Home » Posts tagged "horror fiction" (Page 38)

Book Review: Violet by Scott Thomas

Violet by Scott Thomas

Inkshares Press, 2019

ISBN: 978-1-947848-36-8

Available: Paperback, Kindle, audiobook

 

Scott Thomas’s sophomore novel, Violet, came with a mound of high expectations attached to it.  His debut novel, Kill Creek, was one of the best horror novels of 2017.   Critics everywhere praised it, and even had some proclaiming Thomas as the possible heir to the Throne of King.  Needless to say, his second novel had a lot to live up to.  Unfortunately, the material does not meet the expectations, and judgment on whether he is the heir apparent will have to wait another book or two.  Violet showcases the author’s excellent descriptive writing, but the book is dragged down by its slow pace and lack of an exciting finish.

 

Kris Barlow and her eight year old daughter, Sadie, are retreating to the lake house that Kris inherited from her parents.  The goal is recovery, as her husband Jonah just died in a car accident.  Worth noting: Kris didn’t like him that much anyhow.  The setting seems perfect for a ride of suspense: the town is small, and the lake was mysteriously formed years ago when construction workers dug into a hidden chasm, releasing enough water to make a lake suddenly appear and flood half the town.  The house is in disrepair, as everyone that rented it left after a few days out of fear, and even the realtor won’t go near the place.  While there, odd happenings such as handprints all over the inside windows start to occur.  While settling into small town life, Kris learns of the mysterious disappearances of young girls in the area.  Some of the bodies were recovered, some not.  The ghostly occurrences increase, people drop mysterious warnings, and Kris soon learns that her daughter may be a target of the town’s evil forces.

 

As noted, Thomas is an excellent writer, with a real flair for descriptive narration.  He paints pictures with words so well you can see the whole book running on the movie screen in your mind.  The dialogue is also quite good, but it’s the narration where Thomas really shines.  He skates right up close to the edge of excess with his description, but he never crosses the line.  As a result, the story leaps right off the page at you.  The problem is, the story itself simply isn’t that compelling.  This book is an EXTREMELY slow burn, and it takes until around 300 pages before the story starts to move a little bit.  Even when it does, it doesn’t move much.  A thrilling climax might have been enough to justify the previous 400 pages, but even that gets denied.  In all likelihood, the end will leave the reader with more questions than answers.  It’s really a shame, because the setting and backstory seemed perfect for Thomas to apply his considerable skill at suspense writing.  All the elements are there: ghostly figures, mysterious neighbors, townies who seem to be hiding something, strange occurrences with animals, the list goes on.  Despite all of the available parts, for some reason, Thomas simply can’t get this one off the ground.  The best that can be said is, the talent is there, and let’s hope for better next time.

Contains: mild violence, mild profanity.

 

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson

 

 

 

 

Posted on December 22, 2019 by , Reply

Musings: 2020 Is Nearly Here! The Classics Are Coming!

phantom       

It’s been a big year for looking back, with the establishment of the Paperbacks from Hell imprint, Looking forward to 2020, it appears that it will be a big year for looking even further back.  The publication of several books of ghost and Gothic tales in 2019 looks like it was the beginnings of a return to the classics of the genre. 2020 will bring the first volume of HWA’s Haunted Library series that will be published in conjunction with Poisoned Pen Press, The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux. In addition, Crystal Lake has just announced that they’ll be publishing Crystal Classics, dark tales from the late 19th and early 20th century,  with occasional titles that “challenge” a classic title, and the covers look lovely. Their December newsletter says the first three of these are out in paperback and will also be available as ebooks: they are The Great God Pan by Arthur Machen, with an introduction by William Meikle;  Dagon Rising, a “challenge” to Lovecraft by William Meikle; and The Willows by Algernon Blackwood, with an introduction by Jasper Bark. I’ve been watching over the past several years now as some of the older or lesser-known writers are starting to be introduced to readers who may never have encountered them before, and I think we’ll continue to see this appreciation of writers from earlier times. Given the publication of books like Monster, She Wrote this year, which set a focus on lesser-known women writers (or women writers whose supernatural work was lesser-known) I think we can be sure that there will be more to uncover and appreciate! Of course, time, and literature, and our fears, move on forward, and I think we’ll see more diversity among contemporary writers in 2020 as well, if what I’m already seeing is any indication. It’s an exciting time to be a writer, publisher, librarian, researcher, and reader, and I can’t wait to see what directions the genre goes in next.

 

Posted on December 22, 2019 by , Reply

Book Review: Scavenger Hunt by Michaelbrent Collings

Scavenger Hunt by Michaelbrent Collings

Written Insomnia Press, 2019

ISBN: 978-1-699207-49-9

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition

 

Five strangers wake up in a room, with no memory of how they got there.  They find out they are part of a game controlled by a sinister mastermind, who wears a mask and communicates through electronic means.  The mastermind expects them to do bad things.  That’s the plot of Michaelbrent Collings’s newest thriller, and it’s a plot you’ve seen before, many times.  Collings himself used it in his previous novel, Terminal, and many authors, from King to Koontz, have also recycled it.  Unlike certain purveyors of said plot (example: the SAW and CUBE film franchises) Collings actually knows how to make an old plot seem new and fresh, due to the speed of the writing and the unseen twists that pop up throughout the book.  Scavenger Hunt is a fast ride through a familiar plot, and is worth the time to read.

Aside from the basic plot, there are elements that you can guess will show up.  The obvious one is that all the strangers were chosen for a reason.  Even though they don’t know each other, their lives were all connected at some point in the past.  Collings wisely spaces interlude chapters throughout the book, one for each character.  Each chapter fills in the backstory of one character, and it helps you see how the plot slowly ties together.  Collings also has a variety of chapters detailing police online investigations throughout the book that don’t seem related to the plot, but are, although the reasons don’t become apparent until later.  The whole story works this way: the reader gets a clue at a time to figure out the puzzle, but it’s a very difficult one to figure out, as Collings doesn’t give away anything obvious.

Therein lies the strength of this novel.  Not everything is as it seems, and the perception of the characters changes throughout the book, turning the story into a maddeningly elliptical puzzle.

The protagonists and antagonists flip roles throughout the book, and even what seems like a sick game might be perceived as salvation by the end.  Collings does an excellent job confounding expectations with this commonly used plot.   A nice touch was the creative way to keep the game players from simply running away, once they are free to go out on the streets.  Each player has a collar and wristwatch fitted with explosives, giving the game’s mastermind the freedom to blow a limb-or head-off of any of the players whenever he sees fit.  This is also one of the few stories of this type where some of the players are actually given a chance to leave the game, if they are fine with abandoning the other players to their fate.  It’s the little things that make an old plotline seem new and exciting.

Overall, this is a well-written, fast-paced story that should please fans of horror or thriller novels.  It has elements of both, but doesn’t swing too strongly one way or the other.  If you want excitement, don’t miss this one.  Recommended.

 

Contains: violence, profanity

 

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson

Posted on December 3, 2019 by , 1 comment
First « 3637383940 » Last