Ink by Jonathan Maberry

 

From New York Times bestselling author Jonathan Maberry comes a standalone supernatural thriller Ink, about a memory thief who feeds on the most precious of dreams.

Tattoo-artist Patty Cakes has her dead daughter's face tattooed on the back of her hand. Day by day it begins to fade, taking with it all of Patty's memories of her daughter. All she's left with is the certain knowledge she has forgotten her lost child. The awareness of that loss is tearing her apart.

Monk Addison is a private investigator whose skin is covered with the tattooed faces of murder victims. He is a predator who hunts for killers, and the ghosts of all of those dead people haunt his life. Some of those faces have begun to fade, too, destroying the very souls of the dead.

All through the town of Pine Deep people are having their most precious memories stolen. The monster seems to target the lonely, the disenfranchised, the people who need memories to anchor them to this world.

Something is out there. Something cruel and evil is feeding on the memories, erasing them from the hearts and minds of people like Patty and Monk and others.

Ink is the story of a few lonely, damaged people hunting for a memory thief. When all you have are memories, there is no greater horror than forgetting.

First I have to say I was thrilled to pieces when I found out that the setting for Ink is Pine Deep. Although this is a stand alone book and you need not have read the Pine Deep Trilogy to enjoy it you are missing out on some of the best horror fiction of all time if you have skipped it. You'll also wonder what the "trouble" is they keep referring to that Pine Deep has suffered through in the past, and that Val and Crow have managed to survive.

I don't believe the description of this book does it justice. It calls Monk Addison a private investigator. Oh No. Nope. What a boring and inaccurate description for such a complex character. A psychic vampire has come to Pine Deep. It does not need the memories of others to survive, but it revels in them. Especially in the deepest darkest most painful or life altering experiences they have had. It also gets some sort of twisted sexual thrill out of the suffering of others. Stealing their memories allows it to experience them as if they were his own, and he also has the ability to exert mind control over others, getting them to do his bidding.

All fans of  the trilogy need to read this book, and  if this is your first visit to Pine Deep I would recommend that you read the earlier books.

5 out of 5 stars

I received an advance copy.

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Ghost Road Blues/Dead Man's Song /Bad Moon Rising

About the author
JONATHAN MABERRY is a New York Times best-selling and five-time Bram Stoker Award-winning author, anthology editor, comic book writer, magazine feature writer, playwright, content creator and writing teacher/lecturer. He was named one of the Today’s Top Ten Horror Writers. His books have been sold to more than two-dozen countries.

Midnight in the Pentagram Edited by Kenneth W. Cain

 As the clock’s pendulum steadily counts down towards the midnight hour, the growing scent of brimstone hangs heavy in the air. The universal symbol of all that is evil, the pentagram, or the inverted pentacle, has been carved in the hardwood floor. Its shape is often described as the goat of lust attacking the Heavens with its horns during the witches’ sabbat. Five obsidian candles flicker as the incantations begin. Who will be summoned during this unholy evening? Will it be Baphomet? Or Belial? Maybe even Lucifer himself? The roof timbers groan. Stressed plaster drops to the floor. The demon approaches, holding its ancient grimoire filled with evil stories, written in blood…and here they are.

From the depths of hell Midnight in the Pentagram has risen to entertain you with stories steeped in evil and simmered in fear. Demons frolic among humans, sometimes with their own purpose, or perhaps inadvertently summoned by middle school girls who never expected their ritual to wield such results. 

Demons are not the only beings looking to lead you astray, beware too the people who accept you into their twisted family when you are at your most vulnerable, such as occurs in one of my favorite stories in this book The Corn Maidens by Brian Moreland. I think I could best describe this as  Midsommar meets Dark Secret of Harvest Home but scarier. Father Macleod by Tony Tremblay was another of my favorites about a priest who attempts to rid his nephew of the demon that has possessed him. Another story of possession of a stranger type was Legion Cast Forth by Robert Ford in which demons are driven from their human hosts and into the swine belonging to Cletus the pig farmer. But Cletus is tired of this low paying deal and wants to strike a new bargain. Speaking of demonic possession Diminishing Returns by P.D. Casek takes a look at what may happen if a demon possessed someone with Alzheimer's disease.

Witches' Night by Owl Goingback was another of my favorites. When kids meet up in the cemetery with a spell book one night what could possibly go wrong?    The Other by Laurel Hightower was another possession story with a creepy twist.  Hellseed by Tim Curran was like a folktale, what happens when you bargain with witches and don't pay up? Babyteeth by Azzura Nox  begs the question, what could lead a mother to kill her baby? Was it only post partum depression? My Body by Wesley Southard features bloody good fun and delicious food with a dark side as one restaurant reviewer/critic discovers.  Discovering Mr Jones by Cameron Ulam is the story of  a junk hauling crew who discover an unexpected and unwelcome surprise in a hoarder's home . The Gods of our Fathers by Todd Keisling  Is the story of poor Mary who has lost her mother and does not belong in Christian school.

