Tag Archives: 2020s

Winter Solstice Delights: A Review of Midwinter Magic and Mayhem

Book cover for Midwinter Magic and Mayhem edited by Frances Evelyn. Image on cover is a drawing of a pale-skinned woman who is standing outside in a snowstorm with no clothes on. (You can only see her face, neck, and a little bit of her shoulders). Her straight, dark blonde hair is swirling around her head and she is staring at the audience with a serious expression on her face as the snow blows around her. Title: Midwinter Magic and Mayhem

Author: edited by Frances Evelyn

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: October 15, 2022

Genres: Fantasy, Paranormal, Holiday, Romance, Contemporary, Historical

Length: 199 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 5 Stars

Blurb:

Short stories for the darkest of nights
Midwinter fantasy from award-winning fantasy authors

Witches, demons, spirits and ghosts haunt these pages, tricking, trapping and seducing unwary mortals. Humans, meanwhile, are wielding magic and the spirits for their own ends, with no guarantee of good intentions or great success. Along the way, God and Lucifer wash their hands of us all.

Real-world and epic fantasy rub shoulders with fantasy romance and horror in this new collection of short stories by much-loved authors. Ration yourself to one a night to colour your dreams or binge through them all in search of your next favourite series.

Why so cheap? What’s the catch?
Don’t you worry about that. Just put out your hand and let us take you into the chill of a winter night. What could possibly go wrong?

Content Warning: Migraines. Ancient curses and ancient blessings. Characters drinking alcohol. Hypothermia. Death. I will not discuss any of these topics in my review.

Review:

Prepare for something delightful.

Galyna received warnings in her dreams from one of her ancestors about various forms of danger that were threatening her and those she loved “The Horse Woman.” This was something established pretty early on on in the storyline, so I don’t consider it a spoiler. What I found interesting about this tale is that Galyna’s ancestor had lived so many generations ago that nobody in the family knew anything about her other than these few sparse facts. Imagine getting warnings from someone so far back in one’s family tree. Where the storyline went from there surprised me and made it difficult to stop reading. What creativity! I’d read an entire book about these characters if such a thing existed.

“Daisy” showed what happened when Janie decided to adopt an odd little stray cat that showed up in her garden one autumn. There are so many details of this story that I can’t share without giving away the plot twists, but what I can say is that I loved Janie’s compassion for her new pet no matter how strange life became for the two of them. One of my all-time favorite tropes involves ordinary people performing acts of kindness for those who can’t possibly repay them. There is something so wholesome about someone who simply wants to make the world a better place in whatever small ways they can without any expectations of being noticed or thanked, and I don’t think I’ll ever grow tired of reading about these quiet, sweet moments that happen regularly both in fiction and and in real life.

One of the things that frightens me the most about winter is the possibility of getting stuck outdoors in the cold for too long. After Jessica’s car died, she became so hypothermic she fell asleep and then woke up in a bizarre bar in ‘The Spirit of Winter.” Due to the dangerous beginning of this story, I was pleasantly surprised by where it meandered off to after Jessica’s exposure to the cold weather began to affect her so seriously. It was not at all what I was expecting, but it worked well for the characters and plot and gave me multiple hints about how it could be interpreted depending upon how a reader reacts to certain clues.

Midwinter Magic and Mayhem was the perfect read for the holiday season.

Leave a Comment

Filed under Science Fiction and Fantasy

A Review of Christmas Inc.

Book cover for Christmas Inc. by Tim Vee. Image on cover shows one row of metal shelves in a warehouse that are stuffed full of boxes. The florescent lights overhead are dimmer than one would expect and give this scene a sad feeling, especially when combined with the fact that there are no people to be seen anywhere. Just what feels like endless merchandise. Title: Christmas Inc.

Author: Tim Vee

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: November 15, 2024

Genres: Fantasy, Satire, Political, Contemporary

Length: about 181 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 4 Stars

Blurb:

When a new US president is elected, and war is declared on illegal immigration, there is one “illegal immigrant” to America firmly in the cross-hairs of this new president, who was always a very naughty boy and was never, not even once, on the nice list.

