Long Past Midnight by Jonathan Maberry

 SOME STORIES CAN ONLY BE TOLD . . . LONG PAST MIDNIGHT

 
Five-time Bram Stoker Award-winner Jonathan Maberry weaves a chilling web of small-town terrors, local legends, and hair-raising tales set in the eerie world of Pine Deep, Pennsylvania. . . .

Four children explore an abandoned house that’s supposed to be haunted—and discover something far more terrifying than any ghost. A rash of fatal accidents in the town of Pine Deep keeps a cemetery worker busier than ever—because the dead won’t stay buried. Ex-cop Joe Ledger searches for a missing witness in “the spookiest town in America”—but finds there is no protection program against the forces of evil. . . .

There is a character in this book who equates a trip back to Pine Deep as being as pleasant as a case of genital warts. So although I laughed, I feel the opposite.  I loved the Pine Deep trilogy and I will travel back there as many times as Jonathan Maberry is willing to take us.

These stories all stand-alone and you do not need to have read Ghost Road Blues or the rest of the trilogy to enjoy them, however, you are truly missing out on something special if you have skipped them. 

The tales take place before, during, and after the trilogy. There is a brief description of what some of the characters had experienced in the trilogy so that you are not totally out of the loop when reading this book but I still feel it is best that you not skip them. I loved this book to pieces.

Pine Deep is and has been home to ghosts, werewolves, and vampires. It's the spookiest town in America and it was a joy for me to revisit it.

4 out of 5 stars

My thanks to Kensington Books

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Bad Moon Rising, by Luisa Colón

 In Gravesend, Brooklyn, sixteen-year-old Elodia is an outcast at school, at odds with her father, and longing for her mysteriously absent mother. Lonely and isolated, Elodia knows that something unspeakably terrible has happened to her—she just can't remember what.

Miles away in upstate New York, a young man named Gabriel occupies his time by killing sparrows and searching for his birth parents. Gabriel wants to show them what a good son he can be, well-behaved and helpful and no trouble at all—until a savage betrayal plants an ever-growing seed of revenge within him.

Desperate for the promise of their past lives and future dreams, both Elodia and Gabriel are broken and scarred, their lives shattered. Their wounds run deep—and that kind of damage is irrevocable. Unchangeable. Irreversible.

Elodia is a high school girl who has suffered a terrible trauma that we are not privy to at the start of this story. We know that she used to have friends though her father didn't want her to and now she seems to have nobody. She doesn't speak; her life is school, home,  memories, and bad dreams. Until one day a new teacher takes an interest in her.

Gabriel is a troubled boy who enjoys killing birds for some unknown reason and is desperate to find his birth parents and belong to a real family. These two storylines seem to have nothing to do with each other at first glance but hints are dropped like tiny breadcrumbs until suddenly they converge.

I didn't always understand why Elodia's father treated her the way he did. He was a strange combination of over protective yet emotionally and verbally abusive. When the two storylines came together, parts of it made more sense but others raised even more questions. I can't tell you why, without a spoiler but I am honestly not clear on whether the ending was meant to be a happy one. The supernatural or magical powers given to some characters seemed almost to be an afterthought. There was no rhyme or reason or explanation for them. It seemed like they were just included as a way to force the ending.

2 out of 5 stars

I received a complimentary copy

Nightmare Abbey Volume 3 Edited by Tom English

 

14 chilling tales of terror featuring haunted houses, tormented souls, and the creeping unknown! Featuring the macabre art of Allen Koszowski; a photo-illustrated article revisiting Night of the Eagle, aka Burn, Witch, Burn; two classic ghost stories and much more!

This is my third trip into Nightmare Abbey and much like Volumes 1 and 2, it is loaded with well-crafted tales and ghastly good times.

As with previous volumes, the artwork is gorgeous and the stories are imaginative and chilling. In the midst of these tales, there is also a bit of nostalgia as we revisit a classic and underrated horror movie "Burn Witch Burn" in glorious still shots from the film.

A few of my favorite stories were...

Nights of No Moon by Steve Duffy in which a happy family is torn apart when mom comes back from a mishap in the woods.

In Seeing Is Believing by Helen Grant, a woman escapes an abusive relationship with a little help from some unusual friends.

Feelings of regret send a man to visit the abandoned home of his childhood girlfriend in The One That Got Away by Gary Fry. Unfortunately, those regrets will only increase after this visit.

A man recalls a particularly hot summer from his childhood that has impacted the rest of his life in That Maddening Heat by Ray Cluley

In An Absence Of Malice by John Llewellyn Probert, a man suffers a set of strange occurrences after an accident and so do those around him. 

In Lost River Boys by David Surface The parents of missing boys find a way to comfort themselves, leaving gifts for their missing children. But a gift from one mom tops them all.

I enjoyed all of the stories but those were my absolute favorites. 

If you are in need of a shivery chill on these hot summer days skip the beach and take a day trip to Nightmare Abbey.

5 out of 5 stars

My thanks to Dead Letter Press

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My thanks to Dead Letter Press.

Looking Glass Sound by Catriona Ward

In a lonely cottage overlooking the windswept Maine coast, Wilder Harlow begins the last book he will ever write. It is the story of his childhood summer companions and the killer that stalked the small New England town. Of the body they found, and the horror of that discovery echoing down the decades. And of Sky, Wilder’s one-time best friend, who stole his unfinished memoir and turned it into a lurid bestselling novel, Looking Glass Sound.

But as Wilder writes, the lines between memory and fiction blur. He fears he’s losing his grip on reality when he finds notes hidden around the cottage written in Sky’s signature green ink.

Catriona Ward delivers another mind-bending and cleverly crafted tale about one man’s struggle to come to terms with the terrors of his past… before it’s too late.

Looking Glass Sound starts off as a coming-of-age tale. Wilder, a bullied, friendless, teen is spending the summer in an inherited cottage near the sea with his parents before they sell it. There he meets a couple of kids his own age and although they are a bit on the weird side they soon become the best and only friends he has ever had. None of these kids has a great home life and Wilder's parents have no idea how awful his school life is. The complicated relationships between all the characters was already holding my interest enough to add this book to my "couldn't put it down" list even before the creepy mystery of The Dagger Man began, who sneaks into children's bedrooms at night. I would have been perfectly happy to continue down this path to a five-star rating for this book, right up to and a little beyond the halfway point. 

Then it all changed. It became a book about everyone writing a book about everyone else's book. I may have lost count but I want to say there are four characters writing books in here. It became difficult to follow at times and I was not always sure what was supposed to be that character's point of view on what had happened or that character's fictionalized version of their book. Maybe I would have been able to follow it better if it didn't become such a chore to try to force myself to pay attention. This is my third time reading a book by this author. I had said this one would be the tie-breaker. I loved Needless Street. I did not care for Sundial and I was hoping to love this.

You may enjoy it more than I did but after such a spectacular beginning I feel disappointed with the last half.

My thanks to Tor Nightfire.

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