Book Review: An English Ghost Story by Kim Newman

The promise of a sparkling new life for Kim Newman's 'dysfunctional British nuclear family' lures the reader in with teases as to what has led the Naremores to occupy The Hollow - far away from the troubles and influences of their past.

I'm not the first reviewer to mention the similarity to James Herbert's The Magic Cottage, and although I read that book back in 1986, An English Ghost Story instantly evoked very similar emotions in me of delight and fear in equal measure.

It's a credit to the author that his writing can entrance the reader for quite some time before the darkness slowly starts to set in. From then on the writing style subtly changes as we progress - from poetic descriptions to a sharper, staccato delivery which matches the tension.

The house is a metaphor for the story itself. It is not just a place occupied by ghosts and more sinister entities, it is home to diverse personalities with banal and extreme human traits, where strengths and weaknesses are tested - to the limit. Newman toys with the psychology of his characters, as does The Hollow, treating them as playthings in this place where memories are warped and misconceived solutions create more problems than they solve.

Overall, I was enraptured by An English Ghost Story and completely drawn in, making the book difficult to put down. The only reason I haven't given it five stars is that the Naremore characters repeat the justification for their actions a little too often and it feels like the reader is being reminded, just in case we might have forgotten what each of them has been through. But I can overlook this.

4 stars. Highly recommended.

Buy An English Ghost Story by Kim Newman from Amazon

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Review: The Brittle Birds by Anthony Cowin

Anthony Cowin’s The Brittle Birds is a beautifully written story, painted with creeping webs of horror and despair. 

The underlying tale recounts the damaged relationship and lives of two brothers, their unique view of the world and their methods of dealing with its challenges – all stemming from the consequences of a harrowing childhood event. The depiction of this journey in itself is an articulate masterpiece, with Cowin addressing psychoses and trauma in a raw and almost tender way, but the overarching power of this short book is the impact of the brittle birds themselves.

The author compels readers to question myth then forces you to disregard everything you have ever perceived as truth when the terrifying brittle birds take poetic flight across the pages and into our psyches (at the very least).

The brittle birds – you’ll have your own name for them, I'm sure – are dread incarnate. And if you are as affected by the possibility of them as I, then you’ll never see the world in the same way again.

Excellent.

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The Brittle Birds, an 18 page ebook written by Anthony Cowin and published by Perpetual Motion Machine is now available on all Amazon platforms.

Amazon UK  |  Amazon.com

Read more about Anthony at: www.anthonycowin.com

New 5* Review for Cabaret of Dread

Kevin Bufton put on his dancing shoes and re-entered the CABARET OF DREAD, where he tipped his hat and paid tribute to my first collection of horror.

He was kind enough to offer a generous five star review which you can read at his excellent review site, THE BLOODY, BLOODY BOOK REVIEW as well as Amazon where you can, of course, buy the book!

Here's a little excerpt.

"...she [Lily] paints with broad and sweeping colours, splattering her literary canvas with words that she has selected with such precision as to evoke the bleakness of her uniquely grim vision. It is an exercise in grandiosity, as if Books of Blood era Clive Barker went out for drinks with Trent Reznor and Ken Russell and decided to keep a journal of the occasion."

"Cabaret of Dread remains a beautiful and hideous thing, and is all the better for the re-reading."

 Read the full review here...

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Fresh Fear in paperback - and the first reviews

You can now buy Fresh Fear: Contemporary Horror, edited by William Cook in paperback from:

Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.com

Reviews

Reviews have started to trickle in, and make very interesting reading:

"Into the dark corridors of an urban cannibal’s lair we dare to tread with “Strange Tastes” by Lily Childs...

...These are all talented writers, with Scathe meic Beorh, Lily Childs, Charlee Jacob, and D. F. Noble being the undisputed stars."

Read the full 4* review...

