Thunderstorm Books Trifecta, Part 3: For Emma, by Mary SanGiovanni

**Premiering at Horrorfind Weekend, 2011, and at Thunderstorm Books, after September 4th, 2011.

"…..I want a reason for babies born with cancer, for the endless supply of thoughtless cruelties both little and large we inflict on one another on an everyday basis, for old folks who are abandoned to die alone and unwanted and unloved.

I want an explanation, please, for all of the soul-sick, broken-hearted people who become so hollowed by their aloneness that they turn on the gas, eat the business end of shotgun, or find a ceiling beam that can take their weight. I want sense made of this. I want to know the reason why...and since none is forthcoming, either from above or those around me, I've decided to try and find an answer on my own. So far, the best - the only - way for me to work toward this is through writing horror stories."

• Gary Braunbeck, To Each Their Darkness (Apex Publications)

Apologies for the long quote, but it's the first thing that comes to mind after reading Mary Sangiovanni's latest offering, a novella from Thunderstorm Books. Not only is For Emmy chilling, heartbreaking, and quietly terrifying, it works at something behind the scenes, reaching for explanations for the thousands of little tragedies that occur around us every single day, explanations that all too often can never be reached . It's this – and Sangiovanni's flawless prose – that makes her genre fiction more; insightful and chilling commentaries into the human experience, a musing about our possible experiences with something Other than human.

When Dana's McClusky's four year old sister Emmy disappears from her father's bookstore, she does so without a trace. With no evidence of foul play. No ransom note, no clues. For months, Dana and her widower father grapple with their shattered lives, wondering what happened to Emmy, where she's gone, how she got there, and if they'll ever see her again.

Wondering if, perhaps, it would be better not to know.

And then one day Emmy returns. To the same exact spot she disappeared from in her father's bookstore. Disheveled, muddied, slightly wounded and malnourished...and different, somehow. See, not all of Emmy came back. Wherever she went, something happened to her, draining her youth and vitality and spark, leaving behind a traumatized, emotionally-stunted, empty husk. A “not quite Emmy.” And even worse?

The thing that took Emmy away wants more. As usual, Sangiovanni's handle of her prose and story is flawless. And, like precious few other horror writers – Ramsey Campbell comes to mind - she's able to harness the essence of Lovecraftian horror: fear of the unknown, the alien, the unsolvable, and harness it for her own uses, rather than creating homages or pastiches. And this isn't just a spooky, ghostly tale for fun and frights: there's a serious wondering here, about all the unexplained, tragic phenomena that occurs every day, a wondering if perhaps it would be better for us never to know the answers.

Visit Mary SanGiovanni. Buy it after September 4th.

Kevin Lucia is a Contributing Editor for Shroud Magazine. His short fiction has appeared in several anthologies. He's currently finishing his Creative Writing Masters Degree at Binghamton University, he teaches high school English and lives in Castle Creek, New York with his wife and children. He is the author of Hiram Grange & The Chosen One, Book Four of The Hiram Grange Chronicles, and he's currently working on his first novel. Visit him on the web at www.kevinlucia.com.

Thunderstorm Books Trifecta, Part 2: The Neighborhood, by Kelli Owen

**Premiering at Horrorfind Weekend, 2011, and at Thunderstorm Books, after September 4th, 2011.

So.

Who are the people in your neighborhood?

Not just a fun little song from Sesame Street, but an important question. Especially if you live in one of those small little towns where everyone knows everyone else. The kind of town with only one school, church, police department, where parents do triple duty on the school, church and Town Boards. The kind of place where everyone has heard every little thing about everyone else. Where the men all meet at the general hardware store to shoot the bull, and the women meet twice a month for their bridge or book or wine of the month club. Where there are no secrets...

Except the ones everyone willfully turns a blind eye towards, and keeps from themselves.

Thus forms the basis of Kelli Owen's creepy new novella The Neighborhood, out from Thunderstorm Books, September 2^nd. In perhaps her most understated, restrained work yet, Owen builds her story and its suspense slowly, brick by brick, using even, smooth brushstrokes to paint a chilling portrait of a small little town where everyone is happy.

At peace.

Going about their business. And even though rumors spread like in any small town and everyone seems to know the tick and click of everyone else's social affairs, certain things are not discussed. Some thoughts not entertained. The only shadows here in Neillsville hide in the corners. Ones townspeople are too willing to shy away from and ignore. Until the blood comes spilling out into their lives. But even then, the adults “circle their wagons.”

