Blood War

by Dylan J. Morgan
Published by Pill Hill Press

For six centuries, armies of vampires (led by the coldly calculating Markus) and packs of werewolves (led by the brutally savage Isaac) have been locked in a bitter war, their struggles hidden in the shadows away from human eyes or waged from within the cover of mortal conflicts. Their conflict spans the years and the continents, each immortal faction seeking to gain dominance over the other with the ultimate fate of mankind at stake. But now a new enemy is rising to wrest control of the supernatural world from the old regimes: hybrids. These bizarre offspring of both lycanthrope and vampire, long outlawed amongst their sires, seek to control their own destinies and bring their persecution to an end.

Blood War is arranged in three “books”. The first, “The Freaks Come Out at 9 and Its 20 to 10,” describes the struggles between the vampires and werewolves leading up to the present day. The second part, “Monsters and Mortals,” introduces the only two mortal characters in the novel and the manner in which their lives are embroiled in the struggle. The final book, “Last Stand,” brings the various conflicts to their inevitable conclusion. Morgan’s writing is strong and descriptive, especially so during the novel’s many action sequences. The author also does a fine job of balancing about a dozen or so different characters and points of view while aptly describing the centuries-long, globetrotting conflict at the heart of the novel. He has a lot of pins in the air and never misses a catch. The “blood war” described is exciting and harrowing, with each vivid scene obviously crafted to drive the plot to its next destination.

Unfortunately Blood War misses some opportunities for depth by not creating an emotional attachment with its audience. Morgan creates very complex and interesting characters among the immortals, but for every spark of sympathy invoked for the players, we are reminded of their innate monstrosity. Frankly, the reader doesn’t know who to root for. Further, the ultimate stakes of this contest—the fate of humanity—is woefully underplayed, resulting in a distinct lack of emotional investment in the conflict.

But sometimes all you need is the adrenaline rush of a good fight. You don’t have to care who wins to enjoy vampires and werewolves and hybrids beating the crap out of each other. In the end, with its exotic locales, tight action scenes, and large cast of bad-ass immortals, Blood War is a well-written, highly entertaining action movie of a novel.

Buy it here.

Visit Dylan Morgan's site.

Reviewed by Shedrick Pittman-Hassett

Shedrick Pittman-Hassett is a full-time librarian and part-time writer trying to do that the other way around. He has written reviews for Library Journal and has also had two articles published in the award-winning Knights of the Dinner Table magazine. Shedrick currently resides in Denton, Texas ("The Home of Happiness") with his lovely wife and the obligatory demon-spawn cats. When not writing, gaming, or watching cheezy kung-fu flicks, he can be found in a pub enjoying a fine brew.

The Perfect Suspect

by Margaret Coel
Published by Berkley


Margaret Coel explores the corruption of love and politics in her taut thriller, The Perfect Suspect published by Berkley's Prime Crime imprint.

Catherine McLeod is the central character, an investigative news reporter who finds herself thrust into the events of a recent homicide, the murder of a venerated politician on the fast-track to the White House. Catherine McLeod must choose between advancing the truth as she uncovers new evidence that can change the course of the investigation, or allowing a scapegoat to take the fall for the true killer by doing nothing at all.

Margaret Coel quickly advances the action; from the first pages we are thrust into the mind of a conflicted killer caught between love and betrayal as she shoots David Mathews, the sophisticated politician expected to take the governor's seat in the state of Colorado. Coel creates a portrait of corruption both internal and external – love spoiled and tainted, the flawless politician whose spotless image is thin cover for his adulterous affairs, and the killer herself, Detective Ryan Beckman, put in charge of the homicide investigation when her job is to protect and to serve. Catherine McLeod is one of the few characters who holds firm against this moral decay. She insists upon pursuing evidence on the strength of an anonymous phone call that implicates Detective Ryan Beckman as the killer.

The action unfolds as the murder expands into a spiral of circumstances – Beckman uses all the resources of her occupation she can muster to silence potential witnesses, while McLeod proves equally tenacious, unable to stand by and watch as Sydney Mathews, David's wife, takes the heat of the investigation and is charged with murder. The key to bringing Beckman to justice revolves around the anonymous caller, and it becomes a race between them as each struggles to reach the witness first – McLeod becoming Beckman's target in the process.

Margaret Coel provides the action in swift succession, allowing the reader insights into characters and their motivations in a slow unfolding, seeing the crime and its after effects from multiple angles. Fast-paced, any crime lover will no doubt enjoy this latest installment in Coel's recurring character of Catherine McLeod.

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. More details are available at www.MartinRoseHorror.com.

Cinema Of Shadows

by, Michael West
Publisher, Seventh Star Press, August 2011


Cinema Of Shadows is a full-throttle, unique journey that takes the concept of the conventional “haunting” to new territory. Well written, with a suspense that is palpable, West delivers a novel that strikes emotional chords and challenges our imaginations.

The Woodfield Movie Palace has stained the community of Harmony, Indiana. From fires, murders, to suicides; its sorted history is about to come to an end with a wrecking ball. But, from within, an evil that precedes antiquity begs to differ. It plans and waits.