In Second Sight by Allan Leverone a blind woman has a most successful ocular transplant surgery and sees more than she ever wanted to, and perhaps more than she can stand.

All of these and more await you in the pentagram, enter if you dare.

5 out of 5 stars

I received an advance copy for review.

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Everyone Is a Moon: Strange Stories by Sawney Hatton

 

From Sawney Hatton, the devilishly inventive mind who brought you the acclaimed Dark Comedy novel DEAD SIZE and the YA Noir novella UGLYVILLE, comes 12 twisted Dark Fiction tales featuring a magical finger, a cannibalistic memorial, an extreme piercing parlor, a Space Age monastery, a budding serial killer, and more.

Presenting three new, never-before-published stories, as well as re-mastered versions of earlier works, this collection is sure to disturb and delight readers who like to play in the dark. (Warning: contains some graphic material.)

Stories include "The Good Touch,” "Cutting Remarks,” "The Boy Who Cried Alien,” “Pet,” "In Memoriam the Ostrich,” "The Mortality Machine,” "The Lord Is My Rocket,” "The Beholder,” "Mr. Gregori,” “FYVP,” "The Dark at the Deep End,” and "Suitable for Framing."

I read horror for the scares. I'm all about the chills and less about the shock factor or the gore. Not that gore bothers me, it just doesn't terrify me. So with that in mind I took no heed of the "graphic material" warning, and plowed ahead. Not all of the stories were my cup of tea but I did  love the first 3. In The Good Touch we meet two friends with very different personalities. One quite selfish and the other his polar opposite. Perhaps that is why their friendship works. But when one comes into possession of a gift from God it sparks a jealousy in the other that is the undoing of both.

Cutting Remarks is the story of a bullied housewife who at last finds happiness in her marriage. It was both humorous and darkly disturbing. The Boy Who Cried Alien was another dark comedy, if only someone had explained about the birds and the bees to this boy it may have avoided such a catastrophe.

 When I got to the 4th story Pet I put the book down and almost didn't finish it. I am not a fan of animal cruelty. I don't care how many people may get beheaded or dragged to hell in any book but I need you to leave the animals alone.  To me the only saving grace to this story is that no such animal exists on this planet. I don't mean that it was badly written because it wasn't. It's just my own personal limit of what I choose to read. I do not actively seek out animal abuse stories and I guess this is what the graphic content warning was for.

I liked The Mortality Machine, in which a couple who is running out of time together don't really make the most of what they have left. I loved Mr Gregori who is the lonely ghost haunting an apartment, watching people move in and out but never being able to engage with any of them.. until now.

So although every story was not a hit with me, that is the joy of short stories, take what you like and leave the rest.  I would recommend this collection to all who have a dark sense of humor and those with a stomach for disturbing subject matter.

I received a complimentary copy for review.

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About the author

Sawney Hatton is an author, editor, and screenwriter. Other incarnations of Sawney have produced marketing videos, attended all-night film festivals, and played the banjo and sousaphone (not at the same time). As of this writing he is still very much alive.

A Seed in a Soil of Sorrow by Keith Anthony Baird

 

When the death cult calls ... what are you running from?

The path to the Viridian Chapter is paved with many sorrows. It's a sect which sits on the site of a brutal atrocity, and one which harbors numerous dark secrets. Leader, Hans Lehmann, is a visionary bestowed with remarkable abilities, with followers who are prepared to offer their lives in exchange for his promise of a utopia.

On the cusp of autumn, a lone seeker arrives to discard his former life and embrace his rebirth as a chapter disciple. Stark lessons within a strict regime are the lure for those who have been traumatized by their uncaring past. The promise of a doomsday ascension through the waste of flesh proves at odds with a union between two souls who must flee the confines of the commune, if their love is to stand a chance of being fully realized.
But will the inner circle elite discover this betrayal and exact a terrible retribution, or will they escape the clutches of the sect's unstable originator and lift the lid on the culture of violence within? 

I went into this short story totally blind, not even having read the synopsis. I don't normally do that, nor do I often stray from the horror genre. I knew only that it was a short story, which as I've said many times, I'm rather addicted to those. So with that being said it becomes immediately apparent that a man with a troubled past has found his way to a death cult looking for a sense of belonging that he has never experienced.

"Even though I was angry with him he was still the only person I admired, and the broken part of me that had brought me to him in the first place was stronger than the rest of me back then"

At first glimpse it seems he will become just another lost soul in a long list of disciples, but then he meets a woman who makes him reconsider, and he begins to plan an escape.

It's hard to say much more without giving anything away but you could have knocked me over with a feather when the ending came, I was that surprised.

4 out of 5 stars

I received a complimentary copy for review.

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