Keep their own counsel. Don't talk to the kids. And by all means, don't LISTEN to the kids, when they tell strange tales too fantastic and dreadful to be true. Because they're only kids, after all. With wild imaginations too prone to carry them away. This is Neillsville, where everyone takes care of their own. And minds their own, too.

So. Who are the people in your neighborhood? Do you know them?

Really? Because Kelli Owen's The Neighborhood may very well cause you to doubt what you think you know...

Visit Kelli Owen. Buy it after September 4th.

Kevin Lucia is a Contributing Editor for Shroud Magazine. His short fiction has appeared in several anthologies. He's currently finishing his Creative Writing Masters Degree at Binghamton University, he teaches high school English and lives in Castle Creek, New York with his wife and children. He is the author of Hiram Grange & The Chosen One, Book Four of The Hiram Grange Chronicles, and he's currently working on his first novel. Visit him on the web at www.kevinlucia.com.

Thunderstorm Books Trifecta, Part 1: Samson and Denial, by Robert Ford

**Premiering at Horrorfind Weekend, 2011, and at Thunderstorm Books, after September 4th, 2011.

Samson and Denial (Thunderstorm Books) is a powerful debut from author Robert Ford, a story reeling at a break-neck pace that demands a reading in one sitting. This is Robert E. Howard, Norman Partridge and Bryan Smith, all rolled into one explosive package that doesn't mince words, but also doesn't sacrifice its craft. It's a story of substance as well as fast-paced thrills.

Things have taken a nasty turn for pawnbroker and small-time drug-dealer Samson Gallows. His brother and drug-dealing partner Marky tortured and murdered in ruthless fashion by merciless Russian gangsters, his wife Tia abducted and in mortal danger, Samson finds himself barreling towards the kind of fight he's never wanted: one with no good outcome, no victory possible, but one he must embrace regardless. His dear brother, mutilated beyond recognition; beloved wife possibly facing the same, maybe even already dead. What else can he do?

But perhaps not all is lost. For Samson has in his possession a grisly artifact pawned to him earlier by one of his usual junkie customers. With this artifact comes a strange and horrifying legacy. And awful powers. When it saves Samson from the same men who killed Marky – in bloody fashion – a small chance for survival offers itself to him...if he can also survive the artifact's rightful owners, who fear neither death nor hell in their service to it, and would sooner gut him like a fish, rather than let it slip from their grasp again.

Ford's even-handed voice never loses control of his narrative. The prose flows, nice and tight and powerful, each word precisely chosen for maximum punch. And the story itself tears up the track like a dragster burning high octane nitrous oxide. Along the way, Ford paints poignant, bitter-sweet portraits of life in the city, infusing his tale with a thundering heart that refuses to quit, right to the last page.

Visit Bob Ford. Buy it after September 4th.

Kevin Lucia is a Contributing Editor for Shroud Magazine. His short fiction has appeared in several anthologies. He's currently finishing his Creative Writing Masters Degree at Binghamton University, he teaches high school English and lives in Castle Creek, New York with his wife and children. He is the author of Hiram Grange & The Chosen One, Book Four of The Hiram Grange Chronicles, and he's currently working on his first novel. Visit him on the web at www.kevinlucia.com.

Last Days

By Brian Evenson
Published by Underland Press

Here is everything you need to know about Last Days: This short novel is brilliant enough live up to the eleven-page fawning introduction penned by Peter Straub—though, fair warning, the Ghost Story author festoons his effusions with so many delicious twists and snatches of plot you’d be crazy to read it before diving into the tale beyond.

Of course, if that’s not enough to pique your interest, we can toss in a dismemberment-obsessed cult that makes the axe-wielding psychos Sly Stallone tangled with in Cobra look like extras in a particularly feisty episode of Toddlers & Tiaras, a jaded one-handed cop through whose eyes we experience the faction’s absurd depravities, and a narrative that somehow balances pitch-black satire against harrowing blood-and-guts corporeal believability.

Still on the fence? Didn’t think so.

Much like Jonathan Lethem’s literary fraternal twins Motherless Brooklyn and Gun, with Occasional Music, Last Days mashes noir archetypes atop bizarro contrivances to summon forth a fantastical world only a degree or two off from our own, then sets the beguiling creation barreling off down the rabbit hole, improbably managing to up the stakes over and over again, right up until the last line of the disquieting finale. Evenson—an incontestably superior talent since his opening 2002 salvo, Altmann’s Tongue—herein further establishes himself as a writer utterly allergic to the (too) well-defined boundaries of horror fiction, and, consequently, raises the genre up in his clenched jaw and carries it forward, a literary feline nimbly prowling toward fresher killing fields.

