A great debut to what promises to be a creepy (and thoroughly entertaining) series!
TRULY UNFORTUNATE is definitely a blend of genres – paranormal, hoA great debut to what promises to be a creepy (and thoroughly entertaining) series!
TRULY UNFORTUNATE is definitely a blend of genres – paranormal, horror, psychological thriller, and murder mystery. Whether there is intent or malevolence remains an open question, even as the novel reaches its closing pages, but it is certainly true (as the title coyly suggests) that one would be truly unfortunate if one was to upset Truly DeCanter, a young girl apparently suffering from repressed memories of childhood abuse.
Drawing on whiffs of the supernatural abilities of Stephen King’s eponymous character CARRIE, C.A. King places Truly at the heart of a pattern of unexplained deaths in Knollville. The police investigators acknowledge that the solution to the mystery, if it is even possible to find one, lies beyond the realm of normal human experience.
TRULY UNFORTUNATE is short and sweet but it’s a gripping page-turner and a novel that will definitely raise your eyebrows with hopes to follow up on further entries in the series. And, more than that, I’ll definitely be looking for other novels by the same author. Kudos to an up and coming Canadian author I had the good fortune to meet at a recent local book festival.
“People … it appears we have a problem of some magnitude here.”
A heat wave in northern New England, a fearsome storm, a fog, and then an all-encom“People … it appears we have a problem of some magnitude here.”
A heat wave in northern New England, a fearsome storm, a fog, and then an all-encompassing mist traps a motley collection of shoppers in a grocery store. The mist is pure evil and what it brings to life with it will raise the hackles on a reader’s neck.
THE MIST is a fast-paced, gruesome, gothic, imaginative, creep-fest that showcases Stephen King’s flair for creating a cast of characters with a myriad of reactions to what is pure over-the-top Hollywood horror. But it’s great entertainment and, goodness knows, it’s easy to recommend to lovers of the horror genre.
“Human beings have been eagerly devouring notions of evil and horror since we dwelt in caves and jumped at the shadows and noises occurring just outsi“Human beings have been eagerly devouring notions of evil and horror since we dwelt in caves and jumped at the shadows and noises occurring just outside the comforting range of firelight.”
“Canadians, especially, have always been concerned with notions of what lies beyond our normal existence.”
In ONLY MONSTERS IN THE BUILDING, author Mark Leslie went to great lengths to assure readers who shared his concerns that while paranormals might be creatures that inhabit that realm beyond our normality, they are definitely people too. People, in fact, with all the frustrations, foibles, fears, and failings that we “normals” deal with everyday in our lives. And, in crafting his cast of what Leslie characterized as “supernatural misfits (a studious fairy, a vegan vampire, a shy mermaid, a clingy werecat, and an extroverted troll)”, he also crafted a clever mystery and a brilliant master class in “show, don’t tell” character development!
How did he do it??
ONLY MONSTERS IN THE BUILDING is effectively a novel length reproduction of conversations in a series of therapy sessions between a confused patient (distressed werewolf and definitely paranormal though he may be) and his therapist. But Leslie has managed to alternate those periods of the eponymous Canadian Werewolf Michael Andrews’ directed self-examination with chapters of real-time interaction with the rest of his fellow abnormal paranormals in a cozy locked-room style murder mystery that makes the entire package genuinely enthralling, entertaining, humorous, and compelling.
Leslie’s development of Michael Andrews’ skills as an author and his personality and back story may not constitute a birth to present day autobiography (I mean … how could it? Andrews IS a werewolf after all!). But the extent to which Leslie injects himself into the Michael Andrews persona would please even the likes of Charles Dickens, author of the classic DAVID COPPERFIELD. The novel is absolutely jam-packed with film, music, television, and 20th century cultural references that reflect Leslie’s love of the world he lived in as he grew up. He even managed to sneak in a few cheeky references to his own writing by attributing it to work in Andrews’ bibliography. Fairy Ellie’s gushing praise of SILENT SCREAMS, Michael Andrews’ first and wildly undersold and distinctly unpopular first novel, was in fact a stand-in for one of Leslie’s earlier collection of short stories, ONE HAND SCREAMING which he prefaced with this comment concerning his propensity to mentally collect everyday occurrences for use in his writing,
“Silent screams bounce around inside my head like an impending storm brewing into a force that will escape in a wild dance of chaos and be lost forever if I don’t stop to jot them down.”
