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Book Review: Petite Mort by S.C. Mendes and Nikki Noir

 

Petite Mort by S.C. Mendes and Nikki Noir

 

Blood Bound Books, Oct. 2022 (Halloween release date)

 

ASIN: BOBB87TLWY

 

Available: Kindle edition ( Amazon.com )

 

Petite Mort is a short story collection that reads like a crossbreed of the Hostel movies and a Jenna Jameson film fest, but with more originality and better storytelling.  This will appeal to readers who like healthy doses of gore and raunchiness.  If you can handle that, the stories are worth a read.

 

There are eight stories, six short and two longer ones. A few have been previously published in other collections.  The main selling point: none of the stories have the tired and overused “male psycho kidnaps, rapes, and tortures helpless woman” plot.  There are elements of the supernatural to the majority of the stories, and some of them are WAY off the path of normalcy.  “Santa’s Package”, the longest (and maybe best) story, has a young woman pregnant by either a) Santa Claus, b) alien abduction, or c) she’s just totally nuts.  ‘”Into the Pit” has a demon residing in one of those plastic ball pits kids play in at places like Chuck E. Cheese eateries.  “Cucumbers and Comforters” has a kappa, a somewhat reptilian water deity from Japanese folklore.  Kudos to author Nikki Noir for working the kappa into a story. It’s fun when authors use lesser-known deities from mythologies other than the familiar Greeks as a story backbone.  

 

The rest of the stories are a touch more “normal”, that being a relative term here, but they all are page turners and pack good doses of creativity, along with heavy doses of splat and lewdness.  Certain tumescent organs being chopped off, horror movie themed sex toys, people being literally torn apart through every possible orifice, it’s all here… for a certain reader type.  

 

Two other things worthy of special mention: the story “HorrorGasm”, which does a slick job of creating a wild revenge tale, while managing to poke fun at the dorks who sit around watching online porn all day.  For hilarity, “Santa’s Package” wins, running away with the writing of Santa’s bedroom scene. He’s quite the ‘jolly old elf’!  The author’s turning of Christmas clichés into witty double entendres is side-splittingly funny: you’ll laugh hard enough to turn your own belly into a bowl full of jelly.  

 

Bottom line: this one is good entertainment for certain readers, just don’t take any of it too seriously.  It’s all meant to be fun, over-the-top craziness, and it succeeds well on that score.  However, this is for adults only: don’t let your junior high students near this one.  Recommended for lovers of splat and sleaze.

 

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson

Posted on October 18, 2022 by , Reply

Book Review: The Mammoth Book of Folk Horror: Evil Lives on in the Land! edited by Stephen Jones

The Mammoth Book of Folk Horror: Evil Lives on in the Land! edited by Stephen Jones

Skyhorse, 2021

ISBN-13: 9781510749863

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition ( Bookshop.org  | Amazon.com)

 

 

Folk horror is finally getting the attention it deserves. Ancient traditions and practices, crumbling buildings surrounded by nature that has reclaimed the land, rituals that call down the gods, myths and legends coming to life. All of these and more can be found in the pages of The Mammoth Book of Folk Horror edited by Stephen Jones, acclaimed author and editor of horror and dark fantasy. While a relatively new term, folk horror has existed for much longer than this subgenre’s name.

 

This anthology contains many great tales of folk horror, old and new. The following are some of my favorites. “Jenny Greenteeth” by Alison Littlewood, set in the wartime English countryside, is the story of a young girl named Alice, an evacuee sent to live with a family that has two young daughters, Olivia and Betty. Olivia torments Alice with tales of Jenny Greenteeth until the stories seem to come true. In M. R. James’ “Wailing Well,” two members of a troop of scouts do not take the warning of a local shepherd seriously about avoiding the field containing the titular well, let alone using the water from it. Michael Marshall’s “The Offering,” set in Copenhagen, concerns a family on vacation staying in an Airbnb. When wife Lauren throws about a bowl of mysterious gray porridge in the refrigerator, Bill soon finds a sacrifice is made to the proper guardian of the house. Could it be the Nisse? “Gavin’s Field” by Steve Rasnic Tem tells of the titular character inheriting his father’s estate, but he discovers he should have done his homework on the property, and the town. “The Fourth Call” by the amazing Ramsey Campbell is my favorite story in the anthology. Mike returns to Leanbridge alone during Christmastime. He is drawn to the neighboring property, formerly owned by the Bundle family. When Mike tries to bring up the strange holiday tradition practiced in the village, longtime family friends, the Darlingtons, insist no such thing happened.

 

Other authors in this anthology include Algernon Blackwood, Christopher Fowler, Maura McHugh, Arthur Machen, Karl Edward Wagner, Simon Strantzas, Mike Chinn, David A. Sutton, H.P. Lovecraft, Kim Newman, Jan Edwards, Storm Constantine, Dennis Etchison, and Reggie Oliver. Included at the beginning of each entry is a write up of the author’s brief biography and works, as well as beautifully eerie black and white photography by Michael Marshall Smith.

 

The Mammoth Book of Folk Horror is a must-read for fans of folk horror, or new readers dipping their toes into the bog of the subgenre. Highly recommended.

 

Reviewed by Lizzy Walker

Posted on September 22, 2022 by , Reply

Book Review: Doll House by John Hunt

 

Doll House by John Hunt  (Bookshop.org)

 Black Rose Writing, 2017

ISBN: 9781612968070

Available: paperback, Kindle

 

Doll House is a white-knuckle horror/thriller that takes a common plot device and spends most of the book on “well, what about after it happens?'” The plot you know: young person abducted by a psycho or two, held captive and tortured for months or years, then escapes at the very end of the book, often killing their torturers in the process.  It’s been done before, sometimes well (Jack Ketchum, Whitley Streiber) and sometimes not so well (Ryan C. Thomas).  In Doll House, that basic plot is wrapped up in the first fortysomething pages.  It’s the “what next?” part that makes up the majority of the book, and it makes for a compelling story.  How will Olivia, the victim, cope with the rest of her life, knowing that one of the abductors got away?  Will the abductor give up and move on, or come back and try again?  How long can the cops provide protection, as the story fades from public eye and budgets are stretched thin?  All good questions, and the book delivers on them all, while providing a rip-snorting good read.

 

A critical part of this story type is hiding the killer’s identity until the end, keeping the reader guessing. The author does an excellent job concealing it, using red herrings and a few scattered clues extremely well.  The clues are there, but you have to read pretty carefully to catch them.  I didn’t guess right, and most readers probably won’t either.  It is very well done.

 

It’s worth nothing that the book is definitely heavy in the narration department, and pretty light on dialogue.  It’s a stylistic choice, but a bit more dialogue would have helped break the story up a bit and pushed it the extra mile. There’s still plenty to generate reader interest, and the story doesn’t drag at any point.  Some of the most interesting parts concern the police and their struggles to track a killer who left no evidence: it’s interesting how difficult detective work really is, and that unfortunately, it can be limited by financial constraints.  As far as nastiness, the author wisely shows restraint and only uses it where needed.  There are a few ugly scenes like toes getting snipped off and an ear getting razored off, but there’s not much blood, and no graphic rape sequences. It’s a horror novel with a few quick bouts of ugliness, and it’s a good one.  There is a sequel to Doll House due to be released later this year, and it will be reviewed here shortly.  Recommended.

 

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson

Posted on August 13, 2022 by , Reply
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