A Review of The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion

Book cover for The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion by Margaret Killjoy. Image on cover shows a drawing of a deer standing in a shallow pool of blue-green water. You can see the reflection of it’s antlers and face in the water, but the ripples in the water do not make specific features of it’s face, antlers, or upper body easy to figure out. Title: The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion

Author: Margaret Killjoy

Publisher: Tor Books

Publication Date: August 15, 2017

Genres: Fantasy, Horror, Paranormal, LGBTQ, Contemporary

Length: 120 pages

Source: I borrowed it from the library.

Rating: 3 Stars

Blurb:

The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion by Margaret Killjoy pits utopian anarchists against rogue demon deer in this dropkick-in-the-mouth punk fantasy that Alan Moore calls “scary and energetic.”

Searching for clues about her best friend’s mysterious suicide, Danielle ventures to the squatter, utopian town of Freedom, Iowa, and witnesses a protector spirit — in the form of a blood-red, three-antlered deer — begin to turn on its summoners. She and her new friends have to act fast if they’re going to save the town — or get out alive.

Content Warning: Brief reference to a previous suicide and a death by drug overdose. Dead and dying animals (livestock and wild animals, not pets). Blood. A demon. Murder.

Review:

Good intentions aren’t everything.

Some of the most memorable scenes to me were the ones that described how the residents of Freedom lived their lives. They were squatters who had banded together to create an ecologically-friendly commune where nothing was wasted and everyone’s basic needs were met thanks to a combination of gardening, gathering wild plants, visiting food banks, dumpster diving, and occasionally dipping into less legal forms of procuring  food and supplies.  Honestly, I would have read another hundred pages that described how their community worked and how they dealt with members who took more than they gave.

I struggled with the plot holes, especially the ones that protected Danielle and the other protagonists even when they were playing around with dangerous ideas that had gotten other characters killed off. Of course I wanted them to live happily ever after, but by protecting them from things the plot had repeatedly hammered home were terrible choices to make it watered down the message of it and left this reader feeling confused.

It was cool to realize how many of the characters in this tale were part of the LGBTQ+ community in part because of how it inverted the assumption that most characters should be cisgendered and heterosexual with only the occasional side character who breaks that rule. Representation is important, and I loved the fact that the characters identities were shared in ways that didn’t make a big deal out of any of them and quickly moved on to furthering the plot. That, too, makes a difference to those of us who are not cisgendered heterosexuals. Not everything needs to be announced with bells and whistles. Sometimes we just exist and go about our normal lives…albeit hopefully without seeing any supernatural deer causing havoc in the real world.

The themes in this novella were interesting but undeveloped. There was so much more the author could have done with ideas like the corruptive side effects of having power over others and how people who seek out positions that give them more power over others should be viewed with suspicion. I didn’t always agree with their thoughts on those topics, but I was intrigued and wanted to learn much more than I did about why the narrator – and maybe the author, too – feels this way.

After reading the last few pages, I wondered where this new series is going next. While I can’t go into a lot of detail about those scenes for spoiler reasons, there was obviously time spent setting up the characters for what was to come for them. While I thought some of the directions the end was hinting at didn’t mesh well with the themes that had been already established, I’m very open to being proven wrong about that. You never know what twists and turns might be ahead for a character, so it will be interesting to see what the author has up their sleeves.

The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion was creepy.

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Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: A Genre I Want to Read More Of

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Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.

Last winter I reread the first few books in Jean M. Auel‘s Earth’s Children series. They reminded me of how much I enjoy historical fiction novels that have been well-researched and include the latest data about what life was like for average people in that era.

For example, the Earth’s Children books described what the characters ate, how they hunted and gathered, what their clothes and tools looked like, and so much more. Specific plants and animals from 30,000 years ago are explained in great detail, including species that have since gone extinct. The author extrapolated when necessary as not everything can be fossilized, of course, but she did an incredible amount of research for these books that really made ice age Europe come alive for me.

A photo of an abandoned stone cathedral on a grassy hill. It still has walls but no longer has a roof or glass in its windows. There is a stormy grey and slightly pink sky behind it. I love becoming immersed in a world so unlike modern life.

