ARC REVIEW Halloween Carnival Vol 5

All this week I will posting books for to help you get into the Halloween spirit, or just help you find book that will creep you out and keep you up.

DEVIL’S NIGHT by Richard Chizmar
"You’ve read about what happened that night. What you don’t know is the true extent of the damage. The papers got it wrong—and the truth is so much worse than you thought." blurb

This was a pretty good story. It was weird and a little predictable but I like the way the story played out.

THE LAST DARE by Lisa Tuttle
"Elaine hasn’t been back to her hometown in years. The house she lived in is gone. The tower house isn’t—nor are the stories of the fate that befalls whoever dares to go there." blurb

This is probably my favorite in this volume. It's creepy, creepy is good I like creepy. The menacing tower house, a ghost story, and lost memories it's a great Halloween read.

THE HALLOWEEN BLEED by Norman Prentiss
"What if Halloween... bleeds into other days? It doesn't matter when the story was written, or when you read it. What matters is that it has an effect on you. It's casts a spell." from the uncorrected proof.

It's a strange and unusual story, it makes you think and then creeps you out and leaves you questioning, "what just happened?" 

SWING by Kevin Quigley
"In Hollywood, everyone lives forever. At least that’s what I used to think . . . before Jessica. But no one seems to live long when they’re around me." burb

Yeah it was weird and creepy but the story did nothing for me.

PORK PIE HAT by Peter Straub
"When it comes to jazz, there are players, and there are legends. “Hat” was a legend. His real name didn’t even matter. Still, he had his secrets—secrets best left buried in the past." blurb

It was long and took forever to get to the point and it wasn't even that scary.

ARC REVIEW Halloween Carnival Vol 3

All this week I will posting books for to help you get into the Halloween spirit, or just help you find book that will creep you out and keep you up.

THE WAY LOST by Kelley Armstrong
"The kids in Franklin don’t ask questions. Each Halloween, one of them disappears into the forest. Dale promised his mother he’d never go into the woods alone. But the kids in Franklin also lie."

I'm leaving the blurb as the descriptive because it just so creepy. I haven't read Kelley Armstrong in what seems like forever, I loved her Otherworld series and I love her writing style and this short story is well damn, I wasn't expecting that. It was a really good story with an unexpected ending.

LA CALAVERA by Kate Maruyama
A Calavera is the representation of a human skull, for Dia de los Muertos it is often used as an offering for the dead. Trish was just another gringa until Jasmine, and now that Jasmine is gone Trish wants to honor her with a special Calavera.

Really predictable but I positively enjoyed it nonetheless.

THE DEVIL’S DUE by Michael McBride
Pine Springs, Colorado, has never wanted for anything. It's always been prosperous and never any crimes or drug problems. The reason why is just as evil as you might imagine, and this year one family isn't willing to pay the devil his due.

A genuinely good scary monster horror short story. After the start it was kind of slow but it escalated pretty quickly and ended bittersweetly.  

A THOUSAND ROOMS OF DARKNESS by Taylor Grant
"Samhainophobia: an irrational fear of Halloween. Phasmophobia: an irrational fear of ghosts. For Anne, these terrors are more rational than she knows." blurb. Newly married Anne has not told her husband about her phobias yet, she's scared that he will leave once he finds out but with Halloween getting closer and her phobias getting worse she confides in him. But this is not a happily ever after romance no, this is a horror.

Well I didn't see that coming, just when I started to get disapointed in the story I had a, "oo what a twist" moment. It has an ending that kind of makes you want to do a maniacal laugh at the end.

THE LAST NIGHT OF OCTOBER by Greg Chapman
Gerald is a crotchety old man on death's bed, he did nothing with his life and never left home and ever since he was diagnosed with emphysema every Halloween is tormented by his past. 

I liked this one but not as much as the others and it's mainly Kelli's fault she was annoying AF.

Overall, this is my favorite book out of the series.   

ARC REVIEW Halloween Carnival vol 1

All this week I will posting books for to help you get into the Halloween spirit, or just help you find book that will creep you out and keep you up.

STRANGE CANDY by Robert McCammon
You are always warned never to eat candy that isn't wrapped, but something tempts this Dad to eat the strange candy that appeared on the bottom of his daughters candy bag. He's about to find out why you aren't suppose to do that.

With Strange Candy it was creepy at the beginning but overall it was a sad story, yes I cried.

THE RAGE OF ACHILLES by Kevin Lucia
Father Ward has returned home to stay after serving overseas in the military. He was told no one hears confessional on Halloween night but Father Ward feels the need to do so anyways and finds out exactly why the head priest stopped listening.

Overall, this one was too damn short just when I was getting into it it ended. It feels more like the beginning chapters to a book rather than just a short story.

DEMON AIR by John R. Little
Flying on the cheapest airline to Australia just maybe the biggest mistake these people ever made. When the flight crew start to turn into something else only the strong will survive this flight.

Well it was definitely weird. This one also felt like it was the beginning to a longer story specifically an urban fantasy with a asskicking heroine who just discovered her powers of asskicking-ness. 

LA HACIENDA DE LOS MUERTOS by Lisa Morton
Trick McGraw is an aging Hollywood western star who lost his fame when his horse died. Desperate for money he agrees to do a horror movie down in Mexico.The horror movie is based on what is said to be a true story with some extra stuff like a mad scientist experimenting on a vampire added in for a bit more scare. The movie is taking place on location at an old Hacienda where the urban legend of La Llorona is more than just a legend.

