Tethered to Darkness by Justin Holley

 

To escape her fanatically religious upbringing, Mia moves away to attend State University instead of the bible-college her family wanted. After orientation, Mia’s new friends invite her to the Para-Psychology Club, where she meets a charismatic professor, who introduces her to Astral Projection. Mia finds that her social anxiety makes her a natural at the maneuver. So, when her possessive boyfriend tracks her down, hellbent on returning her home, she escapes their possessive grip by slipping into the nether. However, while out of her body, something ancient and dark—and from her past—takes over. Forced to deal with not only the entity now using her body but also the religious extremists who have arrived to remove it, her only hope lies in the hands of her new friend Bruce and the enigmatic Professor Colista as they try to save her from a fate beyond hell.

Mia has grown up with religious fanatics for parents although she does remember when they were more party animal than religious zealot. Her church is of the opinion that everything is a sin, even something as simple as yoga or meditation. Mia's parents expect her to attend bible college but she decides to stand up for herself and attend the state university. 

With the way she has been raised, coupled with her random bouts of tears caused by her anxiety disorder it seems like living on campus would be a huge culture shock for her. Somehow she manages to fit right in. Even her sex crazed, wannabe rock star, room mate doesn't seem to phase her.

After she attends one talk on astral projection and has a quick peek at a book on the subject she succeeds in leaving her body on her very first try. Her second attempt does not end as well for her and she gets trapped outside her body when an entity moves in.

I enjoyed parts of this story but did not care for several of the characters or the way they interacted with each other. I wanted to like Mia's new friend Bruce, but the running commentary in his head put me off. I couldn't stand the roommate and it seemed weird that Mia would be hanging out with her. Pastor Matt was nauseating, though I assume he was intended to be, as was the boyfriend. The father was weak. Professor Colista grew on me but I think his cat was the only character I really cared about. The plot was clever in theory but the execution didn't quite make it.

I have enjoyed previous works by this author, and you may enjoy this one more than I did.

My thanks to Silver Shamrock Publishing for the review copy.

About the author

Get a copy

 

The Unhallowed Horseman by Jude S. Walko

 

In a town enamored with its Unhallowed Horseman legend, a distraught teenage boy must come to terms with his personal demons, and perhaps the Horseman himself.
Set on All Hallows’ Eve, psychological thriller The Unhallowed Horseman takes place against the backdrop of a seemingly peaceful, picturesque American small town with an iconic past. The story follows Vincent, a distraught and troubled high schooler, and his descent into the demons that plague his mind.
Some things about the town and its inhabitants aren’t quite as they seem. Generations of families have been living there with a deep and dark secret, one on the verge of reincarnating itself once again.
With the help of his newfound love for classmate Lorraine, Vincent navigates the treacherous obstacles in his life. Whether it be the overbearing no-holds-barred sheriff, his tempestuous mother, or the holier-than-thou townsfolk, Vincent seems to be under constant bombardment from prying eyes. What's more, Lorraine's overprotective father, Deputy Constance, suspects Vincent of having committed some heinous crimes. 
Only after uncovering the town's history does Vincent begin to unravel its complex mystery and that of the people living there, including his own ancestors. Can he solve the mystery in time to save the people he truly loves, or will he, like others before him, fall prey to an age-old curse passed down through the centuries. The town prepares for the return of a killer legend, while one young man prepares to take on his innermost demons.
The Unhallowed Horseman is a contemporary reimagining based on characters in the American classic "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" by Washington Irving, the Father of American Literature.

Content Warning: adult and derogatory language, gore, substance abuse (drugs and alcohol), uncomfortable sexual situations (one is non-consensual assault), death, child abuse, mention of pedophilic tendencies, mention of suicide 

The Unhallowed Horseman gets off to a slow start as there are a multitude of characters to introduce. There is Vincent, a troubled teen with various mental problems, his mother Marisa who has a constant string of boyfriends barely older than her son, and maybe I should even mention her breasts since they make so many appearances in the first half of the book as to be two of the main characters. There is the perverted sheriff and pedo video store owner, there are bullies and a high school that boasts not a school counselor or psychologist but an actual psychiatrist who dispenses habit forming psychotropic drugs for free. Vincent takes pills by the handful and we are not sure at first if he is having drug induced hallucinations when he first sees the horseman or if his mental problems are the cause or if the horseman is real.
The town itself seems rather bleak, a place of neglect, abuse, and poverty. Sleepy Hollow has become a place of sex and drugs and cornstalks. Neither a nice place to live or to visit.

The pace picks up towards the middle of the story and so does the body count. I was not really able to connect with any of the characters so I may have enjoyed their deaths more than I was meant to.

This is the author's first novel and I look forward to seeing how his writing skills continue to develop in future.

3 out of 5 stars

My Thanks to Jude S. Walko for the review copy.