If you’ve got more time and patience than you know what to do with, perhaps you might want to re-read ONLY MONSTERS IN THE BUILDING with a view to snagging and listing all of the cultural references or Leslie’s meta-references to his own previous novels, novellas and short stories. An aspiring future scholar of English literature might choose to use that as in a Masters or PhD thesis after Leslie has attained classic status as a horror humorist.
Definitely recommended as one of my Top Ten favourites for this year.
Paul Weiss
P.S. Recommended that is with the very strong caveat that this is NOT a stand-alone novel and would make very little sense without an understanding of the Canadian Werewolf back story. But, fret not, do yourself a favour a go back to A CANADIAN WEREWOLF IN NEW YORK, #1 in the series. You're in for a real treat!...more
“If you are interested in reading a story filled with thrillingly good times, I am sorry to inform you that you are most certainly reading the wron“If you are interested in reading a story filled with thrillingly good times, I am sorry to inform you that you are most certainly reading the wrong book”
Count Olaf’s nefarious plans for a marriage with Violet Baudelaire and the theft of the children’s inherited wealth were foiled in A BAD BEGINNING and THE REPTILE ROOM, BOOK THE SECOND. Mr Poe remains blind and hopelessly insensitive to the children’s danger and Count Olaf proves that, while he was down, he most certainly isn’t out. He continues to lust for the children’s bankroll. The children’s hopes for a safe and comfortable life with an elderly aunt who is a relentlessly pedantic grammar Nazi aunt terrified of everything from doorknobs to telephones are, of course, dashed on the rocks of continuing “unfortunate events” including, for goodness’ sake, being handed over to the “guardianship” of the Count.
Snicket’s unique, dare I say bizarre, stylistic hook, the interminable offerings of doom and gloom to a most delightful family of children continues to work and exudes a very puzzling kind of charm. The children’s love for one another and their endearing ability to squirm their way through the tiniest of holes and the tightest of fixes is quite heartwarming.
A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS is definitely recommended for both children and for young at heart adult readers who enjoy dipping their toes into lighter fare from to time. On an even more positive note, I will commend Snicket’s writing style as being very “grown-up” in tone, never patronizing or condescending to young readers for even a microsecond and, in the bargain, quite educational and useful for building a young person’s vocabulary of more “adult” words.
“The worth [of anything we do] is in the act. Your worth halts when you surrender the will to change and experience life”
Eragon found the blue stone i“The worth [of anything we do] is in the act. Your worth halts when you surrender the will to change and experience life”
Eragon found the blue stone in the forest and brought it home thinking that perhaps it might have been worth a few coins to help his impoverished family buy some food for the coming winter. How could he possibly have known that the stone was, in fact, a long-lost dragon egg?
If Christopher Paolini ever suggested that he wasn’t influenced by Tokien and THE LORD OF THE RINGS in the youthful imaginative creation of his extraordinary debut, I’m afraid I’d have to call him a liar. ERAGON didn’t have a Ring of Power to launch Frodo on his quest to Mordor but the parallels are obvious. Saphira, the as yet unhatched resident of the wondrous blue egg, chose Eragon to become a Dragon Rider, in fact, the ONLY one extant in all of the known lands. The game, as Sherlock would have quickly noted, was afoot and Eragon was summarily launched on a marathon multi-novel good versus evil quest against the megalomaniacal aspirations of Galbatorix to dominate the world.
Dwarves, elves, magic spells, runes, endless underground cities and cavernous passages, and slaves abound. Tolkien’s orcs stand against the dwarves, the elves and the forces of good in the form of repellent Urgals and Ra’zac while his terrifying Ringwraiths are represented by the powerful Shade, a creature with all but insurmountable tenacity and fighting skills. Murtagh is Samwise to Eragon's Frodo. And, if you’re going to emulate Tolkien and THE LORD OF THE RINGS, one might as well go all in and create a Gandalf as well – Brom, a wise old man with an apparently endless fount of knowledge of magic, its Language of Power, and simple bon mots of good sense and survival.
Paolini did craft a couple of his own creations that added to the character of his version of “the fellowship” – Angela, a “witch” with the ability to read the future even if it was rather foggy and had to be couched in interpretations that seemed to be more riddle than sensible prognostications; and Solembum, a wickedly humorous werecat with a very feline personality and someone who you would definitely want to be on your side.
If Paolini matches Tolkien’s success in maintaining the thrills, spills, chills, lumps, and bumps promised in ERAGON through a three novel trilogy, then this lover of the fantasy genre will be one happy camper. ERAGON is an astonishing debut novel and an easy novel to recommend as a 5-star start to THE INHERITANCE CYCLE.
