I had heard of Amor Towles’ novel, A Gentleman in Moscow, years ago and wondered why I would read about a Russian gentleman trapped in a hotel after the Bolshevik revolution. On the surface, the novel doesn’t sound interesting and seems out of touch with today’s popular romances and speculative […]
G. Mikki Hayden’s novel Re-Live is the second in the Rebirth series centered around a group of people who are live in New York City and attend the same dojo. Each entry in the series has a different protagonist. In Re-Live, it’s Steven, a psychotherapist who uses unconventional methods to […]
The Seven and a Half Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle is a murder mystery by Stuart Turton. Or is it? Is it actually a science fiction story set in the past where a murder has occurred? Or is it a race against time to reveal all the deceit and lies underpinning […]
Let’s all say it together. “The second in a trilogy is the hardest.” The second in a trilogy must contend with the success of the first, build upon it, twist it a new way, all without ticking off its readers. The Empire Strikes Back and The Godfather Part 2 are […]
The Stars Will Fall is a collection of speculative fiction short stories by Brian Reindel. One eye-catching element of this book is the number of stories included, a whopping thirty-four. Not only do you have the staples of fantasy, science fiction, and horror, you also have sub-genres of fable, apocalyptic, […]
A group of masked children appear before a green-colored flame and tell scary stories. Each story reflects both the creepiness of the autumnal season as well as the preference of the narrators. Meanwhile, the identity of these storytellers and their purpose starts to crystalize. Welcome to Christopher Robertson’s The October […]
Norman Partridge’s Dark Harvest has all the familiar trappings of a Halloween horror story. Each year, an unnamed American town has a visit from a pumpkin-headed monster with a butcher’s knife on Halloween. In this novel, it’s 1963. If the kids stop the creature, they will receive their fill of […]
Craig DiLouie’s Episode 13 is Ghost Hunters meets found footage as recorded in book form. Three paranormal researchers, one cameraperson, and one scientist explore a haunted house to determine the existence of ghosts. When it comes to the thirteenth episode, their ghost chasing series hits the jackpot—a place called the […]
The Classic Monsters Series by Ye Olde Dragon Press starts with a classic monster and then twists the theme. This continues with The Invisible Files: Classic Monster Series #4. The twist must be a departure from the tried and true. For the Invisible Files anthology, The Invisible Man (or Woman) […]
Many Halloween anthologies exist on the market, but most offerings are crafted by different authors. Other collections are written by a single author. It’s rare to find an anthology of multiple stories written by the same group of authors. For Thirteen Paths: A Halloween Anthology, a trio of authors pen […]