Kim is a struggling college student who is doing her best to pass her classes and move on from a past of nightmares that still awake her. Most fans will remember her--and what set her on her path--from West’s short story The Bridge that appeared in his collection, A Skull Full Of Kisses. There is only one way out of this perpetual torture, and the answers she seeks: a Parapsychology class headed by a Professor with a past just as dark, and haunted as Kim’s.

Professor Burke’s intent is to have his students collect as much data as possible from the Woodfield Movie Palace before demolition starts. As they do, what waits for them subtly extends its reach into the sleepy town with fingers that desiccate everything and everyone they touch. Even the doctors and the police become embroiled in the escalating chaos—and the humble people that comprise the town carry their suspicions on whispers.

Kim and her class-mates friendships, relationships, and their inherent trust are put to the test, as a reality bereft of logic consume them. As the stakes rise with every pulse-pounding chapter, these bonds are stretched to their limits. Can they stand together and do what must be done, lest their home and life itself vanish like the people the Woodfield has consumed?

Cinema Of Shadows is a compelling novel that catches the reader off-guard. West begins with familiar territory and makes it his own, in all of its horrific glory as emotional chords are plucked...one by one. The real beauty of this novel is West’s unique approach to ambiguity. Each chapter raises the bar, as well as our emotions it elicits. As usual, West gives us a novel that snares us into a world eerily similar to ours, tickles our imaginations, and proves once again that his voice is rare and quite formidable.

To find out more about Michael West, please visit his website.

Reviewed by Ben Eads

Ben Eads is a dark fiction author of short stories and longer fiction. His work tends to represent modern horror coupled with what he likes to call: “Imagination-tickling elements”. Ben is also a huge fan of dark fiction and dark movies. At the age of ten he wrote his first story. Taking writing seriously in early 2008, Ben Eads has published numerous short dark fiction stories in various magazines, anthologies, and E-Zines.

LITTLE BOY LOST

By T.M. Wright
Published by Uninvited Books

WHY WOULD A DEMON WANT A CHILD?

When his six-year-old son vanishes, Miles Gale is suspected of having committed an unthinkable crime. He alone knows that the truth is even more unthinkable: his son has been taken by a creature out of time, a creature out of nightmare. The boy’s mother has returned to claim him…and Miles will have to go through hell to get him back. (back cover blurb of Little Boy Lost)

This 1992 re-issue of Little Boy Lost focuses on the ultimate parental nightmare—that of a child lost. So clearly does Wright’s surreal prose explain the unreal, “I must be dreaming because this can’t really be happening” world in which those who have lost a child live, that even childless readers are able to fully empathize with Miles’ desperation, anguish, and helplessness when little Aaron disappears. And to make it all the more realistic, the child disappears at a local mall, where these sorts of things happen with a fair degree of regularity outside of the pages of a novel.

We get most of the details of the story from CJ, Aaron’s older half-brother, who has an eidetic memory. During police interrogations (because, of course, the police think that CJ’s father, Miles, is responsible) CJ recounts every single detail of the day, down to the hairstyle of a woman at the far end of the parking lot. Being a child, CJ doesn’t yet know how to filter through everything his mind has recorded, and so he just plays back every second, whether relevant or not. A small detail, perhaps, but a crucial one, and it perfectly fit the character, as do all T.M. Wright’s subtle touches. He is truly the Da Vinci of literary horror, where God is in the details.

With his typical, always fascinating hallucinatory edginess Wright takes us on a frantic search for Aaron—in this world and…other places. There is nothing predictable about the searching, nor the way the book ends, for that matter.

T.M. Wright is truly an author for analytical adults who appreciate the more literary side of the horror genre. Younger people may find him frustrating, because little is spelled out and endings are not necessarily all neatly tied up and obvious. So if you’re looking for a cheap thrill, gratuitous gore, or hardcore horror, Wright is probably not for you.

But if you want something haunting, something that you will think about during the day, something that will quietly creep into your dreams at night…well, now you know just where to look.

Another home run, Mr. Wright…all the way from 1992!

Five out of five stars.

Buy it here.

Reviewed by Carson Buckingham

Carson Buckingham’s first dark fantasy novel, HOME, will be released this Halloween and will be available on Amazon.

GRAVEMINDER

by Melissa Marr
Published by William Morrow-Pinnacle Press

What is it that makes a novel “gothic”? We all know that it sure as hell isn’t pouty teenage girls fainting in the embrace of sparkly vampires, but negative proof is never much help. Is it old, crumbling manses or castles sinking into the unbearable stench of a cursed moor? Ghosts that haunt the periphery of the damned? Some alchemy made from cobwebs and wrought iron posts? Or, is it old secrets, buried deep but still boiling to the surface? The inescapable past sneaking up on the unknowing present?

If, like me, those last two are what really make the genre for you, then you’re in for a dilly of a tale with Melissa Marr’s Graveminder.

