SYNOPSIS:
THE SUMMONING: There is a right way and a wrong way to summon her. Jess had done the research. Success requires precision: a dark room, a mirror, a candle, salt, and four teenage girls. Each of them-Jess, Shauna, Kitty, and Anna-must link hands, follow the rules . . . and never let go. A thrilling fear spins around the room the first time Jess calls her name: "Bloody Mary. Bloody Mary. BLOODY MARY." A ripple of terror follows when a shadowy silhouette emerges through the fog, a specter trapped behind the mirror. Once is not enough, though-at least not for Jess. Mary is called again. And again. But when their summoning circle is broken, Bloody Mary slips through the glass with a taste for revenge on her lips. As the girls struggle to escape Mary's wrath, loyalties are questioned, friendships are torn apart, and lives are forever altered. A haunting trail of clues leads Shauna on a desperate search to uncover the legacy of Mary Worth. What she finds will change everything, but will it be enough to stop Mary-and Jess-before it's too late? UNLEASHED: Mary in the mirror. Mary in the glass. Mary in the water. Mary lurks in the emptiness, in the darkness . . . in the reflection. That is, until Jess unleashes her into the world. Now Mary Worth is out, and her haunting is deadlier than ever. No one is safe. Shauna, Kitty, and Jess must band together to unearth the truth about Mary's death, to put her soul to rest for good. Their search leads them back to where it all began-Solomon's Folly, a place as dangerous as the ghost who died there a century and a half ago. Quicksand, hidden traps, and a phantom fog are the least of their worries. To stop Mary, they need to follow a dark string of clues and piece together a gruesome mystery that spans generations. But time is running out. As chilling facts come to light, Mary inches ever closer to her prey. Can Jess, Shauna, and Kitty break Mary's curse before it's too late? Or will history repeat itself until there is no one left to call her name . . . ? I grabbed this set immediately after reading one of Monahan's stories in the collection Hex Life, and it was a great decision. I love urban legends, and this was a fun take on Bloody Mary. The characters are realistic, sometimes heartbreakingly so, and I loved the humor. Quotes/Lines (spoilers below!) THE SUMMONING: -- I love the intro about Mary Jane in the school bathroom. Folklore <3 -- 'I would be content so long as my ardent gentleman gifted me with flower and had the good sense to leave immediately afterwards.' Mood. -- "While Ms. Worth has a pleasing disposition, I cannot say the same for her youngest daughter." Yeah, God forbid she give you a look for staring at her mom. In church. Where you are the pastor. -- 'I loathe the privilege money affords some people. I rest well knowin gthat you will never struggle, but if you become an inflated harpy like Elizabeth, I will strangle you in your sleep, Constance.' I love this grumpy sassball. -- 'I love you and miss you. Mary' Oh. Ohhhhh nooooooo -- 'She'd always had a talent for being the biggest ass in the room. I loved her, but that love came with a great responsibility, like whacking Jess whenever she got out of line.' <3 -- I love that this starts with Bloody Mary appearing, rather than building up to it through several failed attempts. -- "There is no way that should have worked. How? How did it work?" Kitty nodded her agreement from inside the tub.' Kitty = me. -- "But it did happen," Jess said gleefully. Um, Jess, honey, you might want to read the room. -- "One more time. What can it hurt?" NO. BAD PLAN. -- "Fine! But if something happens to me, I'm going to come back and haunt you. I will haunt you while you pee.' The cackle I let out -- "Not 'whatever'. It wasn't so long ago that you were throwing tantrums, and you'd better believe we didn't treat you like you just treated your brother. Check the attitude." Well-played. -- "Your friend still has better table manners than you, Jessica." That, however, was unnecessary. -- "Want some waffles? They're frozen, but I'm a little short on time." "You worked a double yesterday. I can get them myself," I said. "You're still my kid. Let me pretend I'm good at this parenting thing." I love them. -- "It's been three weeks. Three weeks!" Jess got up from her seat to sit down across from Kitty. "We love you--I love you--but this has got to give." This entire conversation should be happening in private. I'm glad the boys left before she got too far into it, but this isn't Concerned Friend behavior; this is someone who's after drama. -- "I'm not so sure I want to do this again. I don't want to be afraid of my bathroom forever," Anna said. "Do you want to be the one to tell Jess that?" I think we all had that friend whose force of personality and hair-trigger temper just made it easier to go along rather than turn what should be a simple 'no thanks' into a huge fight. Monahan writes Jess so well-- she's charismatic and can be sweet and charming, but man. Manipulative friend flashbacks ahoy. -- Jess, she isn't a zoo exhibit. -- "Talk to us, Mary. Tell us your story." She's coming out of the mirror and you're looking for an interview?? Ladies, throw Jess to the ghost and go. -- Poor Mary. She's dead and trapped, and now she has this asshole taunting her. -- 'They were coming to help, and had I not been so terrified, I'd have appreciated exactly how brave that was.' I love Anna and Kitty. -- She's using bath salts to fight Bloody Mary; I love this kid. -- Jess you ASSHAT -- "Today was a real bi-- bear." I love Shauna's mom. -- Seeing Mary's face in her dinner plate, YIKES. (seriously, so many reflective surfaces you don't necessarily think about) -- I'm really glad Bronx can see her, too-- I know that stories like this come with a dose of 'nobody will believe me!' but it kinda makes me uncomfortable when everybody thinks the protag is seeing things or lying. -- 'Then I saw the locks on teh lockers. The shiny locks.' GAH -- Ughhhhhh this pastor needs thwacked with a mallet. -- So does Elizabeth. -- 'She (Jess) screwed up a lot, but she always made good on it later. Maybe she would make good on this, too. Maybe she would help me survive the ghost.' I think you're giving her waaaay too much credit, but for your sake I hope you're right. -- 'Cody said to keep salt on hand at all times and, unlike Jess, I tended to listen to the people who were trying to keep me alive.' OHHHHH -- "But you keep saying you're sorry, but you've never actually apologized to us. And that matters. This is scary stuff. ... Either apologize to us, instead of at us, or I'll figure out this stuff at my place." Shauna. I love. -- "I was thinking we could get someone to take the tag for you. Someone who deserves it, though, so we don't feel bad." JESS. NO. *fetches rolled-up newspaper* -- The damaged church looking like 'a hulking wood tick feeding from the ground' is a great description. -- "I'm not sure I can make the Jess friendship work. I know she apologized, but each time she reveals something she knew, each time something bad happens with Mary, I can't deal with it." Aww, Anna. I think it's a good call. -- Kitty with the epic amount of the salt in a leather purse is wonderful. -- "I'm not letting you ditch me. Us. We got into this together, we're getting out of it together." That's about the first thing Jess has said that I agree with. -- 'Jess wrapped her bat with the tape strip, the salt facing out.' Niiiiice -- 'Working to get u unhaunted and ur ignoring me. Don't b a bitch.' I'm gonna go into this book Bloody Mary style and slap Jess myself. -- 'She could have chided me because I hadn't forced Anna out of my life like she'd told me to do twice already, but she didn't. There was nothing except sympathy in her face.' I really like Cody, and hope she lives to be in the sequel. And lives through the sequel. -- 'There was a crack at the corner of her lip where the pustules had been the last time I saw her. They'd erupted, and now her smile extended up too far, into her cheek like someone had taken a razor to the edge of her mouth.' GYAHHHHHHH -- "I've got this under control." Bullllllshiiiiiit -- "If Mary cuts her, she gets her scent. It'll buy you time. We can save Kitty later." omfg shove this asshole into the mirror world please -- 'Sugar instead of salt. ... For a second, I almost let Bloody Mary have Jess for all the pain and hurt Jess had caused, but I couldn't be that person. I couldn't be Jess.' You're better than I'd probably be in that moment. -- "Go home, Jess." "But, Kitty--" "Leave. Please." Good job standing up for yourself! -- "Or the next group of girls who don't know what they're getting into." Yeah, Jess'll definitely pass on the target on her back without a qualm. -- ...I am so glad I have the sequel right here UNLEASHED: -- 'I hope this letter finds you miserable (blissfully happy) and that Joseph snores in his sleep.' Aw, Mary. I hope she finds some peace by the end of this book and her spirit gets to rest, because she never chose this. Also, that pastor needs a one-way ticket to hell, and I want Mary's spirit to be able to confront his. -- 'She (Jess) refused to fade into obscurity. Rapid-fire texts--sometimes apologies, sometimes accusations.' Naturally. Manipulators hate it when they start losing control over their targets. -- 'I bear no ill will toward your sister, so please understand that the things I put to page are for the purposes of enlightenment, not slander.' Fuuuuuuuck this guuuuuuy -- 'Whoever spares the rod hates their children' FUCK HIM TWICE -- 'If anyone had the right to rise up as an angry ghost, it was Mary Worth.' Yep. -- "I believe you." I love Shauna's mom so much, and it's great that the adults don't fall into usual uncaring stereotypes. -- "My hand reached into my pocket for my Tic Tac container of salt.' Smart. -- 'I rebuffed his late-night groping attempts. Jess had given me grief for it, saying I didn't give him a fair chance, that I'd put her in "an awkward position" because he was friends with her boyfriend. So many things I should have seen about Jess early on, so many symptoms that she was too selfish to be a good friend.' Oh boy do I understand this one. -- 'Then Jess arrived.' Of course she did. Probably to try and convince some drunk partygoers to play Bloody Mary. Creep. -- 'The pastor wished to show his contempt for the spiritually weak.' I WILL KILL. ((seriously, he needs to get a comeuppance somehow, either at Mary's hand or her poor mother's)) -- Constance. <3 I love that she held her hand, and fought to help settle her spirit. -- Oh no no no those bear traps are the WORST -- Mary's 'new' eye AUGH -- 'I recognize that he has a temper, Elizabeth, but I have faith you will comport yourself with dignity and decorum as befits a pastor's wife. He will have less reason to anger if you curb your barbed tongue.' Okay, I can't stand Elizabeth, but I hate you more. -- 'There was weight being in a person's house hours after she died. It was life put on pause, the living intending to return to her nest but denied the chance.' -- Because Jess didn't listen. Again. That poor woman could've killed herself reacting like that. -- "I deserve to talk to her!" Uhhh, no. Not if being around Mary's target makes her panic and hurt herself, you selfish little shit. -- Body horror + teeth = fuck no -- Aunt Dell is ridiculously badass and I love her -- 'I turned the corner of the house as Mary hurtled off the roof, crashing into the ground six feet away from me. The pile of dead girl twitched.' 1) AAAAAAAA 2) where is my movie -- If Mary won't go into the field, what is she scared of? -- "I salted her. It's fine." Why do I not believe you? -- 'I never told him she was alive.' oh god no wait I'm back to hating Elizabeth more ohhhh not the buried-alive thing -- The pastor, surprising no one, continues to be a dick. I adored both books for the most part; I really did want Mary to have a chance to honestly confront the people who'd abused her in life, but that's my need for a happy ending/resolution coming through even in creepy horror books. ;)
1 Comment
Apologies for not having updated recently! Between polishing up Pale Moon for publication and the kids trading off on being sick, I haven't had nearly as much time to read as I'd like. But my review for Hillary Monahan's Bloody Mary series should be up within a week!
