DEAD ROSES SPECIAL: NIGHT TWO: INTERVIEW WITH EDWARD LORN

Welcome to night two of the Dead Roses Special week.

Tonight sees the first author interview with the fantastic Edward Lorn. He will be answering some general questions about himself and his writing and then some specific questions about Cinder Block, his story in the book.

Of course, at the end, Edward will take on The Ten Confessions!

Grab your drink, settle down with a HUGE pepperoni and salami pizza (that's exactly what I'm having now!).......and enjoy!

COAF - So tell everyone a bit about yourself in general?

EL - I’m a husband and a father. I’ve been with my wife for fifteen years, and my kids are, currently, nine and two, but they both have birthdays coming up in April. My family is the best thing about me.

COAF - Why writing? Why decide on that as a career?

EL - I have a face for radio and a voice for writing. Besides, how else am I to get people to pay me for lying to them? But, on a serious note, who wouldn’t choose writing as a career, you know, given the option? If you could get paid to make shit up all day, wouldn’t you?

DEAD ROSES SPECIAL: NIGHT ONE: INTERVIEW WITH MIKE TENEBRAE

Welcome to the Confessions of a Reviewer special week on the fabulous Dead Roses: Five Dark Tales of Twisted Love.

I am so so pleased and proud to have been able to put this one together. It's been hard work and I hope you all think it was worth it. I honestly cannot thank all of the "crew" enough for their participation in this. They responded to all of my demands and weird questions without hesitation and I'm very grateful for that.

To kick off this week’s interviews I have one with a difference. All too often we see interviews with the author or authors when new books come out but we never seem to pay homage to the men or women who put all of their time and effort into producing the fantastic artwork for the covers that lure us and tempt us to buy the book in the first place.

With that in mind, I present to you an interview with the fantastically talented Mike Tenebrae, the man behind the Dead Roses cover.

Grab your poison and your nibbles and enjoy learning stuff about the artistic side of a book! 

COAF - So tell everyone a bit about yourself in general?

MT - I'm an illustrator living in South Africa who just recently became a dad.

COAF - So why art? What influenced you to make a career out of it?

MT - I was always encouraged by my folks at a young age to draw and create. I was very fortunate enough to be surrounded by all kinds of books as a kid which I used to pile up and peruse in my room long before I could read, but rather to stare and wonder about the pictures inside them. We have a bit of a creative streak in the family. It was not long before I was drawing all the time, especially during class. However after school I went to work in the construction business instead of pursuing art. I wasted a lot of time at art school just doing the bare minimum instead of applying those essential fundamentals my long suffering teachers tried to instil in me. I still drew on the side and continued getting encouragement from my folks to pursue it as a career! So I started from scratch with art studies in the evenings and left the company to go freelance after landing some successful illustration contracts for local childrens books.

GUEST REVIEW: Federales by Christopher Irvin - Reviewed by Kit Power

I am very pleased to share with you all the first guest review on the blog.

This one comes from author, blogger, musician and all round bloody good guy, Kit Power. If you haven’t already, then you need to check out a couple of Kit’s books, Lifeline and also The Loving Husband and The Faithful Wife.

Kit also has a monthly column he writes for Ginger Nuts of Horror and this is well worth checking out.

I also must publicly pass on a personal thanks to Kit. A few months ago he recognised something in my reviewing and put his neck on the line for me and contacted Jim McCleod who runs GNOH. Jim very graciously gave me a chance and took me on.

If it hadn’t been for Kit taking it upon himself to contact Jim and mention me, and Jim taking me on, I probably wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing today.

Thanks for having faith in what I do Kit. I owe you some beer.

Genre: Noir / Thriller

Publisher: One Eye Press

Publication Date: 4^th March 2014

Pages: 126

KIT’S REVIEW:

‘Federales’ concerns Marcos, a federal police officer working in Mexico City, desperately trying to stay ahead of the corruption and violence. Not a hero. Just a working man trying to make it in an increasingly bleak and desperate situation.

