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Book Review: Through the Witches’ Stone by Scott A. Johnson

Cover art for Through the Witches' Stone by Scott A. Johnson

 

Through the Witches’ Stone by Scott  A. Johnson

Timber Ghost Press, 2023

Available: Paperback

Buy:  Bookshop.org  |  Amazon.com

 

 

12 year old  Hadley and her younger twin brothers are stuck for the summer on her grandma’s isolated farm. It isn’t as boring as she expects: she learns she is descended from a long line of witches, and her grandmother starts teaching her magical spells. Hadley’s grandma has only three rules: stay out of the locked rooms upstairs, stay out of the woods, and don’t invite strangers into the house. But while the twins have each other, Hadley has no one her age to talk to, until one night she spots a girl in a white dress and sneaks out to meet her.

 

Although her brothers are uneasy, Hadley keeps it a secret from her grandma. There’s a magical barrier that prevents the girl from crossing between the house and the woods, so she lets the girl lead her into the woods, and they become friends. Then Hadley makes the mistake of inviting the girl into the house. She turns out to be a changeling, who kidnaps Hadley’s brothers and grandma. Hadley must go into the inhospitable woods alone and attempt to find and defeat the changeling to rescue her brothers and grandma. She saves a pukwudgie (a short creature with hedgehog quills down its back and a large nose that originates in Native American mythology) She is also accompanied by a duo of brownies she calls Tom and Jerry. Despite the unfriendly folk and forest, Hadley wins them over and eventually, after some really creepy and compelling adventures, rescues her family.

 

There’s a lot of grief work going on. Hadley’s father was killed in a car accident she blamed her mother and herself for. Her mother is grieving her sister, husband, and father. The pukwudgie is grieving his family. Much of this is about making peace and letting go of grief and fear, but it does not overwhelm this fantastical, scary tale reminiscent of Mary Downing Hahn’s books, the Spiderwick Chronicles, and Outside Over There.

 

 

Posted on December 31, 2023 by , Reply

Book Review: More Deadly Than the Male: Masterpieces from the Queens of Horror edited by Graeme Davis

More Deadly Than the Male: Masterpieces from the Queens of Horror edited by Graeme Davis

Pegasus Books Ltd., 2019

ISBN-13: 9781643130118

Available: Hardcover, Kindle, audiobook, audio CD

Buy: Amazon.com

 

More Deadly Than the Male gives us 26 tales of terror written by women between 1830-1908. Some of my favorite Gothic and horror tales were written around this time period. Davis has selected some great stories in this anthology by well-known, and some not as well-known, women authors. In addition to select stories, Davis includes brief biographies with information about the authors’ lives and challenges they faced as women writers, and about the stories themselves. While I enjoyed all of the stories in More Deadly Than the Male, there are several that stand out. Some of my favorite tales include the following.

 

The volume opens with Mary Shelley’s “The Transformation,” in which Guido, seeking revenge, makes a deal with a monstrous being to trade bodies. What will become of the man trapped in a monster’s body?

 

In “Lost in a Pyramid, or the Mummy’s Curse” by Louisa May Alcott, Evelyn begs Forsyth to tell her how he came to be in possession of an ancient and strange gold box. He tells a tale of exploration, colonization, greed, hubris, and the mummy of an ancient sorceress and mysterious seeds found in the box.

 

Edith Nesbit’s “The Mass for the Dead” is a haunting story about a couple who change their history because of a vision. Jasper mourns that the woman he loves, Kate, is to marry someone else. When she reveals she is not marrying for love, but for wealth, he still insists that she should break her engagement. Out of familial obligation, she refuses to end the engagement in order to help her father with his finances. When she shares her vision of a mass for the dead with Jasper, they believe it to be a sign of her impending marriage. Later, when he reveals his own vision to Kate, they find they may have misinterpreted the vision entirely.

 

“The Vacant Lot” by Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman is a lovely ghost story. The Townsend family has decided to move to Boston, and the man of the house has purchased a home for a more than reasonable cost, originally $25,000 for a mere $5,000. The family wonders what the catch is with such a low dollar amount. After a month goes by, they find out. There are strange happenings in the vacant lot next door, and shadows moving about with nobody to cast them.

