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In the time since Bird Box it seems all horror authors are going small. Less characters and simple plots. Having loved The Final Reconcilliation and his recent novella Scalines, this was one of the books I was most looking forward to. I love Keisling's style and he is great at building characters and kind wrote dialogue for all age groups that isn't cringey. (I mean how many authors are using teenage characters and having them say stupid things?). This talent proves well for this book that tackles an entire town dealing with its cult past.

The book starts with such a bang that is better than most endings authors build up to. However, this is just the start. We flash forward to children of the cult leader who have gone different paths in life, most of them mundain. The past had been forgotten, but never should have been.

Authors spend their entire lives getting to a book like this. This is epic and is definantly something I would reccomend. For me religious horror and books full of characters are not my favorite things, but Keisling's characters kept me interested.

Thanks to the publisher Silver Shamrock I got an advanced copy of this one.

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So on a personal note COVID has had the opposite effect for me as many people - I really haven't been reading as much. Not only has it been a time thing, but I think also the crazy first quarter of so many of the heavy hitter's books has left me a little exhausted. I mean King has a new one and some of my favorite current authors put out books. So this one was kind of a step back into the discovery reading.

I've never read of Montogmery before but got a free copy of this from Amazon. I actually got a little confused and opened this instead of another ARC but kept going on this one.

So first and foremost this is one of those thrillers that may or not have supernatural elements. This isn't always my favorite genre as the head scratching can get distracting. Then throw in the twists and oh boy are there a lot of them. By the end you're definantly gonna say "holy shit" - and that can be either in the good or bad way.

So for me this wasn't something I enjoyed. There's so many twists and turns I finished it happily, but it's not something I'd want to go back to.

That leads us to the is there an audience question I just had to ask myself with the latest Alma Katsu. The answer here is this definantly has an audience. It's got thrills. It also has a very female POV which was ignored for many years. Gender in books can be tricky to bring up and I know it opens a can of worms, but there are definitely people in my life who I know this will strike a nerve for that it didn't for me. There are elements of parental issues, pregnancy/abortion, abuse, adultery, etc that probably went over my head.

I have seen other books like Riley Sager's Final Girls or the recent The Return [see my review] that people raved about that I thought weren't as well written as this one. Leave reality at the door, but if you like twist heavy thrillers check this one out.

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A very disappointing follow-up to The Hunger. Took a lot of effort to get through this and it wasn't worthy of Katsu's talent. A pretty standard who-dun-it love story with supernatural elements. Full of characters that really seem to serve no purpose and a build up that sinks faster than the Titanic.

My wife is a Titanic fanatic and not a genre fan. She gave up on this one. Ghosts and the Titanic by an author hot off of an amazing book, who knew this would end up like this?

Usually when I dislike a book as much as this I like to think is there an audience for this. With this one I'm really not sure I can think of anyone to reccomend it to. It's time and character jumping, an ending out of a bad TV movie, and the lack of spookiness really leaves me head scratching who I'd pass it on to.

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Brilliant. Creepy. A page turner. Nothing else to say but read this.

Seriously just go get it already.

This is limited novella. I don't always post links but I will for this one as it may not be as easy to find. This is not an ad, I just highly reccomend this.

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In this collection of new King novellas the focus is more on heart than horror. I loved the three shorter tales which focused more on love and loss. The longest story at nearly 200 pages was the weakest. While it was an interesting premise, just how does a reporter get to be first on the scene of a tragedy; King's love affair with Holly Gibney bloated the story for me. While I don't hate the Holly character, rehashing events from previous books especially The Outsider seemed to take over and the conclusion of the main arc fell flat. "Rat" may be my favorite of the bunch. It's one of King's favorite things to write about writers and this one may be one of his best of the bunch.

Overall, the three shorter stories play more like the tv show Amazing Stories than Creepshow. Some otherworldly elements but just good characters that will give you some feels. The title story featuring Holly isn't bad, but seemed out of place in this collection.

I read very few King books until 2018 when I decided to decade my time reading through of all his works. Without having the same level of nostalgia as many people, I can say this is one of the top collections of King in my opinion.

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All of My Colors was one of my top books of 2019 so I was excited for this one. A plot that reminded me of Snowpiercer it involves people trying to find a way off of a mysterious train. At just under 300 pages a lot of time is spent discussing various train car layouts. By the time you get to the end the master plot is laid out in Bond villian style. The conclusion wasn't very satisfying and the world was confusing. With a more sci-fi plot there wasn't enough meat on the bones with this one.