Irvin does a superb job in invoking Mexico. I've never been, so cannot speak to the authenticity of the details, but it certainly felt real to this English gringo – in plain, unfussy prose, the claustrophobic humidity and edge-of-poverty living is vividly evoked. So too the internal desperation and frailty of our protagonist. The alcoholic cop on the edge – wife recently left him, yet – is a staple of noir, of course. Still, it's classic for a reason, and Irvin does a great job presenting the vulnerability of Marcos, the sense of an essentially decent person just worn down beyond the point of no return by brutal circumstance.

ANNOUNCEMENT: DEAD ROSES SPECIAL STARTING 30TH MARCH

Any idea how hard it's been to keep this secret?

I know I have shared this with a couple of people already, but I am very very VERY proud to announce that starting next Monday 30th March I will be running a special feature on the new collaboration, Dead Roses: Five Dark Tales of Twisted Love from Evans Light, Adam Light, Gregor Xane, Jason Parent and Edward Lorn.

Included in this one are individual interviews with all five authors and a group interview about their writing together. 

Kicking it all off I have an exclusive interview with Mike Tenebrae, the man responsible for the cover art on the book, about his talents as an artist and his involvement in this project.

This is a huge feature for the blog and has taken quite a bit of work to put together so please put the date in your diary and join me next week to find out all you need to know about these guys and the book itself.

Thanks.

Nev.

REVIEW: Glenn Rolfe - Boom Town

Genre: Horror
Publisher: Samhain Publishing, Ltd
Publication Date: 7th April 2015
Pages: 81

MY REVIEW:

A copy of Boom Town was sent to Confessions of a Reviewer by the author Glenn Rolfe in exchange for an honest review. This is said review.

Eckert, Wisconsin has a history. 1979 saw reports of a unique UFO encounter. 30 years later and strange rumblings around town have people baffled. Some think they are earthquakes. Some think they are caused by underground earth dwellers. Some think the UFO left something behind. Two kids, Brady and Kim, discover something after the latest “boom” to hit the town. They take it upon themselves to try and discover what’s going on after Brady gets ill from touching some blue sludge. The blue sludge is the least of their worries.

This is the second short one I have read from Glenn Rolfe within a week or so. This, for me was without doubt the best. This has all the hallmarks of old “aliens landing on earth” films of our youth. I’m thinking back to the original 1953 War of the Worlds here. It has that sort of colourful atmosphere about it. It’s really good.

REVIEW: William Meikle - The Dunfield Terror

Genre: Horror    

Publisher: DarkFuse

Publication Date: 7^th April 2015

Pages: 162


MY REVIEW:

I received an advance copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This book is published by Darkfuse.

Well now. I finally got round to Willie Meikle. The man is spoken about in almost god-like terms. Is it warranted? Will a Meikle newbie agree with all he has heard? Will he want to go back for more? I think he just might.

1955. Muir and his colleague Duncan Campbell are conducting an experiment. They don’t really know what they are doing or what they are messing with. Muir will succeed. He will succeed in opening a door to another dimension. Has it been open before? Will he be able to close it?

Present day. Frank is tasked with manning the plow in Dunfield. He must keep the roads open and look after the town folk as best he can. The fog has come back. It can only mean bad things for the town. The terror unleashed in 1955 is coming back to Dunfield. Although he doesn’t know it yet, Frank is the only hope.

After reading this book I am left with one question and one question only. Where have you been all my life Willie Meikle? This is just about the superb-est thing I have read in years and years.

Lovecraftian. I don’t know much about this I have to admit. I haven’t read much Lovecraft. I get the idea though. I am beginning to fall in love with the Victorian style of horror writing and particularly the narrative style. In this story we have flashbacks to 1955 where mad scientist Muir and his dogsbody Campbell are trying to right a wrong. A wrong so bad that it has catastrophic potential. I’m not going to tell you what it is because that would just take away from the joy you will get reading the delightful descriptive narrative that Mr Meikle uses to paint a wonderful picture of sights, and sounds, and smells, of a time gone by, when technological advances meant conducting experiments in sheds, and if you didn’t get hurt then it wasn’t effective.

REVIEW: Iain Rob Wright - Hot Zone: An MCU Thriller (Sarah Stone Book 2)

I am very sad to say this is the last night of the Iain Rob Wright special on the blog.

I hope you have enjoyed it. If you have then please get in touch to let me know....if you haven't then please get in touch to let me know as well.