“He will be the destruction of the crown and the ruination of the throne.”
THE QUEEN OF NOTHING is a worthy 5-star ending to a brilliant trilogy that “He will be the destruction of the crown and the ruination of the throne.”
THE QUEEN OF NOTHING is a worthy 5-star ending to a brilliant trilogy that can comfortably and proudly stand with the best in the crowded fantasy genre. But make no mistake. Despite its characterization as young adult fantasy, THE QUEEN OF NOTHING, like its predecessors in the story of the fairies of Elfhame, is harsh, graphic in its depiction of violence, murder, and death, and plain speaking in its portrayal of treachery, betrayal, the self-serving attitudes of wealth and privilege, xenophobia and misogyny.
Jude, despite her erstwhile elevation to the lofty position of Queen of Faerie by virtue of her marriage to Prince Cardan, has been exiled to an indefinite exile in the land of her fellow mortals to bide her time, to guard the life of Oak, the ultimate heir to the throne, and to worry about the future of her Fae sisters, Vivienne and her twin Taryn, whose life is now at risk in the turbulent aftermath of the murder of her husband. A curse has threatened the death of Cardan, now the crowned king, and war seems imminent in the magic land to which Jude knows she must return.
It is with a sigh of the deepest satisfaction at the turn of the last page that I realize that the FOLK OF THE AIR series has not only earned 5-stars and the highest recommendation as a series but it has earned that status in each of its three parts considered as individual novels. Now that is a serious achievement. Well done, Ms Black, and here’s hoping that you will treat your fans to further tales in your powerful and fabulously entertaining Elfhame fairy universe.
“No matter how much he disliked me when we were in school, that was a guttering candle to the steady flame of his hatred now.”
THE WICKED KING, des“No matter how much he disliked me when we were in school, that was a guttering candle to the steady flame of his hatred now.”
THE WICKED KING, despite its characterization as young adult fantasy, is a harsh story, graphic in its depiction of violence, murder, and death, and plain speaking in its depiction of treachery, betrayal, the self-serving attitudes of wealth and privilege, xenophobia and misogyny. Picking up precisely where the story in THE CRUEL PRINCE ended, Jude begins her life as an empowered kingmaker, a guardian of the life of the heir apparent to the fairy high throne, a spymaster, a conniving statesman, and seneschal to the sitting king who would be a proud daughter to a hypothetical mating of Machiavelli and Mata Hari.
If Jude is to ensure that her brother Oak ascends to the throne when he comes of age, if Jude is to deal with her burgeoning complicated feelings towards the wicked king, Cardan, if Jude is to successfully deal with the machinations of an enemy within her circle of trust who will betray her, then she must be at the top of her game and use every weapon available to her. But the sad reality is that her arsenal of mortal weapons and skills is sadly lacking in the face of the magic of the world of fae.
My rather breathless 5-star rating of THE CRUEL PRINCE left me with the fear that high expectations for THE WICKED KING would be dashed on the rocky shores of second-novel-in-a-trilogy blues. No worries! Holly Black delivered the goods … in spades! THE WICKED KING was a gripping fantasy thriller that kept me in a solid reading stranglehold from first page to last. Now I can cross my fingers, raise my eyebrows, and hold my breath waiting to dig into the final novel in the series THE QUEEN OF NOTHING.
On a side note, I’ll admit that I smiled as I read what I think Ms Black intended to be a brief homage to England’s greatest bard and playwright, William Shakespeare, when she puts some epic words into the mouth of a hag “old and powerful enough that the air around her seems to crackle with the force of her magic.” Shakespeare would definitely have seen her as a witch. And those epic words? “We three will meet again.” Well played, Ms Black.
"Only those who are worthy can open the tomb, and as to the location, they left only a riddle."
In my recent 5-star review of Amy Maltman’s openin"Only those who are worthy can open the tomb, and as to the location, they left only a riddle."
In my recent 5-star review of Amy Maltman’s opening novel in her new young adult DAUGHTER OF VENUS fantasy series, I confess I rather gushed:
… the use of well-worn chestnut fantasy tropes continues apace – swords and sorcery; the evil king and a dystopian kingdom; witches, elves, dwarves, trolls, and goblins; frustrated, unwitting and reluctant young love; a novel system of magic and a reluctant, unskilled user … once again, the list is long and well-used. Lexi’s position as an apprentice user of magic and the sole possible hope for the rescue of Gowerland from the rapacious clutches of its heartless, evil king Ulric and for the conversion of his much hated son, Prince Aeric, to the side of right and good is utterly predictable. But it’s gripping and compulsively readable through every page from start to finish.
