Lars
What an absolutely enjoyable horror novel! I love horror novels the best when they don't have any supernatural elements. Just good old fashion human on human horror, and that's what we find here. Fun little twist in the last handful of paragraphs, I did see part of it coming, but I don't mind that! Because I enjoyed this one so much, I have downloaded Kenzie Jenning's other book, Reception. Looks forward to that too as it's supposed to be a cannibal horror book, which is more human on human horror!
Really enjoyed this horror novella! Just a touch of supernatural and that's ok as I'm not a fan of supernatural books. I thought the story and the main character was written very well. Thought the gore was great too. Just grabbed this story out of a list of Christmas horror books and bought it off Kindle and I'm pleasantly surprised!
Such a badass book! Wow! And her debut novel too. Thanks to my love for Ania's book Brother and my love of Suntup Editions I snagged a numbered edition of their upcoming edition of Seed and so I needed to read it. And I'm so glad I did! What a brutal book and just brutal ending! The characters are rich and I got invested in them. Love the evil aspects, I'll say no more on that. This book was awesome! I'd recommend it to anyone!
Duuuuude. This book was DARK. And let me tell you, I'm here for it! We need more dark ass books like this! I've read this Japanese translated book and I've also read Battle Royale and both delivered. I'll have to go find more Japanese horror books at this rate!
I really enjoyed the format of this book. 6 chapters each told as basically a narrative speech almost by 6 different characters wrapped up in this story somehow. And they delivered some dark, nasty revelations too!
It's a very bleak story and told very matter of factly so you almost don't even know something horrible has happened at first!
Great fast read.
I don't think it's possible for David Joy to write anything but five-star novels! I just love his voice. I love his stories. I love southern horror/thriller books. There aren't a ton, but David Joy is the best at it! This one is no exception. Thought the characters were so real. The portrayal of addiction in the deep south mountains seems so accurate and real. I haven't lived in the south or been an addict, but it seems that way to me. And the ending of this book is heart wrenching. David has a way with words for sure.
What a great little apocalyptic horror novella. Almost a sci-fi/fantasy apocalyptic horror novella! How would you categorize this? I don't know! Not my job lol
I believe this is the author's debut novel? Which is great! I love getting in on new authors and from the ground up! It says in his bio that Thomas Vaughn is a “college professor whose research focuses on apocalyptic rhetoric and doomsday cults.” which fits this book perfectly! Hey, write what you know eh? And I'll read it because I love apocalyptic focused books!
This is about a doomsday cult and the members that are left after a major event for their cult...and as a reader you're left wondering if this cult IS for real as the end nears. It has such great imagery. Great characters with enough background to work, which is hard to do in a novella! Well done here though.
I'd have liked it to be a full novel size. I would not have gotten tired of the story or the characters. If it was longer though would I have? The world may never know.
I'd suggest this book to anyone! Really great read. I'm very happy Bad Dream Entertainment reached out to me to sent me this review copy! (and I'm glad I said yes!)
Check them out at BadDreamEntertainment.com or author Thomas Vaughn at brokentransmitter.com
5 stars!
It was a fun novella. Nothing groundbreaking by any means but I enjoyed the characters and the setting. Zachary and Sam were cute. The mystery of who the killer was turned out to be fun. I was expecting a bit more fighting with the killer based on the synopsis on the back of the book! Thought it'd be a bit more slasher style at the end but it was still good!
I have enjoyed everything of Steensland I have read so far! My favorite still being the masterpiece, In the Scrape, he created with James Newman! Looking forward to reading the rest of his works I haven't gotten to yet!
Finished this beauty tonight! Feels weird to say beauty as it's filled with such tragic stories. Horror novellas dealing with forms of addiction. I got it for Kealan and Caroline (who have great stories in here, don't get me wrong!) and ended up staying for the authors I didn't know!
Star of the show goes to two cause don't make me choose - Gabino Iglesias and Mercedes M Yardley. Coincidentally the last two stories so the book really ramped up in the end! Left a nice book hangover.
