{"id":6429,"date":"2019-04-23T09:05:52","date_gmt":"2019-04-23T13:05:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/?p=6429"},"modified":"2019-04-23T09:05:52","modified_gmt":"2019-04-23T13:05:52","slug":"book-review-howl-o-ween-by-gary-l-holleman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/book-review-howl-o-ween-by-gary-l-holleman\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: Howl-O-Ween by Gary L. Holleman"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editor’s note:\u00a0<\/em>In the past, Monster Librarian participated in seasonal collaborative review projects with other horror fiction review sites, such as Hellnotes, Horror World, Dread Central, Horror Fiction Review, Horror Web, and DarkScribe. Each site reviewed books related to the season and then linked to the other sites’ reviews. In my (very slow) cleanup of the site, I saw that most of the links for our collaborative Halloween projects in 2007 and 2008 no longer exist, but our own still work, of course. Most of the reviews are also located else\"\"where on the site, but I’m sharing one of them here today as, due to the number of links that don’t work on those pages, I plan to take them down shortly.<\/p>\n

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Howl-O-Ween<\/em>\u00a0by Gary L. Holleman<\/p>\n

Leisure Books, 1996<\/p>\n

ISBN: 0843940832<\/p>\n

Available: Used<\/p>\n

Cyrus, a bodyguard-for-hire, takes a job protecting Kyna, a diamond runner, who is being pursued by a voodoo shaman trying to retrieve a powerful mystical necklace the diamond runner unknowingly has in her possession.\u00a0 In order to get the necklace back before Halloween, the shaman leaves a bloody body count behind him, using a variety of creatures.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In one of the attacks, Cyrus inadvertently gets bitten by a supernatural wolf,\u00a0 and becomes a werewolf. A minor flaw in the book is that the author includes several sex scenes that do not seem to further the plot, and slow down the pacing. Additionally, the ending is a little confusing. More disappointing than either of these is that, with a title like\u00a0Howl-o-ween<\/em>, and a cover sporting an evil-looking skull rising out of a pumpkin, readers will expect Halloween to play more of a central role in the story when in fact the relationship to the holiday is pretty weak.\u00a0 Despite the unimpressive role of the holiday, distracting sex passages, and confusing ending,\u00a0Howl-o-ween<\/em>\u00a0is worth a look. Holleman does a fine job with the werewolf and other little beasties, giving readers an entertaining little monster mash. \u00a0\u00a0Ultimately, those looking for a action filled werewolf tale will probably enjoy the title, but there are stronger titles for Halloween themed horror.<\/p>\n

Contains: Gore, sex, torture, violence<\/p>\n

Reviewed by Dylan Kowalewski<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Editor’s note:\u00a0In the past, Monster Librarian participated in seasonal collaborative review projects with other horror fiction review sites, such as Hellnotes, Horror World, Dread Central, Horror Fiction Review, Horror Web, and DarkScribe. Each site reviewed books related to the season and then linked to the other sites’ reviews. In my (very slow) cleanup of the<\/p>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2474,3759,3756,3757,1309,83,3758,3760,438,201],"class_list":["post-6429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-book-review","tag-gary-l-holleman","tag-halloween-2007","tag-halloween-2008","tag-halloween-fiction","tag-horror-fiction","tag-howl-o-ween","tag-seasonal-review-projects","tag-werewolf-fiction","tag-werewolves"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6429"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6429\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6431,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6429\/revisions\/6431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}