REVIEW: Kit Power - GodBomb!

Genre: Horror

Publisher: Sinister Horror Company

Publication Date: 28^th Sept 2015

Pages: 186

MY REVIEW:

A copy of GodBomb! was sent to Confessions of a Reviewer by the author Kit Power in exchange for an honest review. This is said review. This book is published by Sinister Horror Company.

OK so I know Kit Power. I worked with him for a while on another website, I have read two of his previous stories Lifeline and The Loving Husband and The Faithful Wife. He has also provided a guest review of a book on this very blog.

I am admitting this because there may be some people who would say I am only doing this review because I know him and think he is a top bloke. Totally untrue. He is a top bloke though! I am a reviewer first and foremost and I think most people who would follow my reviews know that the biggest thing for me when giving my thoughts on a book is honesty. Kit knows this more than most. He knows how I operate and knows that if I thought this book was pure crap, I would say so. By the way he has no idea what is in this review either so at this point in time he is as blind as you are reading it.

INTERVIEW: KIT POWER: PART TWO

Welcome to Part Two of Confessions of a Reviewers interview with Kit Power.

In tonight’s section, Kit starts by answering some specific questions on his new book GodBomb!, continues to talk about his writing and life in general and tackles The Ten Confessions.

It’s Wednesday so grab yourself something tasty snacks and a beer or two to cheer yourself up, sit back and relax, but, most of all………enjoy!

COAR - Moving on to GodBomb! Where did this one come from? What did you want your readers to get out of it?

KP - I had the idea for this when I was nineteen. I even wrote the first chapter, but back then I almost never went back to anything that took longer than a single session to write, so it never went anywhere. Still, it lodged deep down, burrowing away…

Cut to a couple of years ago. I'd written a couple of novella length tales, including Lifeline and The Loving Husband, and a bunch of short stories, and it started to pall for me a bit. After thinking about it for a little while, I realised it was because I was consciously writing “to length”, even coming up with ideas that I knew would fit two to four thousand words, and it felt a bit constraining. I remembered how much fun Lifeline had been because I just had no idea how long it would be or what was going to happen, and I thought “okay, time to jump off a cliff again”.

I mean, my plan had been to write short stories for two or three years, try and rack up four or five pro market sales to prove I could actually write at a professional standard, THEN start a novel. But the muse had other ideas, and the muse is the boss.

As to what I want my readers to get out of it, the same thing I always want: to feel entertained for the length of time it takes them to read the story. Honestly, that's my job, I think, as a writer – to captivate you for the length of the book – to make you FEEL. If I also make you think, that's fine, but if I don't, that's fine too.

INTERVIEW: KIT POWER: PART ONE

Welcome to Confession of a Reviewer’s interview with, in my opinion, one of the brightest talents to come out of the UK for a long long time, Mr Kit Power, author of Lifeline, The Loving Husband and the Faithful Wife and numerous short stories popping up in anthologies all over the place.

In tonight’s “Part One” of the interview, Kit will tell you all a little bit about himself, his rock star alter-ego and his writing in general.

“Part Two”, tomorrow night will see Kit answer some questions specific to his new book GodBomb! due out in September and will also take on the mighty Ten Confessions.

Night three will, as always, have my review of GodBomb! A book that you must must MUST click the preorder button on. It is superb.

Anyway grab yourself some grub and a beer or two, sit back and relax, but, most of all………enjoy!

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

KP - I'm left handed. Short sighted. Defiantly long haired, though it's getting worryingly thin up top these days. Blue eyed. Often angry. Politically engaged. Perpetually curious. Probably pretty irritating to be around. Kind of awkward with interview questions...

GUEST POST: Keith Deininger talks about the Amazon Kindle Scout programme.

Why I Entered My Latest Novel in Amazon’s Kindle Scout Program

by

Keith Deininger

Although I’d been writing for years, I didn’t begin to take my writing career seriously until March 2011. I know because that’s when I setup my website and wrote my first blog post. I was three months clean and sober.