 

Other authors include Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Mary Austen, Elizabeth Gaskell, Edith Wharton, Eliza Lynn Linton, Margaret Oliphant, Vernon Lee, Mary Louisa Molesworth, Ada Travenion, Edith Wharton, and more.

 

It’s not new or controversial to say that horror is subjective. When we read the Gothic or older horror tales of the past, we may not be frightened, we may not get the spine tingles we are looking for or may scoff at the fainting or other what we would deem as “quaint behaviors” of the heroines. Descriptions tend to be much longer and go too far for modern audiences. I, for one, love Gothic and older horror stories, thanks to my late grandmother Phyllis, so these early stories were great to read. I just recently heard about a subgenre called “cozy horror,” and I believe these would qualify. Also, not only would this be a good addition to a Gothic fiction collection, but it would also be an interesting addition to a Gothic novels course.

 

Highly recommended

Reviewed by Lizzy Walker

 

Posted on December 24, 2023 by , Reply

Book Review: Conquer: Fear of a Black Cat by Edward M. Erdelac

Conquer: Fear of a Black Cat (John Conquer series, book 2) by Edward M. Erdelac

Self-published, 2023

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 979-8856895413

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition

Buy: Amazon.com

 

 

Forget about those silly excuses for black heroes that Marvel comes up with: if you want a real black hero-you call John Conquer.  Whereas book 1 in the series was a collection of short stories, Conquer gets his own full-length (over 500 pages) novel this time.   The book succeeds on all levels, and hopefully won’t be the last one in the series.  John Conquer is without a doubt one of the most interesting book characters out there today.

 

Set in 1978 Harlem, private investigator John Conquer has finally got a case that may be too much for him.  People are turning up dead all over Harlem with their hands cut off.  For Conquer, this case is personal- one of the victims is the lady who raised him.  What follows is a good detective crime story that races all over the city, from Studio 54, to CBGB’s, to Untermeyer Park, as Conquer tries to put the pieces together.

 

This book is a period piece, and in that aspect, it’s absolutely perfect.  The author did a staggering job of making 1970’s NYC seem real: this seems so true to life you can almost smell the spray from the graffiti on the subways.  The descriptions, the mannerisms, the dialogue: it’s all perfectly true to life.  The book is a phenomenal example of world-building: .

 

The plot itself is a good one. The author again does a fantastic job of mixing voodoo and all sorts of magic into a standard detective story. It’s what gives the Conquer stories their unique flavor.  Sometimes Conquer has to pound the pavement like a normal detective, but often he has voodoo tricks he can use to help solve the case.  One improvement over the last book is this time, some of the lesser-known gods and magic items come with a bit of background, so readers won’t need to make Wikipedia runs.  Some of the characters from the previous stories return. Detective Lou Lazzaroni plays a part, and Conquer is, thankfully, still driving the Cordoba inhabited by the wise-cracking ghost, Pope.  Conquer and Pope make a perfectly mismatched team, especially when they are squabbling about disco.  Some real people from the 1970s also pop up in the story.  David ‘Son of Sam’ Berkowitz plays a part, and there are also appearances by Muhammed Ali, Andy Warhol, and…Donald Trump.  (anti-Trumpers will be ecstatic with Trump’s part)  The gangs from the 1970’s cult classic film The Warriors also pop up in the narrative.  The new characters in the book are quite intriguing, with Conquer’s drunken sort-of security guard Oshkosh being one of the most fun.  For a detective story, this one has a fair amount to keep track of, but the author wisely inserted a recap into the story around page 300 for any readers who might have gotten a bit lost.

 

‘Da bottom line here: this is a fantastic knockout of a story.  You wanna hang with the slickest, baddest cat out there? You’ve gotta read Conquer.  Hopefully, this isn’t the last we’ll see of him.  Highly recommended.

 

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson

Posted on December 8, 2023 by , Reply
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