Joshua Skye for Dark Media

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"I love horror anthologies, and I can honestly say I have never read one where I enjoyed every single story. There always tends to be one or two duds, right? With "Fresh Fear", this just wasn't the case!...

...a few stories that stuck with me for days after reading, especially "So Much Pain, So Much Death", "The Door", and "Strange Tastes".

Read the full 5* review...

Marianne Reid on Goodreads

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"I normally tear through these anthologies, but this one requires a little more time due to how amazing each and every story is...

,,,there is not a single story I would pass on during a second reading of this. It really is one of the best anthologies of the year."

Read the full 5* review...

Dave Granger on Goodreads

A huge thanks to readers - all reviews are very welcome!

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Book Review: DEVIL'S CHIMNEY by Tin Larrick

When I first heard about Tin Larrick’s crime thriller, Devil’s Chimney, set in my home town of Eastbourne I was intrigued. Stories set here tend to be genteel so as a reader that prefers the darker side of fiction I downloaded it with an open mind...

By happy contrast Larrick’s novel is gritty, hardboiled and bitingly honest. The author’s well-informed descriptions of police procedure add a perfect backdrop to this terrifying tale of organised crime. Murder, abduction, drugs and revenge pepper the pages; every chapter leaves the reader hanging and I was gripped from the outset.

The main character, known by his surname Barnes – even to his beautiful wife Eve - is a bright new star in the Eastbourne police force whose hard work and dedication to the job get him noticed by the powers that be. But there is more than one power in town – and it stinks.

I genuinely couldn’t put this book down; superbly-written, expertly researched and thrilling to the bone with a story that twists and turns with such speed it leaves you dizzy, and hungry for more.

Devil’s Chimney should be a best-seller; and Tin Larrick is most definitely a name to remember.

5 stars - Highly Recommended

Book Review: ALONE by Marissa Farrar

Serenity Hathaway has no reason to celebrate life, coasting between cruel indifference at the office and violence at home. The opening pages of Alone plunge us straight into the hell of this young woman's existence, revealing her self-doubt and plummeting despair.

Despite the very real personal demons that have brought her to this lonely time and place Serenity still controls her own will. And when Sebastian Bandores happens upon the young woman on her knees in a dark alleyway, the encounter leaves her with an inner strength she never thought possible.

Serenity can't stop thinking about the beautiful stranger that pulled her out of an emotional gutter, rescuing her from her lowest ebb. Life suddenly has promise; but life can get worse - far worse - and so can death.

Marissa Farrar carries us through this haunting vampire tale as a feather on the wind, dipping and fluctuating between passion and horror. She masters Serenity's strengths and weaknesses, her resilience and distrust as the reluctant heroine struggles to comprehend the otherworldly extremes of vampiric hunger.

The author's principal characters are passionate, loyal and loving - perfect bait for the vicious antagonists of this chilling horror novel where no-one and nowhere is safe.

Well-written with an addictive pace, I loved this book. I can't wait to read the follow-up Buried (Alone). The author has cleverly gifted us with the prologue of the second book as a wicked tease at the end of book one - and it promises darkness. A generous bonus.

4* out of 5, and highly recommended.

Download Alone from Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com

Read more of Marissa Farrar's fiction at:
http://marissa-farrar.blogspot.com/

Erin Cole's Holiday Book Blog Catalog 2011

Our Predictioneering friend and author of blissfully dark fiction, Erin Cole has opened her annual Holiday Book Blog Catolog for business!

This brilliant initiative showcases books from a variety of familiar and new authors including:

• Laura Eno
• James Garcia Jr
• Marissa Farrar
• Eric Beetner
• Lori Titus
• Chris Allinotte 
• Paul D. Brazill
• Jessica A. Weiss
• Michael Solender
• Erin Cole
• Lily Childs and more...

The aim is simple - take a stroll through the titles, buy at least one book and write a review. Well, I've read several on there already, have others on my wish list and can see even more that are new to me - where to start?

