Angel Falls by Julia Rust and David Surface

 

What if you had the power to bring back someone you lost?

Fifteen-year-old Jessie Reed would do anything to keep her parents together. But when her father inherits an old house from mysterious Cousin Dorothy, Jessie accompanies him to the seaport village of Beauport, while her mother stays behind in New York City.

Jessie stumbles across the isolated trails of Angel Falls, a wild and beautiful place that holds the ruins of a three- hundred-year-old town with a strange history. There she encounters Jared Younger, a sixteen-year-old local boy who considers these forbidden woods his own.

Jared feels powerless to save his father, an artist crippled by depression—until a series of unexplainable events brings him face to face with a power he never knew he had. Jared’s teacher, Chris Delany offers to help him control the strange thing that’s happening to him—but are Delany’s motives as pure as they seem? Or, as Jessie suspects, does Delany have a secret agenda of his own that puts Jared in danger?

Jessie and Jared discover that the truth is far more dangerous than they could have imagined.

I was happy to be invited to read this young adult novel with the gorgeous cover and intriguing synopsis. 

Angel Falls is a poignant coming-of-age tale with supernatural overtones, told from the alternating points of view of two young teens, Jessie and Jared.

It will definitely be a summer to remember for Jessie Reeds. First love, family secrets, spooky woods, and more await her in the seaside town of Beauport where she stays with her father to settle the estate of a recently deceased relative. Here she hopes to reunite her parents before the permanent split she fears is coming. 

Jared is a teenage resident of the village who is desperately trying to support himself and his father as they fall deeper and deeper under a mountain of bills that no child could possibly pay alone.

Jared's father has succumbed to such a deep depression he is no longer a functional parent.

When Jared and Jessie meet they will uncover secrets in both of their pasts as well as a strange dark history of the village. Between the two of them they may have the power to make their fondest wishes come true but at what cost?

I feel like I knew these characters, almost like I watched Jessie and Jared move on from childhood to maturity. I had a lot of sympathy for them both as I watched them longing to change things that could have been, and finally learning that we must all accept the reality of the way things are instead of how we wish they could be.

This was a bittersweet tale of loss and loss, and growing up.

4 out of 5 stars

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Julia Rust

David Surface

DMV by Bentley Little

 Successful author Todd Klein and his wife Rosita live a quiet small-town life. Todd's latest novel is selling well and despite recent budget cuts, Rosita relishes her job at the local library. After years of marriage, they're still in love, the mortgage to their suburban home is paid off, and their future is bright. Until that is, Todd makes an appointment at the Department of Motor Vehicles to renew his license.

Jorge Guiterrez, Rosita's younger brother, hasn't been so lucky. A few months earlier, his bad temper finally caught up with him. After arguing with a supervisor, Jorge quit his cushy job and hasn't been able to find a new one. The bills are piling up and his wife is starting to pressure him. Until, one day, he is approached by a pair of mysterious strangers with an even more mysterious job offer...at the DMV.

Zal Tombasian, a young programmer at Data Initiatives, has a pretty boring existence. As his friend and co-worker Bernard tells him, "Your social life consists of sitting at home eating junk food and playing online games." Zal doesn't even bother to put up an argument. He's never been much for adventure. Until his company is hired to work on their largest account yet...by the DMV.

With his latest novel, Bentley Little's savage satire is on full display as he takes on everyone's worst nightmare, the DMV.

Two married couples and a team of computer programmers have their lives turned upside down by an encounter with the DMV.

I am a huge Bentley Little fan. I have read everything he ever wrote. That is not to say that every book has been a perfect hit with me, but he knocks it out of the park often enough to stay high on my list of must-read authors.

If you have never read this author before then I should warn you first that you can't expect a whole lot of realistic scenarios. 

What you can expect is an everyday ordinary event to turn into something outrageous and over the top in a most entertaining and terrifying way.

This time it all revolves around the DMV where something as simple as renewing your license can lead to kidnapping, imprisonment, death, or worse. Where taking your written test has nothing to do with the rules of the road and the consequences of failure are far worse than having to rely on public transportation.

Bentley Little's DMV is not just a government-run nuisance, notorious for long wait times and workers on a power trip. This DMV is an all-seeing all-knowing entity that has existed long before cars or trucks and it is out to get you. "All Hail The DMV"

This book is now among my favorites by this author. It is equal parts hilarious and horrifying and I loved every insane minute of this darkly humorous delight.

This is Bentley Little at his mind-blowing best.

5 out of 5 stars

My thanks to Cemetery Dance Publications.

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All Hallows by Christopher Golden

 With the 80's nostalgia of Stranger Things, this horror drama from NYT bestselling author Christopher Golden follows neighborhood families and a mysterious, lurking evil on one Halloween day.

It’s Halloween night, 1984, in Coventry, Massachusetts, and two families are unraveling. Up and down the street, horrifying secrets are being revealed, and all the while, mixed in with the trick-or-treaters of all ages, four children who do not belong are walking door to door, merging with the kids of Parmenter Road. Children in vintage costumes with faded, eerie makeup. They seem terrified, and beg the neighborhood kids to hide them away, to keep them safe from The Cunning Man. There’s a small clearing in the woods now that was never there before, and a blackthorn tree that doesn’t belong at all. These odd children claim that The Cunning Man is coming for them...and they want the local kids to protect them. But with families falling apart and the neighborhood splintered by bitterness, who will save the children of Parmenter Road?

As a Halloween loving horror fan who grew up in the 80s, I was giddy with excitement over the description of this book. Pair that with the fact that the setting is a fictional town called Coventry as I sat here reading it from my home in an actual town called Coventry and the anticipation was almost more than my little dark heart could handle.