SYNOPSIS: In this masterpiece follow-up to her critically acclaimed short story collection Cruel Works of Nature, author Gemma Amor winds 11 new, hand-illustrated tales of terror. A true artist of atmosphere and emotional horror, Amor's stories bring readers to the edge and dangles them off.Readers will journey to the depths of hell, go on a daddy-daughter date, learn what's locked in Lee's basement, watch a mother battle postpartum depression, eat the world's messiest birthday cake with Brian, and try to survive in the English countryside during the blitz.
I haven't read Cruel Works of Nature yet (eternally behind, that's me), but reading this just bumped it way up in my queue. The stories here are at turns beautiful and horrifying (sometimes both). I *love* the illustrations; they're unsettling and fit the stories perfectly. And speaking of images, Amor has some really wonderful ones in here (the Devil Kid in 'I Am Ghost' and the man next to the desk in 'Have You Seen My Dog?' spring immediately to mind) The foreword explains that 'Justine' includes rape, abuse, and suicidal ideation. And 'The Strangler' deals with postnatal depression. Very grateful to know this going in. ((and I know that some people think warning for triggers will keep people from reading that work entirely, but Justine turned out to be my favorite of the collection, seconded closely by Caleb)) Quotes/Lines: ((spoilers below!)) HAVE YOU SEEN MY DOG? -- "Are you a Doctor?...But you're a woman." UGH one of these guys. -- 'How cruel old age is, I thought, not for the first time. How cruel, and how indiscriminate.' I don't know if this line would've hit as hard as it did if my grandma wasn't in the late stages of Alzheimer's, but...yeah. -- "No, I don't believe you. I think you know something about my dog." Call for help NOW -- "He's dangerous, be careful," I croaked, rubbing my neck. Linda smiled, unconcerned. "So am I, dear" she said, lifting a giant arm and flexing her bicep.' Everybody needs a Linda. -- Aw, puppy! -- Yeah, that guy needs help and the dog needs a safer home asap. -- would you quit sending Linda away she might be able to help you -- 'Offence being the best form of defence' NOT IN THIS CASE will you at least text Linda so she can come with you or so *anyone* knows where you're going?? -- "Well, you're an idiot, Miriam, and I say that as a friend." Seconded. -- AUGH NOPE NOPE NOPE NIGHTMARES FOREVER -- oh Copper, sweetie. And poor Albert, too. I can't even imagine coming fully back to yourself and realizing *that*. PURE WATER -- "That was years ago!" "You gaffer-taped me to a lamppost dressed as a goat and shaved my bollocks." "It was a stag do! That was the whole point!" "In December." "You survived." I can absolutely picture these two idiots and I love them already. -- do not drink from that wtfffffff JUSTINE -- "Don't say it," Justine interrupts furiously. And so the guy proceeds to say it. *eyeroll* -- At least she has her mom. <3 -- 'She rubs at the skinny, pale scars around her slender wrists and feels the full force of her hate coursing through every tiny capillary in her body. She feels as if it will shoot out of her feet and speed through the earth and put roots down far into the ground, and eventually, instead of a woman, there will be a bitter, black, poison tree around which nothing will grow except thorns and weeds.' -- Ohhhhhhh. On the one hand, a smart strategy, but on the other hand god, her poor mom. -- 'Here lies Uriah Dice, she thinks. But not for long.' Make it worth it, hon. If you can. :( -- 'There are bodies, lining the valley.' The descriptions after this are terrifying. -- 'She is in a forest of silent, hanging corpses, the only living thing in the land of death.' -- 'Justine met Uriah at work, or more specifically, at a work party.' okaaaaay we're getting into flashbacks of what happened and I might end up skimming -- 'She did something she wished every day after that one for the rest of her life that she hadn't. She wiped her mouth on the back of her hand...and laughed at him.' Honey, no, none of what happens after this is your fault. More creepy guys at bars should get puked on, honestly. -- 'She packed her things wearily into a plastic crate and made her way down to the underground parking lot' no no no no -- 'CALL ME' ahhhhhh fuck *off* creep -- 'It's a woman's health clinic, with a particular role to serve: that of helping women in trouble. Women like Justine.' No. :( -- 'And she will blame herself.' Why can't I bring you into the real world long enough to hug you -- "This is all your fault," he sobbed. "Yours!" I'd say fuck off and die, but you've succeeded at the second part. God. I hope Justine finds what she needs and gets some kind of finality to all this. I'm gonna need to take a week-long break from reading entirely if this has a sad ending. ((also, the sole flaw I can find in this story is that a lot of description is given to the fact that Uriah is a fat man, and I'm hoping there are fat protagonists later in the book to kinda balance this out)) -- 'She realizes, in retrospect, that Uriah was probably in love with her, in his own, terrible way. Retrospect and hindsight are harmful things, in Justine's mind. They are clubs with which to beat herself when the world turns to black.' -- 'It doesn't matter what she says or what she does, what sentence he is given and for how long he will never, ever accept the truth of his own behavior. In his mind, he is still a boy, and that boy is not to blame. NOT MY FAULT. Suddenly, the words light up like fire in her brain. NOT MY FAULT. Justine swallows, feeling herself fill up with something hot, and powerful, and almost hopeful. It is not my fault, she thinks.' This. Story. From here to the end I was pretty much a crying mess. I AM GHOST -- 'The ritual starts in the bathroom, as many rituals do, with a knife, and a mirror.' ...therapy is sorely needed I think. -- 'Just a simple, clean white bedsheet. One that covers me from head to toe. Memorable, yet faceless. A blank. People don't remember the guy in the sheet. A humble square of fabric. The perfect disguise.' What the hell is he planning to do -- 'I stumble back. My heartbeat slows. The smile is still going. I watch in horror as the top of the kid's head starts to flip backwards like he's a fucking pez dispenser, like someone has cut his head in two with thin, impossibly sharp razor wire' AUGH RAT GIRL -- I thought the illustration for this one would be disturbing af and I WAS NOT DISAPPOINTED -- "Why do you have a girl in your basement?! I thought it was a dog or something! No way. I'm not cool with this, Lee!" Lee ignores him, grinning from ear to ear.' Bash this little creep over the head and get her *out* of there, Timmy. I'm having The Girl Next Door flashbacks and if that's the way this story starts going I'm skipping it sorry -- Okay. I can see where, from a child's perspective, Lee might honestly believe he's doing the right thing in protecting her from curious doctors and scientists and the like. He still worries me, and Timmy definitely needs to stay close and supervise and get her out if Lee goes fully awful. -- 'Lee is the exact opposite of Timmy, sure, but Timmy wonders if he really is a bad kid, at heart. Timmy doesn't get a chance to find out, unfortunately. Neither does Lee. What he gets instead, is a shiny black Audi A4 sedan, driving too fast.' oh *shit* -- 'It is a good thing that there is no mirror.' nnnnnnnnnnnnnn MY BEST FRIEND -- 'And I had to eat, didn't I? What else was I supposed to do? Starve down here?' Yiiiiiikes -- 'It could be a goddamned Wendigo for all I knew, or cared.' Foreshadowing?? -- Yep. -- 'They say that mankind has no other natural enemy, no real predator. They are wrong.' This is me never going into a wooded area ever again. HEART OF STONE -- 'As soon as she tells me this, I realize I hate Giles, even if he is only nine years old. I do not want to compete for Jenny's love. Her love belongs only to me.' Yeahhhhhh, gee, I wonder why Jenny's mom left you. -- Oh, and a restraining order? Nice. But of course you still get visitation, because fuck a kid's safety, right? -- 'So sacred, I wish I could turn her to stone, preserve her like this forever.' If anything happens to this poor kid so help me... -- 'I pocket the number, and try to forget about it, for a while. It's too soon after the last one, really. I should space things out a bit.' how many bodies do you have in your basement -- All right, no, Julie is an asshole (though more garden-variety than whatever the hell he is). You don't upset your kid; she can have two jewelry boxes for pete's sake. -- 'and if she was famous, she would belong to everyone, instead of me. I had to do something to protect her from all that. Didn't I?' Well shit. CELL BLOCK B -- "You don't get shoes on death row, McCready." Well, this bad situation just got worse. -- "Warden's coming! Better hide!" Um, yeah, I'd sure as hell say so. -- Are they in hell? Purgatory? -- "I needed to see...inside him. To see if he was like me." eeeeeeeeep A BIRTHDAY CAKE FOR BRIAN -- my only note for this story is 'AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH' THE STRANGLER -- 'Later, someone, a person like you maybe, might call it postnatal depression, but my poor kid, my darling boy, my life and soul, who has no idea what postnatal depression is, doesn't give a shit about that. He is having a full-scale toddler tantrum, which is very normal, healthy developmental thing, or so I'm told. I am not having a healthy, normal reaction to it, however.' .............. -- 'And I don't blame the kid, honestly. Because all he needs is his mother. Objectively, I can see that. I can recognize that. I just can't do anything about it.' I don't remember a whole lot from my daughter's first year of life, but I do remember these feelings. -- 'Because