Haunted Forest Tour Derailed

The Haunted Forest Tour by James A. Moore and Jeff Strand has been on my radar/TBR for a while, thanks in part of some FB groups that have been raving about it. I'm familiar with James A. Moore and know he delivers quality horror fiction, but I'm less familiar with Jeff Strand. I believe that, prior to this, I've only ever read one other Strand novel, and that's in part because he's known for comedic horror, and that's something I need to be in a certain frame of mind for. Well, I finally got around to it, and personally, I don't know what all the fuss was about. 

The premise of The Haunted Forest Tour is relatively simple--a forest crops quite literally under the town within a matter of hours, the trees coming up with such force that residents are impaled on the sudden growths. Not explanation is given (you'll have to read the book to learn why). The forest is inhabited by a variety of monsters. A developer buys the land, and it isn't long before The Haunted Forest Tours are born. So far, there have been no incidents at the park, which is too good to be true, so you know something is bound to happen on the special Halloween Tours, and sure enough, two trams full of tourists break down inside the park. A blood bath follows, with only a handful of survivors escaping the massacre and trying to work their way out of the park. 

This was probably another case of going in with high expectations that weren't met. As I mentioned earlier, James A. Moore is known for delivering quality horror time after time, and Jeff Strand is supposedly known for his comedic horror, so I expected some top-notch horror comedy. And while the horror was there, the comedy was nowhere to be seen. Then again, maybe it was and I just wasn't feeling it. I've often been told that I have a strange sense of humor, never finding the funny in what most folks think is funny. I can sit through a comedy totally straight-faced, not finding anything funny about, yet everybody around me is practically pissing their pants with laughter. You have a semi-large cast of characters, none of whom are fully developed, so you really don't get attached to them, and as a result, you don't care who lives and who dies. In a case such as this, you usually give up on the human characters and start rooting for the monsters, but sadly, the monsters weren't even all that interesting, so you didn't want to root for them either. I kept hoping the forest floor would open and swallow them all just so I could be done with it, but alas, that didn't happen either. The only real horror to be found here is the book itself as you slog through it, praying for the end. This is not one I would recommend.

Supernatural It Ain't

 I don't know what possessed me to pick up this one... Oh, wait... I remember what it was... It was billed as something, something Supernatural, only if Sam and Dean were "together". I didn't care about the "together" part; I was just in the mood for something to scratch that Supernatural itch without having to rewatch the episodes. In short, I wanted something familiar yet new.

Morgan Brice's Witchbane starts off strong enough with brothers Seth and Jesse Tanner setting off to explore Hellgate, an infamous haunted tunnel in their hometown. Their intention is to debunk the myth surrounding the site, but they soon get more than they bargained for, and younger brother Jesse is brutally butchered by a supernatural entity. Well, at least we know we're not going to have a Wincest situation here.

There's a time jump of two years, during with Seth has become a "hunter," tracking down and dispatching supernatural beings, and we also learn that he's not the only one. There's a whole network of hunters out there, and it seems like every pairing ends up being a gay couple working together. Seth is the only lone wolf -- so we know where this is heading. Seth had figured out who killed his brother, kinda sort of. Seems many many moons ago, some witch was killed, and every year, one of the descendants, the first born of whatever generation, of the original executioners has to be sacrificed by one of the immortal members of the coven in order to maintain their immortality. We also find that the Tanner family was a party to the original executioners and Seth, being the oldest, had been the intended target. So now Seth is out to avenge his brother's death and prevent any of the other descendants from being sacrificed. Enter Jackson "Sonny" Evan Malone, the hot, humpy bartender who Seth ends up going home with, not realizing this is the man he's supposed to be protecting. And this is where the book begins to fall apart.