Christmas Inc. tells the story of Mrs. Claus, four elves, the reindeer, and a little red crab, and their battle to save Santa and Christmas from the forces of greed, hubris, and dysfunction.

Christmas Inc. is an anarchic, subversive, timely, and satirical look at populist politics, greed, capitalism, slave labor, the cult of the billionaire, and (of course) the magic of Christmas.

Content Warning: Reindeer being harmed. Smoking. A detainment camp for undocumented people. A few brief references to waterboarding (but it wasn’t actually shown). Pigeon pie made from pet pigeons. Someone choking on a bone while eating.

Review:

Not even Santa is safe this Christmas.

It takes a lot for someone to end up on naughty list year after year. Santa would much rather see everyone be judged as nice from what I observed! Some of the most memorable passages for me were the ones that explored how the North Pole worked in this universe and what Santa, Mrs. Claus, and the elves did in the lead up to Christmas Eve to ensure everything ran smoothly. As someone who wasn’t taught to believe in Santa, there were a lot of things about his mythology that I quietly wondered about as a kid when children who did believe tried to figure out how it all worked. It was amusing to see how these characters explained it all and what happened to people who consistently disappointed Santa with their naughtiness.

I thought the satirical elements of the storyline were a little heavy-handed, especially in the beginning. In my opinion, satire works better when it requires some additional work from the audience to figure out what the author is poking fun at. It will be interesting to see if other reviewers agree with me there as I do agree this is a subjective topic and that some readers do need things to be spelled out more clearly in order to understand what’s going on.

With that being said, I enjoyed the thought of Santa of all people being one of people the president targeted as immigrants were identified and removed from society.  One would think that Santa would be loved and admired by everyone who believed in him, but that wasn’t so for reasons I’ll let other readers discover for themselves. This was a fun twist that helped to smooth over the heavy satire in the beginning as it drove home the author’s points.

Christmas Inc. made me chuckle.

Leave a Comment

Filed under Science Fiction and Fantasy

A Review of The World Will Not Miss….

Book cover for The World Will Not Miss by C M Weller. Image on cover is a drawing of a beige spaceship with two large nacelles sticking up from the saucer. It is flying next to a large planet that has stripes of beige, red, and orange stripes on it. Title: The World Will Not Miss…

Author: C M Weller

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: September 27, 2024

Genres: Science Fiction, Satire

Length: 12 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 3 Stars

Blurb:

In a world where branding and algorithms are trusted more than common sense… one trillionaire seeks to break ALL the rules.

Review:

Money makes the world go around, right?

The satirical elements of this story were straightforward and honest, as humorous as that may be to say. They weren’t intended to be difficult to figure out, so don’t worry about that if this isn’t a genre you read regularly. A little bit of pondering should soon bring up a well-known person who exists in real life who acts a lot like the arrogant and impulsive Plutarch Eritruscan. I nodded along as this character’s glaring and sometimes dangerous faults were exposed in all sorts of amusing ways.

It would have been helpful to have more character and plot development in this piece. Everything happened so quickly that I never really had the chance to savor any of it. While I know the narrator wanted to keep things moving briskly along to the end, there was space here for more exploration, and it would have made the final scene an even better payoff if it had been included.

I also liked what this tale had to say about the dangers of wealth. Those of us who are ordinary people will generally be informed if we accidentally say something hurtful or have ideas whose flaws we might not have noticed yet. The wealthy don’t always have these chances to to correct themselves, and it can lead to some of them developing very odd and unhelpful notions about how the world works and how much other people – and in this fictional case even the laws of physics themselves – should bend to accommodate their wacky wishes. It was something of note to think about while Plutarch Eritruscan bumbled around and made everyone’s lives ridiculously harder than they could have been. Yes, it was exaggerated for comedic purposes, but the kernel of truth about the very real psychological, physical, spiritual, and emotional dangers of wealth and power remained.

The World Will Not Miss… tickled my funny bone.