it is so hard to love someone so much whilst failing them with every waking breath, failing them so hard you can barely look yourself in the eye anymore, or anyone else, for that matter.' And here come the waterworks again CALEB -- The poor cat. :( -- 'Apparently splintering glass is more dangerous than the bomb blast itself, or so someone told me. Someone is always telling me something. War is a fertile land for gossip.' -- 'He had dirt on his neck and his fingernails were atrocious, black, and ragged. I swallowed back my disgust and surprise, and pushed him towards the table. City folk, I thought, but kept it to myself.' Orrrr traumatized child? The kid's running from a war zone; I doubt a manicure is high on his list of priorities. -- What kind of creepy-ass cat-murdering rituals is Johnny up to while you're busy judging parents who've sent their son away for his own safety? -- 'Is there curse on my farm? First the cat, then the milk, and now the chickens. Because, you see, two things concern me greatly, in relation to that. A boy, who came on the train, a boy who never talks, not ever, not a single word at all. This all started happening around the time he arrived.' Lady... -- I like the doctor; listen to the doctor. -- "Stay with me," she pleaded, and so of course I did. I put my arm around her and watched as she opened the telegram.' :( -- Ohhhh, so now Johnny is stealing hair from your brush. Yes, this is perfectly normal. RUN PLZ -- "Come out," he said in an odd, quiet voice. "Why won't you come out, darling? It's your Edward. I've come back for you." GET A GUN -- I love the ending of this one!! SYNOPSIS: These are tales of wickedness... stories of evil and cunning, written by today's women you should fear. Includes tales from Kelley Armstong, Rachel Caine and Sherrilyn Kenyon, writing in their own bestselling universes.
Hex Life: Wicked New Tales of Witchery will take the classic tropes of tales of witchcraft and infuse them with fresh, feminist perspective and present-day concerns--even if they're set in the past. These witches might be monstrous, or they might be heroes, depending on their own definitions. Even the kind hostess with the candy cottage thought of herself as the hero of her own story. After all, a woman's gotta eat. Bring out your dread. The lineup in this anthology is not to be BELIEVED. So many authors I already love and some I'd been meaning to read. And there are a couple of short stories set in larger universes that I haven't gotten into yet, so that was a nice preview. Thank you, Night Worms! <3 My favorites: Widows' Walk Home: A Morganville Vampires Story The Deer Wife Bless Your Heart Last Stop on Route Nine Haint Me Too Gold Among the Black How to Become a Witch-Queen Honorable mention to The Night Nurse, which was amazingly well-done but I am never reading it again because it got into PPD a little too well. Quotes/Lines: ((spoilers below!)) AN INVITATION TO A BURNING -- Lovely opening paragraph. -- "And if I were a witch, and here you are alone with me, with no matches in sight, what do you think would happen then?" I approve of your sass, Sage. -- I love the feeling of connection and found family in this ritual. WIDOW'S WALK -- 'Once only Martha lived there but the others gradually shifted into it as husbands shuffled off mortal coils, either naturally or otherwise.' WHAT A LINE. -- Oh Chelsea, poor kid. -- 'She's old enough to understand that her position is one of shame; not because of the theft so much as being a child whose parents cannot feed them adequately. The shame isn't hers, but she still feels it, suffers for it on her mother's behalf.' :( -- "Your penance will be to come here for breakfast before school every weekday. And after school, there will be chores." ... "Until your debt is worked off or you're no longer hungry." I love them. -- "Who should take Mr. Landreneau?" "Me. I love a bully," says Eugenie. **pledging fealty to all these badass ladies** -- "Now, now, girl. If you can't say anything nice don't say anything at all." Virginia where were you when I was in middle school -- DAMN, Eugenie. Not screwing around at all. I love it. -- Ohhhh. Have I mentioned how wonderful Angela Slatter's stuff is? Because yes. I haven't found a story of hers yet that I haven't loved. BLACK MAGIC MOMMA: AN OTHERWORLD STORY -- "I don't believe you are aware of what you possess, Miss Levine." Yep, totally am. But go ahead and explain it to me anyway.' Heh. I like her. -- "That's Tiffany. She's a total bitch." "Savannah..." "Sorry, Mom. I should roll up the window before I call her that." I adore this child and will definitely look into this series. -- 'Once Dora surrenders-- well, the third time she surrenders, the first two being fake-outs, which I expect' I love the fighters-who-respect-each-other's-tactics trope. -- I love you lady behind the counter please do not die for trying to help. -- I really like Dora. I hope she shows up in the series more. THE NIGHT NURSE -- 'Two year olds, constitutionally, are passive-aggressive. It's literally a hallmark of their personalities.' Yep. -- 'and then socks, always socks! No one could ever find, match, or put on their own socks!' TRUTH. -- 'Esme had tried to befriend these women, but they happened to be the same kinds of women who read Eat, Pray, Love and considered Love, Actually the best movie of all time. They were lovely women who would raise lovely children and Esme had nothing in common with them.' *checks author credit* Get out of my head, Sarah Langan -- 'So she got up and held the baby. Offered her breast, which the baby bit, tearing up the scab that had just healed. "I don't want you," she cooed sweetly, because babies don't understand English.' Yeahhhh, that is not a good sign. -- 'Spencer threw fits when she was late, which it turns out is normal for a two-year-old, but somehow unacceptable at a preschool for two-year-olds.' Right??? -- "Oh. Should I cram this baby I'm holding back in my vagina?" she asked. YOW. YOU TELL 'EM. Also, poor Esme. I'm getting secondhand stress/memories of my own PPD just from reading this. -- The ointment concerns me, and I do not trust Wendy one bit. Esme should have a proper support system, not a do-nothing husband and a woman she met at a museum who I'm pretty sure bewitched her somehow. The whole 'oh, I'll work with you on payment' just means the price will be WAY too high. -- 'She got the text from Mike that he'd be coming home late. He had this pattern since they'd started having kids. He stayed away util they were sleep-trained.' Fuck you, Mike. If the Night Nurse really is some kind of monster hopefully she'll eat you. -- "You can't have my references because you're not my employer." Liking Wendy a little more now. Get that asshole. -- 'Wendy smiled at the baby and she smiled more at Esme, like she mattered. Like she was a person who could be seen.' Oh, honey. You need help, and what got into your house because your husband's an unsupportive ass? (please don't let anything happen to her or those kids) -- 'The next day Mike slept in because it was Saturday and he was tired.' And she isn't?? -- "It's voodoo," Marlene whispered. "I can smell it on the children. You're marked." UM. -- "Can you feed him? I left a bottle," she asked Mike. Mike popped a last beer, and answered like he'd only vaguely heard. "Sure." She'd been through this before. Sure meant absolutely not, but she decided to let it play out.' My hatred for Mike is bright and unending. -- Wendy keeps ignoring her when she suggests it's time to leave oh nooooo -- Oh my GOD these judgmental preschool dipshits. "I trust you'll give me my money back. A false accusation of child abuse is a big deal. I can't imagine you'll keep your accreditation if I sue." GET 'EM ESME. -- 'Ritah's mom asked Esme to babysit. "You realize I'm drowning and you've never once offered to watch Lucy, right?" MY GIRL, there you go. Now do Mike. -- Ask Marlene for help!! She might know what to do. It's not going to be as easy as throwing stuff away. -- Oh no. No, no no. That is the stuff of nightmares I cannot handle this. THE MEMORIES OF TREES -- ...please be a more lighthearted one I need it after that. -- 'The Faithful intended to hang the child at dusk.' Oh, well then. Okay. -- I have read two more paragraphs and I want every one of the Faithful to die slowly and horribly. -- The more things change, huh? -- 'Our weapons are older, stronger,' the trees responded. 