I knew going in that this was an urban fantasy/paranormal romance/thriller, so I knew there was going to be some sex, and since it was a gay paranormal romance, that the sex was going to be man on man. That didn't bother me. What bothered me was that a little more than half the book is filled with sex and it feels like the urban fantasy/thriller part was thrown in as filler between the sex scenes. Take away the sex scenes and you're left with a very short novella. Additionally, the story takes place over the span of a few days, and we're expected to believe that they've fallen so madly and deeply in love with each other that they can't picture their lives without each other. Look... this is a series, seven books so far. Approach it a little more realistically. Let the romance build over the course of the series. And gay men are not walking hormones; they don't get boners every time a hot guy sneezes, or coughs, or farts, but that certainly seems to be the case here. And that's a shame, really. I had high hopes going into this book and was hoping I'd find something I could lose myself in to satisfy that itch for the monster ass-kicking, brotherly camaraderie of Sam and Dean without resorting to watching the series over again because I gladly would have continued with these books, but I can very easily imagine I'll be getting more of the same, so I'm afraid I'm going to have to pass. And I recommend you do the same. Final rating: 2/5 stars

Who's Afraid of the Big, Bad Wolf?

I finished this one a while ago, but I needed to put some distance between me and the book because I wasn't sure how I felt about it. And in truth, I still don't know how I feel.

When I started reading The Red Trilogy by Paul Kane, I was in the mood for a traditional werewolf novel, even better if it was a series (or in this case, a trilogy), and that's not what I got.

You might think when you start reading this book that you're going to get a reimaging of the old children's tale of Little Red Riding Hood, and you'd be right--if the Big, Bad Wolf was a werewolf. The problem is, the first "book" in this trilogy is short. Very short. To the point where it feels more like a novella or novelette.

It's in the second "book" where the confusion starts. We're introduced to Rachel Daniels, an aspiring actress who's working as a homecare aide until her big break. She has an encounter with the beast and she gets eaten. But then we see her running around, alive, and being wooed by this guy who's actually a hunter on the trail of the beast. What we find out during the course of the book, and this happens early enough into the book that I don't consider it a spoiler, is this "werewolf" can take the form of anyone it has eaten, and the only way to can see the beast's true nature is by looking at its reflection in a mirror. Now we've seen the Rachel beast kill someone, but at the same time, we've seen Rachel in the company of someone else. So did Rachel survive the werewolf attack? You wouldn't think so since the beast is able to assume her form. But if the beast had eaten her, how can she be up and running around? It's all explained at the end of Book 2, but the explanation is so convoluted it will leave your head spinning.

In Book 3, we jump to the future and the werewolf apocalypse.

This book took me longer than usual to read, and to be honest, once I realized this wasn't the traditional werewolf novel(s) I was looking for, I almost put it aside. More than once.

The question you probably want an answer to is, Is it a bad book? And the answer is---Yes. And no. Yes, in the fact that I feel the reader is misled into thinking they're getting something other than a classic werewolf tale. And even though the book's description builds it up as a reworking of Little Red Riding Hood, I feel even that falls by the wayside after Book 1. The "No" part of that answer is only speculation on my part because I have to wonder if I would have enjoyed it more had I not gone in with any preconceived notions of what I was expecting.

Other than my overall disappointment with the story, I did feel there were some pacing issues where the story dragged a bit, losing any forward momentum that it had, and I don't feel there was enough character development, at least for me, because I didn't find myself invested in any of them. As a result, I wasn't getting caught up in their story and didn't care if any of them survived to the end. But I don't know how much of this is actual and how much my feelings for the book were influenced by my overall disappointment in the book.Would I recommend it? Based on my experience with it, no, I wouldn't, but again, I don't know how much is my disappointment in not getting what I wanted vs the actual quality of the book. So the only thing I can say is read it for yourself and draw your own conclusions, which you should do with any book, good or bad review. Final rating? 2 stars out of 5.

I Want My OtherMommy!

There's something about kids and horror that just go hand in hand. Whether they are the source of evil or the ones evil preys upon, children are just plain creepy -- and occasionally you'll get one that's downright annoying (I'm looking at you, The Babadook), so I knew it was only a matter of time before I got around to Josh Malerman's Incidents Around the House. Besides is being a book that centered around a child, I knew very little by way of what to expect.

The titles implies the possibility of a haunted house novel, while the cover lends itself to the idea that we'll either be dealing with a possessed toy or an imaginary friend gone bad. It turned out to be the latter. What we end up dealing with is an 8-year-old narrator who lives in a house with her mother, her father (who she calls Daddo), and an entity she calls Other Mommy, and, as we learn early on, Bela's mother has been distant recently. Given that bit of information, we, the reader, suspect Other Mommy is either a spirit within the house or an imaginary friend created to replace the often missing or preoccupied mother figure. Things take a sinister turn when we learn that Other Mommy has been asking to go into Bela's heart and there's been talk about "carnations," and that Other Mommy won't stop asking until Bela says "Yes." I really can't say much more than that without giving anything away.

