Letting The Demons Out - Ray Wallace

"The demons are waiting... Ancient gods. Flesh-eating immortals. Sentient machines. A gun wielding monster. And a man with a unique and terrible addiction. They all reside within the pages of LETTING THE DEMONS OUT, the debut collection from Ray Wallace, author of ESCAPE FROM ZOMBIE CITY: A ONE WAY OUT NOVEL and THE HELL SEASON. Face your fears. Enjoy the nightmares."

Looking for thrills, chills, and a few giggles too? All can be found in Letting The Demons Out. 

My favorites of these 16 entertaining tales were..

"It Came From The Swimming Pool" Aside from the fact that what is in that pool may scare the bejeezers out of you I loved these characters and was reminded that happiness is all about perception.

"A Dream Of An Endless Highway" A scary little story set in the not too distant future where cars drive themselves. I'm still laughing over the head of CETA but I'm not going to tell you what that stands for because I don't want to deprive you of your giggle when you read the book.

"Letting The Demons Out" Because I have a fear of psychotic religious fanatics the way some people have a fear of clowns.

"Who's Laughing Now" A fun read in which the author tips his hat to Evil Dead 2
and last but not least..

"Test Run" which surprised me to enjoy it so much because I am not usually a fan of alien stories, and I definitely didn't see the end coming.

Peaceable Kingdom by Jack Ketchum

Description

This landmark collection gathers more than thirty of Jack Ketchum's most thrilling stories. "Gone" and "The Box" were honored with the prestigious Bram Stoker Award. Whether you are already familiar with Ketchum's unique brand of suspense or are experiencing it for the first time, here is a book no aficionado of fear can do without.
This novel contains graphic content and is recommended for regular readers of horror novels 


32 short stories that won't let you down.  My favorites were Megan's Law, about a man who is informed that a sexual predator has moved into his neighborhood, The Rifle, in which a mother finds her own way to deal with her very troubled child, and The Great San Diego Sleazy Bimbo Massacre, a dark but humorous story of a woman who enlists the help of a friend in her plan to do away with her husband. Peaceable Kingdom will haunt me for a while.

Coven by Edward Lee

"Born in darkness, they arise. Seductive angels of murder, madness, and horrors beyond imagining. COVEN Bathed in moonlight, they feed their darkest hungers in a festival of perversion and death, demented orgies that serve a cruel, unspeakable will... COVEN They are irresistible sirens in black, corrupting the living and raising the dead. Now the silent town of Exham will surrender to their loving embrace, their haunting beauty, and their ravenous need for human flesh. Surrender--and die... COVEN Beauty is only skin deep. More like a revved-up gross-out ‘70s B-movie, COVEN revels in its ultimate editorial no-no: it’s science-fiction dropped into a contemporary horror plot, something that horror editors seem to never buy. Maybe this one sold...because it works. Originally entitled THE WOMEN IN BLACK, this "turgid," original take on the There’s Something Fucked-Up At The College plot highlights Lee’s gross-out skills early on and demonstrates that pulp horror writers really can create fresh, well-developed, easy-to-realize characters. Cameos of Lee’s then-favorite beers--during his beer-snob days--appear in abundance, and Lovecraftian symbols abound (it’s fun just picking them out), but wait till you meets the gals in this book. This is the only existing novel that Lee wants to sequelize"




I wish I had looked into this before I bought it, but I saw the title and Edward Lee's name and automatically clicked the "buy now" button. I mistakenly thought it would be to do with witches or at the very least vampires since some authors don't use the term "nest."  However that was not the case. The story started out well enough, but turned silly fairly quickly. It is more of a gory comedy/sci fi than the horror I was expecting. Coven is actually a story about Aliens who plan to repopulate the earth. Had I known I would have passed. 

Halo Of The Damned by Dina Rae

A chain of advertising agencies, a new breed of humans, and a fallen angel to worship…

Andel Talistokov is known for his slick advertising agencies across the globe. He is a fallen angel that uses advertising as a weapon for Satan's work. His growing power emboldens him to break several of Hell’s Commandments. Furious with his arrogance, Satan commands him to return to Hell after finding his own replacement. Yezidism, an ancient angel worshiping religion, quietly expands throughout the West. Armaros appears as a guest of honor during their ceremonies. He mates with young women to produce nephilim, a mixed race of humans and angels. They are alone and unprepared for their supernatural power. Joanna Easterhouse, a recovering drug addict, steps out of prison shortly after her mother's fatal accident. She and her sister, Kim, unravel their mother's secretive past. Intrigued, they learn their bloodline is part of a celestial legacy. Both worlds collide. Halo of the Damned is a horrifying tale that weaves research together with suspenseful twists and turns.