Years ago I adored how the Pillars of the Earth series by Ken Follett took a similar approach to English life in the 12th century. It was written from the perspective of one of the many working class men who was hired to build a cathedral.

They worked long, hard hours for low pay at a time when workers’ rights were much less protected than they are today. I was fascinated by how they managed to survive under such conditions.

If you know of other historical fiction novels that are similar to these ones as far as accuracy and research goes, I’d love to hear about them.

Generally, I do not enjoy reading about war or royalty, but I’m open to just about any other setting and era anywhere in the world.

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Top Ten Tuesday: Ten Books I Read Because of the Hype


Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

A person sitting on a gigantic log and reading a book on the beach. The log has been bleached white by the water. The person is wearing pants, long sleeves, and a jacket, so it was probably a spring or autumn day instead of a summer one. This phot was taken from far away, so you can’t see any other identifying features of the person. Mostly, it’s just calm waves lapping at the shore and undisturbed sand.I used to be much more willing to read the hottest new books even if they weren’t from genres I typically enjoy.

What I’ve learned over time is that my tastes generally do not overlap very much with the latest hyped titles. While there are certainly exceptions to this rule, especially in the speculative fiction genre where I spend so much of my reading time,  there tends to be an inverse relationship between how much fanfare is being created over a new book and how much it will appeal to me personally.

This is in no way a criticism of wildly popular stories or the people who read them. I’m sure there are many incredible books being released right now that also happen to be hyped up. They’re simply not my cup of tea, and that’s perfectly okay.

Here are some of the titles in this category that did not work for me for a wide variety of reasons but might be the ideal read for someone else.

1. Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

2.The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

3. The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks

4. Wilder Girls by Rory Power

5. The Bridges of Madison County by Robert James Waller

6. American Gods by Neil Gaiman

7. Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

8. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

9. Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

10.The Host by Stephenie Meyer

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A Review of The Glass Key

Book cover for The Glass Key by Benjamin Parsons. Image on cover shows a black and white drawing of a beautiful, curvy woman of indeterminate ethnicity wearing a long, flowing gown walking towards a man whose hands are raised up in surprise and amazement. Title: The Glass Key

Author: Benjamin Parsons

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: October 19, 2012

Genres: Romance, Paranormal, Historical

Length: 46 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 3 Stars

Blurb:

All alone on a howling night, with the fire blazing in the hearth, you hear a key turn in the lock – and see the apparition of your long-lost love enter the room… For ten years Sam neither saw nor heard of his beautiful Araminta, who vanished before their wedding day – but now, suddenly she steps into his life again, with a fantastic adventure to tell: her journey to unlock the secret of the mysterious glass key. Part of the collection The Green Lady and Other Stories.

Content Warning: Adultery.

Review:

Unconditional love isn’t realistic, but it sure is romantic.

The gothic elements of the plot were handled nicely. Yes, this had a historical setting so far as I could tell, but nearly everything that happened in it could just as easily occur today. It’s tricky to create such a timeless storyline, so I must tip my cap to the author for not only pulling it off but for encouraging readers to think critically before decided which era this tale might have happened. Strong arguments can be made for many different time periods depending on how certain context clues are interpreted and what assumptions the reader makes about the rest of it.

It would have been helpful to have more time spent dedicated to explaining what really happened to Araminta. As poetic as it was for these former lovers to be reunited, I kept wishing she would stop dancing around the subject and tell him exactly what she did after their engagement ended. Their breakup caused both of them a great deal of psychological pain even while accounting for the reasons for it. There was plenty of space left here to explore the repercussions of that as well as what both characters thought about their decisions now that they’d had about a decade to mull over it.

Taking risks is something I love to see in every genre I read, and writing a romantic story about a couple who had a hard breakup definitely doesn’t seem to be common for the romance genre from what I’ve observed. I was intrigued by the idea of Araminta and Sam having a chance to talk again and dissect what went wrong in their relationship. While I’ll leave it up to other readers to decide which one of them them to side with – or maybe to decide that neither character is someone they want to root for at all – I will say here that Mr. Parsons has added something valuable to this genre that I hope other romance and speculative fiction writers will find inspiration in his creativity as well.