This has been an absolute pleasure to put together but would not have been possible without the help, willingness to put up with the interview and of course....the writing of author and all round top bloke Iain Rob Wright.

Please continue to support Iain in his work. If you haven't already, you really need to get reading his stuff. There are links at the bottom of this page for his website and his author page on Amazon where you will find links to all of his books.

Please also continue to come back and read my blog if you can. Nothing I enjoy more than giving something back to the authors I read and if by visiting Confessions of a Reviewer you pick up even one book, my job is done.

You know the drill.......drink and nibbles and read the review!!

Genre: Thriller

Publisher: SalGad Publishing Group

Publication Date: 16^th March 2015

Pages: 223

MY REVIEW:

I was lucky enough to get a chance to help Iain Rob Wright out with the proof reading on this book and wrote this review at the same time.

This is the second instalment of the Sarah Stone series and it will contain some spoilers about the first book. So, if you want to read the first book, eh, first, then go buy it HERE US or HERE UK and then come back to read this.

A mad doctor is on a mission to highlight the plight of the children of the 3^rd World. The problem is he is intent on unleashing a new strain of Ebola he has developed on the western world. Particularly the UK. Agent Howard Hopkins and the rest of the members of the Major Crimes Unit (MCU) must track the doctor down and try to get their hands on the virus before it is set free. The only question that remains is where is Sarah Stone?

OK, I didn’t give the first Sarah Stone novel too good a review. It still got 4 stars because Iain Rob Wrights writing is something to behold anyway, but it certainly wasn’t my favourite book of his. Then came the short story Slasher: The Escape of Richard Heinz which is a stand-alone MCU tale that showed me a great improvement in the characters and suspense in this new branch of thriller writing from Mr Wright. Now we have Sarah Stone Book 2. Is that improvement continuing?

IAIN ROB WRIGHT IN THE HOT ZONE - THE EXCLUSIVE LOOK AT CHAPTER ONE OF HOT ZONE: AN MCU THRILLER

So here we have it. The exclusive first look at Chapter One of Hot Zone: An MCU Thriller, the new thriller from Iain Rob Wright.

I cannot thank Iain enough for allowing me to post this on my blog. It is a huge honour for me to be able to share this with you all.

As always, go get a drink and some nibbles, sit back and enjoy Chapter One, then go straight to Amazon and click "BUY"

HOT ZONE

CHAPTER ONE

“Dr Krenshaw, are you busy? Mrs Drayton hasn’t been seen in almost two hours and she’s becoming difficult. Could you spare a minute to see her?”

Dr Alistair Krenshaw, an epidemiologist by specialisation, but willing to help out however he could, noticed the young brunette and smiled. Not even thirty-years-old, he suspected, and an attractive young thing for sure, yet he couldn’t, for the life of him, remember her name.

“Of course,” he said. “Would you like to fill me in on her condition, Nurse…? I’m sorry, you seem to have forgotten your name badge.”

The nurse looked down at the bare patch on her tunic and blushed. “Oh, no, I had it earlier, but one of the patients on the night shift got a little…grabby. I must have lost it then. My name is Suzanne.”

“My word, are you okay, Suzanne?”

“Nothing I’m not used to at 3AM on a Friday night, Doctor.”

Krenshaw patted Suzanne softly on the shoulder, admiring her ability to deflect an incident others might have made into an issue. “So,” he said, “what seems to be the problem with Mrs Drayton?”

“She’s been complaining of stomach cramps, can’t keep anything down. We have her on a drip, but she’s demanding that we give her something for the pain. It’s a simple case of gastroenteritis but she’s making a meal of it. We really need to free up her bed, though. We’re inundated with new admissions since they closed St Elizabeth. These spending cuts are going to put us all in early graves.”

 Krenshaw knew patients like Mrs Drayton well. Most patients were subservient, looking upon doctors with complete reverence, while those like Mrs Drayton thought they knew exactly what was wrong with them and exactly how they should be treated. Gastric conditions made patients feel like their lives were hurtling to a painful end, but it would always pass within 24 hours or so; trying to make someone with stomach-flu understand that was always a challenge.

IAIN ROB WRIGHT IN THE HOT ZONE - THE INTERVIEW PART TWO

Welcome back to night two of the Confessions of a Reviewer special, featuring Iain Rob Wright.

