The Etiquette of Booby Traps by John Boden

 A booby trap is a device or setup that is intended to kill, harm, or surprise a human or other animal, triggered by the presence or actions of the victim.

Here they are stories; small, sturdy and surprising in their levels of camouflage and damage.

-A grieving man grapples with a double whammy of loss by fishing and finds that sometimes you catch more than you expect, if you use the right bait.

-The world splinters in many different ways and scenes in a kaleidoscopic series of prose snapshots

-The young product of a lifetime of abuse grows to find her true course and embrace the trail of smoke it leaves.

-A small coastal village finds something unusual washed upon their shore.

-An abandoned amusement park has strange truths to share with a trio of teenagers.

-A woman mentally spars with the creature that haunts her property.

-Loneliness leads to wanting--and wanting has a voracious appetite, so discovers an introverted fellow in a far from typical morning at the office.

The stories are short and scattered in theme and setting but mind where you step, for they have sharp edges and hair triggers and a few of them bite hard.

The raw emotions and wretched circumstances in these stories did not make for a restful sleep. 

My favorites, or more accurately the ones that hurt the most and kept me awake, were at the beginning and end of the book. The first story, Come Tomorrow and the last story, Tinsel are both heavy with grief. In the former, a man mourns the death of a life cut too short. In the latter, the pain is not negated by having had more time. Another favorite, if that is the right word to use in this case, was Halfway Wrong Don't Make it Alright, which was a story full of abuse, neglect, revenge, and retribution.

Slightly less painful, but no less powerful stories that I can't shake off involve a monstrous tax collector, fish swimming through the air, and a simple glass of water.

The introduction warns that this book is unsafe, but I plowed full steam ahead and devoured it before bedtime. I have to agree. This is a book that will stick with you, and stick to you.

My thanks to Cemetery Dance Publications.

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Schlock! Horror!

 

AN ANTHOLOGY OF HORROR INSPIRED BY 1980'S SCHLOCK!

An anthology of short stories based upon/inspired by and in loving homage to all of those great gorefest movies and books of the 1980's (not necessarily based in that era, although some do ride that wave of nostalgia!), the golden age when horror well and truly came kicking, screaming and spraying blood, gore & body parts out from the shadows...

It was the decade that brought us everything in the cinema and on VHS from the Italian 'nasties' to Elm Street, The Lost Boys, Hellraiser, The Thing, Day of the Dead, Reanimator, Return of the Living Dead, My Bloody Valentine, Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, Cannibal Holocaust….and superlative directors such as David Cronenburg, John Waters, Roger Corman and - of course - Clive Barker.

All of this was, naturally, reflected in the books we devoured - Guy N Smith, Clive Barker's Books of Blood, James Herbert, Jack Ketchum, Gary Brandner and Richard Laymon, to name but a mere handfiul.

This exemplrary 80's themed/inspired tales of terror has been adjudicated and compiled by one Mr Bret McCormick, himself a writer, producer and director of many a schlock classic, including Bio-Tech Warrior, Time Tracers, The Abomination, Ozone: The Attack of the Redneck Mutants and the inimitable Repligator.

So, you get the picture - within this weighty tome, we have the darkest splatter, most horrific gruesomeness and stomach-churning detail, all wrapped up in a gripping stories, played out by the strongest of characters - all of which will keep even the hardiest of souls wide awake and trembling in the wee hours.

Sometimes cheesy, always gory, 80s horror holds a special place in my dark little heart. The stories in this anthology pay homage to the books and movies of those glorious days.

There is a bit of Sci-Fi thrown in the mix when a nerd gets a chance to live out his dreams in a computer-generated world, but of course, it soon turns nightmarish.

There is a classic horror feel in a story about a student who attends a free movie screening in exchange for providing feedback, in a creepy theater that he never should have entered.

Witches, ghosts, curses, mutants and even a chainsaw massacre provide hours of shock, disgust, and chills.