The Glass Key was thought provoking.

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Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Describe Your Sense of Humour

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Image of something being downloaded. The text reads “downloading future. Please wait” and there is a loading image above the cancel bar. I started working on this back in March and have been slowly adding to it as I find more examples of things that tickle my funny bone. Some posts work better if they’re allowed to percolate for a long time.

My sense of humour is gentle and kind but honest.

Everyone should be laughing and feeling happy by the time the punchline is revealed.

 

I love these types of humour:

  • stories or videos about pets or people doing amusing things like accidentally scaring themselves
  • jokes that allow people to poke gentle fun at themselves if they wish to
  • puns and wordplay
  • wholesome memes
  • anything that sidesteps the audience’s expectations of what will happen next and gives us something clever in exchange.

 

Here are some examples of things that have made me smile or laugh recently:

 

One day, a police officer pulls a car over and sees the backseat is full of penguins. The officer tells the driver, “You can’t be doing this, you need to take these penguins to the zoo!”

The next day, the police officer pulls the same car over again, and says, “Hey! I told you to take these penguins to the zoo!” The driver says, “I did, and today I’m taking them to the movies!”

 

 

Beagle Puppy Learns How to Go Down Stairs  (1 minute, 33 seconds long)

Adorableness is always in style. This dog has been a YouTube star for years.

 

 

Q. Why are frogs so happy?

A. They eat whatever bugs them.

 

 

First Day of Rural Medicine (2 minutes, 15 seconds long)

This is a skit about the challenges of providing medical care to a culture that tries to tough everything out. I grew up around so many farmers and other rural folks who avoid modern medical care unless there’s a true emergency, and even then they won’t go in very promptly. For example, one of my relatives had a heart attack in the middle of the night years ago, took some antacids, and then casually strolled into their family doctor’s office the next morning. Their family doctor examined them and immediately called for an ambulance. After emergency surgery for a quadruple bypass, my relative is doing well. Their family doctor might need a hug, though.

 

 

Q: What would bears be without the letter B?

A: Ears.

 

 

Screenshot of a message on a social media site (possibly tumblr?) from user Roxy Horror whose username is roxiqt. The message says: “I went to the ER for a migraine once. The nurse asked me what I took for it. I said, ‘a litre of chocolate milk.’ She paused and said, ‘odd…but only something a migraine sufferer would try’ as if I correctly answered her riddle and she was granting me passage to the land of pain relief.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This one is funny and relatable to me. I have tried the chocolate milk – well, actually mine was chocolate almond milk – trick when I was desperate for relief. It did not work in any way, but it was delicious. Now I have more effective prescription medication to take when I feel a migraine coming on, so I have been granted passage to the land of pain relief, too, assuming my meds work.

 

 

Photo of a cat sitting on a wooden swing outside. The cat is wearing an orange scarf and a blue sweater. There are colourful autumn leaves scattered about and some trees in the background that look like their leaves are turning colours, too. Humorously enough, the text on this image reads “Friends: it’s still 85 degrees out. Me: …..” 85 Fahrenheit is about 29 Celsius. So even when it’s still warm out, both this can and I yearn for autumn.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Autumn is so much nicer than summer to me!

 

Animals Reacting to Their Reflections  (2 minutes, 32 seconds long)

I thought this was funny and educational. Some animals seem to have much more self-awareness than others do.

 

Closeup photo of the head of a peaceful capybara. Image on text reads: “Humans and capybaras are evolutionarily closely related. You are genetically as cute as this capybara.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(I don’t know that we’re actually that closely related to capybaras….but this meme made me smile. I hope you all smiled, too.)

 

This is a still from the 2001 film Shrek. In it Donkey (the sometimes overly cheerful grey donkey in it) is walking in a meadow looking pleased with himself. There is a dark forest behind him and a boulder in front of him. The text reads, “me going outside to improve my mental health.” At the bottom of the image, the donkey’s line of dialogue is on the screen and reads “I like that boulder. That’s a nice boulder.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Walking is not a cure-all, but it sure does help distract me when I’m worried about something. Exercise is a great form of stress relief.

