Salem's Lot by #StephenKing #Horror #Fiction #Fantasy #Vampires #BookReview

Salem's Lot
by Stephen King

Publication: October 17, 1975 
451 Pages

Genre: Horror, Fiction, Fantasy, Vampires

4 🌠🌠🌠🌠

I continue on my quest of reading Stephen King’s books in chronological order. I thought I had read Salem’s Lot as a kid but after starting it I didn’t remember anything about it.

I don’t think I am giving anything away by sharing this is a book about vampires. And by vampires, I don’t mean the sexy sparkly ones from other books. The vampires in this book are freakin’ SCARY!!

I like to read in the evening sitting on my porch which I tried ONCE with this book...let’s just say I didn’t stay out there very long. Funny how your mind starts to play tricks on you when you read scary stories. Going inside gave me a protective feeling but I doubt my little door could stop a determined vampire lol. Anyway...to me this book was pretty scary.

King introduces many characters and at times I was saying, “Now which one was this?” But after reading a little more I would figure it out. I liked how the author would share the townspeople’s secrets (some big/some small). I really have no complaints about the book other than trying to keep up with all the characters but it still worked for me. I give Salem’s Lot 4 🌠🌠🌠🌠!!!

#Carrie by Stephen King #Horror #Thriller #Paranormal

Carrie
by Stephen King

Publication Date: April 5, 1974
Doubleday Books
199 Pages

Genre: Horror, Thriller, Paranormal

I first read Carrie as a kid many many years ago. It's funny how you read things as an adult and get such a different feeling from a book. Stephen King has always been one of my favorite authors of all time, but as I grew older my tastes in books had changed. I was on a strictly crime fiction reading regimen for the past several years and began to get bored as it seemed almost all the books were sounding the same. So I decided awhile back to go back to my roots so to speak and start reading/rereading genres I had enjoyed in the past. And boy, I am so glad I did! Now I'm reading a lot of fantasy and horror and almost makes me feel like a kid again. I'm getting excited now to begin reading a new book or series which is something I have been missing for some time. Soooooo.... I decided to start reading Stephen King books in chronological order which brings me to this review.

Reading Carries as an adult made me think a lot more about how we treat people. It also brought back some not so good memories of my childhood where certain kids were always the ones being picked on and bullied. I'm ashamed to say that as a kid I rarely had the courage to take up for these poor kids. I did however raise my own kids to do what their mom didn't. I would like to believe I did a good job doing that as my kids do speak up and step in when they see someone being mistreated.

I loved rereading Carrie because there were so many things that I had forgotten. I can barely remember things that happened yesterday let alone things that I read over 30 years ago. I thoroughly enjoyed the book and am excited to keep going with more King books and have even begun starting a Stephen King hardcover collection. I know some complain about King books with bad endings but in my opinion Carries wasn't one of them. The ending to me in this one was great. I would recommend reading Carrie. 4 stars!!

#BookReview for Flesh by Laura Bickle #YA Horror #Paranormal #Fantasy @Laura_Bickle @Joni2345zb

Flesh by Laura Bickle

My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
 
Genre: YA Horror, Paranormal, Fantasy

Book Description: 
 The dead are easy to talk to. Live people, not so much.

Charlie Sulliven thinks she knows all the secrets of the dead. Raised in a funeral home, she’s the reluctant “Ghoul Girl,” her reputation tied to a disastrous Halloween party. But navigating her life as a high school sophomore is an anxiety-inducing puzzle to her. She haunts the funeral home with her parents, emo older brother, Garth, their pistol-packing Gramma, and the glass-eyeball-devouring dachshund, Lothar.

Chewed human bodies are appearing in her parents’ morgue…and disappearing in the middle of the night. The bodies seem tied to a local legend, Catfish Bob, who has resurfaced in the muddy Milburn river near Charlie’s small town. When one of Charlie’s classmates, Amanda, awakens in the cooler as a flesh-eating ghoul, Charlie must protect her newfound friend and step up to unravel the mystery…and try to avoid becoming lunch meat for the dead.

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Excerpt:

“Amanda, I…Oh.”

I don’t know what else to say. My brain just shuts down.

She is wearing the sheet, wound around her like a toga. It trails behind her bare feet, sort of like a painting about Greek goddesses I’ve seen in art books. She’s leaning over another body stored in the cooler unit on a cart. Her back is to me, and I can only see her pale skin and her burgundy-black hair shuddering.

“Amanda.”

She turns at the sound of my voice, seeming only to hear me for the first time. Her face is covered in dark blood. In her hand, she’s holding a big chunk of purple flesh. Her eyes are half-closed. The autopsy incision on the elderly body below her has been ripped open, and I’m pretty sure that what she’s holding is a lung.

“So hungry…” she murmurs.

