Three Sixes and a Forked Tongue or Cold Medicine and a Liar by James Tyler Toothman

 The year is nineteen seventy one. Lost deep in the woods of West Virginia, two childhood friends discover a book that dismantles and unravels everything they once considered reality, And when an enigmatic stranger rolls into their small coal mining town in the back of a Rolls Royce, the teenagers are plunged deep into a world of drugs, sex, music, and violence. Together, the two friends confront the forces of good and evil head on - the unwitting pawns of an eternal game played without rules or directions. Feverish, satirical, and deliciously dark, Three Sixes and a Forked Tongue is an offbeat, coming-of-age, face-melting novel unlike anything you've read before.

This is one of those books that makes me say what in the hell did I just read?

It's a historical coming-of-age horror epic that spans generations and genres.

I'm not even sure how to review it. My head is still spinning.

I was hooked from the minute I met Priscilla, a young girl tending to the wounds she got in the most recent beating that is part of her everyday existence. 

There is a huge cast of characters and although I was fascinated by many of them, they paled in comparison to the escapades of Maw, Lavinia, and Priscilla as mainly narrated by Joseph in a down home folksy way that made me feel like he was speaking directly to me.

 I was already heavily invested in their lives long before the devil came to town.

This is a story of poverty, religion, hypocrisy, good and evil and all the gray in between, while growing up in the town of Clockmaker, a coal dust covered mining town in the 1970s.

If you are offended by strong/crude language this is not a book for you.

Otherwise, it's a funny, wistful, raunchy, entertaining read with elements of horror and just a touch of gore.

My thanks to Millions of Colors and James Tyler Toothman 

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Nightmare Abbey 5 Edited by Tom English

 5th mammoth volume of this critically-acclaimed horror magazine/book.

• Restless Spirits, Haunted Places and more!
• ALL NEW STORIES and ARTICLES.
• New RAMSEY CAMPBELL story!
• 11 terrifying tales by today's top writers.
• New Ian Rogers' Black Lands story.
• The History of American Horror Comics, Part 2
• Retro movie review: THE CITY OF THE DEAD
• Heavily illustrated with movie and comics photos,
• Plus art by World Fantasy Award-winner Allen Koszowski.
• Find out what's happened to Dear Abbey since last issue!

Don't miss out!
Get it now!

Nightmare Abbey does it again with this fresh new installment that's sure to please the palate and tickle the taste buds while satisfying your horror appetite.

The article on the history of horror comics was enlightening and fun, whether you enjoyed them as a kid or are too young to have lived in those glorious days of perusing through gruesome tales and gory illustrations.

There are multiple stills from one of my favorite classic horror movies The City of The Dead, also known as Horror Hotel. I saw this movie for the first time only about five years ago and never would have known it wasn't popular in its day. If you haven't seen it you should watch.

As always, the best part of Nightmare Abbey for me is the short fiction, which is excellent and plentiful in volume 5.

Bound by Ray Cluley begins with preparations to receive the body of a dead girl and ends in a spectacular twist.

Helen Grant makes my favorites again with her story Goldfish about a vindictive man who comes to regret his senseless act of revenge after a break-up.

David Surface offers a creepy tale of a young boy on an unpleasant road trip with his parents in Always Know Where You Are.

Seen and Not Heard by Sean Hogan finds a young family moving into a fixer-upper. At first, I thought the wife was being a drama queen over a bit of graffiti she wanted removed from the door. However, things got scary pretty damn quick. Her husband was foolish not to trust her gut on this matter and so was I.

A man is lured by the prospect of finding buried treasure if he can survive The HideBehind by Rhys Hughes.

Past Caring by Gary Fry finds an emotionally exhausted and exasperated woman working in a museum while still doing everything for her mother, husband, and son. Do all her good deeds go unpunished? of course not!

Tether by Ian Rogers is both scary and sad. What's a woman to do if her son and husband vanish into thin air?

Another creepy but sad story is The Return by Steve Rasnic Tem  which is proof positive of the old saying "You can't go home again." 

All the stories were well written but for me, those were the best of the best.

My thanks to Dead Letter Press.

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Other Places by Thomas Smith

 In his debut collection, Thomas Smith explores the boundaries between the world we know and the twilight-shrouded borders with the strange, the dangerous, and the mysterious.