I noticed a few people are quite worked up over the subject matter of this book. My guess would be they are not horror fans. If you can't take it don't read it. It would be like me leaving a review for Eat Pray Love.....and complaining that it was nothing but some woman trying to deal with her emotions. If you don't like horror why read it? If you do like horror, here you go. This was a fast paced story of angels, demons, nephilim, and Satan himself, with a bit of romance, and suspense thrown in for good measure.

Tatterdemon by Steve Vernon

Description

"In 1691 the town of Crossfall taught the witch Thessaly how to die. They beat her, they shot her, they hung her - but nothing worked. When they finally tried to bury her alive Thessaly set the field against them. The first man died as a gust of wind harrowed the meat from his bones. A root,flung like a dirty javelin, cut a second man down. Many more deaths followed. The Preacher Fell impaled the witch upon her very own broom but she dragged him down into the field to wait for three more centuries. Three hundred years later Maddy Harker will murder her bullying husband Vic. She will bury him in the field as she buried her abusive father years before that. The very same field where the revenant spirit of Thessaly Cross lies waiting. In three days Vic will rise again - a thing of dirt, bone and hatred. Men will call him the Tatterdemon. And hell - and Thessaly - will follow."

Welcome to Crossfall, where 300 years of festering hatred has just boiled over. Nearly everyone in this book has a nasty little secret that they are waiting to share with you, so come on in. The characters are dark, gritty, and in your face. Everything a horror lover could ask for, be it voodoo,murder, or bodies in the freezer are neatly wrapped for you in this well told tale.

Cell - Stephen King

WHERE WERE YOU ON OCTOBER 1ST AT 3:03 P.M.?

Graphic artist Clay Riddell was in the heart of Boston on that brilliant autumn afternoon when hell was unleashed before his eyes. Without warning, carnage and chaos reigned. Ordinary people fell victim to the basest, most animalistic destruction.

And the apocalypse began with the ring of a cell phone

If you like a good end of the world story, or at least the end of the world as we know it, I would recommend Cell for you. Being a New Englander I loved the setting. I think it added to the chill factor for me that my husband has worked in many of the towns mentioned, and would likely be in one of them should the "pulse" ever actually hit us. I did read some reviews before I bought the book, and noticed quite a few people were unhappy with the ending. Several felt that it was left unresolved. King has often left room for the reader's own imagination and that is not a style that bothers me. The ending is whatever you make of it. I am satisfied with the ending that was conjured in my mind.

Terror Town by James Roy Daley

"Killer on the warpath. Monsters on the street. Vampires in the night. Zombies on the hunt. Welcome to Terror Town, the place where no one is safe. Nothing is sacred. All will die. All will suffer.

From the mind of James Roy Daley, author of The Dead Parade, comes one of the most brutally violent horror stories ever written"


What a frightfully good read! This book brought back childhood fears that were long forgotten, but are now fresh in my mind once again. As a child I always knew there were monsters in the basement, and psycho killers living in the house down the street. Terror Town has brought them all back to life for me. I'm not sure if I'll have nightmares tonight, about my friends and family turning into razor sharp, needle toothed creatures, or whether I'll have pleasant dreams of the lazy Saturday afternoons I spent as a kid watching creature double feature while thumbing through much beloved copies of the old horror comic books. Terror Town brought those memories back for me too. I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a scary good time. I received a complimentary copy of Terror Town in exchange for review

The Fright Factory-William R. Potter

THE FRIGHT FACTORY -A cozy cabin on a lake. A few glasses of wine. Erotic conversation. What could go wrong?

Wesley and Robin Tate became empty-nesters in their early forties when their daughter left home for college.

Jesse Lawless is an indie film maker intent on producing the next great horror classic despite lacking the funds for actors, effects, or a script. He will stop at nothing to capture and upload his chilling masterpiece to satisfy his rabid internet fan base.

With a secluded resort cottage as the setting and the Tates as his cast, Lawless sets in motion a plan to produce the most realistic slasher flick ever.