Reviewed by Shawn Macomber

Shawn Macomber is a Miami based writer whose work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Reason, Radar, Yankee, The Weekly Standard,the Los Angeles Times, National Review, and Decibel, among many other fine and middling publications. He has reported from five continents covering everything from combat in Iraq, riots in the Baltics, and two presidential elections to designer cat shows at Madison Square Garden, the cross Carrot Top bears, and the Carcass “Exhumed to Consume” reunion tour. His story "Demon Envy" will appear in Shroud #12. More info at www.shawnmacomber.net

Descent

by Sandy DeLuca
Published by Uninvited Books

Back in the seventies young Julia developed a thirst for bad boys so lusty it could not be quenched by any run of the mill rebel-without-a-cause biker. And so, ignoring the cryptic warnings of her Wiccan aunt and dead brother, she made a play for a disciple of Satan whose idea of a weekend getaway was a multi-state killing spree.

Alas, Julia learns too late the most important relationship law The Rules failed to cover: A man with a taste for a homemade blood/semen cocktail is likely not boyfriend material. The union, needless to say, does not have a storybook ending, unless you’re into fairytales stocked with Deliverance sexcapades and motel room crucifixions.

Descent opens a few decades later. Broken by a past she cannot put behind her, Julia appears determined to self-sabotage any prospect of happiness, perhaps as an act of penance, perhaps because as a painter she cannot afford the necessary therapy. “Loneliness is a bitch,” she muses. “But memories can be even worse.” Trouble is, Julia’s memories aren’t content to remain locked in her mind anymore—they seep out into the real world, possess friends and acquaintances, make sudden appearances like quick cuts in horror flick. Around this mystery of what is and what is not real, Sandy DeLuca constructs a trippy, altered state narrative. Is Julia truly being haunted by demons bound and determined to prove Faulkner’s oft-quoted maxim, “The past is not dead. In fact, it is not even past”? Or is she suffering hallucinogenic reverberations from the trauma that withered the flower of her youth?

“Sanity visits me now and then, but never stays long,” Julia says, appearing to make the case for the former.

“How do you make them see that the monsters are real—that the dead really do come back?” she later asks, suggesting the latter.

It is a testament to DeLuca’s authorial prowess that both explanations feel plausible throughout the book. When the final wave at long last breaks, the dénouement is richly imagined enough to leave you wishing DeLuca was not so brief in her exploration of it. I would have liked to see her delve a little more deeply into the transcendent implications of the specters that emerge from Julia’s paintings as well. These are, however, minor quibbles. DeLuca’s taunt, fast-paced yarn draws you in and screws with your equilibrium, much like those demons Julia glimpses out of the corner of her eye.

Buy it here.

Reviewed by Shawn Macomber

Shawn Macomber is a Miami based writer whose work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Reason, Radar, Yankee, The Weekly Standard,the Los Angeles Times, National Review, and Decibel, among many other fine and middling publications. He has reported from five continents covering everything from combat in Iraq, riots in the Baltics, and two presidential elections to designer cat shows at Madison Square Garden, the cross Carrot Top bears, and the Carcass “Exhumed to Consume” reunion tour. His story "Demon Envy" will appear in Shroud #12. More info at www.shawnmacomber.net

Deadline book 2 of the Newsflesh Trilogy

By Mira Grant
Published by Orbit


*Warning, this review contains spoilers for FEED, the preceding book in Mira Grant's Newsflesh trilogy read the review here, then read that book first.*

It sucks to be the second part of a trilogy. The first part is young and impetuous, the vibrant child introducing us to new worlds and people while establishing the broad conflict. The last one is older, more mature, bringing it all together and providing us with a sense of closure. All the middle kids does is get everyone into as much trouble as possible.

Boy, howdy does DEADLINE do that.

Picking up scant months after the events of FEED, we're plopped into the head of Shaun Mason as he barely holds the crew of After the End Times together. The ghost of his dead sister is in his head, an officially deceased CDC researcher is in his apartment and his city is overrun with the hungry amplified. This new addition to the group has information that someone is willing to firebomb the entirety of Oakland to keep secret. It would appear that the conspiracy behind his sister's death is alive and Shaun will stop at nothing to get at the heart of the matter.

Everything that made FEED my favorite novel of last year, as well as my second favorite zombie novel of all time, is still here: political intrigue, in-depth and honest characters that work their way into your heart and life, spot on social commentary on the way we live under the threat of a terror state and some damn fine “hold onto your britches while you fill them with poo” action. Of course, Mira continues to ratchet up the tension with the increasingly tightening noose around the necks of our intrepid newsies. Her previously proven Whedonesque willingness to kill off any character, no matter how important they may seem, certainly kept me on my toes in that regard.