And then John FD Taff and Mark Matthews really delivered too. Two authors I also didn't know before this book.
This book is from Thunderstorm Books and is one of only 60 signed limited books produced. I feel really fortunate to have one!
This might be the best all around book I've ever read.
Does when you read a book affect your overall opinion of the book? I don't know, maybe? Probably? I don't have anything particular happening in life right now. There's the pandemic, yeah, but I don't see how that would affect a book reading experience. I'm a pretty emotional guy, so maybe I'm feeling extra smooshy right now? Hard to say.
I do know that I didn't read the synopsis for this book, just new I needed to have it and knew it was a Hendrix book and that people were loving it! That being said, and having read Hendrix books before, I thought it was gonna be a campy unrealistic fun read about a bunch of middle aged women fighting vampires. It's not that. Not at all.
What it is, is a surprisingly touching, heartfelt book. Not gonna lie, I was in tears a few times. I felt for the characters. All the emotions. Happy, sad, angry, annoyed etc. it was a well thought out, intelligent book about ONE vampire. One vampire who has a control over a small town and it's inhabitants. A book about women who have kinda stereotypical and for the most part shitty husbands. But they're real and have real feeling lives. That they're all stay at home moms and the husbands are detached and shitty is a little stereotypical but whatever. Didn't bother me. Hated the husbands tho. Bunch of fuckheads to be sure. It's the beginning to mid 90's and that was still more of a thing than it is now.
The moms are all individuals with different thoughts and opinions and personalities and I loved them even if I sometimes hated them. The overly religious one. The stuffy one. The one that is messy and unorganized. Good stuff. I don't wanna give anything away if you haven't read it.
I'll stop here then! Fucking brilliant book tho. I'll be recommending this to everyone and I have an extra copy I'll be sending to my friend and I hope he reads it and loves it!
I was gonna go three stars up until the end. The end was a little more exciting. And then the afterword by whoever Gregory Benford is really sealed it for me. He basically explained that Wells knew he wrote piece of shit character in Griffin (the invisible man) and talked about how and why. And how Griffin was a megalomaniac and really didn't get any better throughout the whole book and maybe reasons as to why. And that helped me. Cause GOD Griffin is a world-class asshole and an A+ douche canoe. And yes this book is dry as hell a lot of the time, but that's to be expected. But overall I find I DID enjoy it, surprisingly. The Time Machine made me want to rip my eyeballs out and I had to DNF, but I'd like to try and soldier through it at some point. Onto War of the Worlds and then a reread of The Island of Dr. Moreau.
4.5 stars rounded up to 5. Tore through this one in a couple sittings! Had to know what would happen. Also, had to get to the blood and gore as foreshadowed by the bloody footprint on the cover. Unfortunately that took a little too long to get to, hence the main reason for the 4.5 ⭐️'s. All the lead up was interesting enough to keep me going. The final battle, if that's not giving too much away (it IS a horror novel so you had to know right?) was pretty freakin great and really sealed that extra half star and rounding up I'm giving it!
I'm general I also just love the Bigfoot lore. It's a big running joke in our house that my wife 100% believes in Bigfoot and always says it's real and I always maintain it's not and have gotten the children on my side HAHA whoops, sorry Veronica. But secretly part of me hopes it's real. Shhh don't tell her!
Also, was outside reading the beginning of this book on our porch swing and realized, WE HAVE A BIGFOOT! I got one for my wife for her birthday last month. Hence, the perfect photo for this book!
Wonder if it's time to give World War Z a shot?
SO GOOD! I love it just as much as I loved Bird Box! So lovely to revisit Malorie and her kids, Tom and Olympia. Loved the idea of the train and the reason she decided it was necessary to leave their safety. Love the direction Tom's character went. Love the direction Olympia's character went! Another barn burner in my opinion. I just wanted to keep going until I was done. This will take a treasured place on my shelves next to Bird Box!