The Fright Factory is Jesse's version of reality show and movie premise rolled into one. For the Tates, no acting ability is necessary as the terror becomes all too real. In each round, Jesse turns up the brutality in a game where killing your best friend may be the only way to survive.

I was given a complimentary copy for review.

It was a quick read that heads straight for the shock value, reminiscent of an Edward Lee novel or perhaps a Rob Zombie film where people are thrown together to be raped tortured and murdered.

I had issues with a few of the details where I would have to flip back a page to see if I had missed something. For example where one victim jumps from a boat and begins swimming to shore, even though as far as I could ascertain the boat had not yet left the shore.

The main character Wes is not particularly likable and I was not able to muster up much concern for whether or not he would live to the end of the story. The other characters and the relationships between them were not as well developed as I would have liked.

The Disappearance by Bentley Little

Description
When Gary's girlfriend Joan vanishes, calls to her parents' home yield only dead air. Her school records are gone. There is no longer any evidence that she even existed. Most disturbing of all is what Gary does find: a warning and a tantalizing clue, leading to a mysterious backward cult known as the Homesteaders. Now Gary may be the next to disappear.

I can usually count on Bentley Little to grab my attention and get my heart pounding from the very first chapter if not the very first page. This one just didn't do that for me. The first few chapters dragged a bit. Once it got going, it was an enjoyable, albeit predictable tale.

The Teratologist-Edward Lee, Wrath James White

Billionaire John Farrington is obsessed with the idea of offending God to the point that God would want to confront him in person. Farrington has abducted priests and nuns to commit sexual atrocities with the most grievously genetically deformed people he can find. People that he's also abducted and kept in such a high state of sexual intensity, with a drug his company produces, that they are just ravenous for physical contact. The abductees, with basically no self control, commit some of the most depraved sex acts, over, and over again. Westmore and Bryant, a photographer and journalist, are given the rare opportunity to interview the reclusive Farrington and see inside his mansion and operation. Only to find the horrors within, and who have become pawns in the mysteries they find behind every door. Farmington's plan may work, and to make sure he's successful, he will do whatever it takes to have the deity of man face him.

As a long time horror fan I have pretty much read it all, and as a long time Edward Lee fan nothing really shocks me anymore. I started sneaking my mother's horror paperbacks to school when I was 11 years old, which means I have now read over 30 years worth of horror novels (gasp!)In all those years, and all those novels, this is the only book that ever made me gag. And I do mean, I literally gagged, and thought for a moment I was actually going to toss my cookies. If that was the reaction Lee was going for, well kudos to you Mr. Lee.

Bad Wolf by Tim McGregor

Description
Detective Lara Mendes’s hard work pays off when she finally gets to join the homicide detail. There’s only one catch; she has to partner up with a cop no one wants to work with.

John Gallagher is a veteran homicide detective who wants nothing more than to work alone. When the Lieutenant partners him with Lara Mendes, his first reaction is to ditch her but a call comes in about a body on the river bank and the rotation says they’re up.

What they find are human remains, mutilated and partially devoured. Their investigation reveals a killer stalking the city with a pack of vicious, feral dogs.
And the suspect believes he is a werewolf.

But this is Portland, where crazy bastards outnumber normal ones ten to one. Except there’s another catch. The crazy werewolf guy? He isn’t crazy...

Author's note: Bad Wolf is my first novel and remains a favourite. This free full-length novel is the first in the Bad Wolf series about two homicide detectives trying to stop a monster. A murder mystery and police procedural, it's premise is simple; cops versus werewolves. I had an absolute blast writing this series. Now that's it's done, I miss these characters. The books, in order, are:

1 Bad Wolf
2 Pale Wolf
3 Last Wolf

This free book is the gateway to a world of monsters, gritty detectives and the werewolves that haunt the moonlit night.

 I found Bad wolf to be a well written story, with likeable and well developed characters. I would describe it as a police procedural with a twist. The twist being a bit of supernatural horror in the form of a werewolf that should appeal to fans of both crime thrillers and horror stories alike.

Risen -by Jan Strnad

                   
"Previously published by Pinnacle Books." Welcome to Anderson. It's quiet here and that's how we like it. Except....

Madge Duffy sliced her husband's throat last week. Thought she killed him, but then John walked out of the morgue none the worse for wear.

The new preacher's calling it a "miracle," but I don't know. It isn't right.

I think there might be other people coming back, too.

Like Deputy Haws, for one. He's got a bullet hole in his one good shirt and he won't talk about it.