Tonight is the conclusion to the interview with Iain where he talks about his new book Hot Zone: An MCU Thriller, his wishes for the future and lets us in on the secret of what’s coming next. He will also answer The Ten Confessions.

Get your drink, get your nibbles, here we go!!

COAF - Moving on to Hot Zone. Tell us a little about the story, without spoilers of course.

IRW - It starts with Ebola and gets worse. Readers will find out who kidnapped Sarah at the end of Soft Target and they will also see how Howard operates on his own. The plot concerns a crazy Doctor who wants to show the West what life is like in impoverished Africa. It’s non-stop once it gets going.

COAF - Why the change of direction to include thrillers?

IRW - I love the TV show 24 and the Jack Reacher novels. When I love something, I want to write it. 

COAF - Do you never get an urge to throw some horror into the story? Maybe add a monster or two?

IRW - I often get the urge to spin the MCU into an X-Files type of organisation. I may do this after the initial trilogy ends.

COAF - What made you decide on a female main character?

IRW - I get a bit sick of how female characters are portrayed. My father is a sexist and it disgusts me (although it’s indicative of his generation rather than entirely his fault). I feel obligated to try and create strong female characters to combat the misogyny I was raised in. Joss Whedon had similar motives with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and if there’s anyone I would like to emulate it is him.

IAIN ROB WRIGHT IN THE HOT ZONE - THE INTERVIEW PART ONE

So here it is. Confessions of a Reviewers’ four night special on arguably the hottest property in British horror writing at the minute, Mr Iain Rob Wright……….and we’re talking about a thriller.

Today sees the release of Hot Zone: An MCU Thriller, the eagerly awaited sequel to Sarah Stone’s first adventure Soft Target.

Over the next four nights I will be posting all about Hot Zone to give you a flavour of what the book is about, and what the man himself is about.

Starting tonight, and concluding tomorrow night, we have an extremely candid interview with Iain. This is all about his life in general, his writing so far, Hot Zone itself and the dreaded Ten Confessions!!

On night three I am absolutely delighted to say we have an EXCLUSIVE!! You will be able to read the entire first chapter of Hot Zone on the blog.

Night four will see my review of the book and believe me, you don’t want to miss it (the book that is).

So go get yourself a drink and some nibbles and sit down to enjoy part one of the interview!!

COAF - So tell everyone a bit about yourself in general.

IRW - I am 31 years old, married, with an 8-month old son. Jack are Sally are my life and a massive part of why I work so hard. I want Jack to grow up loved and supported and for Sally to be able to do anything she wants.

I grew up very poor and flunked out of university due to having no money and problems with booze. Before that I had flunked out of the Army because it broke me and I quit. I was very much a quitter and struggled a great deal with depression. I was on a path to a pretty pointless existence.

When I met Sally, it wasn’t easy, but she gradually helped me get a handle on myself and find the happiness I’d been seeking all my life. I saw a doctor about my anxiety and that helped a great deal too. Slowly, I managed to completely change my life.

Now, Sally and I have been together for 8 years and I have achieved so much in that time. I’m a good husband and a good dad, and I love my life dearly. Once, that would have seemed impossible, but finding my soulmate, and finding out who I was, changed that. When I decided to give my secret ambition to be a writer a shot, I found a thousand more soulmates. The wonderful life my little family and I have is because of the kindness and constant support of my readers and fans. I owe them so much.

COAF - Why writing and what influenced you to take this direction?

IRW - I think it has a lot to do with my personality. I have always been sensitive and emotional, and in real life these traits are a burden. But in the fictional world, my thin-skin and emotional vulnerability are assets. I empathise with my characters, and every word I write is part of my soul spilled out. Although medication helps, there is no better panacea for my anxiety than writing. A writer needs to write or they begin to bulge with unbridled emotion (I think that’s why many of us drink, to take the edge off the scathing turmoil in our minds). For an anxious mind, writing is like draining a cyst – if we don’t do it the pressure builds up and we explode.

MUSIC: Crobot - Nowhere To Hide

So here it is......the first music video to hit the blog!