I retreat until my back presses against the cold door. A whimper escapes my lips, and I drop the laundry basket with a sharp crack of plastic on the tile floor. This has to be a dream. A screwed-up anxiety dream that I’ll wake up from any moment now…

Amanda’s black eyes snap open. She stares at the chunk of flesh in her hand. “I…Agh…What’s going on?”

Lothar waddles over to her and begins to beg. Bile rises in my throat. “That’s Mrs. Canner,” I manage to answer. “She’s seventy-two and died of surgery complications for varicose veins. Deep vein thrombosis, I think. I don’t remember.” I’m babbling, trying to keep the bile down.

Amanda drops the lung with a wet splat. Lothar scrambles to it and begins scarfing it down. Her hands are trembling. She presses them to her temples. “I don’t understand. I don’t understand.”

I nudge the laundry basket closer to her with my foot. “I brought you some clothes. And, um. Food. You should get dressed.”

I think I should be afraid. I think I really ought to be. But Amanda seems genuinely confused. She reaches for the clothes I’ve brought her. To be polite, I know that I should really look away. But I can’t move. I am not turning my back on her. My heart pounds, and I struggle to take deep, uneven breaths.

Amanda unwinds the sheet and slips into my clothes. Though I avert my eyes, I see that her shoulder and side are still torn open. But my mother hasn’t begun the autopsy yet, so there is no Y-incision across her chest and abdomen.

“Do you remember what happened to you?” I manage to ask. I congratulate myself for having a rational thought. Woot.

Her voice is halting, and her brow wrinkles as she struggles to button my jeans. “I remember…something was chasing me. Jesus, it hurt…” Her hand comes up to her neck, and she seems to remember, fingering the edges of the wound. “Am I in a hospital?” she asks again.

I suck in a breath. “No. You’re at my house.” It’s not a lie. Not really.

She scans the room, as if registering the sight of the cadavers. “You’re the girl whose parents run the funeral home. The Ghoul Girl.”

“It’s gonna be okay,” I tell her.

“Why am I here?” Her breath makes ghosts in the cold air.

“The Sheriff found you, alongside the road.” That’s true also, even if not the whole truth. “I think we should get you upstairs, so you can talk to my parents…”

She shakes her head, and her dark hair slaps across her face. “No. I…Oh my god. I’m here because…somebody thought I was dead?”

I swallow hard. “Yeah.”

Her hands press to the wound on her side. “But I’m not dead!”

“I…uh…I think we need to get you to the hospital.” I tentatively reach toward her, to grasp her arm and guide her upstairs, toward the light of the much more civilized parlor and rational discussion. This is so far over my head, and I need my parents to handle it.

She shakes her head. “No. No. No.”

I hold her elbow gently, trying to keep her calm until I can get her upstairs to my parents. Her skin radiates cold through the sweatshirt, and I can see that the edges of her neck wound are dry, not seeping so much as a hint of blood. “Come with me.” I open the door and gently lead her into the lab, as if I’m herding a frightened cat. She gazes at the stainless-steel equipment. “I was here. I remember being here.”

“Come upstairs,” I urge, struggling to keep my composure. I use all the empathy that I’ve learned, dealing with grieving family members, trying to understand the shock and lead her away from the Body Shop.

She squints up at the buzzing light. “You were here, weren’t you? You and that woman. Looking at me.”

“My mother,” I say. I’m thinking crap crap crap. I’ve heard of cases of people whose vitals have dropped far beyond detection, who have awoken in hospital morgues. This has never happened to us. Not ever. Oh shit. The other body. Maybe it the same thing…

“The woman with that knife…” Her fingers go to her sternum, where my mother’s scalpel had rested. All of a sudden, Amanda becomes rooted in place, as immovable as a mountain.

“No one’s going to hurt you,” I promise. “Let me make you some coffee.”

She shakes her head, and I feel her trembling. Her eyes slide to the back door.

She slips from my grip. Before I can stop her, she rushes to the back door. She slams it open with a sound like a gunshot and plunges into the darkness. 

My Review:
This is not my usual genre but thought I would try something new. Boy am I glad I did! I wanted to read some creepy books for the Halloween season and this one fits the category perfectly.

The main character, Charlie, AKA Ghoul Girl, is a teen living with her family in a funeral home. Charlie's dad is a mortician and her mom is the coroner. Bodies begin disappearing from the funeral home and the reader is introduced to some zombies/ghouls.

I really enjoyed the story. I loved the Grandma character and especially Lothar the Dachshund. The dialog between characters was realistic. The book wasn't overly gory but did have some creepiness and suspense. The author was able to hold my attention throughout the book. Thanks so much to author Laura Bickle and Bewitching Book Tours for providing me with an ebook. Highly recommend this one.