You know Peg Culler down at the diner...the one with the little girl on life support? Well, she's talking about pulling the plug, and nobody ever thought she'd do that, not in a million years. She thinks it might be the only way to get her back.

Then there's that gang of kids that hangs around the reservoir...not one of them can look you in the eye without breaking into a cold sweat. They're keeping a secret, and it's got them all on edge.

Something's going on in this town of ours, something that makes your skin crawl and your teeth grind in the night. I don't know what it is, but I know this:

It scares me.

A supernatural tale set in a quiet little town where suddenly the dead don't stay that way for long. At midnight, when the church bell rings the newly dead become the risen. The sick are healed, the insane are sane, all it takes is the miracle of dying first and rising again... but just maybe... death was better.

IN 666 WORDS by Michael E. Grant

Description
666, the number that invokes fear in all. Somewhere lurking within these 33 tales of flash-fiction true terror exists for those brave enough to read on.

Travel along with:
-a generations spanning cannibal clan eating their way through America
-serial killers crossing paths on deserted train tracks
-spouses finding unique ways of adjusting to being married to vampires
-greedy people trying to make win-it-all deals with the Devil

If that’s not enough, you’ll encounter sprinting zombies, giant insects, carpet-dwelling aliens, beautification medicine gone awry, unsuccessful dental procedures, the darkest corners of science, the extremes of parental punishment, clowns(!), and a slew of unfortunate people finding themselves in the wrong place at a very wrong time.

In 666 Words presents each pulse-pounding offering in a “hit them fast and leave them terrified” jolt of precisely 666 words. It’s an ode to the classic genre stories that used to inhabit the comic books and magazines of the 1950’s and 60’s.

Unless you already suffer from hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia, prepare for scares!

This 30,000 word (100+ page) book also includes the terrifying short story "Doors Locked, Lights Out" from the upcoming full length collection Late Night Horrors

Looking for some tasty little tidbits of horror? These dark humored morsels may be just what you need. I am not usually a fan of flash fiction, but these stories are exactly the right length. Quick and to the point, and highly entertaining. My favorites were Sketches, Adjusted, and Blemished.
I received a complimentary copy for review. This was my first time reading anything by Michael E. Grant but I will be on the look out for more of his work.
http://www.amazon.com/IN-666-WORDS-ebook/dp/B0077DR4PM/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1330811787&sr=1-1

A Land of Ash by David Dalglish

The Yellowstone Caldera has erupted once every 600,000 years. We're 40,000 years overdue. A LAND OF ASH Lava flows stretch for hundreds of miles. A cloud of ash billows east, burying the Midwest, destroying crops, and falling upon the Pacific Coast like a warm, dead snow. The remnants of the United States flees south as the global temperatures plummet. Amid this total devastation are stories of families, friends, sons and fathers and wives: the survivors. Within are eleven stories focusing on the human element of such a catastrophe, from an elderly couple gathering to await their death to a father sealing his shelter in hopes of keeping the air breathable for his daughter. Contributing to this collection include many popular and up-and-coming independent authors, including David McAfee, Daniel Arenson, and more.


Chilling tales of desperation, survival, and hope, in the aftermath of a volcanic eruption. I couldn't put it down. 

Peril by Ruby Barnes

Description
Gerard Mayes is in a mess. During a mugging gone wrong, he kills his assailant and becomes the blackmail target of a vicious Romanian crime gang. In a deadly struggle to cast off the gang's net, Ger becomes more entangled. Can he find a way out and save those he loves?

If you're looking for an everyone lives happily ever after tale, keep on looking, you won't find it here. The world seems to be crashing down around Ger in this witty, well written, engaging story. Even though much of Ger's "peril" is due to his own lack of self control I couldn't help but feel sorry for him as he dug himself in deeper and deeper from one bad situation to the next. A very enjoyable read.

Northwoods Deep by Joel Arnold

Description
"Deep in the north woods, two sisters become lost; one stalked by a murderous ex-husband, the other unable to rid herself of the leeches that appear mysteriously on her skin.

All are drawn to an old, dilapidated cabin.

Inside lives an old man with awful urges, accompanied by a Rottweiler possessed by something…unnatural.

But it’s what resides beneath the cabin that they should really be worried about.