My buddy Scot over at Reaper's Harvest Horror put me on to this little band earlier today and just had to share! 

This lot hail from Pottsville, Pennsylvania and are made up of Brandon Yeagley on vocals, Chris Bishop on lead guitar, Jake Figueroa on bass and Paul Figueroa on drums.

This is off their first full album Something Supernatural. They describe themselves as "Dirty. Groove. Rock" It's certainly that.

This video features a couple of "monsters" you may recognise if you like your horror!

Enjoy.

ANNOUNCEMENT: IAIN ROB WRIGHT IN THE HOT ZONE STARTING 16TH MARCH

I am very pleased to announce the first ever Confessions of a Reviewer author interview which kicks off next Monday, 16th March with a special event featuring four nights of British horror author Iain Rob Wright.

Over the four nights I will have an exclusive interview with Iain, split over the first two nights ( he rambles on a bit ) where he talks about his life, his writing so far, his new book Hot Zone: An MCU Thriller and what's in the future for his fans. He will also be confessing all in the unique Ten Confessions feature.

I will also have the pleasure of exclusively giving you all a first peak at Chapter One of Hot Zone so you can see for yourselves what it's all about.

The event will finish with my own review of Hot Zone on the fourth night.

Please make sure you watch out for the posts going live and tell anyone you think would be interested to get themselves over to the blog.

Thanks.

Nev.

REVIEW: James Newman - Midnight Rain

Genre: Horror / Mystery / Thriller

Publisher: Crossroad Press

Publication Date: 26^th April 2011

Pages: 354

MY REVIEW:

I'm gonna be really kind and give you 2 reviews of Midnight Rain by James Newman.

Review 1: Listen it's by James Newman - no review needed - just buy the thing!

Review 2: Midnight Rain was Mr Newman's first full novel. After a quick conversation with him on Facebook a couple of nights ago (give that a go by the way - he is one of the most approachable and friendly authors I know of) he told me he was rather proud of it. 

I think I have to agree that he should be immensely proud of it. For a debut novel it is outstanding.

Kyle Mackey lives in Midnight. The year is 1977. His world is in turmoil. His father was killed in Vietnam, his hero brother leaves for university in one days time and his mother seems to be content only when staring into a bottle of Wild Turkey. If he thinks his life is messed up now, he is in for a nasty surprise. On the evening of the annual Apple Gala, Kyle travels home through the woods on his trusty bike "Burner". He stops off at a spot he calls his "secret place" only on that night it was no secret. Kyle witnesses a brutal cold blooded murder. He knows the man who did it. He runs wondering what he is going to do about this and most importantly who he can trust.

REVIEW: Jack Rollins - The Seance

Genre: Horror

Publisher: Dark Chapter Press

Publication Date: 31^st Oct 2014

Pages: 56

MY REVIEW:

Albert Kench has just returned to Victorian London from Australia. He has been summonsed home after his sister Sally has been admitted to Oakbridge Asylum. When he visits her, he discovers she has become unrecognisable. She is near skeletal. She hasn’t spoken in over a year and she is missing an arm. He finds out she has been visited daily by an old childhood friend Rachel Darby.

Albert seeks out Rachel to try and find out what happened to his beloved sister. The story Rachel tells him is an unbelievable tale of a fraudulent spiritualist they went to visit at an exhibition and the evil Lord Aubrey Levi-Black who is an apparent master of the dark arts and seems to be in possession of a mirror that may be holding Sally’s very soul. Albert embarks on a crusade to free Sally from her glass prison but not everything he believes is true and not everyone he trusts is true either.

Jack Rollins. I have heard the name but never read anything by him. This came up to review for Ginger Nuts of Horror so I grabbed it due to my recently discovered love of gothic tales and all things Victorian, in terms of horror. This developed after discovering William Hope Hodgson’s Carnacki tales. I have read a few gothic and Victorian tales since and there are some shockers out there with authors not being able to “get” the atmosphere of the Victorian times.

REVIEW: Domino Finn - Shade City: The Dead Side Blues

Genre: Urban Fantasy

Publisher: Blood & Treasure

Publication Date: 1^st July 2014

Pages: 316

MY REVIEW:

This is another sent into Ginger Nuts of Horror in exchange for an honest review of the book. The main character name had provoked a discussion before I even picked it up.