Growing up in Texas especially next to the Rio Grande I heard La Llorona stories and I loved that she was the main focus in this story. I have read one other short by Lisa Morton it appeared in the Dark Screams anthology I reviewed a couple of years ago and I liked her then and even more so now. It was a great story. 

#MAKEHALLOWEENSCARYAGAIN by Mark Allan Gunnells
Dustin Davis is an author in need of publicity and to help generate activity on social media creates the hashtag #MakeHalloweenScaryAgain. Unfortunately for Dustin it does more than that when someone takes the hashtag to the next level and starts a killing spree in order to make Halloween scary again.

 Aside from this one being a little predictable it was a really good serial killer thriller, and I do love me a good serial killer story. And aside from my mind constantly thinking "The Hash Slinging Slasher" thank for that Spongebob, I loved the concept of the story. 

Overall, the last two books are what really make this book worth reading for me. 

ARC REVIEW Machinations by Hayley Stone

"By the time Skynet became self-aware it had spread into millions of computer servers across the planet. Ordinary computers in office buildings, dorm rooms, everywhere. It was software in cyberspace. There was no system core. It could not be shut down. The attack began at 6:18 p.m., just as he said it would. Judgment Day. The day the human race was nearly destroyed by weapons they'd built to protect themselves. I should have realized our destiny was never to stop Judgment Day. It was merely to survive it together. The Terminator knew. He tried to tell us but I didn't want to hear it. Maybe the future has been written. I don't know. All I know is what the Terminator taught me: Never stop fighting. And I never will. The battle has just begun."

Okay, That's from Terminator, but this book is very similar. It's kind of like Salvation where it takes place all in the future. The AI's have become self aware and in that they have decided that mankind is the enemy. It started off with the self flying planes crashing and killing everyone on board, self driving cars, and public transit doing the same. The machines were attacking and whatever happened you never wanted to be taken alive. In some parts it reminded me of The Matrix Revolutions in the day to day life underground. And in both cases of Terminator and Matrix there is a single person everyone looks to for salvation and hope. I found this book to be very entertaining. Hayley Stone is a wonderful storyteller, I got lost in this futuristic world. It was a little slow at parts but the action more than made up for that.

Rhona Long wanted to be an actress what she got was the leader of the rebel force fighting against the machines. To bad she dies at the beginning of the book, smart of her to realize this was a probability and worked with her best friend a scientific genius to create her own clone. Rhona was the face of the rebels and she knew if she died they just might lose hope. She only told two other people what she was doing, not even her boyfriend/second-in-command Camus. It's been six months since her death, Camus and the others in charge decided not to tell anybody of her death only that she was MIA not wanting them to lose faith in their mission. Rhona and Samuel make it back to base barely and now Camus is having a hard time adjusting to the clone Rhona. That breaks Rhona's heart because as far as she knows she still loves him. Anyways, They continue to fight, there are attempts on Rhona's life and one of the other underground bases are attacked. They know it's a trap but they can't leave any fellow humans behind so sending out an SOS to everyone left they charge in to save the day.

I love how this book's timeline is spread out as much as it is, it's more believable than if everything happened all at once. Overall, "There is a storm on the horizon. A time of hardship and pain. This battle has been won, but the war against the machines rages on. Skynet's global network remains strong, but we will not quit, until all of it is destroyed. This is John Connor. There is no fate but what we make." Yes yes yes that's from Terminator also but it fits, the second book, Counterpart, is due out in October. I really did enjoy this one even if it reminded me of Terminator Fan Fiction.  

ARC REVIEW The Realms of the Dead by William Todd Rose

For me everyday day is a good day for a damn good horror novel. I had no idea what to expect from William Todd Rose, I have never read him before. I love horror but I'm picky about who I read, but the synopsis intrigued me. This book was creepy in all the right ways. It kept me engulfed in the story and the characters. Once I picked it up I couldn't put it down. I liked the science fiction/ metaphysical aspect and it blended in nicely with the gruesome games of a tormented mind. The synopsis likened William Todd Rose to King and Koontz, but I would be more willing to group him with Clive Barker.

In the first novella, Crossfades, we meet Chuck Grainger. Chuck is just a normal man who you would never notice walking down the street. What makes Chuck so extraordinary is his job, he helps the lost souls who get trapped in the space between cross over. The mechanics of the organization that recruited Chuck in college is vast and very secretive. All he knows is the dead often get lost and through technology they created he can astral project himself into the crossfades, it's not that hard. But on one fateful day he gets handed a job that will either get him promoted or fired, depending on how well he handles it. A twisted spirit has corrupted the crossfades, manipulated into his own heaven but a nightmare for all the lost souls he has taken. Chuck alone with the help of a woman, whose soul has enchanted Chuck, are the only one who can set things right.

Bleedovers, the second novels takes place sometime after Chuck's first adventure. Chuck is now a legend in the industry, but all he wants to do is fade into the woodwork. Something is happening the organization is experiencing a bleedover, a spirit has managed to cross back over into the living realm and basically become a  ghost. Chucks superiors have charged him, Control and a young girl with special abilities, Marilee, with taking care of the spirit. The spirit soon escalates and is obviously targeting Chuck. Chuck assumes he knows who the malevolent ghost is, but as the attacks escalate the harder it is to trap and only Chuck and Marilee can take the ghost out, forever.

Overall, I really enjoyed this. Crossfades is more the sci-fi horror while Bleedovers is more paranormal. I liked how this was two separate novellas, even though it could have worked as a full length novel, it cut down on unnecessary filler.