Leave a Comment

Filed under Science Fiction and Fantasy

The Space Race: A Review of The Paean Project

Book cover for The Paean Project by Rudolph Kohn. Image on cover shows Earth as viewed from the moon. You can see just a sliver of the moon - including moon dust - on the bottom of the page. Then there is a lot of inky blackness of space before the little blue Earth comes into view. It’s a cloudy day there and you can see swirls of large clouds over the ocean. Title: The Paean Project

Author: Rudolph Kohn

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: August 11, 2024

Genres: Science Fiction, Historical

Length: 7 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 3 Stars

Blurb:

In this short alternative history science fiction story, we have the journal of a Navy engineer brought into a secret project to continue manned spaceflight trials after the first attempt to reach the moon ended in tragedy. The project drew together some of the best minds of the Navy and the Air Force, as they worked to put a man around the moon. This journal is the only surviving record.

Content Warning:

Review:

If you love epistolary stories, keep reading!

I adored the fact that this was written as a series of journal entries. That’s not a very common style of storytelling these days, but it can work beautifully in certain cases like this one. Let me point out that Mr. Kohn didn’t have a lot of space for plot or character development here, but he used every last sentence to wring out as much of both of them as roughly seven pages would allow for. That is not an easy thing to accomplish, so I will tip my cap to him for making this such a pleasant reading experience overall. By framing everything as journal entries, he pulled this reader into the burning question of what was really happening on this secret project and how much the government may or may not know about the dangers these characters were facing.

As much as I wanted to give this tale a higher rating, the ending made it difficult for me to do that due to how little was resolved in it. This is something I’m saying as a longtime fan of the science fiction genre who doesn’t expect every loose end to be tied up. Some mystery is a fabulous thing in this genre, but in this case I think the plot would have been more satisfying – for me, at least – if the last journal entry or the post script had given some clue about what truly happened to these characters.

With that being said, this was still a positive first impression for me as someone who was brand new to this author’s work. He had a smooth writing style that was easy to sink into as the unnamed protagonist became more unnerved by the strange things occurring during and soon after the manned spaceflight trial. There was a lot of promise here, and I hope he keeps writing. I will definitely be keeping an eye out for more from him.

The Paean Project was thought provoking.

2 Comments

Filed under Science Fiction and Fantasy

Urban Magic: A Review of Bodega Botanica Tales

Book cover for Bodega Botanical Tales by Marianne Rodriguez Bross. Image on cover shows a preteen Hispanic boy who is wearing jeans, white sneakers, and a puffy black jacket standing in the doorway to a greenhouse. What’s interesting about this scene is that the door appears to be outdoors in an alley or urban street as you can see a brick wall surrounding it and some trash on the sidewalk nearby. The greenhouse is lush and filled with flowers and other healthy plants. Title: Bodega Botanica Tales

Author: Maria Rodriguez Bross

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: September 5, 2024

Genres: Fantasy, Paranormal, Contemporary

Length: 46 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author

Rating: 5 Stars

Blurb:

Eleven-year-old Jose has always felt invisible, surrounded by problems no one seems to notice—an empty belly, neighborhood bullies, and a mysterious green-and-yellow bracelet given to him by the Bodega man. One fateful day, as Jose’s struggles reach a breaking point, he is rescued by a supernatural being who transports him to a magical bodega that transports him to a breathtaking, enchanted rainforest filled with magic and mystery. In this extraordinary world, Jose meets another supernatural being, named Don Wicho, who grants him a single wish that will change his life forever. Without hesitation, he makes his wish, desperate to escape his troubles. But once he returns to reality, the boundaries between fantasy and his own world begin to blur. As Jose grows older, he wrestles with the consequences of his wish. Was it all just a dream born of childhood anxiety or did it truly happen? When a chance meeting with someone from his past brings up traumatic memories back to the surface, Jose realizes he is not ready to confront the past. But every wish has a cost, and the consequences of that wish are confirmed. Bodega Botanica Tales- Jose’s Story is the first tale in a series of a magical, coming-of-age stories about courage, resilience, and the price of wishes. Perfect for readers who love fantasy, adventure, and magical bodegas.

Content Warning: Bullying, theft, mental illness, and a developmentally-delayed child.

Review:

Cities are full of secrets.

So much of the fantasy I’ve read was set either out in the woods or in tiny little towns near vast stretches of nature that it was refreshing to read something from an urban environment. Being surrounded by thousands of other people doesn’t mean someone can’t still feel alone or in need to guidance from paranormal sources, and I enjoyed the ways Ms. Rodriguez Bross explored how the unseen world might operate in such a setting.