'We will not let you fall, little one.' <3 -- 'Elder Barrow's expression didn't waver, except to allow a tiny, almost imperceptible smile.' Looking forward to your brutal death. -- 'We spared the children, who ran away into the woods. Little Ellena had asked for that, and we obliged.' Good on you, kid. HOME: A MORGANVILLE VAMPIRES STORY -- "Way to waste your blood donations," Shane said, and nodded at the cuts that had opened up in Oliver's hand.' A vampire getting pissy that someone's opening a rival coffeeshop across the street? I love it. -- 'He had a family to protect, not just from the random hunger pangs of some nightstalker, but from the things even the vampires feared.' oooooh. *curious about this series* -- "If you draw that stupid thing, I'm going to have to refuse service," Jane said. "And cook that arm for my dinner. Oh, who am I kidding. I'll feed it to the cat." Yikes? -- Shane you dumbass -- Fluffy vampire bunny slippers? Myrnin, I adore you. -- "If I'd found you gadding about, I'd have burned you on the spot, Myrnin." Shane felt a chill, because Oliver's voice was no longer cool. It was vicious, and completely serious.' So he acts like that even now, and used to murder witches? ...let Jane have him. -- "Pot, kettle," Shane muttered, and she at least pretended not to hear, which was good, because he liked his internal organs on the inside.' *snerk* -- "Do you like my new familiar? I thought he'd be useful. Oliver seemed concerned for his safety. Unusual. He normally doesn't care about the mayflies." okay that is creepy -- "Hundreds of thousands of innocents slaughtered to find a handful of genuine threats. Isn't that right, sugar?" "Yes," Amelie said quietly. "But that began before my time, or Oliver's." "You took up the cause happily enough." "It's what we were taught," Oliver said. "Is that what you want to hear? An apology for that?" "Oh no, sweetie. I'm not here for your regret. I'm here for your blood." ngl I'm still kinda on Jane's side here -- "Back away from me, boy." "Or what?" Michael, you do not seem to have much common sense. -- "Don't offer up your blood for him." "I'm not. I'm offering it up for this town. There are a lot of innocents here. You talked about how many were killed to get to you, right? I'd like to avoid that here." ...please don't die -- "Tell your friends how I died, Oliver." "The times were different," he said. what did you DO you asshole -- ...go straight to hell Oliver, wtf -- "Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven. Take us home, my love." Awwwww. -- "Even for Morganville, that was weird." I'm buying all of these books. THE DEER WIFE -- 'She has killed those who cross her. She has scared men to death. If you're out in the woods at night and you hear her song, it'll be the last sound you ever know. But the stories, they're all half-truths.' This is a beautiful piece so far; I love these women and their relationship. -- ...sorry, if he was gonna get drunk and violent then he had it coming. Hope the kid's not showing the same tendencies; if he starts in then get the hell out of Dodge. -- Okay, fuck him forever for even trying that. Get out, Julie. -- *heart eyes* THE DANCER -- "They don't mean it." Mrs. Weaver smiled at Baker, you know how children exaggerate.' Ugh. -- "Oh, you don't need to tell this part," Mrs. Weaver said, staring at her shoes. Poor Ani. She and her brother need parents who give a shit about them instead of maintaining appearances. -- "We are a family, Mr. Baker. We're going to live as one." Even if it means tying up your kid?? -- "Ani, if you come with me, I will bring you to Burlington and find a place for you for the night." Bless you. -- 'The repercussions of taking Ani wouldn't be slight, but Baker had a good lawyer, and he wasn't afraid. This wasn't the first time.' Hello yes I would like an entire series of Baker being an epic badass and getting abused kids out of bad situations. -- ...okay I didn't see that coming. BLESS YOUR HEART -- The first paragraph of this just kicked my anxiety into overdrive. PTA politics, noooo -- 'It was the end of church for her. It would have been the end of the entire town if she could have swung it.' I love you. ((please let her son be okay)) -- "Well, you know how kids can be--" he started.' Kill him. -- "Eh, a few of them were involved" "the bully's not a *bad* kid" fuuuuuuck youuuuuu -- Oh, Tuck, sweetheart. -- 'Isolating a gay kid in a red county...she knew how that went. He'd end up broken, running off, or dead. And I ain't losing my boy.' I love you, agree with you, and will provide an alibi if necessary. ((seriously, she's not brushing this off or thinking 'oh, he just has to get through this and he'll be fine'; she knows and flat-out acknowledges how bad this can get without sugar-coating it in her own head and that is So Important)) -- "Not the time, Audrey! Not the damned time, all right?" Should've listened sooner, asshole. -- The. Last. Line. THE DEBT -- oh shit, that paragraph about the one time she ever wore a dress. -- 'hopeful that the reason her dad had suddenly been so eager to take her to the country of his birth was because he wanted to rekindle the warmth they had lost.' *looks at story title* *looks at theme of anthology* Yeah I doubt it. -- Baba Yaga reference yesssss -- If you did this to your little girl on purpose I swear -- "This settles your debt." Your debt might be settled with her but now I get to kill you, them's the rules. TOIL & TROUBLE: A DARK-HUNTER HELLCHASER STORY -- Without her...humans are screwed. Sounds about right. -- "Not the most original of prophecies, is it?" "Nay. Seems as if patricide be the crime of the hour. How very gauche." I like how this started all formal and then went full snark. -- I like Eeri a lot; she's actually giving the people who want help honesty. She's still *trying*. (I can see the witches' cynicism, being ageless and all, but...yeah.) Also, instead of them letting Eeri go and asking her to apprentice of her own free will, they keep her as a slave and have the gall to think her 'treacherous'? You're lucky she hasn't played steal-the-eyeball. -- okay so that's definitely the same creeper in disguise RUN -- "But you judged your sisters for your crimes and for that you are damned." Wait, what? Those weren't her sisters; they were her owners. She panicked and ran after being directly threatened, how is that damnation material?? And I just looked her up on Kenyon's website and her character profile still says 'slave', just apparently to a demon or somesuch now? No thanks. (I haven't read anything else in the series; if I misread something here or Eeri does get a happy ending, please DM me on Twitter and let me know!) LAST STOP ON ROUTE NINE -- "My dad got locked up here," Kai said. "He said that place was just a bunch of rednecks who hurt kids for fun. And he said Gracetown is haunted as shit." Poor kid. I'd be twitchy around there, too. -- So the grandma sent him to a creepy 'Reformatory' and then said he needed therapy as an insult when he didn't bounce back all happy-cheery afterwards? What a sweet lady. -- "What if we get pulled over? And I get locked up for no reason like him?" Oh honey. Why can't I do battle with this society and win dammit -- "There's a house. I'm just going to knock on the door and ask for directions." NO -- "That's crazy!" Kai said. "Haven't you ever seen Deliverance?" Listen to the kid please and thanks -- 'She still remembered a black woman's name: Renisha McBride. And there were others. But she also wasn't going to let fear rule her life. It was broad daylight. She was lost. She was dressed for church. She would be fine.' No no no no live in fear for just the next five minutes please -- "Lock up behind me. I'll be right back." oh no not The Words -- 'Then Charlotte noticed the Confederate flag' DRIIIIIIVE -- worry about the car later just GO -- well shit -- "We didn't!" Kai screamed at her. "Someone hit us!" "Kai...calm down. Breathe." No, Kai is showing exactly as much panic as the situation requires, do not get out of the...you're getting out of the car, aren't you. -- 'Kai's gratitude vanished, replaced by bitter fright. "You still don't get it!" True. Don't get me wrong, I want Charlotte to get out of there but it's so much worse for Kai because he's a kid and he's trying So Damn Hard to get her to LISTEN and she won't, and she's not going to be the only one to pay if this really goes south. -- "I have to see if he got thrown." OH MY GOD LADY. -- "Tell him...what? He won't believe you." "Yeah, he will," Kai said, sure of it.' I think I'd like Harry a lot. WHERE RELICS GO TO DREAM AND DIE -- "If you had it all to do over again, how would you want to die?" Well THERE'S an opener. -- The spirit in the candle flame (and how it got there) is both nicely done and Utterly Terrifying -- "You've been affable company these years." ... "Thank you," she said. "So have you." <3 <3 <3 -- "While you slept I took from you all that I need to make a child of our own." Um. They knew each other and loved each other and he pretty much just willingly died for her but that is still kinda disturbing. THIS SKIN -- 'I didn't have to introduce myself. He already knew who I was. What he didn't know was I was prepared to tell him everything. As soon as it had happened, I'd known I wanted to tell someone. What was the point of doing it if no one knew it was you?' o___O -- AUGHHHHHH -- okay that was just a full-body shudder of a story HAINT ME TOO -- 'She didn't like work and she didn't want to be in the house with those mean kids. They were always doing things to hurt her. She wanted to tell her parents, but she knew that it would just make them upset. They couldn't do anything about it. That was just how it was.' *rooting for the haint to eat the family* -- "Those pots from upstairs need chucking out back, Our Nig." ...die -- 'Somehow, they often reminded her, this wasn't slavery-- that had ended forty years before. No, this was sharecropping.' I need a time machine and a flamethrower. -- 'Somehow the family never remembered her name. Her parents had given her a name but it must have been too hard to remember.' Oh sweetie, no, don't give them even that much benefit of the doubt they're just assholes -- Okay these kids can go straight to hell -- "Business. You know a few years ago you wouldn't have even known the word." *flames on the side of my face gif* -- "I will not die as a free woman running from these men." She walked into the house, grabbed the rifle off the mantel, and came back out. "I won't leave you." Hello yes I would die for you just thought you should know -- 'White people did not like ghosts, Shea reasoned, because they were not controllable. They didn't like Negro women ghosts because they were angry.' godDAMN what a line -- I haven't read any of Burke's stuff before and what the hell, self. Shame. THE NEKROLOG -- 'I seem to recall an urgent, whispered conversation with Dad when she discovered a birth certificate stamped with a six-pointed star. I was told never to mention this to anyone and Mom's look was so serious, so desperate, that I never did.' ..... -- 'I don't blame them. Only they didn't let me hold her in the end.' Ummmm. Your kid is not dead -- 'But I was told they had