I love holiday themed horror, especially when that holiday is Halloween. So I wondered, could All Hallows possibly live up to my expectations? 

YES! This is my first 5 star read of the year. 

A perfect blend of nostalgia, realism and the supernatural collide on Parmenter Road where the nice guys, the racists, the bigots, and the hypocrites coexist as neighbors. There were characters I loved and characters I loved to hate. I felt like this could be any town in 1980s New England including my own. In the midst of The neighborhood Haunted Woods attraction, and the annual Halloween festivities, something uninvited stirs on this special night when the veil is thin. A doorway opens and something comes through to crash the party. As marriages crumble and friendships are tested, peculiar children not of this world walk this final October Eve, blending in with the trick-or-treaters, and begging for help.  Not all will survive the night.

My thanks to St. Martin's Press

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Holy Ghost Road by John Mantooth

 Some roads are haunted by the past. Some by ghosts. Some are even haunted by demons. The one Forest must travel is haunted by all three.

When she discovers Pastor Nesmith praying to a demonic entity in her family’s barn, Forest knows she must run. Enraged at the possibility of having his true allegiance exposed, Nesmith pursues Forest as she flees on foot, hoping to reach the one person who will believe her—her grandmother. Unfortunately, Granny is forty miles away, and Forest has no car, no phone, and no friends. To reach her, Forest will have to learn to see the world true, even as the demonic and the sacred wage war for her soul. 

Over the river and through the woods to grandmother's house we go... in a desperate attempt to escape the clutches of Pastor Nesmith and a fate worse than death.

15 year old Forest is wise beyond her years. She sees things that others can't. She has a special power and that is why Pastor Nesmith has his sights on her. Most of the town is under his spell, including Forest's mom who doesn't realize he only pretends to care about her to get closer to her daughter.

For the majority of the book we are on the run with Forest, or hiding, or escaping the clutches of the pastor's creepy blind sister who moves as if she can see. There is a lot of suspense at first, but it becomes repetitive after a while with so many close calls and near misses. The pace is a little slow for my taste. I really wanted to love this book but it was just an ok read for me. It was just too much of the same thing over and over. Run, hide, search for food, get caught, escape, run hide, rinse repeat. You may enjoy it more than I did.

My thanks to Cemetery Dance for the review copy,

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Perfect Union by Cody Goodfellow

 

THE FAMILY 

When Drew married Laura, he also married into the Kowalski family. But on a trip with his twin brothers-in-law into the backwoods of northern California to find their abusive, estranged mother, buried secrets will be revealed, threatening his fragile marriage and his sanity.

 THE COLONY 

Mom has joined a new family: Leviathan- a utopian colony that has taken the communist ideal to radical biological extremes, using the mutagenic honey from genetically tweaked bees to make ideal workers and flawless warriors. But the once-human hive is divided by a strike and brutal internecine war, and its tyrannical Chairman is eagerly recruiting scabs. With the Kowalski twins taking opposing sides in the colony's bitter feud, Drew is forced into a world where nothing is taboo and survival is the only law, where he must negotiate between the insane collective mind and the savage refugees, even as the battling forces of the commune work to reshape him into a tool to complete their... PERFECT UNION

It is not my usual type but once I started I just couldn't look away.

Drew is on a road trip with his two brothers-in-law. The plan is to pack up mama and move her and her belongings elsewhere before she ends up living too close to them. None of them have a relationship with her or want her around for reasons that become apparent later in the book. When they get there she is missing and there is a mix of relief and a who cares attitude other than some slight worry about the possibility of being blamed for her disappearance. At this point the reader knows where mama has gone... but our characters don't. 

A surreal mix of incest, child abuse, politics, and bees follows.

Yes. Bees. and I will never look at them the same way again.

I'm not sure what I expected from the synopsis but I was taken aback by this bizarro tale of family dysfunction that morphed into a satire of the far left versus the far right, communism, and sex in what I would describe as a dystopian ecological horror. 

If you are looking for over the top violence and a totally berserk plot this may be for you.

My thanks to Ghoulish Books.

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Sunny Pines by Glen Krisch, Bev Vincent, Kealan Patrick Burke, Ray Garton

 

After an absence of twenty-two years, childhood friends Connor, Miguel, and Jelica agree to meet at Sunny Pines, the mobile home park where they grew up. Sunny Pines had always been a violent place, where drugs and crime were prevalent and visits from the police commonplace. Some say it had been built on bad ground, a spoiled, cursed land. Nothing positive ever came from Sunny Pines, and those who managed to escape it carried the traumas from that environment wherever they wound up.

For the three friends, this is a solemn gathering and, hopefully, a way to put the past to rest. A recent fire destroyed the neighborhood, killing six and leaving many more injured. But their return does little to quiet their childhood memories. Instead, their arrival stirs every vile remnant of dysfunction into waking, and they must face their demons if they are to truly leave the mobile home park for good.

Even though this was a very quick read the characters were fleshed out enough for me to connect with them and envision their lives as children and adults. I wanted them to be ok.

Three childhood friends reunite at the burned out remains of the trailer park where they grew up, to face a timeless evil. As children, all they really had was each other to count on, bonded by the abuse and neglect that was their life in Sunny Pines. Now they will confront their darkest fears in an attempt to cleanse the grounds before it ruins more lives.

Four authors have come together to each write a section of this supernatural horror novella. I can't imagine how difficult that must be, like having four cooks with different recipes all cooking in the same pot and yet somehow they did not spoil the soup! 

4 out of 5 stars

My thanks to Cemetery Dance Publications

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