The world building was strong and memorable. I loved the way the neighbourhood bodega was also a character of sorts in this short story. It influenced the lives of the people who visited it in all sorts of intriguing ways, both magical and realistic. Readers who have been lucky enough to live near a bodega will have a few extra treats to enjoy as they read this, but one doesn’t have to have that particular life experience in order to get something fabulous out of this.

Jose was a relatable protagonist who didn’t always know which decision was the right one to make but who did have good intentions in life. Yes, he was a preteen, but this didn’t feel like a middle grade story and that was part of the charm of it and of this character as well. The storyline was a little more serious and gritty than most middle grade fiction even though I’d agree that some kids may relate to those aspects and enjoy them just as much as adults can. In the end, I think the author was right in marketing this to adults, but I appreciated how easily Jose’s concerns about his family could cross over to younger audiences, too, as he decided how to handle everything from his sister’s physical health problems to his mother’s mental health problems and the bullying he was experiencing from other kids. Writing to more than one audience like this isn’t easy, so I appreciated the chance to view Jose from multiple perspectives as he grew older.

Bodega Botanica Tales made me yearn for a sequel. Bravo!

2 Comments

Filed under Science Fiction and Fantasy

A Review of Veterans of Love and War: A First World War Ghost Story

Book cover for Veterans of Love and War: A First World War Ghost Story by Steven Glick. Image on cover is a black and white photo of a young, white, male soldier who is wearing an old uniform and, oddly enough for this era, smiling a little. Title: Veterans of Love and War: A First World War Ghost Story

Author: Steven Glick

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: February 13, 2024

Genres: Mystery, Paranormal, LGBTQ, Historical

Length: 15 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 5 Stars

Blurb:

Dreams and reality merge in this fateful story of a World War One soldier’s homecoming.

Content Warning: Grief, war, and death. Nothing is graphically described,  but World War I was not exactly a cheerful era.

Review:

The destructive forces of war should never be underestimated.

Social conventions can change rapidly over the generations, so I appreciated how clearly Mr. Glick explained exactly what and wasn’t expected from men, women, spouses, and children in the late 1910s as far as how they behaved and what interests they were supposed to have. For example, men were expected to suppress certain emotions no matter what was going on in their lives. These details were important for understanding part of the reason why David, the young soldier who was coming home for a short leave, felt so out of place in the world.

In some other genres, the foreshadowing here would have been too strong, but for this particular tale it was perfect. Claire, David’s mother, had access to so little information about how the war was going or how her son was doing that readers needed these hints in order for her walk home from Christmas shopping to make sense. (It was roughly 1918, after all, and decades away from anything like the Internet to keep families connected during tough times). Figuring out the plot twists in advance wasn’t the point here in my opinion. Instead, I gently followed along as Claire bought some very last minute gifts and worried about her child.

The ending fit the themes of this story nicely. Interestingly enough, it also provided the most mysterious elements of this piece!, so keep reading if the beginning and middle don’t feel like a typical mystery to you. I enjoyed the way the author played around with the expectations of this genre and thought it blended in well with the paranormal and LGBTQ+ themes, too. Sometimes things need to be rearranged a little in order to successfully mix genres together, and it worked quite well here, indeed.

Veterans of Love and War: A First World War Ghost Story was poignant and beautiful.

 

(If you liked this review or want more paranormal World War I stories in your life, go check out my reviews of An English Heaven and The Last Photograph of John Buckley.)

4 Comments

Filed under Uncategorised

A Review of Old Forests and Older Things Within

Book cover for Old Forests and Older Things Within by Rudolph Kohn. Image on cover is a photo taken of a mountain range on a very foggy day. It’s so foggy, in fact, that this looks like a black and white photo! You can see pine forests growing on the smaller mountains (or maybe large hills) in the foreground, but the fog grows thicker as you look up. It’s an overcast day and only thin ribbons of sunlight make it through the clouds overhead. Title: Old Forests and Older Things Within

Author: Rudolph Kohn

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: August 9, 2024

Genres: Science Fiction, Paranormal, Contemporary

Length: 25 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 4 stars

Blurb:

Victor Martinez-Silva thought he was going to enjoy a leisurely vacation in Peru with his wife.