I specifically enjoyed the change in POV from FEED's supremely self-assured and driven Georgia to the increasingly apathetic and uncertain Shaun. His feelings of inadequacy and mental breakdown (he doesn't just talk to his dead sis, she argues back) provide the heavy emotional impact this go round. The world around and within him is collapsing into chaos and you'll feel every moment.

Sure, it will leave you hanging in the air once the last page is turned, but that is what middle children do. Also, there's a revelation near the end that I want to call cheap but it does fit with the information we are provided earlier and I'm curious to see how it will play out in BLACKOUT. Overall, it's a hell of a worthy followup to FEED that had me tearing through the pages and left me salivating more. What else can you ask for?

Buy it here.

Reviewed by Anton Cancre

Anton Cancre is one of those rotting, pus-filled thingies on the underside of humanity that your mother always warned you about. He has oozed symbolic word-farms onto the pages of Shroud, Sex and Murder and Horrorbound magazines as well as The Terror at Miskatonic Falls, an upcoming poetry anthology by Shroud Publishing and continues to vomit his oh-so-astute literary opinions, random thoughts and nonsense at antoncancre.blogspot.com. No, he won't babysit you pet shoggoth this weekend. Stop asking.

Margaret’s Ark, (Other Road Press), by Daniel G. Keohane

Many view publishing's future and the Amazon.com self-publishing revolution with equal parts trepidation and suspicion. How will the industry – whatever it becomes - maintain standards of quality? How will readers know if something is good, even with word of mouth, because opinions on “good” vary so greatly?

And what about the authors themselves? Don't they still need editors and gatekeepers to keep them (authors and would-be authors) on their toes? Keep them from getting complacent? Whatever happened to working hard, being patient, earning the satisfaction that came with a Publisher’s stamp of approval?

These concerns aside, if Margaret's Ark, by Daniel G. Keohane, is an indication of publishing and self-publishing's potential future, things might not be so bad.

Of course, it makes a difference when the author self-publishing is an experienced professional with valid publishing credentials outside their self-published venue, and a Bram Stoker Award Nominee to boot. It makes a difference when the author self-publishing has done their time and has achieved industry success. Not to be redundant, but it also makes a difference when the author's self-published novel was a semi-finalist in Amazon's Breakthrough Novelist contest, scoring a positive review from Publisher's Weekly, even.

All these things make a big difference, because Margaret's Ark is not a sloppily conceived story slapped together in Word and Adobe, then uploaded to CreateSpace. Nor is it a rookie author's efforts. It's a quality work of fiction, written by a professional who knows his stuff. A gripping story about the power of faith, but also a frightening portrayal of that inevitable conflict that must erupt – because we're human and flawed – between those who would choose to follow their faith unswervingly, those who follow it only for selfish reasons, those who fear and do not understand faith's power...and those who ultimately reject it.

Solomon's Grave, Keohane's first novel, proved a solid debut and earned him a Bram Stoker nomination for “Superior Achievement in a First Novel”, however Margaret's Ark is Keohane's best work to date. Though it moves slowly and takes time building its tension – and build tension it does – this novel is the mark of an experienced craftsmen. The characters are varied and engaging, prompting genuine sympathy in the reader.

Keohane manages to walk a fine theological line, also. His story is original and well-written, not a shabbily veiled religious allegory, but it shouldn't prove too radical in regards to doctrine. His success is that he does what spiritual fiction often fails at: he focuses on the human element, how humans deal and grapple with the difficulty – and demands – of faith.

Margaret's Ark is published through Keohane's own, self-styled imprint, Other Road Press. Time will tell if he'll release other works through this venue, either his own or of other authors. In any case, not only is it a fine novel, but the book itself – its craft, its formatting – serves as a rare example of self-publishing's promise for the future.

Visit www.dankeohane.com and www.otherroadpress.com. Buy it today.

Kevin Lucia is a Contributing Editor for Shroud Magazine. His short fiction has appeared in several anthologies. He's currently finishing his Creative Writing Masters Degree at Binghamton University, he teaches high school English and lives in Castle Creek, New York with his wife and children. He is the author of Hiram Grange & The Chosen One, Book Four of The Hiram Grange Chronicles, and he's currently working on his first novel. Visit him on the web at www.kevinlucia.com.

Department Nineteen

By Will Hill
Published by Penguin Books/Razorbill Press

Young Jamie Carpenter is in for the shock of his life. Accused as a terrorist, Jamie’s father is gunned down in a hail of submachine bullets from mysterious men in black body armor.