To my delight, AN ENEMY DEFINED picks up right where A JOURNEY UNVEILED left off. The trials and tribulations of Lexi Guinel’s and Prince Aeric’s quest to find the artifacts necessary to fulfill the Venus prophecy and to save Gowerland arrive fast and furious and all the compliments I gave in that first review continue to apply. But, frankly, something in AN ENEMY DEFINED was failing to satisfy me and it took me a while to figure out what it was. Rather than building on the emotions, personalities and lives of the characters in her story and developing the immense potential of a dystopian Gowerland under the thumb of Aeric’s evil father, it occurred to me that, for significant portions of the novel, I was reading a screenplay version of somebody working on a Myst-like puzzle game, moving successfully from puzzle to puzzle in a world that was quite mysterious but rather on auto-pilot and devoid of genuine character, emotion, life or development. The story moves from A to B, to be sure, but there didn’t seem to be any rhyme nor reason, motivation or depth to the reasons behind it all.
Thankfully, those issues and concerns seemed to fade as Lexi and Aeric fell into the clutches of Aeric’s clearly demented uncle, Lucain. The story (not to mention the development of the hot and heavy sweat factor of Aeric’s and Lexi’s romantic relationship) seemed to pick up and move into high gear as AN ENEMY DEFINED reached its climax and the cliffhanger leading into the final novel of the trilogy. We’ll hope that the relentless problem-solving trope isn’t repeated in that final novel and that Maltman sticks to what she clearly does very well – genuine plot and character development, not to some pretty top-notch world building. Then there remains the final question as to whether Lexi will ever return (with or without Aeric) to the site of the plane crash in her own world. I hope I don’t have to wait long to find out.
“Personally, I believe it’s a poor idea to tell a seven-year-old girl that God’s tremendous plan is to incinerate her lungs.”
It’s definitely a “l“Personally, I believe it’s a poor idea to tell a seven-year-old girl that God’s tremendous plan is to incinerate her lungs.”
It’s definitely a “literary” novel, that’s for sure. I finished THE GARGOYLE and I can honestly say that I have no idea what genre would best describe it or what Davidson’s intended message or moral takeaways might have been. Heck, I don’t even know if there was one. Lots of contenders for that genre classification – historical fiction, fantasy, romance, paranormal, horror, magic-realism … you’re going to have to decide for yourself!
After a serious car accident, a man (who for reasons known only to the author was never named??) lies seriously burned and much closer to death than life. As he struggles with his recovery, Marianne Engels, a very odd woman plagued by a litany of mental illnesses, wanders into his room and insists that they met in a monastery in medieval Germany and have known one another for several hundred years. With no options available to him, he listens to her tell the stories of their mutual history – hers as a linguistic and artistic prodigy and novitiate nun in reluctant defiance of the demands of the all-powerful Roman Catholic Church and his as a wounded mercenary soldier who seems doomed to repeat the near death of fire and burn injuries throughout several lifetimes.
I’ll repeat … I have no idea what Andrew Davidson intended to convey but I gotta tell you, his way of saying nothing and going nowhere was eye-popping, gripping, and throat-lumping from first page to last. It’s probably a good idea to point out several “sub”-stories or themes that were each worthy of special mention on their own. Consider, for example:
Davidson’s ultra-graphic and no-holds-barred technical description of the treatment of extensive third degree burns was at once informative, breathtaking, and terrifying! I had absolutely no idea what was involved.
“Even when [a skin graft] did take, the absence of oil glands in the transplanted tissue resulted in extreme dryness. “Ants beneath the skin” is not only too clichéd a description of how it felt, but also not graphic enough. Lumberjack termites brandishing little chainsaws, maybe; or fiddler crabs wearing hairshirts and fiberglass shoes; or a legion of baby rats dragging tiny barbed-wire plows. Tap dancing, subepidermal cockroaches wearing soccer cleats and cowboy spurs?”
The mind simply boggles at the wealth of outlandish metaphors!
Davidson didn’t hold back when it came to both explicit and implicit criticism of the church and its behaviours ranging from nonsensical idiocies to abhorrent evil. This excerpt, for example, deals with one of Marianne Engel’s stories and her acquaintance with Heinrich Seuse, a German religious mystic born in 1295, who would become one of the most important religious figures of the day.
