Book Reviews

GHOSTS OF CORONADO BAY – A MAYA BLAIR MYSTERY Our harrowing tale commences off the Atlantic coast in 1908. The Black Lady a vessel slicing through the unforgiving seas swiftly encounters a hellacious storm. The captain, Gavin Hamlin and (no not Gavin McLeod of Love Boat fame, although at times I fought not to envision him this way) crew struggle …

City of Hell Chronicles Vol.1 The Ant-Headed Old One ‘The Great Maurr’ has risen and brought hell to earth. The land is scorched and the human race decimated, eaten or tortured. Only three cities remain, a crumbled, dying version of their former selves: London, Moscow and Hong Kong. The Great Maurr’s own City of Hell dominates most of North America. …

Nightwalkers: Chloe of the Night Nightwalkers: Chloe of the Night by Keith Kekic is the second novel in the “Nightwalkers” series. This novel is narrated by the main character from the first novel. In this book, however, our main character is an adult and is reflecting, into his notebook, visions he is having about the lives of Chloe as well …

ABERRATIONS If you take an interest in horror books (which it’s probably safe to assume you do, as you’re reading a horror book review), then chances are you’ll have read, or have heard of, Jeremy Shipp. If you haven’t, then seek him out. Maybe start here. This is an anthology of creepy shorts that he’s edited and contributed to, all …

THE TRAITEUR’S RING In all honesty I’d initially approached The Traiteur’s Ring with the same enthusiasm as a hippy in the late sixties regarded the Vietnam War. We’re faced with so many every day real horrors in 21st century living one may argue such grisly turmoil has no place within our fictional escapes. Wilson captures this statue of realism exploiting …

Hellucinations – Stephen Biro It’s not everyday that you receive word that the owner of one of the darkest distributors of disturbing films is releasing a book about God and a new devotion. In fact, it was this very idea and “that” the book was about much of his drug-filled years that intrigued me enough to say, this is something …

NIGHT TERROR SYNOPSIS: Strange things are happening in the small town of Clayton Falls. A man is attacked by a giant Gila monster, a group of local teenagers are terrorized by a headless horseman, raptors are running rampant in the streets attacking the citizens, and Nazi zombies are prowling the streets. Are these things just hallucinations or is there something …

Kayla and the Devil by Bryan Smith College student Kayla Monroe seems to have everything. Stunning looks, smarts, and loads of money thanks to her privileged upbringing. But something’s gone wrong. Ever since the start of her sophomore year, people have been avoiding her. Her friends shun her. Guys no longer flock to her. Even her former stalker, an awkward …

The Creeping Kelp by William Meikle (Dark Regions Press) Some seaweed, a jellyfish and some material brought back from the Peabodie expedition to Antarctica. An innoccuous enough blend you might think. But when a storm in the North Atlantic frees a sample that has been dormant inside an old wreck, the new creature finds that it is hungry. Our plastics-oriented …

THE ANCIENT ALIEN QUESTION If you are a fan of Zacharia Sitchin, Erich von Däniken, or Carl Sagan, just to name a few, then this book is for you. Carrying on their work, and bringing us a bit more up to date in the wake of the “Ancient Aliens” series on the History channel, Philip Coppens recounts his travels and …

It’s nice to finally read something… original. Most things I get are glittering homoerotic vampires knocking up EMO girls. I also get a bunch of zombies that are very atypical. Blah. In any case there is no mistaking its originality as Tainted Blood is about demons! This scourge comes through their world to our own to feed on us. To …

Years ago, back before she became a blowhard talk-show host and everything kind of went sideways, to a certain extent, for Rosie O’Donnell, she was a movie ‘star’ –at least in the loosest sense of the word. Well, as a star, one of the things she regularly found herself doing was press for the films she was in. Sometimes this …

DUNCAN’S DIARY: BIRTH OF A SERIAL KILLER I was forewarned of the atrocities found within Duncan’s Diary. Allow me to be bold enough to state I entirely disagree. Some may attempt to steer you off the slashing, beaten path and suggest Payne’s efforts are a carbon copy of Jeff Lindsay’s lovable anti-hero Dexter Morgan. This is a naïve assessment at …

Blindspot by Michael McBride (Dark Regions Press) At 2:31 a.m., seismic monitoring stations in China and South Korea detect a magnitude-4 event consistent with a nuclear detonation in the southeastern corner of North Korea, within the Korean Demilitarized Zone. With the threat of full-scale war escalating by the minute, the United Nations Security Council dispatches an elite unit of peacekeepers …

Abarat – Absolute Midnight – Author Clive Barker Here was the mystery of creation, played out on a field of dirt and desperation. Candy could see it, this mystery. It was happening all around her. Out of the common earth of living beings, fragile and afraid, came the extrodinary forms of the glyph beyond conceiving of any single mind. She …