Conjuring the Witch by Jessica Leonard

 

There are witches in the woods.

These are the words the reverend of the Lilin Assembly of Our Lord repeats to his parishioners each week. Steve and Nicole Warby think it’s just a metaphor, until Nicole takes a walk in those woods and comes back changed. Something came out of them with her, and the simple small-town life they’ve always known is forever altered when they discover the dark secrets buried deep and those intent on keeping them there. Fearing for his wife’s sanity, and his own comfortable status in the church, Steve is unsure if he wants to help or ignore the problems. The reverend believes there are witches in the woods, and he thinks Nicole is only the most recent.

Conjuring the Witch is a dark, haunted story about what those in power are willing to do to stay in power, and the sins we convince ourselves are forgivable.

Are there witches in the woods? Or has the reverend twisted religious dogma to his own interpretation for his own agenda? That is the question to be answered in this stunning work of horror fiction by Jessica Leonard.

Nicole Warby is searching for her niche in this world. She wants to make her husband happy and fit in with the church ladies, but she is pretty sure there must be more to life than cooking and cleaning and being submissive to her man as the reverend constantly preaches.

Her husband Steve is a sort of go-along to get along kind of guy. He wants his wife to be happy but he is also sometimes embarrassed by her behavior. 

As much as they are warned about the woods, Nicole feels something pulling her towards them. Sure they are a little dark and spooky but just maybe they have a story to tell.

Nicole is not quite the same after her venture into those woods and the congregation will never be the same either.

I loved this book! I loved Nicole and her refusal to just bow down to hypocritical oppression. The reverend gave me the creeps from the start. I could almost picture him as a smarmy sort of salesman pitching himself as speaking for God, and telling people how to run their marriage as if he had a clue about how marriage works. I can't say that it was a big surprise to find out what is really in the woods, but I didn't need it to be a shock in order to enjoy this atmospheric story. It spoke to me on so many levels.

5 out of 5 stars.

My thanks to Ghoulish Books.

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Wily Writers Presents Tales of Foreboding Edited by ES Magill and Bill Bodden

 

Foreboding—the feeling that bad, or evil, awaits us at some point in our future, distant or near.

It’s like a pressure at the back of your brain, a whisper that it can all go terribly wrong. The sense of foreboding reminds us the bad is coming—but we don’t know exactly when.

Here are 14 tales where evil is nosing the chinks in the lives of the unsuspecting, searching for a way in and ready to wreak havoc. But these are no ordinary sufferings and miseries: cults, mythical forest creatures, elder gods, psychic powers, murder, parallel universes, monsters, death, nature gone awry, zombies, ghosts, and husbands.

In these 14 tales, things don’t bode well:

 

Nature figures out how to take a sinister upper hand in Bill Bodden’s “When to Let Go.”

“Coffin” by Alison J. McKenzie asks the question ‘can you exist without being alive?’

Jennifer Brozek explores the difficulty, and danger, of trying to understand one’s own mind in “A Test of Vigilance and Will.”

In “Jenny” by Lee Call, curiosity and love possess their own perils, but when they cross paths...

Yvonne Navarro’s “Meet Me On the Other Side” delves into an alternate world and explores love and sacrifice in the face of an impending apocalypse and libidinous beasts.

Which is worse—a natural disaster, a monster, or a husband—is the question at the heart of Allie Yohn’s “In the Very Air You Breathe.”

"Frostlings" by Chris Marrs gives us the definitive answer about family and love—and mythical creatures.

“Still Life With Shattered Glass” by Loren Rhoads exposes a morbid hobby, and where it leads.

Joan De La Haye’s “Getting Rid of Charlie” examines that father-daughter bonding time is very important—and can come in an aberrant form.

In “A Spectacle of a Man” by Weston Ochse, one man finds that better living can come from the Elder Gods, but it’s not going to be pretty.

“Purgatory” by Angel Leigh McCoy warns us how one mistake can last forever and forever and forever...

S.G Browne’s “Lower Slaughter” reveals how thin the veneer of reality is—and that making the bus on time is crucial.

E.S. Magill’s “Los Necrocorridos” proves that love can exist in the most horrific conditions, even in the zombie apocalypse.

These delightfully dark tales have something to offer every fan of horror or dark fiction. Tales run the gamut from mysterious towns, supernatural storms, otherworldly creatures, sex and drugs and rock and roll. 