I’d written a 100k word fantasy novel the year before, in a haze, but when I looked it over, I realized it was crap. It was disjointed and still didn’t have an ending. I had tons of notes and scribbled verse, but nothing substantial, nothing finished. I had lots of ideas (I’ve always had lots of ideas) but I didn’t know where to start, so I collected a few of my more recent ideas together and began to write.

ANNOUNCEMENT: EXCITING STUFF FOR NEXT WEEK AND A TEMPORARY CLOSURE!

Hello everyone. Just wanted to give you a little heads up as to some of the things coming up on Confessions of a Reviewer!

Next Monday 24^th August I have a very special guest blog post to share with you, written by the writer of some of the darkest fiction I have read in years, Keith Deininger.

SOME OF MY FAVOURITE LINKS

I know this is my blog and at the end of the day I want you all to read it and keep coming back to visit me and read my interesting articles, interviews and reviews. But, at the end of the day I am wise enough to know that there are many more sites out there doing the same sort of thing as me.

I like to keep Confessions of a Reviewer as unique as possible and do things slightly differently to some of the others out there. At the same time though, I believe there is room enough for all of us, IF we respect each other enough to get along and help promote and share each other.

That is the idea behind this post. I want to share with you some other sites that I pay regular visits to. These sites are run by some fantastic people, with either a huge knowledge of particularly the horror genre, fantastic reviewing skills or run the websites for their particular presses.

As well as supporting Confessions of a Reviewer, find some time to pay these guys a visit as well. You will find the links on the right hand side of the main page here in case you want to revisit them.

SHOW-OFF AND TELL #5 - Duncan Bradshaw - Class Three and Class Four

Number five in the Show-Off and tell feature is one of my most recent acquisitions. It is definitely one of the most beautiful books I have ever gotten.

The Book of Ishtar or a limited edition hard cover that includes Class Three and Those Who Survive (Class Four #1) by Duncan P Bradshaw.

This book is stunning. Let me firstly say my pictures will never do it justice. You need to hold this thing in your hand to appreciate it’s true beauty and that isn’t likely to happen unless you come round my house….and wear gloves!

This Show-Off and Tell is actually two fold. I want to show off the book, but I also want to show you what you get when you order a book from the Sinister Horror Company. This press knows how to spoil you when you get something from them.

REVIEW: Duncan P Bradshaw - Those Who Survive (Class Four #1)

Genre: Horror

Publisher: Sinister Horror Company

Publication Date: 13^th July 2015

Pages: 328

MY REVIEW:

A copy of Those Who Survive (Class Four #1) was sent to Confessions of a Reviewer by the author Duncan P Bradshaw in exchange for an honest review. This is said review. This book is published by the Sinister Horror Company.

Until a week or so ago, I had never read Duncan P Bradshaw. I read his debut novel Class Three last week. You can see my review of it here. I absolutely loved it, which is hard for me to do with a zombie novel.

Those Who Survive is sort of a continuation of the story. They work just as well as standalone novels but to be honest I would recommend you read Class Three before Those Who Survive. Some characters carry over and it gives you a bit of continuity. Also it will make you smile when you see some of the characters come back. So, did the new found faith in zombie novels continue with Those Who Survive courtesy of Mr Bradshaw?

REVIEW: Duncan P Bradshaw - Class Three

Genre: Horror / Zombie / Comedy

Publisher: Sinister Horror Company

Publication Date: 24^th Nov 2015

Pages: 207

MY REVIEW:

A copy of Class Three was sent to Confessions of a Reviewer by the author Duncan P Bradshaw in exchange for an honest review. This is said review. This book is published by the Sinister Horror Company.

Duncan P Bradshaw. A name I have seen a lot of but never picked up anything he has written before. He very kindly asked if I would like to review a copy of his new book, Class Four (review coming soon). I decided to give it a go and then discovered Class Three was loosely connected so decided to give it a go first. I have mentioned before that zombie books never really did anything for me. They really need to have something different before they truly hold my attention and make me want to read more. Class Three had that something different in abundance.