Dante Butcher lives in LA. He owns a pocket watch he bought in an antique shop. The watch is the conduit that Violet uses to communicate with Dante from the “dead side”. She died when she was 12 years old. Dante has always had a knack for detecting shadows – or shades – spirits that are possessing the living that have come from the dead side. Getting help from Violet, he trawls the clubs at night seeking out shades to banish back home. Things start to take a turn for the worse when he comes across a more powerful shade in a friend. In trying to find out more about it, Dante uncovers a long and disturbing trail of corruption among the dead. Along with Violet he must get to the bottom of the story. He can trust no one. Least of all Violet.

I have been thinking about writing this review since about 40% into the book. It was right about this time that the indecision about whether I should give up or keep going started.

In terms of a story this book has something. It’s an interesting idea. It just wasn’t very well executed. Dante Butcher as a main character wasn’t that exciting. The lifestyle he leads, practically living in nightclubs and the fact he is chasing spirits from the dead side should be exciting, exhilarating and packed with adventure and fast paced narrative. It isn’t. His interactions with the spirit of a dead girl who talk to him in his mind using the watch as a conduit, were, boring. It didn’t seem realistic.

REVIEW: Sarah Rayne - Deadlight Hall: A Haunted House Mystery #5

Genre: Mystery / Supernatural

Publisher: Severn House Publishing

Publication Date: 1^st April 2015

Pages: 240

MY REVIEW:

I received an advance copy of Deadlight Hall from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This book is published by Severn House Publishers.

Well now this is a book and a half. I say this because at the beginning I half hated it and half loved it. What transpired in my first venture into the world of Sarah Rayne was confirmation of the old prophecy – “Never give up on a book, because you never know where it may lead and how much pleasure you may end up getting out of it.”

Deadlight Hall is a building that has stood in the Oxfordshire countryside for many years. It has a long history. Much of it hidden and secret. A builder has started to refurbish it and University Professor Leo Rosendale has asked his colleague Dr Michael Flint, an amateur ghost hunter by all accounts, to go to the building and see if he can sense anything. When Flint visits the house, he has a huge sense of foreboding and can hear a voice whispering to him. Professor Rosendale also has a silver “golem” (a Jewish statue) to sell and asks Flint’s partner Nell to look after the sale.

What is the connection with Rosendale, Deadlight Hall, the golem and the ghosts? In this mosaic tale, nothing is ever as it seems. No one is ever as they seem. Everyone has secrets. Even the ghosts.

Now, the most annoyingly infuriating thing about this book? The narrative. When we meet our characters at the beginning, the conversations between Flint, Nell, Rosendale and combinations of all of the above, are written in such a way that they are the most incredibly posh English people you could ever possibly meet. It’s like the entire cast from Downton Abbey in present day. It was mind-bogglingly frustrating.

REVIEW: Tim Curran - Doll face

Genre: Horror

Publisher: DarkFuse

Publication Date: 3^rd March 2015

Pages: 264

MY REVIEW:

I received an advance copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Also this book is published by DarkFuse and you generally cannot go wrong with anything they put out to the masses.

I have seen so much on so many sites about Tim Curran I thought this would be a good opportunity to see what all the fuss was about when this came up on NetGalley. After reading this one I’m left feeling a tad disappointed.

Six friends are returning from a night out when they get caught in a storm. The driver, being a bit drunk decides to take a short cut that he doesn’t know. As they are entering the town of Stokes, someone walks in front of the van and they run him over. When they get out of the van to see if he is ok, they discover it isn’t a human. It appears to be some sort of mechanical mannequin. When they try to get the emergency services to come help them, it appears Stokes no longer exists and they are trapped in a nightmare in the year 1960 with seemingly no way out. They must battle unseen forces, and their own minds to try and escape and get back to the real world.

Now – when I started reading this book it got me excited. It also got me super creeped out. The “evil” that the friends must battle against takes the form of “puppets” if you like. Mechanical mannequins that seem to be easily destroyed but have an uncanny knack of putting themselves together again and re-attacking. The friends are all separated and you end up with a few different stories and battles going on within the main story.

BLOG: It's Not Easy Being a Reviewer - Part One!!