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Top Ten Tuesday: Books on My Fall 2024 To-Read List


Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

Photo of a light brown mug and an opened book lying in a bed of red and yellow autumn leaves on the forest floor. When I first began working on this post, I couldn’t find anything that appealed to me.

There is a lot of gory horror as well as Christmas stories that are generally released in the autumn.

No offense to anyone who loves either of those genres, but I needed to look elsewhere to build my list this week.

Sometimes it pays off to dig deeper and keeps going. Here are some of the upcoming autumn books that have caught my eye.

I’m too much of a mood reader to commit to a specific reading schedule in most cases, but all of these do look interesting.

Thank you to Nicole @ BookWyrmKnits for doing this topic a week early and giving me two more titles to add to my list!

 

Book cover for The City in Glass by Nghi Vo. Image on cover is a drawing of a city on fire just after dusk. We are looking at the flames from far away while standing under two carved stone pillars that are still connected by a piece of stone placed on top of them. There are female figures carved into the pillars. They look a little like Greek goddesses.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The City in Glass by Nghi Vo

Publication Date: October 1

Why I Want to Read It: This novella looks like a nice mixture of several different themes: adventure, romance, and fantasy.

 

Book cover for The Black Hunger by Nicholas Pullen. Image on cover shows a tabled filled with autumn fruits like apples, some of which are rotten, and a human skull placed on the side of the table. This is an unsettling scene that made me shiver.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Black Hunger by Nicholas Pullen

Publication Date: October 8

Why I Want to Read It: The story looks scary but hopefully won’t be gory. Maybe it would be a good Halloween read?

 

Book cover for What Does It Feel Like by Sophie Kinsella. Image on cover is a drwaing of a white woman with long, straight light brown hair who is wearing a fluffy turquoise gown that has a low-cut back and walking away from the audience.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What Does It Feel Like? by Sophie Kinsella

Publication Date: October 8

Why I Want to Read It: I’ve never read her work before. After hearing about her life-threatening cancer diagnosis earlier this year, I’m wondering if I should give her work a try.

 

Book cover for Masquerade by Mike Fu. Image on cover is a drawing of a chrysanthemum-like flower blooming under a full moon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Masquerade by Mike Fu

Publication Date: October 29

Why I Want to Read It: My reading pile has been low on mysteries this year, and this one sounds interesting.

 

 

Book cover for The Teller of Small Fortunes by Julie Leong. Image on cover is a possibly computer-generated painting of a woman sitting on the back ledge of a covered n wagon and looking out at some homes in the distance. It’s just past dusk and quickly growing dark outside. You can see a fe stars in the sky as well as a lamp hanging over the backside of the wagon and illuminating her and a small black cat who is sitting next to her. It’s a peaceful scene.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Publication Date: November 5

Why I Want to Read It: I’m very into cozy reads at the moment.

 

Book cover for We Are All Ghosts in the Forest by Lorraine Wilson. Image on cover is a drawing of two people, one adult and one child, walking together in a forest that has a thick layer of fog in it that obscures most other details about the scene.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We Are All Ghosts in the Forest by Lorraine Wilson

 

Publication Date: November 7

Why I Want to Read It: 2020 sharply reduced my interest in post-apocalyptic stories, but I am slowly coming around to enjoying them again so long as there is no disease component to the plot. A world without the Internet would be so different.

 

Book cover for The Last Hour Between Worlds by Melissa Caruso. Image on cover is a drwaing of three different clocks. One is a normal analogue clock like you’d see anywhere on Earth. The second one has far too many hours noted on it. Instead of 12, there are more like 24. The third clock has interesting symbols by each hour marked on it. They look like they might be Chinese symbols.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Last Hour Between Worlds by Melissa Caruso

Publication Date: November 19

Why I Want to Read It: The time travel and reality bending aspects of it sound cool. I also like the fact that the protagonist has a young child but is still able to go on adventures. Good for her!

