Sunray Alice by Jeremy Hepler

 

Approaching the end of her life, Alice Mayes, notorious caretaker of the anomaly known as The Garden of Sunray, is eager to tie up one last loose end before moving on. "The" last loose end. For decades she’s been dreaming of finding someone to share her secret with, someone worthy of her truth, and in twenty-year-old Emily Newell, she thinks she finally has.

On a momentous stroll through her massive garden with her young friend, Alice delves back into the past, back to those five horrific, mind-bending days in the summer of 1944 when she was sixteen, and for the first time in over seventy-five years, gives voice to her role in the Nazi prisoner internment camp tragedy that befell the small town of Sunray, Texas. In revealing all she witnessed, confessing all she did, she hopes to pass on a wondrous legacy as well as validate and honor the mysterious man she knew as Karl Wagner.

Alice, an elderly woman, nearing the end of her days shares a miraculous story with Emily, a young friend who helps her care for her famous garden. This is a poignant tale of Alice's youth, growing up in a small town near a Nazi prison camp after her father was killed in the war.

It put me in mind of "The Green Mile" in the way that someone thought to be evil was actually a gift from God.

It's a beautifully written coming of age tale set in one of my favorite time periods, World War II

when Alice and her mother had to find a way to get on with life while grieving their loss.

I can't say much about the plot without spoiling it for you so I'm just going to say if you enjoy historical fiction or coming of age novels you get both here and it's glorious. I loved it.

5 out of 5 stars

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Attack From the '80s Edited by Eugene Johnson

 

Modern technology has brought some new twists and turns to horror. Found footage, cell phone-based viruses, literal ghosts in the machines but maybe it's time for a throwback. It's time for some new tales of slumber party horrors, VCR monsters, and problems that can't be solved with a smart phone. We want tales of unstoppable monsters, sewer-dwelling creatures, looming threats of cold-war chaos. Give us fear under the neon lights of an arcade, people fighting for their lives against the backdrop of a hot city night and a cheesy sax solo. Take us back to a time when latchkey kids had to fend for themselves and the only thing left to stop an unspeakable horror was a plucky band of high school kids. Make it bloody. Make it gnarly. Make it 80s!

Featuring over 20 Bram Stoker Award-winning and best selling authors such as Joe R. Lansdale, Kasey Lansdale, Weston Ochse, Lisa Morton, Grady Hendrix, Tim Waggoner, Christina Sng, Stephanie M. Wytovich, Jess Landry, Vince Liaguno, F. Paul Wilson, John Skipp, Linda D. Addison, and many more.

In the 80s, horror reigned supreme, and this anthology takes us back to those glorious days of spiral perms, leg warmers, and needing to stop at a pay phone if you had to call for help because who ever heard of a phone that fits in your pocket? Some of these stories have tickled my funny bone, others made me squirm with repulsion while others did a great job of raising some goosebumps.

This book recreates the fear of razor blades in your Halloween goodies, curses, Satanists and all the other spooktacular fun from back in the day. Whether you long to return to the 80s or whether you were too young and missed out on that decade there is lots of creepy fun to be had.

Some of my many favorites were Snapshot in which a couple of burglars try to do the right thing for a change but no good deed goes unpunished. Your Picture Here, about an unusual date night at the movies. Permanent Damage about friends (or frenemies) preparing for a wedding. Slashbacks about a very unique video store. and Ghetto Blaster, about a cursed boom box and Stranger Danger, which concerns the aforementioned razor blades on Halloween.

4 out of 5 stars

My thanks to Cemetery Dance Publications for the review copy.

Table of Contents:
Introduction by Mick Garris.
Top Guns of the Frontier by Weston Ochse.
Snapshot by Joe R. Lansdale and Kasey Lansdale.
The Devil in the Details by Ben Monroe.
Return of the Reanimated Nightmare by Linda Addison.
Taking the Night Train by Thomas F. Monteleone.
Catastrophe Queens by Jess Landry.
Your Picture Here by John Skipp.
Permanent Damage by Lee Murray.
Slashbacks by Tim Waggoner.
Munchies by Lucy A. Snyder.
Ten Miles of Bad Road by Stephen Graham Jones.
Epoch, Rewound by Vince A. Liaguno.
Demonic Denizens by Cullen Bunn.
The White Room by Rena Mason.
Ghetto Blaster by Jeff Strand.
Haddonfield, New Jersey 1980 by Cindy O'Quinn.
When He Was Fab by F. Paul Wilson.
Welcome to Hell by Christina Sng.
Perspective: Journal of a 1980s Mad Man by Mort Castle.
Mother Knows Best by Stephanie M. Wytovich.
Stranger Danger by Grady Hendrix.
The Garden of Dr. Moreau by Lisa Morton. 

The Haunting of Kinnawe House by Steven Rigolosi

 

THE HAUNTING OF KINNAWE HOUSE is a ghost story that spans two eras in American history. As the novel opens, 27-year-old Matthew Rollins, an aspiring pop singer, is watching his dreams rapidly swirling down the drain. His girlfriend has dumped him, and he’s suffering with terrible insomnia that is affecting his brain and his eyesight.

Then comes the email from a real-estate agent at York Village Realtors, offering information about Kinnawe House. This former preacher’s house, built in 1746, is now available for rent for the first time in its history. The offer is too good to refuse, so Matthew sublets his Hell’s Kitchen apartment and heads north to Agamenticus, Maine, where he expects to exorcise his demons, write songs, and get some much-needed sleep.