“[Seuse] opened his robes one evening and used a sharpened stylus to carve the letters IHS into the flesh above his heart (… the abbreviated name of Christ in the Greek language). Blood poured out of his ripped flesh but he claimed he barely felt the pain, such was his ecstasy. The scarified letters never vanished and he wore the wound in secret until the end of his life; it soothed him in times of struggle, … , to know that the very name of Christ moved with each beat of his heart.”
Davidson seems to have the ability to create ridiculously laughable non-sequiturs that leaped out of nowhere and promptly disappeared:
“You’d be surprised how many great Japanese books don’t have decent Latin translations.”
And the philosophical contemplations of the unnamed burn victim (was it Davidson’s intent to make him the eponymous “GARGOYLE”?) were deeply thought-provoking:
“I was born beautiful and lived beautiful for thirty-plus years, and during all that time I never once allowed my soul to know love. My unblemished skin was numb armor used to attract women with its shininess, while repelling any true emotions and protecting the wearer … What an unexpected reversal of fate; only after my skin was burned away did I finally become able to feel. Only after I was born into physical repulsiveness did I come to glimpse the possibilities of the heart.”
I can say with absolute certainty that the reactions to Andrew Davidson’s THE GARGOYLE will range from disgusted wall-banger DNFs to awed 5-star ratings with comments such as “Wow! Best book ever! Amazing!” Your reaction will, of course, be entirely subjective and it will, of necessity, be your own. I can but convey the fact that I enjoyed it immensely and wholeheartedly recommend that you give it a try for yourself.
How many fantasy novels (or series) have you read that begin with a magic portal into another world orUnique twists on tried-and-true age old tropes!
How many fantasy novels (or series) have you read that begin with a magic portal into another world or another universe? THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA, OUTLANDER, ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND, GREGOR THE OVERLANDER, INKHEART, KINDRED, HARRY POTTER, the list is more than a little lengthy! If a novel is going to tread down such a well-worn path, then the author had better find a way to somehow differentiate their book from the field. Well, no worries … A JOURNEY UNVEILED pulls it off in spades! The use of a plane crash caused by some unknown magical agency and a frenzied climb down a mountainside by Lexi and one of the other survivors looking for help succeeds in spades and manages to make the entry into that portal a genuine surprise!
And the use of well-worn chestnut fantasy tropes continues apace – swords and sorcery; the evil king and a dystopian kingdom; witches, elves, dwarves, trolls, and goblins; frustrated, unwitting and reluctant young love; a novel system of magic and a reluctant, unskilled user … once again, the list is long and well-used. Lexi’s position as an apprentice user of magic and the sole possible hope for the rescue of Gowerland from the rapacious clutches of its heartless, evil king Ulric and for the conversion of his much hated son, Prince Aeric, to the side of right and good is utterly predictable. But it’s gripping and compulsively readable through every page from start to finish.
Kudos to a Canadian author on the creation of a gripping new fantasy series that promises much to come in future novels. Definitely recommended with two thumbs-up! Nice addition to my list of top ten favourites for the year.
Shadowblack – be it curse, disease, power, magic or conduit to a demonic nation - is hated with all-consuming passion
SOULBINDER describes it as not
"siShadowblack – be it curse, disease, power, magic or conduit to a demonic nation - is hated with all-consuming passion
SOULBINDER describes it as not
"simply a form of energy; it is potential life devoid of consciousness.
Kellen’s family, indeed his entire Jan’Tep people, consider it to be
“a conduit by which demons will one day manifest themselves into our world and use the power of the mages they’ve infected to bring untold horrors upon us all.”
Whatever explanation best suits a reader’s interpretation of the fantasy underpinnings of de Castell’s magnificent, gripping world, contemplative, more analytical readers will see it as the metaphorical stand in for the source of a two way all-consuming xenophobic hatred. In our embattled day-to-day world, it might be skin colour, sexual orientation, language and culture, appearance, or religion. In Kellen’s world, it’s Shadowblack.
Those afflicted with Shadowblack “know” that their survival is dependent on the elimination of the mages who hunt them and those mages, in turn, are commanded by their own “clarity of mind” and their “dominion over the six esoteric forces of reality” to eliminate Shadowblack and its corruption from their world.