died and I was an orphan and all this was for my own good. They didn't indulge my grief. We were all grief-stricken.' GO MAGNETO ON THESE ASSHATS, GIRLS -- 'We learned to love one another. This was the first thing though it wasn't what they intended to teach us.' *found family feelings, send help* GOLD AMONG THE BLACK -- I have now adopted Greta and Jesper and nothing bad is ever allowed to happen to either of them. -- 'She preferred to stay with him even if it meant sleeping in the forest.' This darling. -- 'But Liesl wouldn't stop. "They say that dog is your familiar and he can change shapes." Hell. No. I see where this might be going and it's not allowed. -- <3 HOW TO BECOME A WITCH-QUEEN -- 'The list of things queens cannot say is a long one, and you have not said them for most of your life.' -- 'If you had been given a choice, you would have stayed in the forest with the dwarves--or the huntsman.' Snow White adaptation!! *love for this story immediately increases tenfold* -- 'It is tiresome to ask permission, but you have had to ask permission from men all your life-- your father, your husband. Only in the forest were you free.' -- "And perhaps I shall take Dorothea with me. The nuns will know how to assuage the grief of an emotional girl." Nicely done. -- 'He had never asked you if you still went to the king's bed. He knew that queens have no choice in such a matter.' I am rooting so hard for you both. -- 'You knew that whatever inn you stop at, she will arrange it so that for the first time in fourteen years, you will spend the night with the man you love.' *flail* -- I really like the setup of the dwarf families. -- Ermengarde. I love it. -- The relationship she has with Wilhelm is wonderful. "Want to be King after I defeat your brother's army?" "Yeah sure sounds good" -- BATTLE GHOST WOLVES I am buying all of Goss's stuff -- 'The three of you standing there, resemble the three Fates.' SYNOPSIS: Deep in a Wyoming mine, hell awaits. Nat Blackburn is given an offer he can't refuse by President Teddy Roosevelt. Tales of gold in the abandoned mining town of Hecla abound. The only problem - those who go seeking their fortune never return. Along with his constant companion, Teta, a hired gun with a thirst for adventure, Nat travels to a barren land where even animals dare not tread. Black-eyed children, strange lights and ferocious wild men venture from the deep, dark ghost mine...as well as a sinister force hungry for fresh souls.
Former Rough Riders investigating a haunted mine. Auto-buy. Weird Western is one of my favorite genres, esp. when we get into the 'horror' side of weird. I've read some of Shea's books before, and he always has a fun, easygoing writing style and memorable characters. When Matthias and Angus appeared, I thought that maybe they'd end up being recurring characters throughout a series of his books. That doesn't seem to be the case, but it easily could have been: both were larger than life (pretty much literally, in Angus's case) and felt very fleshed-out. The monsters are fantastically done, with some great creative explanations behind them. (the DOG, you guys. I'm not going to give any spoilers right here, but just trust me and buy this for the scene with the dog) Quotes/lines: ((spoilers below!)) -- 'He wanted to be a miner like his daddy. For now, this was as close as he could come.' This is not gonna end well. Be careful, kid (and leave the mice alone!) -- Ohhhh, so we're gonna slingshot at cave rats now instead. This is a good idea. -- Poor rat. Burying it is a nice gesture, but hopefully next time you won't kill one to begin with. -- 'Something heavy crashed in the Stygian depths behind him.' Never mind, not gonna be a next time. Bye, kiddo, sorry. -- "Uh-uh-uh, Billy. It's not nice to take away my pets." oh okay I see we've already reached the OH HELL NO part of the book -- 'Scott and I knew each other from a brief stint in the Apache Wars' It might not be fair, sign of the times and all that, but I'm kinda predisposed not to like you. -- "Indians? I thought most of them were settled by now." Settled??? *bitter laughter* -- Being more concerned with the gold than with the soldiers who disappeared trying to find it? Yeah, rings true. -- "Yes, yes, yes. I know you want to talk to the complaint department. But you're being rude. I'm in the middle of a conversation with my friend here." I love you, Teta. Questionable nickname or no. -- "So you got a bunch of books, and only one bottle of whisky." Same, Teta, same. -- 'For the first time in my life, I kinda liked trains.' *snerk* Also, I love the schoolteachers, all heading for new jobs together and a couple deciding to have a fling on the train. I know they're probably not going to show up again, but they seem like fun and I wish they played a bigger part. -- 'The buttons on the front of her shirt were working hard to keep things together.' Between this and the women on the train, that's probably enough about breasts. I get it, they're there. ;) -- "I don't like this," Teta said. "It feels like we're buried alive." "In a way, we are." "Thank you, Nat. I needed your reassurance." Pfffft. I do love the bond between these two. -- 'The mines were the heart of Hecla, the reason for it ever being a town. I guess I just wanted to see if the heart was as dead as the rest of the body.' <3 -- "Do you have any food?" the girl asked. "We could use some water," the boy added.' I want to say 'poor kidlets', but I'm leaning more toward "black-eyed children SHUT THE DOOR" -- I KNEW IT (also, Billy, is that you??) -- Selma! <3 -- "I'm almost afraid to ask how you came by that name." I held up a warning hand. "Don't ask and he won't tell. You don't want to know." I'll go with that. -- You maaaaaay want to tell Selma about the black-eyed kids now. -- Ohhhh shit. Poor Lucille. -- I am an eternal sucker for the fighting (or retreating) back-to-back trope. -- 'At that moment, I didn't care if it was the second coming of Jesus. If that was the disguise he chose, his father couldn't blame me for taking a shot.' What a line. -- So I'm thinking this thing disguised itself as an old man and a dog? If so, that's a very The Thing-esque tactic and I LOVE. -- oh my god the DOG I want this to be made into a movie solely for that moment -- Geez, Nat, at least give her a chance to turn away. -- "Let's leave while we're still alive to do it." Amen, Teta. Though they're packed up and we're only halfway through the book, so something's going to keep them there. -- "The dog. Did you at least have the decency to bury the dog?" There it is. -- 'They were the smart ones. Leave it to the white man to stumble into this nightmare.' Fair. (and I think maybe Teddy isn't as fond of you as you think) The whole Apache Wars thing still gives me pause, but his fighting alongside Native Americans as well is at least a good sign. -- "This is where my companion and I have been headed ever since we heard the Trumpets of Armageddon." oh NO please don't tell me we're going into Creepy Cultist territory -- "The only cowboys I knew who thought fighting had to be fair never lived long enough to learn the error of their ways," I said. -- 'Matthias called out, "Would it be a bother if one of you told us what was going on out there?" I'm starting to like this weirdo. -- "How do you explain your inability to cross that barrier and the changing of the day into night? Think, Mr. Blackburn. I may be a reverend, but I don't have the power of Jesus to do such things." He has a point. -- "I don't hear anything," he said in a hush. "You can't," Angus said. "The dead don't talk to you. I'll go to them now." I love Angus. -- "I am going to kick Teddy's ass when I see him." Well-earned. (the kids, though, bless) -- 'I was growing irritable and had to suppress the urge to choke him. This confirmed for me that he was, indeed, Matthias.' Dorks. -- Okay so she's not a djinn but what the HECK -- Lucille, noooo. There had better be something more for her than that. -- ...sorry Nat but this thing with the dog when you were a kid kiiiinda makes me hate you -- 'If this was hell, it tore me up inside to think that this is where she ended up, just like the preacher had warned me when we made plans for her burial.' Imma just take a quick detour into the book to kick a preacher's ass, brb -- 'He (Matthias) said knowledge was power and there was no reason to hide anything from her just because she was a woman. I wasn't in a mood to argue.' Not that there's anything to argue about. ((also Matthias and Angus are now My Boys and I want a whole series of them driving around fighting ghosts and demons and such)) -- "You're one twisted bastard," I snarled. "I invented twisted bastards." Point one to the Devil. -- I like the parasitic spy take. -- Walking in an actual cross formation to go confront demons. LEGENDS. -- I never thought I'd say this, but I adore the black-eyed children. -- 'The adult spirits swept over us like a wave, jumping ahead of the children. It made sense. They had been their parents at one time, and were going to protect them even beyond death.' This book is not supposed to make me teary-eyed dammit. -- 'I don't think mocking Satan is such a good idea.' Heh. -- Nooooooo -- That ending; I'm cackling. SYNOPSIS: H.H. Holmes committed ghastly crimes in the late 19th century. Many of which occurred within his legendary "Murder Castle" in Chicago, Illinois. He is often considered America's first serial killer. In her second book of poetry from Strangehouse Books, Sara Tantlinger (Love For Slaughter) takes inspiration from accounts and tales which spawned from the misdeeds of one Herman Webster Mudgett, better known as Dr. Henry Howard Holmes. Fact and speculation intertwine herein, just as they did during the man's own lifetime. There's plenty of room in the cellar for everyone in The Devil's Dreamland.