Jim has just been dumped by his longstanding girlfriend. What does he do to recover the situation? He goes and gets very very drunk. He has to call on his brother Phil to pick him up and pour him home safely. As they return to Jim’s house they notice something weird in the sky but they don’t think it’s the end of the world.

Jim struggles to wake up the next morning and is greeted by a text from Phil stating: “It’s the end of the world!!!!” and it truly is.

Something has broken up on re-entry into the earth’s atmosphere and people are dying left, right and centre. The problem is they don’t stay dead.

Jim and Phil now have to put “the plan” into operation. A plan that they allegedly came up with when they were kids in the event of a zombie apocalypse. Problem is Jim can’t remember it.

What follows is twenty four hours in the company of Jim and Phil as they battle the undead, general nutcases and a weird cult intent on serving their “god”. All this while trying to find the girlfriend that has just dumped Jim in the hope she is still alive and he can get her back.

GUEST POST: Confessions of my Past, Present and Future #7 - Patrick Lacey

Confessions of my Past, Present and Future

by

Patrick Lacey

The Past

I, like many horror writers my age, was weaned on Goosebumps. I devoured those things as I would a freshly baked batch of chocolate chip cookies, and that’s saying something. What got me initially were the covers. We’re talking illustrations of evil dogs, skeletons, possessed Halloween masks—everything a future horror buff could ever want. The plots were often cheesy (especially Say Cheese and Die…sorry, I’ll leave now if you’d like) and straight forward but they were aimed at kids after all. R. L. Stine should take great pride—and I’m sure he does—in knowing that he inspired an entire generation of boys and girls to take up reading.

Goosebumps were cool. If you weren’t reading them, you were, dare I say, a loser. In third grade, I made the obvious and lucrative decision to try my hand at the series. I wrote a manuscript of thirty or so pages entitled The Curse of the Scorpion. I still have it somewhere. It’s horrible, even for my age, but I remember how writing that thing consumed me. The entire outside world, any childhood fears or anxiety, vanished while I was putting pen to paper. I’d always had a vivid imagination but now I had a way to harness it, to sculpt it like Play-Doh and make it do my evil bidding.

REVIEW: Andrew Lennon - Keith

Genre: Horror

Publisher: Createspace

Publication Date: 19^th June 2015

Pages: 71

MY REVIEW:

A copy of Keith was sent to Confessions of a Reviewer by the author Andrew Lennon in exchange for an honest review. This is said review. This book is published by Createspace.

This is the first book I have read of Andrew Lennon. This is a short story. I generally find them a good way of introducing yourself to someone new. It gives you an idea of the writing style without having to spend too much time on first time reading.

John is like any normal guy. He works, he lives a normal life by himself in his flat and he generally just tries to get by without any drama in his life. He hates his job. More to the point he hates his boss. Sometimes he fantasises about causing him pain.

One night a pizza delivery man arrives at his door with a pizza he didn’t order. As if this wasn’t mysterious enough, the same guy literally bumps into John a few days later. He introduces himself as Keith.

Keith and John strike up an unlikely friendship. It’s the only friend John has in the world.

When demands from Keith start to get more bizarre and deadly. John has to ask himself what he is doing associating with Keith and more importantly how in the hell he is going to end that association.

THE MILESTONES KEEP A COMING!!

Would you believe it! Two milestones within a week!

Milestone one:

Confessions of a Reviewer celebrated its half birthday on 4^th August!

Six months since I started my journey into the unknown world of blogging. I was a total virgin. No knowledge of what to do or how to go about doing it. All I knew what to do was pick up a book, read it, then ramble about it.

It appears that some of you out there like to read my ramblings. There is no one more surprised at that than me.

SHOW-OFF AND TELL #4 - Ronald Kelly Original Artwork and Story

Number four in the Show-Off and Tell feature is a little bit different.

Ya’ll know the Jedi Master of Southern-fried Horror, Ronald Kelly? If you don’t then do yourself the biggest favour of all time and check out some of his work. Not only is he a fantastic author but his artwork is second to none.

Being the fantastic family man that he is, last year he offered up some of this artwork in exchange for a small donation to help get his daughter, Reilly, funds to make sure she made her People to People Student Ambassador trip to Europe, which she has just successfully completed.