Please join award-winning author Joel Arnold on a ride over the river and through the woods straight into terror in his newest novel, Northwoods Deep."
A sister's love, a father's pain, a brother's guilt, a psycho ex husband, a creepy old hermit, and an Indian legend all come together in a story so descriptive and well written that I could almost smell the woods and hear the river.
There are not many books that I assign the overused phrase of "page turner" and it may seem like I'm gearing up to call Northwoods Deep one of them....
Well I'm not. Because for me, this book was more rare than a page turner. I did not devour it in one sitting. This book was savored slowly over several days, even though I did not want to put it down. I forced myself to put it down. To make it last, simply because I don't know when I have enjoyed a book more, and I didn't want it to end. I do know it will probably be a long time before I find another one as good. I will definitely be keeping an eye out for more from this author.

 

DRACULAS (A Novel of Terror)

Description
A DYING MAN’S GREATEST TREASURE…

Mortimer Moorecook, retired Wall Street raider, avid collector, is losing his fight against cancer. With weeks to live, a package arrives at the door of his hillside mansion—an artifact he paid millions for…a hominoid skull with elongated teeth, discovered in a farmer’s field in the Romanian countryside. With Shanna, his beautiful research assistant looking on, he sinks the skull’s razor sharp fangs into his neck, and immediately goes into convulsions.

OPENS THE DOOR TO AN ANCIENT EVIL...

A rural hospital. A slow night in the ER. Until Moorecook arrives strapped to a gurney, where he promptly codes and dies.

WHERE DEATH IS JUST THE BEGINNING.

Four well-known horror authors pool their penchants for scares and thrills, and tackle one of the greatest of all legends, with each writer creating a unique character and following them through a vampire outbreak in a secluded hospital.

The goal was simple: write the most intense novel they possibly could.

Which they did.

A Word of Warning:

Within these pages, you will find no black capes, no satin-lined coffins, no brooding heartthrobs who want to talk about your feelings. Forget sunlight and stakes. Throw out your garlic and your crosses. This is the Anti-TWILIGHT.

Finally! These vampires do not glitter in the sunlight or mope around looking depressed.This is not an everyone lives happily ever after story. These are vampires as they were meant to be. Bloodthirsty, vicious, with one thing on their minds, BLOOD and where to get more.

Includes bonus material and short stories. One of which(Cub Scout Gore Feast) was hilarious... in a sick kind of way 

The Butcher's Boy by Michael Robb Mathias

Description
Thirty-one years ago, Buxly the Butcher went to trial for killing his entire family. Now Janet, a newly divorced nurse, has unknowingly purchased the place where it all took place.

What happens when her eleven year old son and their overprotective Rottweiler learn that the place is haunted by the victims of that grizzly act? Can young Michael fight through the madness and terror to figure out what really happened so long ago? If he does, maybe the tormented souls can be put to rest. If he fails, he just might become one of them. With only the help of his babysitter, a burned out house painter, and his dog, Lucy Fur, Michael is about to try. The problem is, not everyone is who they seem, even the dead.

Not just another ghost story! Very enjoyable from start to finish, and just when I thought I had it all figured out... there came the twist to prove me wrong.
The Butcher's Boy is well written, imaginative, and just plain scary!

Scissors by Ray Garton

Description
Stuart will never forget the horrible thing Dr. Ferguson did to him when he was a boy. The pain, the blood and the snip-snip of those glinting scissors will live in his nightmares for the rest of his life. But now Dr. Ferguson is back and not just in Stuart's dreams. He's very real. He's determined to perform that same horrible procedure on Stuart's young son. And his scissors are nice and sharp



A great read from one of my favorite authors. It kept me guessing from the start. Through much of the book I wasn't sure whether there were supernatural elements at work or whether the main character was sinking into insanity. Very original.

Full Dark, No Stars -Stephen King

Full Dark, No Stars is a collection of four intense short stories with retribution as the central theme. Released in the fall of 2010 in hardcover and audiobook formats, Full Dark, No Stars is a powerful read featuring some of Stephen's most graphic and merciless content to date



No spoilers from me, and no plot descriptions that you could obtain from the dust jacket anyway. To be direct and to the point, I loved this book. Each and every story had me hooked from the start, and I hated for it to end. I simply didn't want it to be over because it's been a long time since I enjoyed a book this much.

I had given up on Stephen King for a while because of a few disappointing book purchases after his accident.. I even began to wonder if he had somehow, in that accident, lost his ability to tell a story. I see now that he has not. Full Dark No Stars is Stephen King in top form