Do support these authors and take a visit to the catalog. Huge thanks to Erin for organising such a generous showcase.

Happy reading!

Book Review – The Angel’s Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafón

If ever a book left me feeling I could never make it as an author then Carlos Ruiz Zafón’s The Angel’s Game is it. Set in pre-civil war Barcelona Zafón’s tale of intrigue and murder twists and turns at relentless speed.

The Angel’s Game features writer David Martìn, son of a drunken father and a disinterested, absent mother. Martìn is thrown into the somewhat seedy realm of journalism after his father is murdered in the street and the young David is taken under the wing of Señor Vidal, one of the city’s wealthy sons. Taking pity on the lad Vidal finds David a job at the offices of a newspaper he has connections with, and quickly becomes David’s mentor, friend and benefactor.

As David Martìn moves up, down and sideways through the world of writing his own life becomes as strange as the penny dreadfuls he pens. Taking up residence in the mysterious, derelict Tower House the young author writes day and night until he can barely breathe. He rarely eats, he never sleeps. His volatile existence is fuelled by cigarettes, coffee and alcohol.

Even with the constants of Vidal’s support and friendship, the all-seeing eye of bookseller Señor Sempere and the unrequited love of the beautiful and unobtainable Cristina, a barrage of events dart at Martìn from every direction. Violence hangs around every corner. Ghosts from the past come unbidden into the here and now. The Tower House reveals itself. We are left in no doubt that all is not as it seems.

David Martìn’s Barcelona is a surreal place of twisting alleys and sprawling mansions, steamy docklands and towering mountains. Readers of Zafón’s first novel The Shadow of the Wind will be familiar with the Cemetery of Forgotten Books – recalling the library with both affection and fear. Here, in this most secret of places Martìn unleashes the key that will turn everything, strange as it already is, on its head. Who is the angel playing the game of the book’s title?

The pace of this novel is exhilarating. The atmosphere – noir and gothic yet coloured with Mediterranean spice. Death and love seem interchangeable in the Spanish psyche and Zafón spins these contrasts round and around, revisiting them from every angle.

Zafón is the master of description. His well-crafted prose is sprinkled with a menace laced with dark poetry. The Angel’s Game excels in edginess, a sensation that reminds me of another angel – Alan Parker’s 1987 film Angel Heart starring Mickey Rourke. The bizarre lifestyle of David Martìn is reminiscent of works by Burroughs.

Finishing this book I felt exhausted. Bereft - cheated even that something so powerful and addictive had been taken from me. I can honestly say that this is one of the most riveting and exciting novels I have ever read. Any fiction that can make me gasp out loud goes straight to the top of my list. Highly recommended.

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More about Carlos Ruiz Zafón’s The Angel’s Game | Buy The Angel's Game on Amazon

Bit sloshed

Nothing interesting in me being sloshed. But I'm having a Mod revival evening and oh, there's so much I love. The Action, Ken Boothe (first record I ever bought was Everything I Own - in Boots - upstairs in the Eastbourne store (upstairs isn't there any more).

We've gone through Prince Buster, Geno Washington (to die for - SO cool), Marvin, Patsy and Derrick, Shangri-Las (go beyond Leader of the Pack - you will quake in your boots . If you don't wear boots then you're probably not welcome here).

This is all trivial - Northern Soul is unchartered territory for some, even for (Michael, the...) lovers.

James Hilton - The Rave

I have absolutely GOT to recommend Jim Hilton's The Rave over at Thrillers Killers n Chillers.

It's a blissful scream of nostalgia and bloodfest, beautifully crafted. I couldn't take my eyes off it.

Horror at its loveliest.

SQ - A new voice for Eastbourne's youth

I may no longer be a youth but I like talent and I like initiative, especially when it's different; even more so when it hails from my own home town of Eastbourne.

Two inspired and talented eighteen year-olds have produced 'an independent and urban publication' for the youth of their town. Read my review of Eastbourne's new zine SQ...