About the author

Jude S. Walko is a film producer (Producers Guild of America), director, screenwriter, and actor (Screen Actors Guild). Among notable works is his 2018 award-winning film The Incantation, which stars former Superman Dean Cain. Walko won the 2018 Eclipse award for Best Direction, among several other awards, for the film.
Jude has been a lifelong fan of classic literature and has a special love of all things Washington Irving. He even owns a grave plot at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in New York. Jude is passionate about Halloween, Tim Burton, stop motion animation and all things dark and mysterious.
He spends his time between Los Angeles and Thailand, where his family now resides, and has multiple film and writing projects in development.

The Violence by Delilah S. Dawson

 A mysterious plague that causes random bouts of violence is sweeping the nation. Now three generations of women must navigate their chilling new reality in this moving exploration of identity, cycles of abuse, and hope.

Chelsea Martin appears to be the perfect housewife: married to her high school sweetheart, the mother of two daughters, keeper of an immaculate home.

But Chelsea's husband has turned their house into a prison; he has been abusing her for years, cutting off her independence, autonomy, and support. She has nowhere to turn, not even to her narcissistic mother, Patricia, who is more concerned with maintaining the appearance of an ideal family than she is with her daughter's actual well-being. And Chelsea is worried that her daughters will be trapped just as she is--then a mysterious illness sweeps the nation.

Known as The Violence, this illness causes the infected to experience sudden, explosive bouts of animalistic rage and attack anyone in their path. But for Chelsea, the chaos and confusion the virus causes is an opportunity--and inspires a plan to liberate herself from her abuser.

In a post Covid world a new virus is sweeping through the nation, mainly confined to warmer climates, and known as The Violence. There is a vaccine, but only for the very wealthy. Those who contract the virus have bouts of murderous rage causing them to kill whoever happens to be handy at the time, and have no memory of doing so once the rage passes.  Those who have or are suspected to have The Violence are herded into quarantine centers that are basically prisons, sometimes never to be seen or heard from again.

In this backdrop we meet Chelsea, neglected as a child and now abused as a spouse, along with her two daughters. Chelsea plans to use the virus as a means to save her children and escape from her abusive husband, but things don't go according to plan.

This is a book that I found in the horror section, but it was more a dysfunctional family drama. There was much that I enjoyed about the story, but more than a few spots were a bit draggy and drawn out. All of the male characters had extreme personalities. They were either abusive mysogynistic borderline perverts, or over the top sensitive sympathetic and empathetic to a woman's every need. It kind of gave me whiplash going from one extreme to the other and I wished that someone could have been just plain normal. There were a few plot points that seemed to contradict each other, but I can't really go into it much without giving away spoilers.

I'm going to give this a 3 out of 5 stars, as something I liked but did not love.

My thanks to Del Rey Books for the advance copy.

Available for Pre Order

About the author

Delilah S. Dawson is the New York Times-bestselling author of Star Wars: Phasma, Black Spire: Galaxy's Edge, and The Perfect Weapon. With Kevin Hearne, she writes the Tales of Pell. As Lila Bowen, she writes the Shadow series, beginning with Wake of Vultures. Her other books include the Blud series, the Hit series, and Servants of the Storm.

She's written comics in the worlds of Marvel Action: Spider-Man, Lore's Wellington, Star Wars Adventures, Star Wars Forces of Destiny, The X-Files Case Files, Adventure Time, Rick and Morty, and her creator-owned comics include Star Pig, Ladycastle, and Sparrowhawk.

Find out more at www.whimsydark.com

Spontaneous Human Combustion by Richard Thomas

 

With a foreword by Brian Evenson.

In this new collection, Richard Thomas has crafted fourteen stories that push the boundaries of dark fiction in an intoxicating, piercing blend of fantasy, science fiction, and horror. Equally provocative and profound, each story is masterfully woven with transgressive themes that burrow beneath the skin.

• A poker game yields a strange prize that haunts one man, his game of chance now turned into a life-or-death coin flip.
• A set of twins find they have mysterious new powers when an asteroid crashes in a field near their house, and the decisions they make create an uneasy balance.
• A fantasy world is filled with one man’s desire to feel whole again, finally finding love, only to have the shocking truth of his life exposed in an appalling twist.
• A father and son work slave labor in a brave new world run by aliens and mount a rebellion that may end up freeing them all.
• A clown takes off his make-up in a gloomy basement to reveal something more horrifying under the white, tacky skin.

Powerful and haunting, Thomas’ transportive collection dares you to examine what lies in the darkest, most twisted corners of human existence and not be transformed by what you find.

So apparently even though I consider myself to be well read, I have been living under a rock because this is my first read by this author.

There are a wondrous range of stories here from dark fiction to fantasy and horror, some with elements of sci-fi. Not all were a perfect hit with me but all are beautifully written which may seem like an odd thing to say about horror and yet I did find beauty even in the ugly situations.

These are not stories to be devoured when you want to drift off to sleep but tales best to ponder when your mind is at it's sharpest because there are events that really made me think. 

It should be noted that I read an advance copy which states that the finished product will contain illustrations that are not present here. Even though I did not get to see the artwork I feel I should mention how much I love when a collection has a picture to go with each story.

4 out of 5 stars

My thanks to Turner Publishing for the review copy.

Available for Pre-order

About the author