Rebekkah Barrow left Claysville a decade ago and did her best to never look back, despite the deep connection to her step-grandmother Maylene and long running ignored relationship with the town’s Undertaker in training. As with all best laid plans of meece and menses, this all goes to hell when Maylene is murdered. Someone or something tore her apart and finding out who only begins the mystery that forces Rebekkah back into the town she never truly called home and the arms of the man she never admitted into her heart, ByronMontgomery. It seems that the town elders had made a pack in the long ago that binds everyone within its borders and more than just ghosts are worming their way out of the ground.

Graveminder takes an interesting approach to the traditional gothic ghost story in that it is the town itself that is haunted, instead of a specific person or house. Not so much haunted by ghosts (though the dead do walk within these town limits) as by the remnants of decisions made long ago. That aspect is what makes it a uniquely American, distinctly post-millennial Gothic novel while maintaining the sense of history and age associated with the genre, this sense that even as we strive for personal freedom we are bound by the sins of our fathers. No matter how much we may strive and struggle against this hold of the past, we inevitably find ourselves unable to escape and must find some way to live with it. Melissa Marr beautifully captures this age old strain of freedom versus fate in both Rebekkah’s constant fight against it and Byron’s passive acceptance.

Of course, you could ignore that and lose yourself in the loamy, dusty ambiance (you’re soaking in it) while the hungry dead chew at your flesh.

On the down side, the ending seemed a tad rushed to me. The setup was far too rich and the emotions seemed too complicated to play out as quickly as they did. Also, the romance portion fell flat for me. I didn’t feel the connection between the two in any way beyond the superficial and still have a tough time buying it. These aren’t story killers by any means, but it could’ve played out a little stronger with more patience.

Regardless, Graveminder goes well beyond the standard penny dreadful and kept me up well into the dreary hours with Ms. Marr’s combination of originality, heart and whip quick pacing.

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.

Nowhere Hall

by Cate Gardner
Published by Spectral Press

"Someone stole the world and packed it up in a briefcase."

We all know how to deal with ghosts (salt, prayers, just move out of the friggin house already), vampires are old hat (stake, decap or wait til sunrise for the sparklies) and no matter what new permutation on zombies you may come up with, we have our plans ready (we won’t go into that). Physical threats are blasé, but many of us have to face a new horror: economic uncertainty. Yes, this is nothing new for the blue collar world (Braunbeck’s “Union Dues” pretty well sealed that one up for us), but now those who had always felt safe behind a desk aren’t so secure anymore. White collar Willy Lomans litter the pavement and we all know that we might be next. Enter Kate Gardner’s novella Nowhere Hall to poke and prod at this new chink in our psychological armor.

Meet Ron. We’re not sure where he’s going or even where he’s been, but neither is he. We just know that this poor soul seems snapped in a few places and that he’d been let go because he’s let himself go. His world seems familiar enough, but its logic doesn’t work quite right, things don’t make the sense that they should. And he finds himself at the door of a building, crossed with police tape and heralded by a falling umbrella with a simple note attached: We want to live. Help us.

In a way, Nowhere Hall can be looked at as in inwardly aimed ghost story that twists reality in the same vein as Poppy Z. Brite’s Drawing Blood. It is surreal, but in a way that slips through the spaces between dendrites rather than slamming against the forebrain, shouting “Ooooh booga booga. I’ve got a marshmallow in my eyes!” Cate paints Ron as one who haunts as much as he is haunted, an empty shell roaming halls that have long forgotten him, and the effect is emotionally devastating. In this case, the slipstream flow of illogic is used to great effect in reflecting the inward confusion that Ron is experiencing as his world dissolves instead of simply being used for shock value.

Yes, if you prefer your narratives to be of the more direct variety, then you will not enjoy yourself here. It certainly took me several attempts rereading whole paragraphs multiple times to make sense out of the situation. But, as I said before, that’s the point. It should be confusing and disconcerting, it needs to be. It also isn’t a particularly cheery tale, ending with a question none of us really want answered (I want to say that we do, Cate, but I’m too afraid to find out the truth). However, the resulting experience is well worth it all.

Nowhere Hall ends up as a journey that is bewildering and heartbreaking, a painful search for worth where objective value has been removed that would fit perfectly along side of Tom Piccirilli’s Every Shallow Cut (read the review), if you have a favorite razor you’d like to cuddle up with.

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.

Four Legs in the Morning, (Cemetery Dance), by Norman Prentiss

This new collection of three linked stories once again proves Norman Prentiss as one of the premier writers in the field. Featuring a mysterious (perhaps even diabolical) English Department chair and three people who run afoul of him - a protege who scorns Dr. Sibley's old fashioned views, a guilt-ridden plagiarist and a young administrator who discovers just how powerful Dr. Sibley is when he learns the fate of his predecessor - these interlocking tales have been wonderfully sculpted by Prentiss' deft, sure and subtle hand.

Reviewers have compared Norman Prentiss to the late Charles Grant, but he's so much more than just an imitator. A superb stylist in his own right, Norman is marking out a place of his very own in genre fiction. Four Legs in the Morning is quiet, haunting, and as Prentiss dangles unknowable secrets just beyond our reach (which may be for the best), we wait anxiously for a new morning after the long, quiet night. And even if that morning never comes, we wait for it still, in breathless anticipation.

Very nearly sold out. Pre-order 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.