Dancing With Tombstones by Michael Aronovitz

 

This new book from critically acclaimed genre author Michael Aronovitz collects some of his greatest stories that celebrate the beauty of the darkness in the world.

-In the section titled GIRLS, you'll learn "How Bria Died," and will also meet "The Sculptor" in the story that inspired Aronovitz's full-length serial killer novel of the same name.

-In the section featuring PSYCHOS, you'll feel the chill of the Anti-Christ in "Quest for Sadness," and fall prey to the most frightening circus creature on the face of the earth in "The Exterminator."

-In TOOLS & TECH, you'll find out the dark secret of "The Tool Shed," and will also experience the full-length ghost-novella, "Toll Booth."

-And finally, in MARTYRS & SACRIFICIAL LAMBS you'll experience hell on earth in "The Echo," and unwittingly release the darkest force of the forest in "The Falcon."

With Dancing with Tombstones, the author of Alice Walks and The Sculptor deliciously thrusts us down the twisted avenues deep inside the haunt of our most secret repressions.

"She Drags her jump rope on cement and calls you from the heating vent. Turn a promise to a lie and you will be the next to die."

Creepy right? 

I had never read any Michael Aronovitz before. I'm rather shocked by that considering how much I love short horror stories. Somehow I missed out on these in previous publications. These stories are quite dark and deliciously creepy. Several feature children, and those were my favorites because you just never know what children might do. They may have frightening events befall them or they may be the cause of terror. That is why I love them in horror, they are so unpredictable. I'm also a fan of ghosts, and you will meet some here, after all the dead can't rest if they are dancing with tombstones. I enjoyed all of the stories but these are the ones I can't stop thinking about.

The very first story "How Bria Died" in which a teacher regrets telling his class a scary story was one of my favorites.

"The Girl Between The Slats" was sheer brilliance. It led me down a totally unexpected path that there is no way for me to describe without spoiling it for you. Check out your face in the mirror after you read it and see how surprised you look.

In "Puddles" poor Doris Watawitz is in germaphobe hell and I really felt for her. This story was just a lot of gross fun.

"Soul Text" takes a look at the technology of tomorrow that is nearly the horror of today. Maybe we were better off when a tablet was just a pad of paper.

"The Tool Shed" is where siblings discover a gruesome secret.

In "The Falcon" an unusual child is born, grows up, and gets revenge.

"The Soldier" was another of my favorites not because of being scary but because I cared about the characters and it nearly made me cry. I don't expect to care that much about characters in a short story because I only meet them for such a brief time.

Highly recommended to all who love horror and dark fiction.

5 out of 5 stars

My thanks to Cemetery Dance Publications.

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The Women of Brewster Place by Gloria Naylor

 

The National Book Award-winning novel—and contemporary classic—that launched the brilliant career of Gloria Naylor, now with a foreword by Tayari Jones
“A shrewd and lyrical portrayal of many of the realities of black life . . . Naylor bravely risks sentimentality and melodrama to write her compassion and outrage large, and she pulls it off triumphantly.” —The New York Times Book Review

“Brims with inventiveness—and relevance.” —NPR's Fresh Air

In her heralded first novel, Gloria Naylor weaves together the stories of seven women living in Brewster Place, a bleak-inner city sanctuary, creating a powerful, moving portrait of the strengths, struggles, and hopes of black women in America. Vulnerable and resilient, openhanded and openhearted, these women forge their lives in a place that in turn threatens and protects—a common prison and a shared home. Naylor renders both loving and painful human experiences with simple eloquence and uncommon intuition in this touching and unforgettable read.

In the 1980s which I still sometimes think was only 20 years ago, I watched the made for tv movie, Women Of Brewster Place. At the time, I paid no attention to the credits, had never heard of Gloria Naylor and had no idea the movie was made from a book. The movie was stuck in my mind all these years and  a couple of years ago I decided to go ahead and buy it to re-watch. I finally saw the credits and as the movie was still playing I immediately searched out and ordered a copy of the book. This weekend I finally sat down to read it and it has now sent me on a shopping spree to pick up more of Gloria Naylor's work.

This book is the bittersweet tale of seven Black women who all eventually end up in the run down tenement building of Brewster Place, a building on a dead end street where joy and hopelessness share equal time. Crime is rampant in the alley and by the wall that cuts them off from the more upscale neighborhood. Set in the days when being a lesbian could cost you your job, having a baby could keep you from getting housing. It is beautifully written and sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes hopeful, but never boring. It claims to be short stories, but to me it's more like chapters on each individual woman, and Ben the janitor/caretaker is an important character as well. It's hard for me to talk about the book without talking about the movie. The book is more graphic in certain scenes that would have been too intense for tv in those days, and yet the movie stuck so close to the book as to even include most of the dialogue word for word. It's only near the ending of the book that the movie went a slightly different way. I guess I have to recommend both to you, I loved them equally.

