before Faye, her grandmother, leads everyone to their doom. 

 

In Hares in the Hedgerow, McHugh drives us full force into the psychological twists and turns of a cult’s sickness and the damaged minds of its victims. There is no shortage of physical violence in this book. We see the devastation of human lives up close, and it is unrelenting. The plot is a carefully layered history of three generations of women who have been their own worst enemies as well as destroyers of the people around them. Anything can happen, but none of it is going to be good.

 

Just as in the first book in the trilogy, the second is fast-paced with past and present events illuminating our understanding of the characters and leading to yet another explosive ending. But, just as compelling as the momentum is the way McHugh makes us believe we are looking into the minds of real people, the type that would have followed someone like Charles Manson. There is the fear we feel for the characters but also the fear we feel for ourselves knowing that fanaticism and a skewed perception can, in fact, exist side by side in the real world and that everyday people sometimes create horror and then willingly enter into it in senselessly appalling ways. 

 

Reviewed by Nova Hadley

Posted on October 18, 2023 by , Reply

Book Review: The Forest Demands Its Due by Kosoko Jackson

The Forest Demands Its Due by Kosoko Jackson

Quill Tree Books, 2023

ISBN-13: ‎978-0063260795

Available: Hardcover, Kindle edition, audiobook, audio CD

Buy:  Bookshop.org  |  Amazon.com

 

I have enjoyed Kosoko Jackson’s previous YA books, the dystopian Survive the Dome and the time travel novel Yesterday is History, both with Black queer boys as protagonists. The Forest Demands Its Due once again changes genre, to a combination of dark academia and folk horror.

 

Douglas Jones was arrested for arson and manslaughter when a lawyer offered her services pro bono if he would agree to attend an elite boarding school in an isolated area of Vermont. The school is bordered by a forest that students are warned away from as there have been many who disappeared into them never to be seen again.

 

As the only Black queer boy attending Regent School, Douglas is a target for bullies. He also hears loud, disturbing voices he can’t  turn off that he is certain come from the forest. Just the first few pages and Jackson had me deep in his story.

 

Early in the book a bully drags Douglas into the forest and is killed. Everett Everley, a member of the Everley family charged with protecting students, bargains with the Emissary, a vengeful creature of the god of the forest, to save himself and Douglas. Douglas learns that whenever there is a suspicious death the headmaster “erases” the existence of the person from everyone’s memories, so no one is aware of how many students and teachers have been lost to the forest.

 

There is a curse on the forest, nearby town of Winslow, and the five founding families of the town preventing them from leaving because they participated in the burning of Henry, the forest god’s lover, generations ago. His grief and anger have caused the death and anguish of many students and locals.  Everett and the headmaster are both descendants of the founding families. Everett helps Douglas investigate the history of Winslow, the school, and the forest, and after some awkward misunderstandings they start to develop a romantic relationship. The headmaster convinces Douglas to enter the forest  in hopes that he can find the gate to the forest god’s retreat and break the curse. Everett goes with Douglas to protect him. The forest is nightmarish, twisty and changeable and they easily get lost, then attacked by Emissaries and their grotesque servants, called Perversions. When they find the gate, Douglas goes through to try to convince the god to let go of his grief and anger and release the forest and town from their curse. As the god dies, he transfers his powers to Douglas, tying him to the forest and freeing Everett.

 

This was a very emotional story with a lot of darkness and trauma. The two boys have had very heavy responsibilities set on their shoulders and see and experience things no one should have to. They witness the aftermath of a suicide and there is a fair amount of gore and body horror (the Perversions are a grotesque combination of human and animal parts) Jackson’s writing is descriptive and atmospheric, although it’s a little slow in places, and he has created an immersive experience of the dark fantastic.

 

Jackson frequently addresses the injustice and inequality of institutions such as the legal system and education, and that is evident here. I love that he puts power for change in the hands of someone marginalized, who has only ever felt powerless. Recommended.

 

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski

Posted on October 3, 2023 by , Reply
First « 34567 » Last