This blog turned into such a long thing (sorry but I ramble) that I have now divided it into two parts. This is obviously part one.

So here we go. The first official blog from Confessions of a Reviewer.

Um…….eh……hang on…….I’ll think of something soon. Nope, not that. Pffft definitely not that if I don’t want to be banned from the interwebie thing. Ahhhhh, I know. Let’s talk about how easy it is to be a reviewer. 

Here goes:

It isn’t.

The end.

I thought it was going to be. I’ve been reading for years and started doing the old minimum twenty word Amazon review from the Kindle. This was mainly because when trying to write an in-depth review using one finger on a Kindle it can be a bit time consuming and ultimately I just gave up. Then I started thinking, you know what (?) some of these guys really deserve some credit for the stuff I’m reading. When I think back to the hundreds of books I have read since I was a kid, there are so many I wish I had written a review for at the time.

At first I thought I would just write a paragraph or two for the ones I really liked. This progressed into a paragraph or two for the ones I really hated. It then moved onto the ones in between and soon enough I was reviewing everything.

REVIEW: Iain Rob Wright - A is for Antichrist (A-Z of Horror)

Genre: Horror

Publisher: SalGad Publishing Group

Publication Date: 15th Dec 2014

Pages: 22

MY REVIEW:

This is part one of, oh I don’t know, maybe twenty six short stories in Iain Rob Wrights new A to Z of horror series.

It’s Isaac’s sixteenth birthday. His parents have gone out for the evening to allow him to have a party in his house with his friends. Problem is Isaac and his friends are seen as dorks and only a few people turn up. When they realise that the lemonade has alcohol in it more kids arrive to spice things up. Isaac has no idea how the alcohol got into the lemonade. He also has no idea why he seems to have the power to will things to happen. Evil things. Evil things that give him an instant sense of power. Evil things that he doesn’t want to stop doing.

This is a short story. That’s the disappointing bit. The other bit is the fact that it’s superb. Absolutely bloody brilliant! This is what Iain Rob Wright does best. Takes a subject and in the shortest space of time has you absolutely hooked on it and mesmerized by everything that is happening in it.

REVIEW: Iain Rob Wright - B is for Bogeywoman ( A-Z of Horror )

Genre: Horror

Publisher: SalGad Publishing Group

Publication Date: 11^th Feb 2015

Pages: 17

MY REVIEW:

This is part two in Iain Rob Wrights new A to Z of horror series.

Dean is twelve years old. He has been invited to stay over at his new friend Wendell’s house. Wendell has just recently moved to the area from Germany. He lives with his Dad, his Mum having died a while back. He seems to have everything, including a huge four poster bed in the middle of his bedroom. As they settle down to sleep after a busy night, Dean discovers the true meaning of the saying, “Don’t look under the bed”.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Iain Rob Wright could write the packaging for a packet of toilet roll and make it enjoyable! In this latest in his series of shorts we have a simple tale about a sleepover. It may be a simple topic. It may be a seemingly impossible task to write something creepy about a sleepover in a twenty page short story. Mr Wright does it with ease, again.

REVIEW: Iain Rob Wright - C is for Clown ( A-Z of Horror )

Genre: Horror

Publisher: SalGad Publishing Group

Publication Date: 15^th Feb 2015

Pages: 13

MY REVIEW:

This is part three in Iain Rob Wrights new A to Z of Horror series of short stories.

Stacey is going to babysit for the Murrays. She has done it for them before, looking after their ten year old son Harry. She has the hots for Mr Murray, Nev, who wouldn’t? Harry hasn’t been feeling the best. He has had nightmares. He tells Stacey he hears voices. That clown in the corner of the living room is really freaking Stacey out. This is set to be one weird night. If she survives it.

Firstly, I have to say that quite obviously this book has probably the most wonderful character I have ever read about in a story. Nev Murray is undoubtedly a character that deserves to be in a lot more stories. His character and presence is just mesmerising. A true joy to read about.

Again this is a short one that you could probably read in a half hour. I would use it as a little time filler or to break the mood in between heavier reading. I have to be honest and say it’s not my favourite of Iain Rob Wrights. It is a creepy tale and plays on probably the biggest fear of any horror fan. Clowns.