If you like your horror on the campy, humorous, and graphic side this is for you.

4 out of 5 stars

My thanks to HellBound Books

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Featuring stories from:

Todd Sullivan, Timothy C Hobbs, Mark Thomas, Andrew Post, James B. Pepe, Thomas Vaughn, Edward Karpp, Jaap Boekestein, Lisa Alfano, L.C.Holt, John Adam Gosham, Brandon Cracraft, M. Earl Smith, Sarah Cannavo, James Gardner, Bret McCormick, and James H Longmore.

Still, Dark Places by Christina Graves

 

The Seven Sisters of Still Water. Missing but not forgotten. Memorialized in graveyard stone...

Nora Gray, true crime podcast host, is being called back to her hometown over a decade later by a desperate mother. Another daughter, gone. And Nora knows more than anyone realizes, more than even she remembers.

They call it Skull House, this home back in the woods, rundown, abandoned. And for as long as Nora can recall, the local kids have dared each other to climb the stairs to the top, to brave the ghost of Helaena Barker, who they say waits in the attic behind the door...

But Skull House hides more than tales of ghosts, and it clings tightly to its secrets. Nora is convinced it also holds the missing clues to the Seven Sisters' disappearances and why Nora herself woke up in a field near the house, covered in blood, all those years ago.

While Nora investigates the missing girls, will she be able to trust anyone around her? Will she even be able to trust herself?

Years ago, Nora was found wandering dazed and covered in blood. Her sister was never seen again. Whatever she witnessed was so horrific, her traumatized mind has blocked it from her memory.

Now as a grown woman, she has distanced herself from her past, using a different name and hosting a true crime podcast. During the call-in portion of her show, she is shocked to hear a woman call her by her real name. A woman from her hometown has tracked her down to tell her that her daughter has gone missing just like Nora's sister and the other girls from long ago. 

Reluctantly, Nora agrees to meet with this woman and try to uncover what the police couldn't or wouldn't. Returning to her hometown to solve this mystery may be the key to solving her own.

Told on two timelines from multiple points of view this twisty, emotional, psychological horror was loaded with suspense and surprises. The present-day investigation part moved a little slow for my taste. I found the storyline of the past more compelling than the current day. The ultimate connection between past and present was cleverly written. 

My thanks to Horrorsmith Publishing.

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Down Into The Sea by Dan Franklin

 Fourteen-year-old Eric Ross is struggling. His father is in prison for murder. His mother has slipped into addiction. Even if he can survive the bullying and the sudden run of disappearances, he has little hope for a future outside of the sleepy Massachusetts fishing town he calls home.

But there is something far more important on his mind.

He found her down beneath the local entertainment pier, and she seems just about perfect. Except for the teeth. But she doesn’t want to simply be a part of his world. She wants more…

From the author of These Things Linger and The Eater of Gods, Down Into the Sea is a vicious twist on coming-of-age horror, on the unyielding, transformative power of desire, and the dangers of standing in its path.

The sins of the father are visited upon Fourteen-year-old Eric Ross. He has had his life upended by events beyond his control. There was a time that he had a happy home life. There was a time when he had friends, and hopes, and dreams. Now he knows only hunger and neglect, with his father in prison and his mother unable to cope, drowning her depression in pills and alcohol. 

He spends most of his energy avoiding bullies, missing his father, and hanging out at the pier. That is where he sees her, a strange looking woman that at first appears to be a corpse in the water. This unusual pair become ill-fated friends.

In between the missing people and occasional carnage, I forgot this was a horror story because fear is only one of many emotions this powerful novella evokes. I could feel Eric's loneliness and his love for his parents. I could feel his mother's shame at being unable to take better care of him. Then there was my own apprehension over his unlikely friendship with this woman under the pier. 

If you're looking for a read that will leave you alternately terrified and heartbroken this is it. I have an emotional hangover from my splash Down Into The Sea.

5 out of 5 stars

My thanks to the author and Cemetery Dance Publications.

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