When the Night Falls by Glenn Rolfe

Rocky Zukas lives with the ghosts of what happens when you fall in love with a monster. Lucky to be alive, Rocky roams his beachside hometown living on autopilot, waiting for life to start again.

November Riley has never been far from the boy that stole her heart. She watches from the shadows, knowing she can never make things right between them, but never giving up on the chance they could try one more time.

A new documentary is bringing Gabriel Riley, the Beach Night Killer, back to national consciousness. The dead serial killer has a trio of new fans that are ready to make Old Orchard Beach, Maine their home for the end of the summer season.

When the new strangers in town discover Rocky’s relationship to the past of one of their own, he becomes their number one target. Can November protect him, or will these other vampires prove too strong?

When the night falls, blood will spill, and death will reign.

This highly anticipated sequel to Until Summer Comes Around takes place ten years after the most momentous summer of Rocky's life.

Things have settled down in Old Orchard Beach in the years since the murders. The tourists are back as usual, and Rocky lives a mostly quiet life, dealing as best he can with the knowledge that monsters are real, and that the first and only girl he ever loved was one of them. 

Now, ten years later, a documentary about the murders brings back that pain and a slew of pests that want to interview Rocky as the survivor of the massacre that rocked the town. Rumors and speculation that the killer may have been a vampire and might not have been alone have caught the eye of more than just reporters. Now people are going missing and Rocky may face a fight for his life again.

The vampires Glenn Rolfe has created are not immortal, nor are they confined to the darkness. They are a fresh original take on what we all think we know from movies. They don't kill just for survival but for the sheer thrill and enjoyment of it, and they walk among us in the sun. You may even spot one on the beach this summer waiting in line at the concession stand, but you'll only know once you feel the bite. When The Night Falls is the perfect summer read. It's brutal, deadly, and sexy in all the right ways with the perfect 90s vibe.

5 out of 5 stars

My thanks to the author for the advance copy.

Available for pre-order

Until Summer Comes Around should be read first.

About the author

 

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

Available for preorder

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.

Available for Pre-order

About the author

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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