I received this book in the latest Night Worms package. Could not resist; tore through it in an hour and then read it over again today, slowly this time. When I first heard about horror poetry I was skeptical, but I Am Not Your Final Girl made an instant believer out of me and I was thrilled to get this one. ((I'm actually researching the 1893 Chicago World's Fair for part of my NaNo; serendipity)) Also, I'm on a Prodigal Son kick and some of the verses here make me wonder if Holmes might've been any inspiration for the character of Dr. Whitly, like Gein was for Buffalo Bill. I mean: "The doctor smiles, an easy charmer loquacious stories dripping endlessly from that mouth. The castle shudders witness to the drugs, sedation and seduction, overly familiar with the way human anatomy looks like sliced deli meat" Yeah. There's a touch or two of dark humor here, but overall the book is absolutely haunting; no shying away at all from how horrifying this guy was. The poems "Silence on the Morning After" and "Evidence" especially necessitated breaks before reading on. My favorites: The Bloodletting of a New Century Innocence Like Birdsong The First Wife: Clara The Tenant The Great Chicago Fire of 1871 Lips Bitten Raw World's Columbian Exposition (Chicago World's Fair) Unblessed Excavation Quotes/lines: "I want to tell you what I was supposed to be but instead I am going to show you the demon I created." "protectors of life robbing the dead of their eternal resting beds because demand is high, and they must have bodies" "They rebuild me and I become the Great White City, fit for a Great White Shark of a human being." "Take the insatiable thirst of Dracula and his bug-eating Renfield, both consuming life-forces because the answer is always blood" "but love terrorizes competent thought processes, doesn't it?" "entwining murder and luxury like salt and sugar placed gently on the tongue where each tiny grain dissolves in a way blood never will." "as if to sleep, to die, no chance of dreaming, no nobility in this poisoned death as the tragedies and great sonnets would have you believe" "For to peer into the eyes of a killed devil leads only to curses upon your own heart" SYNOPSIS: In this mosaic horror/crime novel, ghosts and old gods guide the hands of those caught up in a violent struggle to save the soul of the American southwest. A man tasked with shuttling children over the border believes the Virgin Mary is guiding him towards final justice. A woman offers colonizer blood to the Mother of Chaos. A boy joins corpse destroyers to seek vengeance for the death of his father. These stories intertwine with those of a vengeful spirit and a hungry creature to paint a timely, compelling, pulpy portrait of revenge, family, and hope.
I'm not entirely sure where to start, except for I love this book wholeheartedly. It's unlike anything I've ever read, and Iglesias made my auto-buy list right away. The format of the book, following several characters in short sections with many of them connecting near the end, was really well done; it brought together the feelings of a novel and of a good anthology. The subject matter is dark; the book absolutely kicked my ass but it wasn't the type of nihilistic darkness that would make me regret reading it in the first place. Quotes/lines: ((spoilers below!)) PEDRITO -- 'Pedrito knew they didn't really think the fish was a ghost that lived in dead water, but that telling him these things was the best way to teach him about the creature, the best way to get him to pay attention and prevent him from underestimating the enormous fish and its mouthful of daggers.' Having seen alligator gar, yes to all of this. (also, 'a ghost that lived in dead water' is so evocative) -- The mix of Spanish and English threw me off a little bit at first (it's been way too long since high school Spanish) but it honestly surprised me how much I can understand due to context and remembering more than I thought I did. I can only imagine that some editors would've balked at the decision to do this, and I'm glad it stayed like it is. -- 'When fishing, nothingness was full of possibility, quietness was a timeless inhalation before a scream, and inaction was just a fuse of indeterminate length before an explosion.' I've been fishing before and was never a fan, but this kid's clear love for it is actually making me feel nostalgic. -- OH FUCK -- Oh Pedrito, sweetie, no no no RUN KID -- what the everloving hell you racist asshole if you want to kill yourself then do it without taking someone else with you THE MOTHER -- I want to hug this lady so much. -- 'all that was left was emptiness, an all-consuming hollowness that she couldn't fill regardless of what she did or thought. ... She was stuck in a perennial state of agitated stagnation.' She's in a much different situation, but hello there depression/PPD. -- Body horror x 1000 AUGH THE COYOTE -- 'and castrating rapists doesn't help children get across the border' No, but damn is it satisfying. -- 'She thanked him in a cracked voice that reminded him of those dolls that talk after you pull a string on their back.' -- 'If they look too good, too healthy, the fucking gringos will do everything in their power to send them back to whatever hell they came from. Hurt them just right and a better future will make their scars feel like blessings. Pain is sometimes the only path to deliverance.' If you'll excuse me I'm gathering matches to burn down the world JAIME -- 'No, the only thing he could do was wonder why he couldn't do anything now, why he felt like he was frozen, and why that frozen feeling locked him in place and forced him to stay in his room, without the need for barbed-wire fences or guards. ... He knew these simple tasks would help him escape the trap he was setting himself. Unfortunately, moving his body struck him as an impossibility, something that could only be accomplished with the help of a few strong men.' This sounds like the worst case of executive dysfunction ever. Poor guy. -- Kick his ass, Jaime! -- oh shit he deserved it but the cops won't bother understanding that run ALMA -- 'The idea was there, an unformed thing waiting for her to shape it into words, but the space it had to travel to get from her brain to the page was apparently plagued by hungry predators.' This seems particularly relevant at the beginning of NaNo. ;) -- Okay the rest of this section is going to be me quoting my favorite parts because THIS SECTION. I do not even have words. It's horrifyingly beautiful. -- 'I hear her voice in my blood say that no person should ever be owned and that laughing in the face of death is better than having to live as abused property.' -- 'and a kid becomes a walking miracle as she crosses the border without being raped or abused or denigrated' -- 'I hear the obscene screams of angry gods who were forced to dress their black skin in whiteness to survive once their devotees were brought to the Caribbean. Their strength is there, coursing through the streets like blood courses through my veins, because we still call their names, pray to them, light candles, offer them tiny deaths and food and fire and dreams.' -- 'and a million other dumb comments that scholars say I should call 'microaggressions' but that sometimes feel anything but micro.' -- 'I hear the cultures that came together to make my blood scream at the fact that no one wanted things to turn out the way they did.' -- 'I hear all this and more, and then I open my eyes and read about others wanting "pure blood," wanting to keep their racial purity, their god a blue-eyed hipster, their bastardized language intact. That makes me laugh with closed fists. You don't know the beauty of flavor, pendejo. You keep your dumb ideas of purity and I'll revel in the music of my mixed blood, my mutt blood, my earthly blood, my multitudinous blood, my brown and Rican and black and European and white and African blood, my eternal, magic, ancient blood.' This was the first section of the book that I read, an excerpt that the writer posted on Twitter, and I bought it straight away. -- 'To do it, she will need more than words.' Honey. What're you doing? Please don't hurt yourself. The tone of your thoughts makes me nervous. ((just do a performance art piece of what you just wrote; anyone unaffected wouldn't be reachable anyway)) LA BRUJA -- ooooh, ghost story -- 'finding each other in that same miraculous way loose hairs in a house can find each other and morph into small balls of discarded human' -- 'The third hour brought with it rumors of abandonment.' Oh no. No. -- 'The children were the first to go.' I am not emotionally equipped for this oh god -- 'Inmaculada swore revenge against the men who had done this to them, swore she'd stick around until all the coyotes were dead and there was enough blood along the border to make powerful people take care of the problems that had put them in that trailer.' how do i hug a ghost -- 'The thing that had screamed that night was the soul of a shattered, hurt mother facing the loss of everything she loved, and that is something even the Devil should fear.' godDAMN. PEDRITO -- Pedrito!! I was wondering when the stories would start connecting. -- 'He also knew that what he was going to do would be bad but, as his abuelo told him more than once, sometimes bad things are right.' Pedrito, sweetie, what are you up to? -- I love that the taxi driver tried to give him his rosary. THE MOTHER -- 'The dishes were waiting for her hands. She hadn't cooked in two days, and there was no more bread or tortas in the house. The laundry was a stinky, multicolored pile near the bathroom door that she hadn't dared to look at in days for fear of what she'd see moving around in there if she did.' Honey. THE COYOTE -- Clemencia I adore you -- 'President Pendejo' accurate af -- listen to Clemencia sir JAIME -- 'Jaime smashed his open hand against the steering wheel three times, and abandoned the last shreds of common sense.' Not good not good. -- I saw it coming but noooo. ALMA -- 'She knew her only real job was creating something that hadn't existed until the moment she brought it to life.' <3 -- 'That's when Alma heard the giggling coming from the closet.' Congrats book you just joined the 'scared the hell out of me' ranks LA BRUJA -- 'She was a goddess standing on the dividing line between right and wrong, her head among the angels and her tired feet bathed in the blood of innocents.' PEDRITO -- 'La Casa de la Muerte'? Yes, that sounds like a very safe place to approach alone -- YIKES THE MOTHER -- 'She was going to kill that fucking thing, or die trying.' I do not know whether you're right and I should root for you or whether this is some kind of grief-induced psychosis and you need help. A particularly horrifying metaphor for depression? THE COYOTE -- 'One of them started kneeling, his mouth running in what surely was an apology or a desperate prayer, but La Virgencita moved. She brought her arms behind her back and then back to the front again. Two Sig Sauers 1911, just like the one the coyote carried around.' ...this is the most amazing mental image ever -- okay, holy missions never end well would you please listen to Clemencia JAIME -- oh no I don't want to read about