The Dark Game by Jonathan Janz

Ten writers are selected for a summer-long writing retreat with the most celebrated and reclusive author in the world. Their host is the legendary Roderick Wells. Handsome, enigmatic, and fiendishly talented, Wells promises to teach his pupils about writing, about magic, about the untapped potential that each of them possesses. Most of all, he plans to teach them about the darkness in their hearts. The writers think they are signing up for a chance at riches and literary prestige. But they are really entering the twisted imagination of a deranged genius, a lethal contest pitting them against one another in a struggle for their sanity and their lives. They have entered into Roderick Wells's most brilliant and horrible creation. The Dark Game.



A few years ago I may have said Jonathan who? These days I need only see the name Jonathan Janz to know that I need to grab the book without even reading the description. Jonathan Janz knows horror, More than that he is an amazing story teller who doesn't need to go for the cheap scares or the gore only route. Every character has a purpose and I am not going to go into the plot much except to say each character has their own twisted little back story and the way in which it all played out was deliciously creepy. I also loved the way it mentioned The Siren and The Spector, which is another book by this author that you really need to read if you haven't yet.
5 out of 5 stars.
I received an advance copy for review.


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About the author

Jonathan Janz is the author of more than a dozen novels and numerous short stories. His work has been championed by authors like Joe R. Lansdale, Jack Ketchum, and Brian Keene; he has also been lauded by Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, and School Library Journal. His ghost story The Siren and the Specter was selected as a Goodreads Choice nominee for Best Horror. Additionally, his novel Children of the Dark was chosen by Booklist as a Top Ten Horror Book of the Year. Jonathan’s main interests are his wonderful wife and his three amazing children. You can sign up for his newsletter (http://jonathanjanz.us12.list-manage....), and you can follow him on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Amazon, and Goodreads.

Deadly Reality TV Series (Book #1 Easy Money) by Sea Caummisar

What would you do to earn 'Easy Money'?
There's a new reality TV game show that pays contestants to hurt themselves. How much pain would you endure to make some quick cash? Would you shoot yourself with a nail gun for $10,000? There are plenty of contestants willing to go on live TV to make a quick buck. Would you watch the show? The ratings are looking good. 'Easy Money' becomes the most talked about show on television.
Follow Damon Dahmer, the executive producer, as he creates such a bizarre television show. Damon is not only making good television, he is also struggling with his own inner needs to watch people in pain. Slowly, Damon pushes boundaries to find what is acceptable and what is not. Throw in his own revenge vendetta, and Damon's personal pain show viewings, and you get the first book in the series of 'Deadly Reality TV'.
Is the real horror what people are doing to themselves? Or is it the man that Damon reveals himself to be? Maybe it's just scary that people are actually watching the show.
Viewer (reading) discretion is advised. Not for the faint of heart. Recommended for 18+ due to some violent content. Warning: There are some bloody scenes.

I am old enough to remember when the only "reality show" was the nightly news, and maybe The People's Court, Cops, and a slew of talk shows where people mostly complained about their spouses. These days, there are a ton of naked dating shows, surviving the wilderness, and willingness to marry a stranger for a chance to be on TV. So is it really that far fetched to think there could ever be a show where people willingly injure and maim themselves for cash? Probably not, and the author imagines just such a future where people will do anything for cash while a live audience enjoys their pain. "Easy Money" is the brain child of a twisted sadist who may have once been something close to normal but since the death of his only child and dissolution of his marriage, has embraced his darkest desires to see human suffering up close and personal.
This was a quick and gruesome read.

I received a complimentary copy for review.

Second Lives by P D. Cacek

When four patients spontaneously regain consciousness after being declared dead, their loved ones are ecstatic and words like "miracle" and "miraculous" begin to float around the hospital. But the jubilation is short lived when the patients neither recognize their families nor answer to their names. Each one vehemently claims to be someone else, someone who lived, and died, in the past. When it's suggested that all four are suffering from fugue states, one of the doctors says that he recognizes a name and verifies he not only knew the girl but was there when she died in 1992. It soon becomes obvious that the bodies of the four patients are now inhabited by the souls of people long dead. A frightened little boy killed in 1956 cries out for his mother from the body of an 81 year old Alzheimer's patient, the soul of a spinster killed in a Suffragette rally wakes in the body of a new mother; an orthodox Jew, murdered in 1922, opens the eyes of a gay suicide and a teenage girl wakes to discover she's now in the body of a 45 year old woman. The hospital psychiatrist, after talking with them, dubs the four "The Travelers" and believes they are proof of the transmigration of souls. They are more than just lost souls, he tells the grieving families, they are completely alone and terrified, displaced into bodies that aren't their own and trapped in a world they can't understand. If they are to survive they'll need help and to this end the doctor asks the families to make a supreme sacrifice and do just that: to help these strangers assimilate into society and their new lives. To care for a complete stranger who looks like the loved one they just lost is a hard thing to ask of people. The families have the right to say no, they are under no legal or moral obligation to help; but they do. Spearheaded by the elderly woman whose husband's body now holds the soul of a frightened child, but still with reservations and not a little anger, they finally agree to accept the strangers wearing their loved ones bodies, and will do everything they can to help "The Travelers" make as smooth and gentle a transition into their new lives as possible.

 

This novel is a spellbinding and original exploration of reincarnation in which lives that were cut short return from the dead, not as newborns and not with new lives, but in the bodies of the recently deceased. Imagine losing a loved one, but not being able to lay them to rest because a stranger now inhabits their body. Imagine having lost a loved one years ago but finding out they are now alive in a body that you don't recognize. Now imagine being that person, perhaps a child that was run down in the street waking up in the body of an elderly dying man. This is the wondrous concept brought to life by P.D. Casek.

5 out of 5 stars.

 

I received an advance copy for review.

 

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About the author

Occasionally credited as Patricia D. Cacek.

Patricia Diana Joy Anne Cacek (December 22, 1951, Hollywood, California) is an American author, mostly of horror novels. She graduated with a B.A in Creative Writing from California State University, Long Beach in 1975.

Paradise, Maine by Jackson R. Thomas

They needed a place to get away from it all... they'll never be coming back.

When Darren and Vanis set out to free themselves from life's anxieties and rekindle their relationship, a trip to the beautiful Maine coast sounds perfect.

The breathtaking views and gorgeous cabin seem like another world. One to get lost in and from which they never want to return. But something has an eye on them...

For Zebulun Ayers, a trip to connect with nature is far more than he ever saw on Man vs. Wild or any other reality TV show. This is the real wild life.

Paradise, Maine is home to a monster rarely seen and one never mentioned, even among locals. The Watcher is waiting.  



Darren and Vanis have hit a rocky patch in their marriage and hope that a romantic getaway to the coast of Maine might help get their relationship back on track. What they don't know is that the locals have a secret, and by the time they find out what it is, it may already be too late.
There's something living in the wild. More beast than man, the locals call it The Watcher. They don't bother it and it doesn't bother them, but there is a price to pay.
"Once every few months, they had to ignore the screams from the mountain behind their shops and homes"
This was a fast paced read with lots of guts and gore that reminded me a bit of Edward Lee (and yes that is meant as a compliment.)

4 out of 5 stars
I received an advance copy for review.



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About the author
Jackson R. Thomas has lived in Colorado, New York, and now resides in Coopers Mills, Maine with his cat, Gizmo.

He loathes social media, and has worked as a janitor, fast-food slave, record store clerk, and night auditor at an unnamed hotel on Route 1.

He loves horror books, horror films, and the band, Ministry.