Kellen’s relationship with his familiar, the smart-aleck, wise-cracking Reichis, a mercurial flying fur-ball squirrel cat with a murderous chip on its shoulder reminiscent of Shrek’s donkey equipped with an attitude and the fangs and claws to back it up blossoms from friendship into an unbreakable, endearing, and heartwarming loving partnership. The humour, the adventure, the fantasy camaraderie, the rootin’, tootin’, high-falutin’ cowpokes versus the bad guys theme, and the swaggering self-important mannerisms of de Castell’s heroes and anti-heroes continue unabated. But readers may rest easy. Despite concerns that this lighthearted, at times frivolous, approach to such serious themes and moral messages might have become overdone or tiresome, de Castell manages to hold it all at a perfect level.
SOULBINDER is definitely the best of the series thus far and an easy novel to gush with enthusiasm about. And that is a rather astounding accomplishment. It’s the fourth entry in a continuing series and I’ve rated every single novel in the series so far at an easily awarded 5 stars. Everything about this novel and the series is SO good – pacing; plot; characters; exceptionally creative world-building; humour; dialogue; innovative use of typical fantasy themes such as magic, good vs evil, romance, coming of age; use of appropriate allegories to consider deeper moral messages such as violence, warfare, xenophobia, racism; and so on. And, once again, I put my hands together and clap extra loudly about the fact that Mr de Castell is a Canadian author! Woot, woot!
I can’t tell you how eager I am to get my copy of #5 QUEENSLAYER.
“I don’t suppose you’ve considered being less munificent with your love.” “Would you marry me, Fire, if I slept in no one’s bed but yours?”
Hard on “I don’t suppose you’ve considered being less munificent with your love.” “Would you marry me, Fire, if I slept in no one’s bed but yours?”
Hard on the heels of GRACELING, the debut novel in the Graceling Realm series, FIRE is definitely a strong sequel from the point of view of compelling plot, strong well-developed characterization, and catchy, credible dialogue. But it falls seriously short when it comes to the world-building that is necessary to understand that plot and the character’s motivations.
Young King Nash’s throne and his rule over the people of the Dells may be said to be under siege from two rebel armies – one to the north and one to the south. The countryside outside of King’s City is filled with spies, thieves and cutthroats. The skies are awash with bloodthirsty monsters who mercilessly swarm and attack at the slightest whiff of a traveler’s blood. Fire happens to be one of those monsters – the last human one, in fact – and, endowed with the power to read and even control the minds of living creatures around her, both human and animals, she is doing her best to avert what seems to be an inevitable war.
Her Machiavellian diplomatic efforts, motivated by her understanding of her opponents’ minds, seem to be moving in the right direction until she encounters Leck, a psychopathic and distinctly unpleasant Graceling who has found his way into the Dells across the forbidding Gray Mountains. Leck’s powers are ominous in their own right – he too can guide and pervert the minds of those around him but he must do so hampered by his inability to read those minds and know what they are thinking.
But then there’s the issue of that missing back story?? Why is Fire the LAST human monster? What happened to the others who must have existed at one time? Where did they come from? Where did that awesome power of telepathy and mind control come from? Do the non-human monsters have other powers as well? Why was Leck so clearly mentally disturbed and evil? Why did he kill his father? How did he find his way across the Gray Mountains when obviously nobody else has managed the same feat in either direction? What is the relationship between Gracelings and Monsters – I mean, c'mon, there just has to be one!?
The failure to answer these questions (or to even give some sort of indication that they WERE questions to be considered and answered) lowered my enjoyment of FIRE. But, that said, it is my hope that the next installment in the series, BITTERBLUE, will move in the direction of filling in some of that background void.
DARK SHADOWS is Mark Leslie’s third collection of macabre short stories under the series title NOCTURNAL SCROn shadows, scarecrows and silent screams!
DARK SHADOWS is Mark Leslie’s third collection of macabre short stories under the series title NOCTURNAL SCREAMS. If horror built on gushing gore, gruesome violence, or groping, grunting and groaning vampires and zombies with episodic bouts of graphic sex is your thing, you’re definitely in the wrong place. Leslie’s version of horror shorts can be characterized as a thinking man’s old-time story-telling suitable for scaring the pants off your friends around a campfire. With a distinct economy of words he tells the kind of eyebrow raising, shiver inducing tale that creeps up behind you, taps you on your shoulder and makes you whirl around with a gasp (or a silent scream) wondering how that brilliant twist ending snuck up on you out of the darkness.
Leslie himself proudly calls this collection “three quick jaunts into worlds where darkness mingles with the echoes of cries in the night”. The collection is a small one and will take no more than an hour to read through but it’s brilliant, thoroughly enjoyable and easy to recommend. Be warned … if you are a lover of backcountry camping on Canada’s northern wilderness lakes, what you used to thrill to in the call of a loon will never sound the same to you again!
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