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Book Review: Ghost Girls and Rabbits by Cassondra Windwalker

Ghost Girls and Rabbits by Cassondra Windwalker

Polymath Press, 2025

ISBN: 9781961827097

Available: ebook, paperback

Buy: Bookshop.org | Amazon.com

 

 

Noni Begay, a young Athabascan woman, has just been elected as the United States senator for Alaska when she disappears. Her campaign manager, Mary Nelson, has a daughter, Ryska, who has been missing for 10 years, and thinks Noni’s disappearance, as a beautiful, popular politician from the powerful Athabascan tribe, can be used to bring renewed attention to Ryska’s case. She is certain Ryska is still alive, and as Noni’s campaign manager and friend she is able to keep media attention on them. But keeping Ryska’s story in the public eye means Noni can’t reappear until Ryska is found. Alaska’s a big state, though, and Mary has a cabin in the woods that is off the beaten track.

 

Mary tortures Noni, starting with burial alive, to prevent her from attempting escape, and dehumanizes her by thinking of her only as “the seal pup”.. Mary is compartmentalizing, still publicly playing the part of  Noni’s grieving friend and campaign manager and working as a political operative, but that can’t last forever, and slowly she crumbles inside, with only the “seal pup” and life in the cabin to comfort her. I’m not sure why Mary wasn’t questioned more after Noni’s disappearance or how she could have gone back and forth so frequently without notice. But maybe the lack of treatment for mental illness or support for grieving parents, and even the lack of notice of her trips back and forth, illustrate the invisibility of indigenous women.

 

Noni’s struggle to preserve her identity and sanity, and even plan for the future in the midst of isolation, uncertainty, terror, and Mary’s erratic behavior, plays with storytelling, imagination, language, and mythology. Windwalker’s poetic writing flows here.

 

Windwalker approached the issue of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls from an unexpected angle, with one indigenous woman kidnapping and tormenting another to draw attention, as typically the crimes against these women are committed by white men. :This is not an easy read– unreliable narrators force the reader to question what’s going on, and it does get very dark at times– but it has moments of magic as well.  Highly recommended.

 

 

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski

 

Posted on May 5, 2025 by , Reply

Book Review: Sacrilege by Barbara Avon

Sacrilege by Barbara Avon

Self published, 2020

ISBN: 9798690309411

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition

Buy:    Bookshop.org | Amazon.com

Sacrilege is a depressing psychological drama that takes you down, down, and further down.  There are no monsters or boogeymen in this one, just the mental demons that inhabit the characters.  It’s a pretty good read for those who prefer human interest/interaction stories.

 

Almost the entire story focuses on the two leads: wayward priest Cris Corelli, and Jules, the lady who owns the boarding house he stumbles into.  The author sets the tone right out of the gate: mentally, these two are trainwrecks, for various reasons.  As the story progresses, the death of someone close to both of them pushes Cris and Jules further down into depression.  They start drinking and drugging to numb the pain, only finding minimal comfort in each other.  However, it’s the best either of them can hope for, unless they somehow are able to use each other to pull out of their respective tailspins.

 

The stark manner in which the dialogue between Corelli and Jules is written is an unusual choice.  Often, books like this rely on fairly long and in-depth conversations, as a way to explain how the characters became, and where they are heading.  The author goes against the grain here, as most talks are fairly quick and clipped, not really revealing a lot about the characters.  Then again, maybe they don’t need to, the characters’ actions may speak louder than any lengthy dialogue in this case.  It’s an interesting choice for this type of book, and works reasonably well for the narrative, giving it a unique flavor.

 

I felt the “big reveal” at the end of the story was anticlimactic. You could tell it was supposed to be fairly important, due to Corelli’s actions after he discovered it, but it just didn’t seem like anything that should alter the story’s trajectory, or what the characters do for the rest of the book.

 

The bottom line is…this will appeal to a certain segment of readers.  If you enjoy depressing psychological dramas, this might work for you.  If your idea of horror is fast-paced, with monsters and supernatural craziness, then this probably isn’t your cup of black ichor.

 

 

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson

 

 

Posted on February 3, 2025 by , Reply

Book Review: The Rack: Stories Inspired by Vintage Horror Paperbacks edited by Tom Deady

Cover art for The Rack edited by Tom Deady

The Rack: Stories Inspired by Vintage Horror Paperbacks, by various authors

Greymore Publishing, 2024

ISBN: 9780990632771

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition

Buy: Bookshop.org | Amazon.com

 

The Rack is a mixed bag.  That’s surprising, considering the pedigree of the authors involved, many whom I’ve read before.  There are some really good ones, but when the best one is a Stephen King one borrowed from his ’80s collection Skeleton Crew, that tells you something.  If you really want good ’80s style horror stories, track down the original ones from that era on Ebay,

 

The reason it’s a bit of a disappointment is that for the five or six really good ones, there are an equal number of clunkers.  The rest are somewhere in the middle: they provide some entertainment, but nothing you are likely to read again. The writing and ideas are fine, but most of them just don’t have any real “grab” to them.  Still, there are some that have plenty of zip,

 

“White Pages” is one of the best and most creative stories, illustrating how prank calling could go horribly wrong in the old days of rotary phones.  “Fuzzy Slippers” is straight, messy, ’80s-inspired lunacy, with yes, killer slippers, and a great twist at the end.  This one really captures the feel of the gory, free-for-all stories that marked some of the best ’80s horror.  “Blood of my Blood” may be the most unusual, with its blood-drinking health zealots.  Mixi them into a marriage ceremony with a groom who has no idea what type of family he’s marrying into, and you have a wonderfully dark humored story.  “The Keeper of Taswomet” and “Lips Like a Scythe” are solid, vintage-inspired monster mashups, with enough character interactions to keep the story humming. They’re not just focused on the monsters and carnage, although there is plenty of that too!  The best story, King’s “The Raft”, is one that doesn’t need to be mentioned; you already know how good it is.

 

As for the rest…again, this is strictly opinion.  There’s nothing lacking in how the stories are written, they just really aren’t page turners, which is my main requirement for a good short story.  Other readers may feel differently..

 

Bottom line?  If you want to read the best ’80s shorts, go back to the originals: they truly hit the mark.  King’s Night Shift or Skeleton Crew, Robert McCammon’s Blue World, or Clive Barker’s Books of Blood are all prime examples of what made the ’80s such a fertile period for creativity in the horror field.

 

 

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson

 

Posted on January 13, 2025 by , Reply
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