As they were hiking up to the ruins of Choquequirao, something happened to his wife, Amy–something Victor couldn’t explain, much less stop.

However, a stranger found them in the nick of time, and he seemed to know exactly what to do.

Enjoy this short story introducing Lawrence G. Samson, hunter of otherworldly monstrosities hiding on our planet, waiting for the opportunity to wreak havoc on humanity!

Content Warning: parasitic infection

Review:

Hikes are supposed to be relaxing, right?

Nature can be a little intimidating at times for some of us, so I appreciated the fact that Mr. Kohn leaned into this fear in order to set the scene. There’s nothing like a character being many miles away from help in an emergency to highlight just how quickly things can go wrong and how much courage it takes to race to safety when the unthinkable happens. If any outdoors readers check this tale out, I’d love to read your takes on the themes here as I’m sure they can be a read differently by experienced hikers and campers.

I would have liked to see a little more time showing the characters’ personalities. Obviously, the fast pacing and short length can’t leave a lot of room for exposition, but I’d struggle to describe the characters if someone asked me what it would be like to meet them other than to say that Lawrence didn’t always give the clearest instructions and Victor didn’t always comprehend what he was asked to do because of how panicked he was about his wife’s condition. This could have easily been expanded upon in a few more paragraphs, and I would have happily gone with a five-star rating if the author had made that choice. Everything else about it was well written.

One of my challenges as a book blogger involves figuring out how to talk about twist endings without giving them away in my reviews. The twist is this tale was something I suspected might be coming, but I’m not the sort of reader who has to be surprised in order to enjoy something. It was still fun to see how it played out once Victor had more information about what was happening. I suspect that he would have figured it out sooner under calmer circumstances as my first impression of him was of someone who is generally capable and smart.

Old Forests and Older Things Within was an atmospheric autumn read.

 

Leave a Comment

Filed under Science Fiction and Fantasy

A Review of I Found Puppets Living In My Apartment Walls

Title: I Found Puppets Living In My Apartment WallsBook cover for I Found Puppets Living In My Apartment Walls by Ben Farthing. Image on cover is an AI-generated image of a blue puppet peeking out at the viewer from a wooden closet. There is an ominous tone to this scene even though puppets aren’t scary to me!

Author: Ben Farthing

Publisher: Self-Published (I think?)

Publication Date: August 1, 2023

Genres: Horror, Fantasy, Contemporary

Length: 160 pages

Source: I borrowed it from the library

Rating: 3 stars

Blurb:

Johnny awakes. A puppet looms over his bed.

He recognizes the furry Grandpa was its puppeteer on the children’s television show R-City Street. But Grandpa went missing a year ago. He disappeared from this very apartment building, which was converted from the old R-City Street studio.

Desperate to see Grandpa again, Johnny follows the puppet inside the building’s walls, ever deeper into a puppet-infested labyrinth…

I Found Puppets Living In My Apartment Walls is a horror tale from the “darkly inventive” purveyor of uncanny places and wondrous evils, Ben Farthing.

Each book in the I Found Horror series is a STANDALONE. They can be read in any order.

Content Warning: Puppets

Review:

We need more weird fiction in the world.

I’m going to be perfectly honest in this review and say that I don’t find puppets scary at all. They’re such an uncommon choice for antagonists in the horror genre – well, unless you’re counting dolls and puppets in the same category – that I was quite curious to discover how Mr. Farthing was going to make such cute and cuddly toys into something that fits into this genre. He had a few tricks up his sleeves that made them scarier than they at first appeared to be, and I thought he did a good job with his unusual subject matter. Bravo to him for taking risks and writing something off of the beaten path! (Needless to say, people who are terrified of puppets may have completely difference experiences with this story, so reader beware if that is the case for you).

Once again, there was a lot of repetition in this tale. I believe it would have worked better as a short story or novella as I simply didn’t see enough plot or character development to justify making this a full-length piece. This is something I’m saying as someone who loves short stories and novellas and think they should be much more commonly used than they currently are in modern fiction. I’d much rather read something short, sweet, and powerful than see that same concept stretched out into a longer work, and I would have given this a higher rating for its originality had it either been trimmed back or included more lore to give this world and these characters additional depth.