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It all started with George Romero. After all the films this book looked to be the final word from Romero. No budget restrictions or worries about box office. Unfortunately he passed away before it could be completed.

Thus lies the rub with this one. There are a lot of times it just doesn't feel like Romero. Whether he's rewriting the history of his classics or another author finished his work, who knows. The book begins in an almost mosaic fashion; with multiple characters and jumping back and forth amongst their stories. Just when one plot thread was getting good it was jump to another. The classic Dead trilogy was very isolated so plot threads like a Navy ship being overrun just got boring for me.

The second act takes a lot of the earlier plot lines and just keeps adding to them like a snowball. This is where I personally think Romero's story ended and Kraus took over. By the third act I was just exhausted. Again, when I saw this was originally intended to be George's vision it's kind of sad that it ended up being finished by someone else.

Kraus is talented and he took on a major task here. His author's note shows he did his best to finish this, but he never actually worked with George so it's all just a what if. The third act reads like every zombie clone we've gotten recently; no matter who much you want to make it it's own thing its really not that unique.

I look at this book like The Irishman. You should spend your time on it as a symbol of respect if you want, but it's a big time investment with little payoff.

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Current Review Copies (March 2020)

Expected Reviews for March. More early reviews may come and other books will surely be read!

The Living Dead by George Romero

Do What You Want by Bad Religon with Jim Ruland

Night Train by David Quantick

Loud Fast Words by Dave Pirner

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Tremblay is one of those authors who does great stuff and I'll read anything he writes. That being said I was underwhelmed with this one a little. A virus breaks out, a form of rabies, and leads to potential zombie like activity. Stop me if you've read anything like this before. While Tremblay uses the outbreak more as background for the relationships contained within; it's hard to read this without visions of The Stand and Bird Box dancing through your head.

So we are given a character driven story but the book is pretty short. The review copy was just at 300 pages and that's including some House of Leaves spacing and extended action scenes. So it was hard to get great character development in such little room. It worked for me; I'd rather have a quick read with some character issues than a book that side tracks me constantly with backstory. The opening and the ending are five star material (although the epilogue I could do without and didn't seem to fit with where the book seemed to logically take me).

So when it comes time to review I'm a little torn. It was a little on the safe side for what I wanted from such a great author, but his talent is here. I think the short length puts this in my reccomend pile. Tremblay's last two novels are better, but this is probably a better introduction to people who haven't read his work before.

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I received an advanced reading copy in exchange for an honest review

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I've been a Lansdale fan for a few years now and Hap and Leonard are great characters. This collection really only contains five stories and then recipes. Of the five stories within its definantly a good read for fans of the series. The previous early Hap and Leonard stories focused mostly on Hap and in some cases didn't feel like Hap. This one feels more true to the characters. My favorite is a simple story of the two comparing fighting in Vietnam and being in prison.

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An interesting premise that falls flat. We begin with a self-loathing narrator that bores you quickly. When her best friend disappears she knows in her heart she's alive so she doesn't mourn her. We are also introduced to two other friends from the group during this intro. When the friend appears two years later the group decides to go on a trip.

This is one of those books that spends pages describing the most unimportant things. When our characters check into a hotel get ready for pages of what seems like a Yelp review. You know when you look a recipe up online and the person writes an essay about their experience when you just want to know how the food is made? That's this book.

I peek inside. It’s spacious, tiled pink. Pink tub, pink toilet, pink sink. There’s no shower curtain, only a pane of frosted glass that folds in and out of the wall. I oscillate between delight and indifference. I can’t tell if I like the room or if I find it obnoxious.

Whether it's an author getting warmed up in their debut novel or someone just trying to pad a page count I've seen this before and it doesn't necessarily mean the book isn't good. However 20% of the way through nothing was happening and I was ready to put the book down or start skipping through. Having been given a review copy I decided to power through.

The majority of the plot is driven by our narrator having weird experiences by herself in her hotel room or long conversations amongst our characters that really add nothing besides "our friend who disappeared sure is weird now." There also are a lot or flashbacks that again seem to just pad page count more than really add anything. When the author wants to really tell a story the book switches narrative to do so. One such flashback is our narrator stalking an ex. I really couldn't figure out what this added more than "maybe our narrator is truly the one lost."