As Department Nineteen begins, these events darken the lives of sixteen-year-old Jamie and his distraught mother. Publically hounded into hiding, Jamie hopes for a normal life and wants to clear the family name. But evil forces are at work. When Jamie comes face-to-face with Larissa, a girl with supernatural powers that has been ordered to assassinate him, he learns of a secret department of the British government chartered to protect the citizenry from vampires.

Yes, blood-sucking vampires that feel no remorse at draining the life from their human victims. And there are thousands of vampires. Maybe millions.

Amazingly, he learns the truth from Frankenstein, the monster whose life is now dedicated to Department Nineteen and its top-secret mission. Jamie, recruited as an agent, discovers the department’s dark origins as the true story of Van Helsing, Bram Stoker, and Count Dracula is revealed. Not only are vampires real, there is an underground war where Department Nineteen stands as the last line of defense.

Department Nineteen is the first novel in a YA series aimed primarily at boys that might find the storylines in female-oriented supernatural stories unsatisfying. Having said that, readers of both sexes can enjoy this story as there’s plenty of action, suspense, blood and thrills as Jamie learns that his father once worked for Department Nineteen and that Alexandru, a vampire leader originally turned by Count Dracula himself, has kidnapped his mother.

This book (a hefty 440 pages) is a very enjoyable origin tale, and sets the stage for a much larger confrontation between Department Nineteen and the foes that strive to conquer the world and turn humans into enslaved blood banks. Adult readers may find the opening a bit clunky, and the plot lines a bit predictable, but adults are not the target audience for this book. A young reader will be swept along by the action and YA boys and girls will engage in the story of a normal boy secretly attracted to a vampire girl. Talk about adolescent relationship challenges.

The author, Will Hill, has done a commendable job of integrating his own vision of Department Nineteen lore with the classic horror novels of the 19th Century. The Frankenstein and Dracula storylines are paid homage to as Mr. Hill informs the reader (and Jamie Carpenter) what really happened, and how those fictional books hid the gruesome truth. Dual storylines, one in the present, and one in the past, explain the complex relationships between generations of characters. The scope of the story is ambitious and complex and Mr. Hill pulls it off quite nicely.

Department Nineteen should be on every YA reading list and bookshelf space should be cleared for upcoming sequels. The story is compelling and YA readers will want every exciting volume.

Buy it here.

Review by R. B. Payne

R. B. Payne is a dark fiction writer. His stories have appeared in Doorways, Dark Discoveries, Necrotic Tissue, and the recent Stoker-nominated Midnight Walk anthology. He is insanely enthusiastic about writing book reviews for Shroud magazine. But rather than continuing to blurb himself by pretending that someone else wrote this bio, he would prefer you seek out his stories and read them late at night. For the record, he lives in Los Angeles and lurks at www.rbpayne.com. He would love to hear from you as long as it’s not a beating heart delivered in a cardboard box.

Kissy Killy & Pretty Scary

by Vox Anon

Two volumes of poetry, Kissy Killy and Pretty Scary, are brought to you by the unnamed author, Vox Anon, who has previously released a volume entitled The Unicorn Man.

Both these volumes showcase self-contained poems, whose main focus revolves around highly charged sexual imagery at times infused with familiar archetypes. Predominant themes at play in both of these texts are those of love -- not the light-hearted, fluffy kind of love, but more like the sado-masochistic heavy metal kind of love, if one is left to judge by the lines of "Cherry Pitted" from Kissy Killy: "fissures cracks sweat whips screams tears gages wires icky goo."

Even the cover photo of the Starchild skull that graces Pretty Scary has sexual overtones when viewed through the lens of Vox Anon's poetic offerings, such as "Jealous Of The Cup" in which the cup is a metaphor for a woman's vagina, coupled with the phallic "ivory tower."

These sorts of metaphors abound, along with biblical references scattered here and there (such as the reference to the "scapegoat" in Kissy Killy's "Eaten By Doves," which in this case appears to be an allusion to the Lamb of God). The rhythm and force of the poems have the feel of modern-day rock music. There is no greater, underlying narrative apparent to this reader, other than an artist's attempt to make sense of himself as a spiritual creature who at turns struggles with the union and alienation of a sexual relationship -- a sexual relationship gone bad.

Buy Kissy Killy here.

Buy Pretty Scary here.

Reviewed by Martin Rose

Martin Rose lives in New Jersey, where he writes a range of fiction from the fantastic to the macabre, holds a degree in graphic design, and enjoys blurring the line between art and life. Look for his work in Murky Depths Issue 17 and Art From Art anthology from Modernist Press. More details are available at www.MartinRoseHorror.com.