One of the strengths of Mr. Farthing’s writing style has to do with the motivations his characters have and how well they’re explained. Normally, I’d be suspicious of protagonists who found a giant crack in their bedroom wall and immediately decided to squeeze into it to see what was behind the wall. Wouldn’t they be worried about getting stuck back there or accidentally being exposed to toxic mold or any other number of harmful substances like most of us would be in that situation? The beauty of this story was partially related to the deep grief Johnny and Brittany were experiencing after their grandfather’s mysterious disappearance and their determination to figure out what happened to him. Grief can encourage people to make all sorts of choices they might otherwise think twice about, so diving so deeply into their family relationships made their later decision to go searching for him feel much more reasonable.

While I never share any spoilers in my reviews, I can say that the ending was fabulous and well worth the wait. If you pause in the first chapter or two and wonder if it will be worth it to keep reading, count this as a vote to push forward and see what wonders await you. As I mentioned in my review of the first book in this series, be sure to read the author’s explanation of where his ideas come from after the final scene as well.

I Found Puppets Living In My Apartment Walls was a wild and creative ride.

2 Comments

Filed under Science Fiction and Fantasy

A Review of Why Didn’t You Just Leave

Book cover for Why Didn’t You Just Leave edited by Julia Rios and Nadia Bulkin. Image on cover is a blurry black and white drawing of someone standing inside their home after dark. You can see oddly dim light spilling out of the window and illuminating the silhoutte of this person, but you can’t see any identifying details of them like their sex, age, race, etc. This image has a gloomy and hopeless feel to it as if the person knows they are trapped and have given up trying to escape. Title: Why Didn’t You Just Leave

Author: Julia Rios and Nadia Bulkin (Editors)

Publisher: Cursed Morsels Press

Publication Date: April 30, 2024

Genres: Horror, Paranormal, Contemporary

Length: 308 pages

Source: I borrowed it from the library.

Rating: 3 Stars

Blurb:

It’s the question asked of any story about a haunting: why didn’t you just leave? But if accounts of people who have stayed in haunted houses are any indication … it’s never that simple.

In this book, you’ll find twenty-two all-new stories about the reasons people don’t leave scary situations—parents who stay in haunted houses to protect their children, convicts who literally can’t leave their prison, retail workers who need a paycheck even if it’s from a haunted workplace, trauma survivors suffering from agoraphobia, and more.

Featuring Shauntae Ball, I.S. Belle, Die Booth, Max Booth III, Christa Carmen, Raquel Castro, Alberto Chimal, Gabe Converse, Lyndsey Croal, Victoria Dalpe, Alexis DuBon, Corey Farrenkopf, Cassandra Khaw, Joe Koch, E.M. Linden, Steve Loiaconi, R. Diego Martinez, J.A.W. McCarthy, Suzan Palumbo, Tonia Ransom, Rhiannon Rasmussen, and Eden Royce. With illustrations by Luke Spooner, Yves Tourigny, and Yornelys Zambrano.

Content Warning: Murder. Possible infanticide. Serial killer. Deaths caused by things like drowning, falls, or hypothermia. A character with a transphobic parent who misgenders him. Emotional abuse. A ghost child who died from neglect. Pregnancy. Covid. Animal deaths. Infidelity. Hoarding. I won’t discuss any of these topics other than the last one in my review.

Review:

Escape isn’t always as easy as it may seem.

The bureaucracy in ”Your Application to Vacate 372 Wicker Avenue Is Still Pending” was simultaneously amusing and scary, especially once I realized why this particular home was included as an affordable option for low-income applicants.  Writing it in epistolary form only increased the tension in the storyline as it was easy to imagine what sorts of angry and frightened letters the clerk was responding to as things went from bad to worse.

As much as I enjoyed the theme of this anthology, the stories themselves were  uneven. Some of them were excellent while others ended much too abruptly for my tastes. While I wouldn’t expect every loose end in them to be tied up, there were multiple times when I was left hanging and wondering what just happened. ”The Spirit Bed” was one example of this. It showed what happened to two sisters after one of them was attacked by an evil spirit. I was immediately drawn into the storyline but surprised by how quickly it ended and how many unanswered questions I had by the final sentence.