 

 

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One Day at a Time: A Review of Unloveables

Book cover for Unloveables by Liz Boysha. Image on cover is a chalk drawing of a rat who is standing on its hind legs and has a sad expression on its face. This is a simply drawing, like something a child or an adult who is not an artist would draw. The background is black and looks like a chalkboard. Title: Unloveables

Author: Liz Boysha

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: August 18, 2024

Genres: Science Fiction, LGBTQ+, Romance

Length: 98 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 4 Stars

Blurb:

After the apocalypse, after the Megadrought, the Great Floods, after the Water Wars, the TriPlague, the Midwestern Firestorms; after the Superricane that wiped out the entire East Coast, after the Refugee Crisis and the Great Migrations and whatever wars they fought over that… In a remote corner of what was once Colorado, some people are still just trying to survive.

Content Warning: A fatal car accident. Homophobia. A character who has migraines but no medication for them.  Climate change that makes finding enough food, water, and shade difficult. Brief references to childhood abuse, a past rape, and violence.

Review:

Survival is the name of the game.

A lot of post-apocalyptic fiction focuses on strong, able-bodied adults who either already have the skills they need to survive or are able to quickly learn what they don’t already know, so it was refreshing to read about teens, one of whom is disabled, managing to survive in such an environment for so many years. There were other aspects of the two main characters’ identities that are also underrepresented in this genre, although I think it’s best for other readers to discover most of them gradually just like I did. I enjoyed getting to know Rat thought this was pretty realistic sketch of what kids who grew up in such a dangerous and unpredicatable environment could be like.

With that being said, I would have liked to learn more about the unnamed protagonist. He wasn’t even willing to share his real name with Rat or the audience, much less answer the multitude of other questions I had about his personality and upbringing. While this made sense when I considered how traumatized he was, it also meant that this reader never got to know him as well as I hoped I would. He always flitted around the edges of the conversation and was happy to share tips for finding food or water but never wanted the conversation to drift into anything deeper than that. It would be nice to learn more about him in any sequels that might be written in the future as I only felt like I could describe him in the most general terms by the time I finished reading this.

The romance was subtle and handled nicely. I have not read many romances about two asexual characters before, so I gently stepped away from my preconceived notions of what that might be like and waited to see what would happen. I appreciated the fact that both characters were willing to talk about such things openly and knew what they wanted out of a relationship even though neither one was at all expecting to fall in love when they first met. That’s exactly how I like romance tales to unfold.

Unloveables has left me eager to read more about these characters.

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Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Books That Should Have Ended a Different Way

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Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.

 

Photo of a person wearing a hoodie and hunching over a little as they read a book. They are in a room that is only partially illuminated with light, so you can see a weak yellow-orange light behind them but it is not strong enough to show us this person’s age, race, sex, or any other identifying characteristics. So all you see is their silhouette as they read.

Just like last week, I’m digging deep and picking books from a wide variety of genres that I have rarely if ever discussed here before. (So there will be no ranting about the Earth’s Children series today. Ha!)

These were all books I otherwise enjoyed, by the way. I simply wish their endings had been different for reasons I will share below. Beware of spoilers in this post, although I did try to minimize them as much as possible.

Y: The Last Man by Brian K. Vaughan

What Should Have Happened: Either most species should have gone extinct or the characters should have figured out what killed off everyone with a Y chromosome and fixed it.

 

Tyrell by Coe Booth

What Should Have Happened: Tyrell was smart person who was working so hard to get out of poverty. I liked him and hated how ambiguously things ended. In my imagination, everything worked out well for him and he’s living a quiet, happy life. I choose to believe he now has a good job,  a few adorable kids with his wife, and was recently convinced to adopt a dog from the local shelter that he pretends to find annoying but also sneaks treats to when no one is looking.

 

Allegedly by Tiffany D. Jackson

What Should Have Happened: Ideally, new evidence would have come forward to exonerate Mary, but I would have accepted any other possible ending as well other than the one we received.  I was annoyed when I read the last few pages of this book even though the rest of it was great.

 

The Golden Road by L.M. Montgomery

What Should Have Happened: A time machine and proper medical treatment so that a certain beloved character can live a long, healthy, and happy life. (Yes, I know that’s unrealistic for this era, but it still broke my heart to realize what happened to them).

 

Once Upon a Wardrobe by Patti Callahan Henry

What Should Have Happened: Once again, we need a time machine so that one of the characters in this book could received the medical care they needed to live to a ripe old age in good health even though I know people with their diagnosis did not live very long back then. It feels deeply unfair that this was their fate, though, and those deaths caused so much pain.