5 out of 5 stars

About the author

Gloria Naylor won the National Book Award for first fiction in 1983 for The Women of Brewster Place. Her subsequent novels included Linden Hills, Mama Day and Bailey's Cafe. In addition to her novels, Naylor wrote essays and screenplays, as well as the stage adaptation of Bailey's Cafe. Naylor also founded One Way Productions, an independent film company, and was involved in a literacy program in the Bronx.

A native New Yorker, Gloria Naylor was a graduate of Brooklyn College and Yale University. She was distinguished with numerous honors, including Scholar-in-Residence, the University of Pennsylvania; Senior Fellow, The Society for the Humanities, Cornell University; the President's Medal, Brooklyn College; and Visiting Professor, University of Kent, Canterbury, England. Naylor was the recipient of Guggenheim and National Endowment for the Arts fellowships for her novels and the New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship for screenwriting. She passed away on September 28, 2016 at the age of 66.

Survive the Night by Riley Sager

 

Charlie Jordan is being driven across the country by a serial killer. Maybe.

Behind the wheel is Josh Baxter, a stranger Charlie met by the college ride share board, who also has a good reason for leaving university in the middle of term. On the road they share their stories, carefully avoiding the subject dominating the news - the Campus Killer, who's tied up and stabbed three students in the span of a year, has just struck again.

Travelling the lengthy journey between university and their final destination, Charlie begins to notice discrepancies in Josh's story.

As she begins to plan her escape from the man she is becoming certain is the killer, she starts to suspect that Josh knows exactly what she's thinking.

Meaning that she could very well end up as his next victim.

Around the middle of last year this seemed to be "The Book" that everyone was either anticipating or already reading. (FOMO)Fear of missing out is what sent me to request a review copy. My request was very politely rejected, with a lovely note from the publisher telling me that their remaining review copies were being saved for book sellers or reviewers who write for major publications. I should have let that be the end of it, and we'd all be better off if I had. It's rare that someone declines my offer to read a book and that must be what made me even more determined to read it. This happened to me before where I was declined, requested elsewhere, got the book, and regretted reading it. That should have taught me a lesson. Next time I will take as a sign that the book is just not for me. This book sure was not! 

It starts off well enough. There's a killer on the loose. The Campus killer to be exact, who has murdered Charlie's friend Maddy, and left her wracked with guilt because they had been together earlier that evening. Charlie left her alone at the bar, where she was never seen alive again. Charlie, unable to cope, has decided she must leave the university IMMEDIATELY. In fact she can not even wait a couple of days for her boyfriend to drive her. She decides instead to take a ride with a total stranger, who as it turns out may or may not be the murderer. This begins a long and boring car ride broken up by a series of hallucinations that Charlie calls "seeing movies" in her head.

As someone who has a strong dislike for books or movies that suck you in and then say oops that was all just a dream, I find that I am equally disinterested in hallucinations as I am in dream sequences. The long car trip with only two characters, neither of which interested me reminded me of why I didn't like the Jeepers Creepers movie much, although they at least were not hallucinating.

You may enjoy this book more than I did, plenty of people have loved it.

2 out of 5 stars.

Congeal by John F. Leonard

 

It starts with reports on the news of an inland lake turning semi-solid.
Surely, a media joke, some lame April Fool’s prank?
The before and after pictures are vaguely ludicrous and oddly disturbing, the contrast stark and strange.
First, darkly rippling water that hints at hidden depths. Slightly spooky and perfectly normal. Next, a putrid blotch of clotted sludge which bears little resemblance to anything aquatic.

It isn’t a joke.
And pretty soon, that greasy, sickening substance isn’t confined to an inland lake.
It’s spreading. Flowing over fields and filling streets.
Each morning brings a new revelation. Countryside denuded of life and towns empty and echoing.
The night is when it changes, becomes something that consumes. Something infinitely worse than a congealed impossibility.
CONGEAL is a short tale of apocalyptic horror. How the world ends may not be how you expect. Nuclear Armageddon or a zombie apocalypse could get beaten to the punch.
Our apocalypse may come from below.
An ancient, cosmic entity bubbling up to the surface in search of food.
It’s also the story of one individual and her fight to stay afloat in a sea of despair.

Don't you hate it when your life is going along great and then the world ends? I sure do. So does Amelia. One minute she's living her happily ever after, barely concerned about some weird thickening of lake water, and the next she's running for her life from some form of gelatinous ooze that's consuming everything in it's path. Food is scarce, the power is out, and she's running out of places to hide. 

This was a fast paced post apocalyptic sort of sci fi horror. If that's your genre than I highly recommend this novella.

It put me in mind of The Blob but without the teenage goofiness. 

4 out of 5 stars

I received a complimentary copy.

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