A professor who gets the offer of a lifetime, but at a hefty price. A mad scientist’s creation that has made an important, dire decision. A dinner party for five that is heavy with blood and consequence. A family outing in a cemetery.
In this haunting collection, Thomas Smith blurs the line between reality as we know it and those Other Places…

These weird and entertaining stories are perfect for anyone who likes dark fiction. Most have intriguing plots with engaging characters and unexpected outcomes.

A few ended too abruptly for my taste with no definitive closure, but as always with short story collections I had several favorites, and the following were a few of what I enjoyed the most.

Presto- a man undergoes an experimental treatment after an accident that should have killed him. Now he's the greatest magician in the world, but there are no tricks here it's all too real.

This was a story of revenge with an explosive ending.

Mother And Child Reunion - This is another revenge story in which a woman is reluctantly reunited with the son she abandoned years ago.

 

Problem Can - This was a fun story about a school girl who has a surprise for a grouchy teacher.

We Create Them- Two well-to-do women voice their differing opinions on those who are less fortunate over lunch in a fancy restaurant. This one was quite thought-provoking and one of the more serious stories in the collection that had me thinking of my own circumstances.  Happily for me, I don't look up to people just because they have money and I don't look down on those who don't.

If you're in the mood for something dark and unusual take a trip to Other Places, from the safety of your favorite reading spot.

4 out of 5 stars

My thanks to Cemetery Dance Publications.

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A Better World by Sarah Langan

You’ll be safe here. That’s what the greasy tour guide tells the Farmer-Bowens when they visit Plymouth Valley, a walled-off company town with clean air, pantries that never go empty, and blue-ribbon schools. On a very trial basis, the company offers to hire Linda Farmer’s husband, a numbers genius, and relocate her whole family to this bucolic paradise for the .0001%. Though Linda will have to sacrifice her medical career back home, the family jumps at the opportunity. They’d be crazy not to take it. With the outside world literally falling apart, this might be the Farmer-Bowens last chance.

But fitting in takes work. The pampered locals distrust outsiders, cruelly snubbing Linda, Russell, and their teen twins. And the residents fervently adhere to a group of customs and beliefs called Hollow . . . but what exactly is Hollow?

It’s Linda who brokers acceptance by volunteering her medical skills to the most powerful people in town with their pet charity, ActHollow. In the months afterward, everything seems fine. Sure, Russell starts hyperventilating through a paper bag in the middle of the night, and the kids have drifted like bridgeless islands, but living here’s worth sacrificing their family’s closeness, isn’t it? At least they’ll survive. The trouble is, the locals never say what they think. They seem scared. And Hollow’s ominous culminating event, the Plymouth Valley Winter Festival, is coming.

Linda’s warned by her husband and her powerful new friends to stop asking questions. But the more she learns, the more frightened she becomes. Should the Farmer-Bowens be fighting to stay, or fighting to get out?

A family struggling with financial crisis in a dystopian world gets a rare chance to live in a "Company Town" where the elites hide away from the problems of the real world. They just need to pass the first interviews for the husband to secure a job.

Food is plentiful there. There is no sickness, you will be given a job, and everything is free including your car and home. No worrying about bills, provided you can afford the deposit which may or may not be refunded if you don't stay. There's even a nuclear shelter in case the big one hits.

"Beware The Sacrifice"

Space is limited, so not everyone can stay. Where they will go if they do get kicked out is a mystery since the jobs don't actually pay any money. 

Linda, her husband, and their twin teenagers try to assimilate into this strange neighborhood where everyone is fake polite while hating their guts since every newcomer who stays means their own chance of getting kicked out increases.

There are lots of rules that are never really explained but dire consequences may follow for breaking any of them.

There is a pervasive cult-like atmosphere in the way that everyone acts the same and refuses to speak on certain topics. Linda wants real answers while her husband seems more willing to look the other way when it comes to the strangeness of the town. The stress of this living situation, especially on their daughter Josie brings their long-ignored dysfunctional family dynamic to the surface.

Although this is dystopian fiction and not horror, it reminded me somewhat of The Association by Bentley Little with its biting satire, and also that old made-for-TV John Ritter movie The Colony, both of which I loved so I also enjoyed this.

4 out of 5 stars

My thanks to Atria Books for the invitation to read this ARC

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