There is a supernatural element that either is a well thought metaphor or just bad red herrings. Did the carpet change? What's that smell?

The ending also is one of those things that is either weak or some brilliant metaphor for friendship. Or maybe I was just trying to fill the plotholes in my head to make the book more interesting than it was.

Its fine for a debut and maybe if you have a similar group of friends that doesn't really make sense that you are friends, it will hit a sweet spot for you. However, to me it was pretty boring with a weak ending.

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For many people in my age bracket we were drawn to Fight Club and American Pyscho for all the wrong reasons. We were promised ultraviolence and probably weren't ready for the themes of depression and being outsiders contained within.

I signed up for an review copy of this book having never heard of the author. There are a lot of books coming out by authors I read a lot or books with a lot of hype; so I kinda wanted go just take a shot with this one. Boy, was this a pleasant surprise. Being that it's made up of short stories I was going to do it in chunks while I read some novels I'd be anticipating, but this book was lingering in my brain so much I had to stop a novel 100 pages in and go back.

I made the comparison to Palahniuk and Ellis earlier because a lot of this book is dark. The author here isn't using violence as padding, but there are some difficult subjects here. In one story a couple loses a baby, in another a man grapples with suicide. However, the author does this as graceful as one can without always giving us a happy ending.

Like most short story collections sometimes the author stretch out a little and sometimes the stories falter a little; but even at the worst I still enjoyed most of these stories. This is more to say there may be some stories in here you don't like, but there are some amazing ones in here.

Again I must say this isn't going to be for everyone based on the content, but then again if you've head Stephen King you've tested your limits some too, so I highly reccomend this one.

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A collection of short, spooky tales perfect for young readers. The stories have a lot of fun elements to them and aren't overly creepy. Most of the endings have a twist ending like episodes of the Twilight Zone. Some of these endings didn't stick the landing for me. Overall, a good book to introduce young readers to horror.

I received a review copy from the publisher

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It's a fun read and perfect as one of those quick vacation reads. I was never bored by it. It's a pretty average modern thriller. I found the interwoven plots to get confusing at times. As Carly tracks down her missing Aunt in the book, they are both researching the same thing and the two characters are almost the same which means when the book gets moving you forget which plot you are in sometimes.

For a book just over 300 pages there are also a lot of characters to keep track of which becomes even harder with the time jumps. The red herrings are half-hearted, what may or may not be supernatural elements provide little payoff, and the end is underwhelming. At the end of the day if you read a lot of thrillers it's not going to be a favorite for you; but as a random pick-up for a casual reader you could do a lot worse.

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I couldn't put it down and finished it in a day! The synopsis of the book, which I didn't read ahead of time, perhaps gives a little too much info; but Cesare still packs in enough twists and turns to keep you guessing.

While many modern horror books like to keep things small, Cesare is talented enough to fill the story with multiple characters, with enough unique voice to not get confusing. Having the word clown in the title leads you to think one thing but the true tension in this one comes from authority, tight spaces, and perhaps the scariest thing of all...teenagers and the social ladder.

While this one comes in as a teen book, there's enough cursing, drinking, and gore to appeal to the adult reader. Cesare obviously is a fan of horror who uses his knowledge to craft a good story and isn't one of those authors who just likes to blindly fire of references to show you they know horror.

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I received a review copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review

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Hendrix does it again and may be my favorite modern author. The book is full of charm and wit but also packs an emotional punch and is full of suspense. A book you can safely reccomend to non-genre fans as well.

I don't want to spoil too much of the plot but think of Fright Night but instead of horror obsessed teens it's true crime loving housewives. Their kids don't think they need them and their husbands just think they're bored.

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Having read this author before I was looking forward to this one. Graham Jones writes with a beauty that few authors can match and this book was the same. Since I was familiar with this one and being that I was given an advanced copy I saw this through to the end, however i probably would have quit on it otherwise. While I'm not familiar with the symbolism of the elk in this story, I went with it but didn't find a satisfying solution here. This element and the Native American culture in it are things Graham Jones expects you to keep up on, there is no hand holding if you don't get it.

The back half of the book was even more scattered for me. While I love the prose I just can't imagine a reader I would reccomend this too unless they are big fans of the author

I received a review copy from the publisher