Autumn Falls by A.R. Kingston

 

Twenty-five years ago, a deal was made to save a child’s life. Now the time has come for someone to pay the price.

Paramedic Charlotte Briggs is a woman on the run. Having escaped an abusive man with her son, she lives out of motels until a mysterious call offers her a job in a sleepy, fog-locked town of Autumn Falls.

At first, the picturesque New England town, situated off the coast of Maine, seems like an ideal place to raise her son, until strange things begin to happen. At first, it’s just the crows following her around the island and the frightful creature lurking in the shadows. Then, the accidents start. Gruesome, bloody accidents unlike any she’d ever seen before. The island is thirsty for human blood. The dead also don’t stay dead. They either return to warn her or threaten her, and Charlotte suspects that not all is well in her new town.

Digging into the island’s past, Charlotte won’t only unearth its supernatural secrets, but also solve the mystery of her own link to this cursed chunk of rock in the Atlantic.

Charlotte has come to build a new life for herself and her son. What she doesn't know is that there was a nefarious reason she was offered a new job and a place to start over.

Autumn Falls, a lovely name for the odd town with weird inhabitants. There were lots of things I liked about this book. The mystery of the old hospital where even paramedics are forbidden to go, the "ghost" ambulance that can be seen cruising down the street, the creepy way the children act, as if they are synchronized, even the Pig Man! There are lots of spooky happenings here and several  gruesome deaths and mutilations.  What I didn't like was the way some of the characters interacted, and their dialogue. It just hit a few wrong notes with me that a woman who has had to flee an abusive relationship would be so willing to spill her life story to her new coworkers practically the minute they first meet, or to feel obligated to explain to strangers why she chose to raise her son on her own. It could be, that was the way the author chose to fill the reader in on Charlotte's back story but in my head I was screaming it's none of their business! Why are you spilling your guts to these strangers?

I enjoyed the more macabre moments of the story but wasn't crazy about the long lost love angle.

3 out of 5 stars

I received a complimentary copy for review

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About the author

Multi-genre author A.R. Kingston is a lover of all things dark and magical. She started out writing fanfiction in High School until going off to college to pursue her bachelor’s degree in Psychology and spent a few years in the mental health field before her passion for writing called back to her. Now she spends her time weaving fantastical tales of magical worlds or planting terrifying beasts on earth. When she is not writing, you can find her enjoying tea with her potbellied pigs while she reads a book or hones a new skill. Eventually, she hopes to retire in her beautiful Colorado Springs, Colorado, and run her own pig rescue.

Blood Kin by Ronald Kelly

 Unholy Revival!

Josiah Craven had been all but forgotten for nearly a hundred years.

To his descendants, he was nothing more than an imposing image in an old tintype photograph and the subject of stories told in hushed tones before the fireplace at night. A traveling mountain preacher who had returned from his wanderings and died by mysterious circumstances; buried in an unmarked grave with a wooden stake through his heart. Dudley Craven had heard the tales, but never believed them… until his plow unearthed an ancient coffin in the center of a lonesome mountain pasture.

Now Josiah is back and his true nature has been revealed. Hungering for the blood and obedience of his kin, he roams the Appalachian Mountains with only one purpose in mind… to initiate his family into a dark church of the damned.

Only a trio of unlikely foes summon the courage to bring Josiah’s ungodly mission to an end. An alcoholic carpenter who will do anything to save his wife and children, a timid preacher’s wife with a love of horror literature and film, and the knowledge to defeat the undead, and a moonshine-making mountain man who once encountered a similar evil in the dark tunnels beneath the jungles of Vietnam.

Together, they will ascend the peak of Craven’s Mountain to do battle with Josiah Craven and his congregation of the living dead!

I first read Blood Kin back in the 90s. When I saw this classic horror had been re-released with a new bonus prequel story at the end I could not pass up a chance to revisit Granddaddy Craven and the hell he brought down on Craven's Mountain.

More than a blood and guts vampire story, there are characters to love, and to hate, and to hope for. There is a family in crisis that I hoped would mend. There is a meddlesome mother-in-law that I wanted to smack! Family bonds and friendships are in peril along with souls.

Josiah Craven was not a good person in life, and being undead did nothing to improve that. When his wife put him in the ground nearly 100 years ago she thought that was the end of it, and for her generation it was. Now all these years later, Dud Craven has unwittingly unearthed Josiah's grave. Josiah is not just starving for blood, he is hungry for power and plans to preside over a congregation of the undead, starting with his family.

Blood Kin is edge of your seat suspense and fang-tastic fun. Over 20 years ago I said it was one of the best vampire novels I had ever read, and it still is, to this day.