him actually dying, I like the kid. He hurt a wife-beater; he did the right thing. -- 'Tiny colorful angels. Misplaced Christmas lights.' **crying** ALMA -- 'She was angry and frustrated, and something was telling her that making assholes bleed was the only way to improve her mood.' As much as I understand, please do not get yourself killed. -- "I assure you people will talk about it for months." UM. LA BRUJA -- 'Seeing those people handle the bodies stirred the maelstrom of feelings inside Inmaculada until it threatened to become a black hole that would swallow the world.' -- 'She understood the scream in a way she couldn't share.' PEDRITO -- I've heard of La Llorona and El Cucuy and El Chupacabra, but not El Cadejo. -- So he has the guy killed and then he takes the shoes and leaves them for people crossing the desert with an admonishment to care about the living. Santos fascinates me. (in a stay-far-away kind of way) THE MOTHER -- 'There was a dull pain that made her think of cavities, but too many teeth were moving around in there.' eeeeeeeugh THE COYOTE -- "Thankfully the fucking sumbitches showed up early and I took them out with minimal fuzz." Padre, you obviously had one hell of a creepy past, but I can't say I don't like you now. -- "I wouldn't cross that woman." Listen to the Padre. If you go against him and Clemencia it might not be you who pays for it. -- 'Then, for the first time, he realized that the questions he had asked himself so many times were stupid. He was a brown man, and for many people, the color of his skin was as bad as the images on Padre Frank's body.' That just hit like a fist to the gut. -- I want this to go well but I'm so scared it won't. ALMA -- Alma honey, why the hell do you have machetes? -- Her 'muse' is La Bruja, I take it? -- 'Their gig was easy: barricade the front and back doors' shit -- 'She hoped this level of revenge was enough to go viral.' I'm sure it will, but it's not going to have the framing you want. LA BRUJA -- 'Anger was a planet covered in water that simultaneously obeyed the pull of too many whimsical moons.' PEDRITO -- "Once we're done with these cabrones, people on both sides of la frontera will know that fucking with kids will not be tolerated.' I wish it would work that way. THE MOTHER -- Please be killing an actual monster. I think that you were?? I'm going to assume that you were and that this has a happy ending. THE COYOTE -- OH NO I JUST REALIZED HOW THESE TIE TOGETHER LA BRUJA -- 'Destruction was part of the answer and certainly something many deserved, but it wasn't the only element necessary for change.' SYNOPSIS: Titus and Melanie Bell are on their honeymoon and have reservations in the Okefenokee Swamp cabins for a canoeing trip. But shortly before they reach their destination, the road narrows into a rickety bridge with old stone pilings, with room for only one car.
Much later, Titus wakes up lying in the middle of the road, no bridge in sight. Melanie is missing. When he calls the police, they tell him there is no such bridge on Route 177 . . . This marks the first Cherie Priest that I've read! The mood and atmosphere of the book is lovely and nostalgic and sinister all at once, and I really enjoyed that. The characters all felt real (my favorite was Netta) and I love the concept of the story. The strongest parts, for me, were Daisy, Claire, Dave, Jess, and Netta's-- Titus and Cameron weren't bad characters, but the others were more compelling, and Melanie wasn't in the book long enough to really get to know her. I'll definitely be reading/reviewing more of Priest's stuff! I mean, look at this opener: "What nobody ever tells you about gardening is...how many things you have to kill if you want to do it right." Hooked from then on. Quotes/lines: ((spoilers below!)) -- "You've got your cell phone." "I can hardly use that thing." He grinned. "You used it just fine when you wanted pizza last Friday." Familial sass. <3 -- 'fishing for anything other than the station playing Sunday worship music- the sole broadcast survivor in a wasteland of poor reception' *solidarity from Kansas* -- ...for a honeymoon, they do NOT seem happy together. -- "Throw your money on the counter. I'll get it later." Ah, super-small towns. -- "Hey, Jess," he said brightly, waving a little too cheerfully for anyone's comfort, much less his own.' Awww, dorky teenage crush! -- "You can't hardly walk, and I can't hardly see. Last time we met it...that was our last time. We knew it then, but I'm saying it now: We're too old, anymore. We did our part. It's no fault of ours, if it wasn't enough." I *love* the "people who tried to fight something years ago watch it come back and have to decide whether to fight again" trope. -- 'he should take some time and go looking for Melanie himself' You've never heard of the 'stay put when you're lost' thing, have you. -- 'One of the only lessons he remembered was the admonishment to stay put when you're lost.' I stand corrected. Titus. WHY. -- "Fifteen or twenty minutes? What if I was drowning or something? What if I was bleeding out?" "Then you'd be drowning or bleeding out in the middle of nowhere, and there are only so many police to go around." Wow, dispatch lady is having none of your shit. -- "She's not a cocker spaniel, Mr. Bell. If she's lost, anybody's voice will bring her around." Kemp. <3 -- *intrigued by Netta* -- "Here, man. Let me get you some fries or something." "I don't need any fries." "You're getting some anyway." I really like that particular kind of hospitality-between-strangers that's just, "I can tell you're in a bad way even if you won't admit it, so just shut up and let me caretake". -- 'He was tying himself in logic knots, trying to imagine a scenario where he got to spend just a few minutes in her company without her longtime boyfriend.' This is not going to end well. -- "I just want to know where Jimmy is, and how he got there. They can give me back his bones. I deserve my son's bones, don't I?" YIKES. -- 'and he was a thin guy- but that wasn't the same thing as being in good shape.' Thank you -- 'Boomer looked like some amiable mix of Saint Bernard and yeti' PUPPY. I love him already. -- 'She gave him a look that said she wanted to squish him in the world's smallest bear hug of sympathy' Betty ilu too -- So does everyone in town know about this and they go through the motions for an outsider? Pickett looked like he knew about the bridge, but Betty was confused. ??? -- LISTEN TO THE DOG. -- "She ought to know better by now. It's been long enough. She ought to move on, or go home, or just go someplace else." 'Been long enough'? 'Move on'? Her child is dead. I'm on Netta's side here. -- I love that it's just casually acknowledged that the dolls are alive. -- "Every time you talk about it, you say it different. You remember it different. ... You can't trust your memories." Your gaslighting is creepy as hell, Jess. -- 'Nah. He knew better than to ask that woman anything more in-depth than her drink order.' The way everyone treats Netta is making me wish they'd all get eaten by the swamp thing. -- "What do I do now?" ... "Oh, honey. I wish I had the slightest idea." Netta is my favorite. -- "Isn't that--?" Dave whispered, "Yeah. But don't tell the reporters it's him. He's had a shitty enough couple of days. Help me give this guy a break, for once." Dave. <3 -- 'His eyebrows lifted. "You're going to let me keep drinking?" Claire laughed. "Baby, I want to get you so liquored up you can't leave the house for the next two days. I want you staying right here, and a formal grounding will only keep you so close." Well, that's...pragmatic. I hate how they treat Netta, but I can't help but like these two. -- "You know I put my faith in a shotgun, any day of the week and twice on Sunday-- but every girl with an ounce of granny magic knows it's true: Things from other worlds don't like iron." -- "The dead in our world linger, don't they? Why not the dead from someplace else?" I LOVE THIS BOOK -- "Tell yourself whatever you want," Claire said. "Whatever lets you sleep at night, after what you did to your own flesh and blood." TELL NETTA. Don't let her keep thinking she's crazy; you know what this thing is (or at least know more than most). Befriend her, for Pete's sake. -- "We need to un-domesticate ourselves, as soon as possible." There we go, Claire. -- 'He couldn't just let her go, not like that. Not when she might be heading into some kind of danger. All alone. No sign of Dave. No one to rescue her, if it turned out she needed rescuing.' Well, Cameron, you are right about the 'desperately and stupidly' aspect of this love. -- Thank goodness for the hangover. Trailing after her would not have gone well. -- ...dammit kid. -- "It was probably just the hangover. Hangovers played tricks, too." Orrrrr it's the swamp monster playing with its food before dinner. -- "What are we gonna do? That boy is the only thing that ever grew here. The only good thing we ever tended." *heart shatters* -- "We tried to be heroes, and we only made it halfway there. I'm not even sure if it counts, but we still have time to finish the job." I LOVE THEM. All books need a pair of kickass grandmas (or godmothers) thanks -- oh my GOD Claire and Daisy kickass godmother GHOSTS i cannot handle this -- 'He was worried about the ladies too, though he couldn't have articulated exactly why.' Because you know they love you and are therefore likely following you into extreme danger? -- 'His was the trickery of true love, and no one could fault him for that.' Ummm... *raises hand* -- 'Jess would understand. She'd possibly even love him back at long last, too. Those were the rules, he was pretty sure.' **hork** -- "But now I think about Netta, and maybe it's just because of what we did, and how I can see better now, and hear better now... Daisy, I wish we'd been gentler with her." ... "Maybe we can do a little righter, this time." <3 -- 'The woman's voice, burbling and low, like running water thick with slime.' NOPE. -- "Who are you really? Talk to me yourself- quit hiding behind her voice. Use or own, or shut the fuck up." Dave, you are probably not long for this world, but points for bravery. -- 'like a scarecrow meant to lure instead of chase' -- oh shit it wasn't an unintended consequence she did it deliberately Jess you ASSHOLE -- "Promise you'll run, and you won't look back." DAVE. Also, Cameron, if he lives through this you'd best be making all the apologies later. -- Daisy. Claire. <3 -- Oh, Cameron. -- Hell no Jess is not alive and fine. Cam, go get Netta and tell her what you know; Netta deserves that confrontation and closure. -- ...you're not gonna do it, are you. -- This ending. I'm just gonna sit and stare into space for a while. Synopsis: A meek man enters a spooky theater for an all-night horror movie triple bill. An unscrupulous contractor messes with the wrong family. A single other discovers a bizarre link between her son and an unspeakable Lovecraftian horror. A con artist posing as an outcast from an Amish church gets more than he bargained for in the Indiana forest. And a college professor eager to make money by solving a decades-old cannibal atrocity learns the true meaning of terror in the Great Smoky Mountains.