I had just read Ronald’s book Fear (one of my favourite books of all time) and couldn’t resist asking for something featuring the monster from the book, the famous “snake-critter”.

This is what I got in the post a couple of weeks later!

REVIEW: Caroline Mitchell - Don't Turn Around (Detective Jennifer Knight Book 1)

Genre: Crime / Paranormal

Publisher: Bookouture

Publication Date: 24^th April 2015

Pages: 318

MY REVIEW:

I received an advance copy of Don’t Turn Around from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This is said review. This book is published by Bookouture.

So Caroline Mitchell is a new one to me. This is the first I have ever read of hers. To be honest I thought it was her first book until I discovered Paranormal Intruder which appears to be a story about her own true life experiences with paranormal activity. All I can say is that after reading Don’t Turn Around I am intrigued and interested to get my hands on a copy of Paranormal Intruder, firstly because I am interested in that sort of thing (no choice, my wife is a psychic medium and frequently brings her work home!!) and secondly, if she can write fiction like Don’t Turn Around then the non-fiction stuff must be pretty damn good as well.

Jennifer Knight is a detective in the CID in the quiet, small town of Haven. She is investigating the stabbing of a local gangster when the body of the perpetrator turns up. An apparent suicide by hanging. Something doesn’t fit for Jennifer though and the voices in her head seem to agree.

As the bodies mount up, they all seem very similar to a case Jennifer’s late mother was investigating when she was a Detective Inspector years earlier. Jennifer didn’t know about this case until she uncovers some evidence of her own and starts to put the pieces together.

She must now decide whether to listen to the voices in her head, follow the dead she was able to communicate with when she was younger and finally be able to admit her suspicions to her unbelieving boss and colleagues.

GUEST POST: Confessions of my Past, Present and Future #6 - J.D. Barker

Confessions of my Past, Present and Future

by

J.D.Barker

The Past

So… Many people don’t know this about me but I started my professional writing career with non-fiction, and not the good kind. Although I wrote fiction as a child, as I entered adulthood and had to pay bills I began writing for magazines. I’d love to say these publications included the New Yorker, Vanity Fair, or other high-brow fodder but that wasn’t the case.

My first writing assignment was with a magazine called 25^th Parallel where I worked alongside the man who would later become Marilyn Manson. From there I moved on to Teen Beat, Seventeen, and others. I interviewed everyone from Tiffany to Debbie Gibson, New Kids on the Block, Bon Jovi, Skid Row and many others. While this was a fun time in my life, I found writing non-fiction to feel like work and quickly lost interest. It became a job, nothing more.

REVIEW: David Bernstein - Goblins

Genre: Horror

Publisher: Samhain

Publication Date: 4^th August 2015

Pages: 208

MY REVIEW:

A copy of Goblins was sent to Confessions of a Reviewer by the author David Bernstein via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This is said review. This book is published by Samhain.

So David Bernstein is lucky enough to have two books coming out within a month of each other with two different publishers. I have just finished his other book Skinner and the review is written. I decided to read this one straight away after enjoying Skinner so much. I was hoping for more of the same. I think this one is better!

Marcus Hale is Chief of Police on Roanoke Island. He moved here for a quiet life after a messy divorce and a disaster on his last case as a detective. His career so far on this sleepy island has been just that, sleepy.

Children start to disappear. The pattern is always the same. Shortly after they disappear, their parents are brutally murdered. Butchered would be a better description. When Hale and some of his men stake out the house of the current victims to try and catch the murderers in the act, it all goes horribly wrong when the murderers turn up. They don’t appear to be human. Although he can’t believe it, they appear to be Goblins.

According to the town drunk, this is connected to something that happened in the 16^th century and if it isn’t stopped, the lives of every single person on the island are in danger. Hale has to firstly try and believe what he is being told then secondly, try and keep his men alive as they try to defeat the ancient evil.

SHOW-OFF AND TELL #3 - Jason Parent - Seeing Evil

In keeping with the theme of the week, this weeks entry in the Show-Off and Tell feature is my copy of Seeing Evil by Jason Parent.