The one thing that stood out for me while reading this book is a story I heard when I was a child, about a little girl who dreamed of a man coming in through her bedroom window every night and asking her to go with him. This unnerves the parents, who think that some pervert is creeping into their daughter's bedroom. They set up their own surveillance. Nothing. They call the cops. Nothing. Then they begin to suspect something more sinister. Something supernatural. So they take it to their priest. The priest tells them that whatever is happening, you must tell her never to say yes to this man. The nightly visitations continue, and the bring their daughter in to talk to the priest. It is then that the little girls looks at a picture of Jesus, points, and says that's the man who keeps coming into her room. The priest maintains that the girl should never say yes, and while the parents agree with him to his face, they don't see the harm in telling their daughter that if that's the man who wants her to go with him, it's okay to go. The next morning, the child was dead. So with that story firmly planted in my head, I was curious to find out where Malerman was going to take the story.

At this point I want to reveal that I listened to the audiobook version, and that probably influenced my reception of the novel. The narrator did a fantastic job of capturing the childlike essence of the character, and she pulled me into the story immediately. There was something captivating about her narration; I didn't want to stop/put down the book. I often wonder, when listening to audiobooks, if it's the narrator that makes the story for me, and if I would have had the same reaction if I had read the book. That's something I'll never know the answer to, but what I do know is that I loved this book. While not fast paced, it is gripping, and Malerman takes you to places that are dark and not exactly comfortable, and you get the feeling the author is intentionally holding back one more revelation, possibly because to include it would make the story cliche and like so many other stories of this type. The only negative I have, which isn't really a bad thing, is that at times the narrator sounded like someone familiar, and that familiar someone is Zelda Rubinstein from Poltergeist, and it happens enough times to the point I have to wonder is it wasn't intentional instead of being coincidental. I happen to love Zelda, though, so it wasn't really an issue for me, but for someone else, it might be enough to pull you out of the story. Final rating, 5/5 stars. Highly recommended. 

The Neighbors from Hell

Adam Nevill has alway been on my radar ever since reading Apartment 16, and while I've accumulated some of his books, I just never got around to reading them. Until now.

The reason why I kept putting him off is because I know from discussions on his work that his books tend to be slow burns. I know Apartment 16 was. Cunning Folk was no different. And I have to be in a certain mood for slow burns. You'd think, though, that a book opening with a man being tormented by unseen things to the point of committing suicide would hit the ground running, but nope... Nevill is quick to apply the brakes as a new family takes possession of the house. Tom, his wife Fiona, and their daughter Gracey. Oh, and their little dog, too. Right from the start there are misgivings, as the place looks more run-down than he remembers, and as city folk wanting to living the dream of a house in the country, they are really living beyond their means, especially when the Moots, their less than pleasant elderly neighbors, start telling him the things that need to be done. What's they're telling him is all cosmetic work to be done on the outside, which Tom thinks is secondary when compared to making the interior livable for his family, but you can tell he sees the cash register tallying up everything the Moots are listing.

The Moots, we're quick to learn, are unpleasant people, and they make no bones about wanting Tom and his family gone. You immediately start to wonder if maybe they weren't the ones tormenting the man in the beginning, making him so paranoid that he takes his own life. If that's the case, what do they have in store for Tom, Fiona, and... They wouldn't hurt a child, would they? Would they? You'll just have to read and find out.

Nevill takes his time establishing the relationships and all the characters involved, and sometimes you just want to scream, "Okay, they're miserable old people. We get it. Now move the story along." But we bide our time and wait for the big reveal and for the ooey gooey brown stuff to hit the fan. And it does. With what's revealed about the Moots, you have to ask yourself what chance does Tom have against them, since he's basically fighting alone; his wife refuses to see what he sees and believe what he's been told, and she chalks up is "mental instability" on the stress of such are large DIY project. And with the creation of the Moots, Nevill has introduced to the literary world a pair of the vilest people you can imagine. He also ratchets up the tension with each character that's introduced, because after the revelation, Tom realizes how powerless he is against these people, and really doesn't know who he can trust.

