When the Lights Go Out by Kevin Lucia

When the lights go out...that's when things change. When masks are put aside, and eerie truths are laid bare. It's when towns grow extra streets and cul-de-sacs which don't exist in the daytime. When whispered wishes and fantasies become reality. When our deepest fears and most powerful longings become flesh. When ambitions become obsessions which overpower us, and leads us to our ends. But it's also when our imaginations run free, unfettered by the trappings of mundane living. Just as the dark unleashes despair, it also fuels fantastical leaps impossible to take during the day. It's the canvas upon which we paint worlds and universes which take the darkness and create something out of nothing.In his new collection, one of the leading voices in small press horror offers up an eclectic collection of strange tales - the kind which can only happen when the lights go out, and we close our eyes.

 

I love short horror stories and especially enjoy when author notes are included. I'm always fascinated to learn how the stories or the ideas for them came to be.  I had a great time with the majority of this book. I do have to say that ending the book with story fragments that are bits and pieces of tales that may or may not ever come to be is such a tease. I hope to see them completed someday. Especially the one about the snow that is not snow. You can not start to tell me about a burning snowstorm that falls in warm weather and then leave me hanging. 

The author's writing style pulls me in, to the point that I can't help but be invested in the story even when warned ahead of time that it won't be complete.

As far as the complete stories in this collection the book begins with a more traditional ghost story that takes place in a haunted school before moving on to less benevolent tales that combine the supernatural with psychological horror. I had multiple favorites, including one about a man who creates his own world out of model trains, a can recycling center that is more than it seems, and every story that had anything to do with Bassler House. Creepy and clever twists kept me turning the pages.

4 out of 5 stars

I received an advance copy

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About the author

We Used to Live Here by Marcus Kliewer

 

The Turn of the Key meets Parasite in this eerily haunting debut and Reddit hit—soon to be a Netflix original movie starring Blake Lively—about two homeowners whose lives are turned upside down when the house’s previous residents unexpectedly visit.

As a young, queer couple who flip houses, Charlie and Eve can’t believe the killer deal they’ve just gotten on an old house in a picturesque neighborhood. As they’re working in the house one day, there’s a knock on the door. A man stands there with his family, claiming to have lived there years before and asking if it would be alright if he showed his kids around. People pleaser to a fault, Eve lets them in.

As soon as the family enters their home, strange and inexplicable things start happening, including their toddler going missing and a ghostly presence materializing in the basement. Even more weird, the family can’t seem to take the hint that their visit should be over. And when Charlie suddenly vanishes, Eve slowly loses her grip on reality. Something is terribly wrong with the house and with the visiting family—or is Eve just imagining things?

Eve and her partner Charlie are house flippers. They have just moved into their latest purchase and are not sure if they can restore it or if it will have to be a total tear-down. Unfortunately, this is no ordinary house, and no it is not a mere haunting either.

I identified with Eve up to a point. She is a constant worrier who has trouble saying no and always goes out of her way to help everyone who asks no matter how inconvenient it may be for her. Where I draw the line is answering the door to strangers and after reading this book I am glad to be the kind of person who feels that you can knock all you want but if you haven't been invited you aren't coming in.

Eve is home alone when a family of strangers shows up. The husband claims he used to live there and would like permission to take a quick look around with his wife and kids. She reluctantly lets them in only because she feels bad for turning them away. He assures her they will be on their way within 15 minutes but they never leave! When her partner Charlie gets home it's a huge relief, but that doesn't last long.

We Used To Live Here is clever, creepy, suspenseful, and terrifying. The pervasive feeling of dread had my stomach sinking from the minute Eve answered the door right through the final page.

I am so excited to see that this book is being made into a movie and I can't wait to watch it!

5 out of 5 stars

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

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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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