In this collection of rarely-collected nightmares, you'll find tales of suspense, dread, and madness. It's time to take a journey to Jonathan Janz's Shadow Side. The second of the Night Worms exclusive books. Half the stories in this collection--Witching Hour Theatre, Old Order, and The Clearing of Travis Coble--are all available as individual short stories on Amazon. A Southern Evening had a nice twist to it and Witching Hour Theatre was wonderfully nostalgic, both in a "the community of late-night horror movies" sense and the "eighties slasher flicks" sense, but my favorite in this collection was Throwing Monsters. Quotes/Lines ((spoilers below!)) OLD ORDER -- I've known you for two and a half pages, Horace, and that's two and a half too long. -- "Dinner won't be ready for a while anyway, so you'll have plenty of good daylight to work." Ha. -- "What's that supposed to mean?" "It means you'll be gone by first light, a meal in your belly and your hands as soft as when you came." Call him out, Deek. <3 -- no wait I take it back, Deek, you can die too -- "I know who you are," the old woman said. "What I want to know is why you're in my house." Hi Agnes! ilu -- Agnes seems like such a goodhearted person (though I do hope it's a front so she can eat Horace's brain) -- Um, Belinda? Wha...? -- "Don't you have family?" "Haven't seen 'em in years." Probably because you do things like spy on girls when they're bathing you creep -- Okay what the heck is going on, is this some kind of fertility ritual? -- Please tell me all this expensive jewelry lying around the house is from all the people they've killed. -- "Or perhaps she would remember him fondly, a daring rogue who'd loved her and left without saying goodbye." ....ew. -- That's so cute, that you think they're calling the police instead of firing up the barbecue grill. -- "...Demeter..." Ooooh, harvest-related creepiness/sacrifice? -- Okaaaaaay I did NOT expect this to veer into rape/lobotomization. (I do appreciate the horrifying reveal as to what the 'pigs' are, but I'm not going to be reading this one again. Also, their nakedness 'revealing' that Daniel and Jimmy have vaginas-- why is that there? Why add that detail? Because it reads like a continuation of "look how weird and scary this family is" and ummmm.) On to the next one. Yeah. THE CLEARING OF TRAVIS COBLE -- ...does anyone know you're out here, Myers? -- You're meeting someone who's intelligent and prone to mind games *alone*? Yeahhh, this is gonna end well for you. -- 'Coble was innocent so there was no real danger in talking to him.' PFFFT. -- Uncle, wife, and kids disappeared without a trace? You are going to die. Only question is whether you find the bodies first. -- If this guy gets a hold of your notebook, you are TOAST. (well, I mean, even more than you already are) -- "I'll be going then." Wishful thinking... -- 'Ike was unbuckling his belt.' oh come onnnn A SOUTHERN EVENING -- 'and the goddamned Benbow urchins swarming all over the property like shabbily-dressed gnats' Aren't you a peach. -- 'Why couldn't men be men for a change?' yawwwwwwwn -- ...hang on just a minute is this character's name Mike Pence -- 'God, if those girls had been inside when the whole thing caved, there really would have been problems. Publicity like that could sabotage a project, not to mention harpooning a career.' *calling Melody from Wolf Land down on you* -- Tabitha, stab this condescending douche with a steak knife -- 'so far removed from civilization' Oh good, so the Benbows can kill you without interruption! -- 'His pants had been lowered to his ankles.' If this is another rape ending I am putting this book down. -- Aw, not the kids, they had nothing to do with this. -- 'what *happened* to Molly'? You remain, as always, a jackass. -- Fantastic twist there; I love it. THROWING MONSTERS -- "The monster only eats little boys who throw things when they're not supposed to." This is going to backfire on you SO hard. (I mean, the temptation is there as a parent, I get it, but it's not worth it) -- 'She hadn't meant to plant the idea, but she could see her words working on imagination, conjuring ghastly creatures and generally scaring the shit out of him. "Yes," she pressed on. "The Hitting Monster. The Screaming Monster." This poor kid. -- 'No apology. Eric never apologized. It was a point of pride for him.' Sounds like a real sweetheart. -- Not 'and her child would be *dead*' but 'and she'd get thrown in jail for neglect'? Go get eaten by that basement monster you just created somehow. -- "Were you watching him?" A beat. "Of course I was watching him." "How much did you see him drink?" "I didn't see him drink it." NOT THE TIME just explain so that poor kid can get help! -- 'but a couple of times--okay, a few times--she'd shaken him by the shoulders. If he'd only listen.' ... 'God, she thought. She loved him so much, but why did being a mom have to be so *hard*?' Ohh, hon. You need a therapist or at the very least someone to help watch the kiddo and a friend to talk to. -- Call. The. Cops. ((okay, depending, I mean they'd likely blame her for sleeping with Eric in the first place and therefore 'deserving' this shit.)) SOMEONE get the kid out of here, though. -- no no no NO do NOT go into the basement guard your child's door until the police get there. And CALL TOM. -- Bittersweet ending, it fits really well. And nice last line. WITCHING HOUR THEATRE -- 'He slid his hands into his coat pockets and crossed the street, careful to avoid a beat-up van dragging its muffler behind it like a spilled intestine.' -- A movie theater that shows a horror triple feature every Friday sounds like heaven and I want one -- Sid Haig!! :( -- "The feeling of community of sitting around a giant campfire with a group of old friends, was strong tonight." <3 -- "You could sit with me." "That would be nice." Aw, they're cute. -- 'Getting beaten to a pulp had to be better than feeling like a coward. Maybe.' Heh. -- I understand, Goth girl, that's when I would've left, too. -- You are gonna logic yourself into an early death Wilson. -- 'He had to go back inside because if he didn't, he might as well be dead anyway.' Your'e a good guy. Hope the two of you make it. -- Use one of the metal film reels! Better than nothing! -- Good boy. -- 'Both killers couldn't be dead. It was too soon.' This guy has seen Halloween. -- "You're a sick woman," he said, grinning despite himself.' <3 -- "One movie might be enough for tonight." They're still cute. Synopsis: Grandmaster Award-winner Brian Keene's newest short story collection examines happiness and grief, love and hate, youth and age, and the darkness thriving in the gulf between them. A criminal decides to kill himself by getting healthy. The survivors of the zombie apocalypse find out there's something worse than being dead or living dead. An author's meta-fictional story brings disastrous results. A father discovers that the space between him and his child may be otherworldly. An antediluvian barbarian and a modern-day ex-Amish occultist face off against the same enemy. Your dreams. Your fears. Your hopes. Your regrets. In the hands of Brian Keene, all of them are just... A Little Sorrowed Talk.
I honestly feel weird talking about this one because it's one of the two Night Worms exclusives that I got in the newest subscription box. It's the first book on here that I can't just post a link to so you can grab a copy of your own. However, all the stories were previously published, either on Keene's Patreon or in the following collections: Welcome to the Show Libra Nigrum Scientia Secreta The Rising: Selected Scenes from the End of the World I'm really behind on my Keene TBR, enough so that I haven't gotten into his series work yet. I know that affected my understanding of certain stories, like Through Mirrors Darkly and The Ballad of Koke and Pepsee. The author's notes at the end helped, but overall I enjoyed the standalones more. My favorites: Intersectionality (that ending has turned me into more of a hermit than I already was) The Other (Changeling story!! Loved the characters and the final line) Black Sunrise (eerily beautiful, and contains my favorite passage from the book: "Sunrises come and go, and so do years. You can watch a sunrise in 1988 and another in 2018, and not notice a difference between the two. You may find that in the time between, you went on to become an engineer, or a salesman, or a librarian, or a firefighter, or a mechanic, or a writer. You may be a father to someone, or a husband, or a partner. And you may look back on your life, back over all those sunrises and colors, and think you remember. But you really don't.") Halloween in Cayuga Creek (just plain fun) No Sleep in Brooklyn (this is part of The Rising universe, and I love the glimpse into it. I *am* going to get to the entire series one of these days...) Fear Today, Forgot Tomorrow (heartwrenchingly honest; one of the best meta-fiction pieces I've ever read) |
A WORLD WITH A BLUER SUNMy reviews are set up a little like live-tweets: I write down lines I like/impressions as I read, and then transcribe. Reviews will contain spoilers, but I'll give a warning before they start. Archives
June 2021
Categories
All
|