Among my favorites were

Lisa Morton’s High Desert in which a woman comes to regret a visit to an abandoned cult compound in the desert, S.G Browne’s Lower Slaughter in which a vacationing couple veer off the beaten path on their last day before they head home. Coffin by Alison J. McKenzie was probably the most unique story about a young man with Cotard's syndrome and the brother who mistakenly thinks he can help him snap out of it. A children's story becomes a nightmare for a grief-stricken woman in Frostlings.

There are lots of spooky moments and of course a general sense of foreboding throughout. 

4 out of 5 stars

I received a complimentary copy.

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Coffin Shadows, by Mark Steensland and Glen Krisch

 12 years ago Janet Martlee’s infant son died under mysterious circumstances. Consumed with grief and anger, she ran away to start again...

Yesterday, a12-year old boy with dead eyes appeared in her classroom, begging for help. But Janet doesn’t believe in ghosts...

Today, her psychiatrist tells her she must return home to confront her past and uncover the mystery of what happened...

Only some questions don’t want to be answered. And some answers hide in the shadows...

Life seems to be going pretty well for Janet, although she is struggling with her feelings about her pregnancy due to the traumatic loss of her first baby. She's in a stable relationship, has a good job, and a best friend who would do anything for her. 

Everything in her life would be perfectly rosy if not for the parts of her past she can not remember and the sudden appearance of what looks like the corpse of a 12 year old boy that is watching and stalking her. 

Her therapist tells her she must return home, to her parents from whom she has been estranged for years, in order to seek out the truth about what happened to her baby. The therapist believes that confronting her past will rid her of these visions of a dead child.

This was a fast-paced, chilling read in which some secrets are horrifying but uncovering them can be deadly. The suspense kept my blood pounding but the shocking climax nearly stopped my heart! There is an old expression "You can't go home again" but maybe what is really meant by that is don't go back if you were lucky enough to escape the first time.

5 out of 5 stars

My thanks to Cemetery Dance

Available for pre-order

More books by Glen Kirsch

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MIDNIGHT UNDER THE BIG TOP edited by Brian James Freeman

 Midnight Under the Big Top: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Magic

edited by Brian James Freeman

Cover artwork by Ben Baldwin
Interior Illustrations by Glenn Chadbourne

About the Book:
Venture inside Midnight Under the Big Top, where your wide eyes and pounding heart will discover: 

• the world's grandest tales of murder, madness, and magic set in and around the circus by renowned storytellers such as Stephen King, Joe Hill, Ray Bradbury, Richard Matheson, Neil Gaiman, Kelley Armstrong, Robert McCammon, Tananarive Due, Lisa Morton, Heather Graham, Richard Chizmar, Billy Chizmar, Amanda C. Davis, Nayad Monroe, Jeff Strand, Amanda Downum, Robert Brouhard, and Dominick Cancilla!

• the World's First-Ever Poetry Intermission featuring Norman Prentiss, G.O. Clark, Marge Simon, Bruce Boston, Robert Payne Cabeen, David E. Cowen, Alessandro Manzetti, Christina Sng, Stephanie M. Wytovich, K.A. Opperman, Ashley Dioses, and Terri Adamczyk!

• and for the grand finale, Josh Malerman, author of the New York Times bestseller Bird Box, will introduce you to Dandelion Andrews, a very unusual man who hasn't seen daylight in three months because he's digging a hole destined to become a most unusual carnival house of horrors!

These death-defying tales aren't for the faint of heart, but they are perfect for the long lost child deep inside of you who instinctively understands you should never trust a circus clown.

Welcome to the dark side of various carnivals and traveling circuses.

 Midnight Under The Big Top is a feast for the senses, featuring gorgeous artwork, dark poetry,  grim stories, and one novella. 

Some of the stories were familiar to me. I'm not sure if I have read them elsewhere but I did see Joe Hill's Twittering From The Circus of The Dead on tv when it was made into one of my favorite episodes of Creepshow. The classic story The Black Ferris by Ray Bradbury is included which was later turned into Something Wicked This Way Comes, and also an episode of the tv series Ray Bradbury Theater. 

Excited kids blow off their last day of school when the carnival comes to town in The Girl In The Carnival Gown by Kelly Armstrong There's something more wild and twisty than a roller coaster going on in this one.

Josh Malerman's novella Dandy is a dark and claustrophobic tale of a girl who wishes she had not gone into the fun house alone. It had me nearly hyperventilating.

All this and more awaits you at Midnight Under The Big Top.

Grab your tickets and get in line 

4 out of 5 stars

My thanks to Cemetery Dance