The Remaking by Clay McLeod Chapman

 

Ella Louise has lived in the woods surrounding Pilot’s Creek, Virginia, for nearly a decade. Publicly, she and her daughter Jessica are shunned by their upper-crust family and the Pilot’s Creek residents. Privately, desperate townspeople visit her apothecary for a cure to what ails them—until Ella Louise is blamed for the death of a prominent customer. Accused of witchcraft, both mother and daughter are burned at the stake in the middle of the night. Ella Louise’s burial site is never found, but the little girl has the most famous grave in the South: a steel-reinforced coffin surrounded by a fence of interconnected white crosses.

Their story will take the shape of an urban legend as it’s told around a campfire by a man forever marked by his boyhood encounters with Jessica. Decades later, a boy at that campfire will cast Amber Pendleton as Jessica in a ’70s horror movie inspired by the Witch Girl of Pilot’s Creek. Amber’s experiences on that set and its meta-remake in the ’90s will ripple through pop culture, ruining her life and career after she becomes the target of a witch hunt. Amber’s best chance to break the cycle of horror comes when a true-crime investigator tracks her down to interview her for his popular podcast. But will this final act of storytelling redeem her—or will it bring the story full circle, ready to be told once again? And again. And again…

Well this is awkward. Whisper Down The Lane by this author is going on my best horror of the year list. I thought I would love this book too but I didn't care for it much.

Ella Louise has been ostracized from her family and from the town. She keeps to herself and is rarely seen by anyone. On one of her rare trips for supplies when it is noticed that she is pregnant, the gossip mongers chitter away that it must be the devils child. As her daughter grows they are both shunned, except when people visit for potions and tinctures to cure their ails or get even with those who've offended them. When one such tincture leads to a death the mother and child are burned as witches.

Years later terrifying things happen to a child playing the part of the daughter in a movie filming in the graveyard...

I was all set to love this book. It's got the makings of absolutely everything I could want. However it was really difficult for me to connect with the writing style, which is all over the place, and unbearably repetitive. Words. so many of the same words. Words being typed on my keyboard. Words showing up on the page, on the review, in my head, words combining to create this review, the review that I will post here on the page, the page of the internet, the page you are reading...

Are you ready to tell me to shut up yet? Because for me this is what it was like reading this book.

2 out of 5 stars.

The Hidden by Melanie Golding

 

One dark December night, in a small seaside town, a little girl is found abandoned. When her mother finally arrives, authorities release the pair, believing it to be an innocent case of a toddler running off.

Gregor, a seemingly single man, is found bludgeoned and left for dead in his apartment, but the discovery of children’s toys raises more questions than answers.

Every night, Ruby gazes into Gregor’s apartment, leading to the discovery of his secret family: his unusually silent daughter and his mentally unstable wife, Constance, who insists that she is descended from the mythological Selkies. She begs Ruby to aid in finding the sealskin that Gregor has hidden from her, making it impossible to return to her people.

DS Joanna Harper’s investigation into Gregor’s assault leads her to CCTV footage of the mother-daughter pair from town. Harper realizes she knows the woman almost as well as she knows herself: it’s her estranged daughter, Ruby. No matter the depth of Ruby’s involvement, she knows she will choose her daughter over her career.

Ruby is a single woman, lonely, estranged from her family, living her solitary existence, when she notices the man in the apartment across from her. Gregor is young, handsome, seemingly shy, and when Ruby orchestrates a meeting with him she has no idea the perils that await her.

When she enters Gregor's apartment she meets Constance, the woman who lives with him. Gregor says they are together but not "in that way." They share a daughter, who is the product of a one night stand. Constance is mentally ill says Gregor, he allows her to live there because he is helping her. It sounds plausible except for the chilling words Constance speaks to Ruby when they are alone. "What has he told you?" and "Do you believe him?"

This was a captivating mystery with touches of folklore and mythology and loaded with suspense. It also has all the feels that go along with dysfunctional family drama and larger than life characters.

There were times that for me, the police scenes went on a bit long. Even though one of the officers is an indispensable part of the story I just wanted to get back to what was going on with Constance and Ruby. You may feel differently, I just tend to get bored with police investigations.

4 out of 5 stars

I read a digital copy through Netgalley  under no obligation to write a review.

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Things That Don't Belong in the Light by Matt Starr

What is your deepest fear? Things that exist in plain sight?
Those that hide in the darkest corners of your soul? 
Our deepest fears come in many forms. The seen and the hidden.
The real and the imagined. The flesh and the incorporeal.
Between the covers of this book, you'll find a bit of all this.
Monsters, real and imagined. The familiar and the alien.
So open the book. Be prepared to confront your worst fears.

Things That Don't Belong in the Light

Last year I read Prepare To Meet Thy God by Matt Starr and it ended up on my best horror of 2020 list. When I saw this short story collection I knew I had to read it.

These stories are dark and multifaceted. They don't always lead where you think they're going to take you. I'm just going to touch briefly on my absolute favorites.

 Debris is the tale of a man haunted not by a spirit but by an event. As he rushes off to be with his dying mother it made me wonder if we create our own fate or are we just steered along by circumstance. This is one that really creeped me out.

The Suffering of Jolie Bell is about a travel blogger looking for the next haunted place to write about. Generally she makes things up as she goes along, but this time she may have found the real thing.

The Light on the Other Side of the Crawl Space features two things that for some reason paired well together, a dysfunctional family and an awful lot of spiders. This was one of the more gruesome stories which is probably why I loved it. 

In Devil Like You a pharmacist is asked to provide the drugs that will end the life of a death row inmate but consequences follow.

Last but not least is I Was Not Offended which is an original twist on the old myth of selling souls for musical ability. Whether you are familiar enough with the legends to start humming about being down at the crossroads or whether you have no idea what I'm rambling on about this is one story that won't give you the blues. 

4 out of 5 stars

I received an advance copy from the publisher under no obligation to write a review.

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Peel Back and See by Mike Thorn

In spaces both familiar and strange, unknowable horrors lurk.

From the recesses of the Internet, where cosmic terror shows its face on an endless live feed, to a museum celebrating the sordid legacy of an occultist painter, this chilling collection of sixteen short stories will plunge you into the eerie, pessimistic imagination of Mike Thorn.

Peel Back and See urges its readers to look closer, to push past surface-level appearances and face the things that stir below.

I'm on a roll with short stories lately, and he's another collection with several I enjoyed.

If you like your fiction dark and disturbing this is for you.

My favorites were Mini McDonagh Manor that shows us you can't go home again, or maybe it's just safer if you stay away!

Mr. Murcata's Final Requests, is about the assistant of a dying man who does her best to fulfill his strange demands... until she makes an interesting discovery. @GorgoYama will make you think twice about those lovely friends you've connected with online. Wouldn't it be nice to meet them in person? Take this story as a warning before you do. In Dreams of Lake Drukka, a daughter is alienated from her father after her mother's death. She and her reluctant sister take a road trip and discover a dangerous truth.  In Exhumation, a man arrives at his cousin's funeral to find something otherworldly waiting to welcome him home. The Finger Collectors is a job title, it pays well as long as you don't ask questions. This was such a bizarre story it's hard to describe but I loved it.

The Furnace Room Mutant is something some high schoolers are just dying to see, but they should not have tricked their school mate into getting that key.

Virus is more than something that can mess up your computer and could be viewed as a cautionary tale before you click on any untrusted download links.

These were my favorites, yours may be different, you'll never know unless you peel back and see.

4 out of 5 stars

I received a digital copy from the author under no obligation to write a review.

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