Matthew does not know of the connection between Kinnawe House and the Reverend Jonathan Edwards, who terrified the American colonies with his 1741 sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” For years, Edwards’ former lover, has threatened to reveal her child, Parthalán, as Edwards’ illegitimate son. When four hardy men from the reverend’s Northampton, Massachusetts, community ask Edwards to sponsor a new congregation on the rugged Maine frontier, Edwards sees the opportunity to rid his house of his blackmailer and the child who is a living reminder of his hypocrisy.
Edwards has reason to believe that Parthalán has chosen to study the dark arts, but he does not suspect Parthalán’s plan to build Cape Agamenticus, Maine, into a prosperous oceanside town that Reverend Edwards, and all God-fearing people of the colonies, would consider an abomination.

The narrative alternates chapters between the present, as Matthew struggles with failing health and increasingly violent delusions and hallucinations, and the past, as Parthalán populates his town, and his church, with a community willing to sell their souls for hearty meals and comfortable homes—until a mysterious family arrives to foment rebellion from within. Past and present come together as Matthew learns, little by little, of his family’s ties to Cape Agamenticus and Kinnawe House—and why Parthalán will not rest until the house has driven Matthew to take his own life.

I feel like I should have known with a synopsis this long (probably longer than my review) that this would be a convoluted story.

Matthew is a struggling musician who can't seem to catch a break. His mother is mentally ill, his girlfriend has dumped him, and his insomnia is so bad that he sometimes can not tell hallucination from reality. As if that isn't enough to deal with he has scars all over that mysteriously rip open and bleed profusely under certain circumstances.
When he is offered a stay in a beautiful secluded home on the peaceful coast of Maine if he will consent to be the caretaker it seems like a too good to be true opportunity where he can rest and relax and write some new music.

What he doesn't know is the horrific evil that has been present since the house was built, is still there, and waiting for him.

Told on two timelines that switch between the present day of Matthew and the 1700s when the house and non existent town were built we slowly learn the reason that Matthew never knew his father and the reason his mother went insane. 

Because of the dual timelines there are a lot of characters to keep track of, some of whom were part of a devil worshiping cult, and others who hoped to thwart their leader's evil plans.

It was a bit confusing at times because some of the characters also changed names to Americanized versions, and several characters from the 1700s are still with us in the present day, some wanting to protect Matthew while others want to drive him to suicide.

I do enjoy a good historical fiction and when you combine it with horror I enjoy it all the more. I would have preferred not to have the name changes. There are some genuinely creepy and well written occurrences that happen to Matthew but their connection to the 1700s was at times confusing.

3.5 out of 5 stars

I received an advance copy.

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About the author

Steve Rigolosi lives in Manhattan and is the author of the Tales from the Back Page series of mystery novels. The third book in the series, Androgynous Murder House Party, was released in June 2009. The premise of this series: Have you ever wondered about the stories behind the advertisements in your local newspaper—-those ads for fetish parties, transvestite boutiques, discount psychotherapy, wicca conventions, Gothic/Punk events, and lonely-hearts seeking to re-establish contact with a ship that passed in the night? Each book in the TALES FROM THE BACK PAGE series looks closely at an advertisement placed on the “Bulletin Board” of The Clarion, a community newspaper published on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.

The Fervor by Alma Katsu

 

From the acclaimed and award-winning author of The Hunger and The Deep comes a new psychological and supernatural twist on the horrors of the Japanese American internment camps in World War II.

1944: As World War II rages on, the threat has come to the home front. In a remote corner of Idaho, Meiko Briggs and her daughter, Aiko, are desperate to return home. Following Meiko's husband's enlistment as an air force pilot in the Pacific months prior, Meiko and Aiko were taken from their home in Seattle and sent to one of the internment camps in the Midwest. It didn’t matter that Aiko was American-born: They were Japanese, and therefore considered a threat by the American government.

Mother and daughter attempt to hold on to elements of their old life in the camp when a mysterious disease begins to spread among those interned. What starts as a minor cold quickly becomes spontaneous fits of violence and aggression, even death. And when a disconcerting team of doctors arrive, nearly more threatening than the illness itself, Meiko and her daughter team up with a newspaper reporter and widowed missionary to investigate, and it becomes clear to them that something more sinister is afoot, a demon from the stories of Meiko’s childhood, hell-bent on infiltrating their already strange world.

Inspired by the Japanese yokai and the jorogumo spider demon, The Fervor explores a supernatural threat beyond what anyone saw coming; the danger of demonization, a mysterious contagion, and the search to stop its spread before it’s too late.

Japanese folklore and American history combine in this historical horror fiction set during World War II when President Roosevelt had people of Japanese descent, most of whom were American citizens taken from their homes and incarcerated in internment camps. The fear mongering and ignorance that breed hate groups and racism are accurately portrayed.

The story is told from alternating points of view and mainly follows Meiko and her daughter who are forced to live in one such camp when a mysterious illness begins to spread, Fran, a newspaper reporter who will risk her life to get to the truth, and Archie, the minister who is too easily swayed by his wife. 

The horror aspect has only a minor role in this novel so for that reason I would be more inclined to recommend it to fans of historical fiction. I would have liked more of the jorogumo, which is the shape shifting spider demon that makes a brief appearance. It was still a compelling story with lots of action and loads of suspense.

4 out of 5 stars

I received an advance copy.

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