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Top Ten Tuesday: Characters That Authors Could Redeem


Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

The silhouttes of two people with long straight hair who are leaping for joy on the beach as the sun sets. The ocean water behind them is rippling gently. Thank you to Deanna @ A Novel Glimpse for submitting the theme Ten Characters Authors Surprisingly Redeemed. I will be tweaking it a little as it trickier than I thought it would be!

I tend to DNF stories about characters who are really unpleasant, so I had to do a lot of brainstorming to come up with examples.

Redemption is probably  too strong of a word for some of these characters. They have a long way to go before they reach that point in most cases.  What I can say is that I enjoyed reading about them despite their terrible behaviour and I could see how each of them could be redeemed with some more introspection,  remorse over their actions, and attempts to make things right.

Is that close enough to the original theme? I hope so!

Here are my answers:

1. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

The (Possibly?) Redeemeable Character: Holden Caulfield, the angsty protagonist

 

2. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

The (Possibly?) Redeemeable Character: Heathcliff, the controlling and moody love interest

 

3. Oryx and Crake (MaddAddam, #1) by Margaret Atwood

The (Possibly?) Redeemeable Character: Everybody. Or at least the main human characters.

 

4. Yellowface by R.F. Kuang

The (Possibly?) Redeemeable Character: Juniper Song, the deceptive protagonist.

 

5. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

The (Possibly?) Redeemeable Character: John, the confused protagonist

 

6. Logan’s Run by William F. Nolan

The (Possibly?) Redeemeable Character: Logan-6, the brave but impressionable protagonist.

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A Review of Into the Weeping Waters

Book cover for Into the Weeping Waters by Lee Murray. Image on cover shows a young, pale woman with long, straight dark hair standing up and looking down at her feet. She’s wearing a flowing white nightdress and appears to be standing on the bed of a river or lake. She is submerged in the dark, murky water and is standing near what appears to be wreckage from a crash of some sort. It looks more like a large machine than a boat, though, so maybe it was dumped in the water? You can see a few large wires coming out of this device whatever it is as well as a piece on it that looks like a wagon wheel or possibly a motor of some sort. Title: Into the Weeping Waters

Author: Lee Murray

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: August 21, 2024

Genres: Horror, Paranormal, Historical

Length: 36 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 3 Stars

Blurb:

Taking the train home for Christmas eve, McKenna’s mentor, the Māori prophet Rawiri Temera, is plunged headlong into a ghostly adventure.

Content Warning: Death, emotional and physical trauma, a train accident, and a few brief descriptions of severe injuries. I will not share any gory details, but I will need to discuss these topics in my review.

Review:

Not all tragedies can be avoided.

The rules for how ghosts behave in this world intrigued me. Somehow they knew exactly what they could and couldn’t do from the beginning without anyone explaining it to them. There were a few logical hints about how they came to this knowledge, but I think it’s best to leave the logistics of it for other readers to figure out for themselves. Not every paranormal tale spends much time thinking about what it might be like to be a ghost or how clearly the recall their previous lives, so I appreciated the fact that this one did.

I would have liked to see more plot development in this short story. There simply wasn’t much of it, and what was shared wasn’t explained like it  could have been even in a piece of this brief length. It almost felt like reading a few pages of a full-length novel instead of something that was intended to be a standalone work. That is to say, I liked what I read, but it ended too quickly for me to feel satisfied with what the narrator had to say about what happened.

Some of the most interesting scenes were the ones that described the aftermath of the crash. It was chaotic, of course, but the author also took the time to describe the little moments that could be seared into a person’s brain forever after experiencing such an event. Trauma can be like that sometimes, and I appreciated the way this was written. It was a little gory in a few places, but I could tell that was done to paint a vivid pictures of the horrors Rawiri was witnessing instead of to simply shock the readers.

As a quick aside before I finish off this review, this was set on Christmas Eve but it did not have a Christmas feeling to it at all. If anything, choosing such a typically festive time of the year for it only made the accident more heartbreaking.

Into the Weeping Waters made me shudder. 

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