“AITA For Setting My Dad’s Trailer on Fire?” was a memorable way to end this book. It was written in the style of Reddit post by a character who wondered what her ethical obligation was to her parents whose house had become unliveable thanks to hoarding. (You do not have to be familiar with Reddit or the Am I the A**hole subreddit in order to understand this one, but people who do understand the social conventions on that site and that subreddit in particular many find a few extra things to think about).  I don’t want to give away spoilers about what else she discovered there, but I loved the narrative flow of this one as additional layers of detail were revealed as she  described her parents’  dangerous home without holding anything back.

Why Didn’t You Just Leave made me shudder.

Leave a Comment

Filed under Science Fiction and Fantasy

A Review of I Found a Circus Tent in the Woods Behind My House

Title: I Found a Circus Tent in the Woods Behind My HouseBook cover for I Found a Circus Tent in the Woods Behind My House by Ben Farthing. Image on cover is a probably Ai-generated image of a large red and white striped circus tent that has been set up beside a dark and foreboding forest. You can see a few branches of an evergreen tree poking out in front of the tent almost as if the tree is about to touch this strange invader. There is light illuminating the tent that probably comes from the upper right corner of the image. Weirdly enough, though, the sky itself is grey and overcast. So this light almost appears to be emanating from the tent fabric itself because there’s no other logical place for it to originate from.

Author: Ben Farthing

Publisher: Self-Published (I think?)

Publication Date: January 23, 2023

Genres: Horror, Paranormal,  Halloween, Contemporary

Length: 106 pages

Source: I borrowed it from the library

Rating: 3 Stars

Blurb:

Lost in a labyrinth of circus tents…

Dave and his four-year-old, Jacob, find a circus tent in the woods behind their house. A strange voice invites them through the dark doorway.

When they refuse, the tent swallows them.

What follows is a nightmare fleeing through a maze of circus tents. Strange performers lurk inside. They want Dave and his little boy to put on a show. The a shifting figure on a platform high above the trapeze wires.

With Jacob perched in the crook of his arm, Dave determines to outsmart the boss of this dark circus, and escape this horrifying tent.

Content Warning: Clowns. Blood. Murder.

Review:

The woods aren’t as safe as one might think.

It was interesting to see how parenthood had changed Dave. He gave several examples of what he used to do on the weekends before becoming a dad and how he had to give those hobbies and volunteer hours up due to having two young children to raise. Most of the fiction I read focuses on mothers, so I liked seeing what parenthood can feel like from a father’s perspective. Despite his other flaws, Dave seemed like an attentive and loving dad who was genuinely trying to give his children the best childhoods he could.

I struggled with the repetitive nature of this novella. Dave kept sharing the same thoughts with the audience over and over again, and he didn’t always make the most logical decisions. While I wouldn’t expect a character in his situation to be eloquent by any means, I did find myself wishing that he’d spend less time talking to the audience and more time either getting himself and his son out of that creepy circus tent or figuring out why the circus performers were so keen on luring humans into their world.  As much as I wanted to give this one a higher rating, this issue prevented me from feeling comfortable to do so.

With that being said, I did appreciate the writing style of this piece. It reminded me of an adult version of  the old television show Are You Afraid of the Dark. That is to say, it was a little cheesy in a good way and gave the characters plenty of opportunities to escape. The scenes that included scary moments were not emphasized the same way they probably would have been in, say, a Stephen King story. Honestly, I could see a preteen reader who loved horror being into this just as much as the adult audience it was written for, so it could be a good stepping stone into the horror genre for people who don’t mind brief references to blood but mostly want to be scared by imagining what might happen next.

This is the first instalment of a series that can be read in any order. If you do decide to read any of the books in it, though, be sure to check out the author’s explanations of where his ideas come from after the final chapter. The two I have read so far helped me to see their storylines in a new light and were well worth my time. (I will be reviewing I Found Puppets Living In My Apartment Walls in a few weeks, so stay tuned).

I Found a Circus Tent in the Woods Behind My House was a fun Halloween read.

Leave a Comment

Filed under Uncategorised