If you're in the market for a supernatural thriller, this is definitely one to check out. Final score? 4.5/5 stars. For me it missed being a 5-star read because if the ending. While it's satisfactory, given the build-up Nevill has given us, I felt robbed, but he more than made up for it in the scenes that follow.

Not the Catch of the Day

After hearing so many good things about John Langan's The Fisherman, I went into it with high expectations. It's always a wonderful thing when a book meets those expectations, even better when it exceeds them, but alas, The Fisherman is not one of those books.

The book has a promising start: two coworkers, both widowers, end up bonding over fishing. The two hit various fishing spots until Dan suggests Dutchman's Creek. Abe has never heard of it, but he's game, so the two set off. At Herman's Diner, a local eatery, the two ask about the fishing spot and are warned away from it, so right there the stage is set for some spooky happenings, and you want the two to hurry up and get there so things can start happening. All this happens in the first 50 pages or so, then you have to wait until page 197 before they finally get there. So what happens for 150 pages? Howard, of Herman's Diner (either his name should have been Herman, or the diner should have been called Howard's Diner), recounts the history of Dutchman's Creek, which, in and of itself, wouldn't be so bad, if it felt as through the reader were immersed in the events as they occurred, but they don't. It comes across as exactly what it is, someone sitting in a room while someone drones on and on and on. It isn't until we come back to present day that the reader once again feels involved with the events as they play out.

For me, this recounting often feels unfinished, as if they author was building up to something, didn't know what that something was going to be and meant to go back to it, and never did. This is often at points where dialogue should be used, but instead the author basically says it's not important what was said, but it feels like the character is about to reveal something, then changes their mind. Quite often I was left feeling frustrated because I'm thinking it's about to get good, but then the author glosses right over it and you never get the full impact. We find out later that Dan learned of the location through his grandfather's fishing journal, and knowing that, this history could have been spaced throughout as Abe discovers the journal and starts reading through it. As a result, what could have been a great cosmic horror novel gets lost in the ramblings of an old man. Not recommended. 2/5 stars.

The FBI's Most Wanted

 I'm a sucker for killer Bigfoot stories, but there are so few well written ones out there, it's like playing Russian roulette every time you pick one up, and it's always a pleasant surprise when you stumble across a good one. The last surprise I got with Bigfoot books was Nick Sullivan's Zombie Bigfoot. So when I spied Heath Stallcup's Genoskwa: A Story of Vengeance, and that it was the beginning of a series, I decided to chance it.

Our story opens with a the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force checking out a possible terrorist cell deep within the Catskill mountains. When they arrive, they find the camp abandoned, a short bus turned onto its side, blood, lots of blood, and a couple of bodies. Not long after, they come under attack by some unseen threat, which turns out to be the Genoskwa, a subspecies of Sasquatch. When they don't return, a recovery team is sent in, and they too fall under attack. It becomes an all-out battle, and you're on the edge of your seat wondering who dies and who makes it out alive.

Stallcup doesn't waste any time getting you into the action, and even though there's a large cast of characters, none are fully fleshed out. Most of them are cannon fodder, but there are some you get to know well enough to know that if something happens to them, you aren't going to be happy, but then again, when you read this type of fiction, you're not reading it for the characters; you read it for the monster mayhem, and Stallcup provides plenty of that. You won't be disappointed.

If you decide to read this one, I strongly suggest getting an ebook copy or the audiobook because the print edition does have its issues. The first page of each chapter is very difficult to read; there's a full page graphic that acts as a backdrop to white text. I initially bought the print edition and was forced to get the ebook just so I could read the first page of each chapter. The other issue with the print edition is a personal pet peeve, and that's improper line formatting in that there are often large gaps between words within a line. Some might not be bothered by this, but for me, it's distracting enough to pull me out of the story.

If you're looking for killer cryptid fiction, or just want some all-out monster mayhem, this is definitely one to check out. For me, the next three have already been added to my TBR pile. Final rating, 4/5 stars