5 out of 5 stars

I received a complimentary copy for review.

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About the author
Ronald Kelly has been writing horror tales set in the American South since the small-press days of the 1980s. A former Zebra Book author, his published works include Fear, Undertaker's Moon, Blood Kin, Hell Hollow, The Dark'Un, Midnight Grinding & Other Twilight Terrors, After the Burn, Hindsight, The Buzzard Zone, The Essential Sick Stuff, The Halloween Store, Season's Creepings, and Irish Gothic. His audio collection of Southern-fried short stories, Dark Dixie: Tales of Southern Horror, was included on the nominating ballot of the 1992 Grammy Awards for Best Non-Musical or Spoken Album. He lives in a backwoods hollow in Brush Creek, Tennessee with his wife and young'uns.

The Flying None by Cody Goodfellow illustrated by Betty Rocksteady

 

Gala Murowski wasn’t really looking for God when she joined her local nunnery, but when an ecstatic out-of-body experience sets her spinning through a godless cosmos, she becomes an avenging angel on a rogue crusade against the hypocrites who prey on the innocent in His name.

Believing only in herself, Gala proves that while faith may move mountains, only doubt dethrones douchebags. But her reign of unholy terror makes her an outlaw and plays into the hands of fanatics hell-bent on making her into the deity she doesn’t believe in…and a tool to remake the world in their image. 

This book may offend some, and you will know who you are either from the synopsis or from the minute you open the book and see the dedication to "everyone who's had enough of thoughts and prayers." whether or not this book is for you.

Maybe God is everywhere, or nowhere at all. Maybe people believe in God because God is real or maybe God is real because people believe. One thing is for sure, prayer is not meant for the purpose of getting God to do your bidding, especially if you think you are on a mission to control others. 

Gala isn't sure what she believes or what she is looking for when she decides to stay at a convent of sorts. What she discovers is how to believe in herself.

This was a quick and quirky read that I would recommend to anyone looking for something out of the ordinary.

3.5 stars that I will round up to 4 out of 5

I received a complimentary copy for review.

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About the author

CODY GOODFELLOW has written nine novels and five collections, and has won three Wonderland Book Awards for Bizarro Fiction. He wrote, co-produced and scored the short Lovecraftian hygiene films Stay At Home Dad and Baby Got Bass, which have become viral sensations on YouTube. He has appeared in numerous short films, TV shows, music videos and commercials as research for his previous novel, Sleazeland. He also edits the hyperpulp zine Forbidden Futures. He “lives” in San Diego. Find out more at codygoodfellow.com.

Bad Girl in the Box by Tim Curran

 

Birch Street. A beautiful neighborhood on a beautiful summer day.
Then raw meat falls from the sky.
People are at first offended, then intrigued.
Once tasting it, they can eat nothing else. It becomes an addiction
that owns them body and soul, releasing pent-up frustrations,
secret desires, and nameless horror. And when the meat runs out,
the monsters are loose on Birch Street.
Into this hell zone of starvation, rot, and worms comes a conflicted,
traumatized young woman. She’s returning home after a long, painful
absence. She alone broods over the secret of the meat. Through her is
deliverance from starvation.
But only at the most horrific price. 

One would think that juicy, tender, succulent, meat raining down free from the sky would be a good thing. But no, this flavorful, perfectly seasoned, filet and well marbled shank is not a gift from heaven, and the people of Birch Street are not blessed on this day. When Bria comes home for a visit to her mother's house in the ultimate dysfunctional relationship she is not expecting a peaceful good time, but she never expected the entire neighborhood to go to hell.

You'll need a strong stomach for this one! Bad Girl in the box is a raunchy, gruesome, and gory read full of open festering sores and gallons of pus. It is beyond dark and twisted and definitely not something to be read on a lunch break, or even while snacking, unless you have a stomach made of steel and nonexistent gag reflex. I may need to go vegetarian for a while after reading this. 

4 out of 5 stars

I received a complimentary copy.

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About the author

Tim Curran lives in Michigan and is the author of the novels Skin Medicine, Hive, Dead Sea, Resurrection, The Devil Next Door, and Biohazard, as well as the novella The Corpse King. His short stories have appeared in such magazines as City Slab, Flesh&Blood, Book of Dark Wisdom, and Inhuman, and anthologies such as Shivers IV, High Seas Cthulhu, and Vile Things.

For DarkFuse and its imprints, he has written the bestselling The Underdwelling, the Readers Choice-Nominated novella Fear Me, Puppet Graveyard as well as Long Black Coffin.

Find him on the web at: www.corpseking.com