I was over the moon to receive this review copy in the post from Jason not only because I so desperately wanted to read and review it, but also because I know this man is destined for huge things in the future and I want to be able to say I have followed the journey from the very beginning.

INTERVIEW: THE JASON PARENT VIDEO INTERVIEW

Well here it is. Confessions of a Reviewer’s first ever attempt at a video interview. I’m so glad it was Jason Parent. This guy put himself on the line with this one. He was prepared to answer anything that was thrown at him, and I mean anything!

Giving the logistics of trying to pin someone down who is three thousand miles away from me, this had the potential to turn into a nightmare. I must thank Jason for his patience while some technical difficulties where ironed out and also for giving up his time for what turned into a very long night. It was, however, a night full of answers that will give you all you need to know about Jason’s new book Seeing Evil, his life and writing in general and of course the fun side of Jason where he put his very existence on the line in the 18+ section.

REVIEW: Jason Parent - Seeing Evil

Genre: Thriller / Supernatural

Publisher: Red Adept Publishing

Publication Date: 4^th August 2015

Pages: 234

MY REVIEW:

A copy of Seeing Evil was sent to Confessions of a Reviewer by the author Jason Parent in exchange for an honest review. This is said review. This book is published by Red Adept Publishing.

I have not read a lot by Jason Parent, just his stories as part of the mighty crew that gave us the collections, Dead Roses: Five Dark Tales of Twisted Love and Bad Apples: Five Slices of Halloween Horror. I have known him for a while now and have to say he is a decent bloke. I admit to that solely for the purposes of this review. I want it made quite clear that even though I do know him, he is also quite clear that garners no favours when I review books. He knows that I am honest about what I read, no matter who wrote it.

To that end I have to say I was hugely disappointed with what I read in Seeing Evil. Read on and I will tell you why.

Sam Reilly is a detective in the Major Crimes Division. She isn’t exactly orthodox and has a bit of a reputation as being somewhat of a maverick. She is sent to a gruesome murder/suicide where she comes across a small child sitting on the floor in the middle of a pool of blood. His family has been killed in the crime.

The child was Michael Turcotte. 11 years later, he has been in and out of various foster homes, struggling with growing up in a system that sometimes doesn’t care. His only true friend is Sam. She has stuck by him during the years since his family was murdered.

Michael has a secret. It’s so secret he has just discovered it himself. He has visions. Visions of things that are going to happen to anyone that he touches, flesh to flesh. He truly sees evil. When he tells people and Sam about his first vision, they don’t believe him. When it comes true and someone dies, Sam starts to listen to anything Michael tells her.

Tessa Masterton also has a secret. A secret life that no one but her and her father know about. She has heard about Michael’s visions and approaches him to see if he can tell her what her future holds. What Michael sees is something he cannot possibly tell Tessa. He tells Sam though.

What unfolds is a race against time, a race against evil and a race to stop a cold and ruthless killer that won’t let anyone stand in his way. That includes Sam, Michael and Tessa.

GUEST POST: Confessions of my Past, Present and Future #5 - Tony Tremblay

Confessions of my Past, Present and Future

by

Tony Tremblay

The Past

From the age of twelve, I would slip away and disappear with a book in my hand into the various cubbyholes around our home.  Our home was small, crowded and loud. I would hide under a bed, in the bathroom, anywhere where I could find some privacy to read. I remember one instance when my father found me reading underneath the house with a flashlight in my hand. I was nestled in the dirt between the foundation walls reading whatever horror book I had managed to borrow or steal at the time. Books were my refuge, an escape from poverty and the bullying at school. That twelve year old boy, who had shared space with spiders, copper piping, and even a dead cat once, is now entering his seventh decade of life, and while his accommodations have greatly improved, his love of reading has remained constant.

My point in all of this is that I’ve gone to great lengths to read an awful lot of books so you might think that it would be difficult to choose one book from my past that would have a life-long effect on me. However, when Nev asked the question the answer came to me immediately:  Ash Wednesday by Chet Williamson.