About the Author:

Laura Bickle grew up in rural Ohio, reading entirely too many comic books out loud to her favorite Wonder Woman doll. After graduating with an MA in Sociology-Criminology from Ohio State University and an MLIS in Library Science from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, she patrolled the stacks at the public library and worked with data systems in criminal justice. She now dreams up stories about the monsters under the stairs. Her work has been included in the ALA’s Amelia Bloomer Project 2013 reading list and the State Library of Ohio’s Choose to Read Ohio reading list for 2015-2016.

More information about Laura’s work can be found at www.laurabickle.com

https://twitter.com/Laura_Bickle

https://www.facebook.com/Author.Laura.Bickle

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The Nightmare Room by Chris Sorensen #Horror #Paranormal #Thriller @casorensen @Joni2345zb #HarmfulMonkeyPress

The Nightmare Room by Chris Sorensen

My Rating:
4 out of 5 stars




Book Details
Publisher: Harmful Monkey Press
263 pages

Publish Date: January 25 2018

Genre: Horror, Paranormal, Thriller 












Blurb from Back of Book

New York audiobook narrator Peter Larson and his wife Hannah head to his hometown of Maple City to help Peter's ailing father and to put a recent tragedy behind them. Though the small, Midwestern town seems the idyllic place to start afresh, Peter and Hannah will soon learn that evil currents flow beneath its surface.

They move into an old farmhouse on the outskirts of town—a house purchased by Peter's father at auction and kept secret until now—and start to settle into their new life.

But as Peter sets up his recording studio in a small basement room, disturbing things begin to occur—mysterious voices haunt audio tracks, malevolent shadows creep about the house. And when an insidious presence emerges from the woodwork, Peter must face old demons in order to save his family and himself.

My Review
The Nightmare Room is such a great haunting tale. I have been mostly reading crime fiction lately and this paranormal horror novel was a fresh change of genres for me. I am a lover of great cover art and this one was really creepy and fit the story perfectly.

The author's writing style hooked me right from the beginning and kept me interested throughout. The dialog was realistic between characters. The story progressed smoothly and I thought I had figured out the ending but I was surprised (and wrong). The Nightmare Room is definitely a spooky read and I thoroughly enjoyed it!!

Thanks to the author for sending me an autographed copy of this awesome book. I can't wait to see what is to come in this series. Highly recommend!

About the Author

CHRIS SORENSEN spends many days and nights locked away inside his own nightmare room. He is the narrator of over 200 audiobooks (including The Missing series by Margaret Peterson Haddix) and the recipient of three AudioFile Earphone Awards. Over the past fifteen years, the Butte Theater and Thin Air Theatre Company in Cripple Creek, Colorado have produced dozens of his plays including Dr. Jekyll’s Medicine Show, Werewolves of Poverty Gulch and The Vampire of Cripple Creek. He is the author of the middle grade book The Mad Scientists of New Jersey and has written numerous screenplays including Suckerville, Bee Tornado and The Roswell Project. Chris is an Active Member of the Horror Writers Association.

Website 
Twitter: @casorensen

Coming Soon... The Hungry Ones (The Messy Man Series Book 2)

 

Book Review: Doll House by John Hunt

Doll House by John Hunt
Book Details
Publisher: Black Rose Writing, Paperback, 204pages
Publish Date: January 19, 2017
Genre: Horror, Mystery, Thriller
Source: NetGalley digital edition
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was a good one!! The story begins with Olivia getting ready to go off to college. The very day she is dropped off by her dad, she is kidnapped and held prisoner by two very dark, sick, twisted and tortuous men. These men are known to Olivia as Gorilla and Jackal by the masks they wear when they enter her room.

For five years Olivia is held in this same room. It is unreal what she goes through at the hands of these two sickos. The graphic torturing events in the story were hard for me to read. Eventually Olivia is able to escape along with two other girls who also had rooms in this warped “Doll House”.

After Olivia’s escape she returns to live with her father who has become an alcoholic during her years of captivity. I did find myself getting irritated at Olivia’s dad, Harry, when Olivia had to take care of him and his alcohol problem after she had been through so much.

The author takes you through the thoughts, emotions, anxieties, and fears of Olivia’s post-captivity life. Olivia and Harry have so much emotional baggage to carry around after this set of horrific events. They both feel guilty and at times blame themselves for what happened.

The point of view switches throughout the story mostly between Olivia and the Jackal, who by the way was never captured and is still out there somewhere. The best part of the story for me was trying to figure out the identity of the Jackal. The police find out after interviewing all of the girls that the Jackal did things different when it came to Olivia. They believed the Jackal may be someone Olivia knew since he never spoke to her but he did the other girls.

The action rises towards the end…just wait until you find out the identity of the Jackal. Overall this is a great book…I give it 4 stars.

Thank you John Hunt, Black Rose Writing, and NetGalley for providing me with a digital copy of this book to read in exchange for an honest review.

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