As with many books I review, particularly with authors I do not familiar with, I read little about them in advance and dive straight in and see where it takes me. Rob Bliss’s Widow was such a novel; I was vaguely aware it concerned a woman and her son being stalked by a benevolent presence, but little else. Which it was, and it wasn’t, as the pair were repeatedly hunted by monstrous pigs which were the size of rhinos, who appeared in the middle of the night. That basic synopsis makes Widow sound very trashy, but it really is not, far from it. This was a very strange book and I doubt there is any single ‘correct’ interpretation of what it all means (which might also be nothing). I’m certainly not sure I understood it, and after the exceptionally bizarre ending I went right back to the start and read the first 10% again searching for a clue I might have missed which might provide more answers. The author should take that as a compliment. Ambiguity is an important part of the horror genre and Widow has it in buckets, but the next reviewer may well disagree with my interpretation. It’s just one of those books.
 
The story opens not long after the death of principal character Joan’s husband and she is then forced to move from home to home as they are repeatedly followed by entities which seem to be both hunting them and deliberately destroying the abode they have moved to. Crucially, before the death the family had a pig farm, whether this is the reason why the entities which stalk them take the form of giant pigs is open to question. It is never made clear how many times they have moved, but Joan’s son Joey, longs for a proper home again and as he also sees the pigs, it is clear the manifestations are not merely from the imagination of Joan.
 
There was something of the classic fairy-tale in Widow, or an inversion of it, where the little (hardly!) pigs become the hunters and destroy yet another house. Of course, in the Three Little Pigs story there is also a wolf, so make sure you hang in here for a howler of an ending! There were many very peculiar passages of action, for example, when an old truck driver gives Joan the key to live in his remote cabin (who would do that?) or when an armed policeman turns up at her cabin. It had a strange magical realism vibe to it and once in the cabin the mother and son become hunters themselves, literally overnight, killing for food.
 
Some readers may find the vagueness of it all frustrating; why were they being hunted at all? The mother repeatedly does strange stuff; at one point they build a house in a field made from hay-bales. Hang on a minute, didn’t one of the three pigs live in a straw house? I get the feeling not all of this was supposed to make sense. It that was deliberate the author surely nailed it! There are relatively few characters in the book, but the relationship between Joey and his mother was a real standout and the matter of fact way the little boy accepts the normality of being stalked by a giant pig was quite unnerving; “The house is gone, mommy. The piggy’s eating it,” he says before they hit the road once again. Widow is mainly written in the third person from Joan’s point of view, but it does move to Joey on occasions also.
 
I don’t want to say much more about Widow otherwise I’ll be heading into spoiler territory. It’s quirky, odd and a rather unique read which is likely to be one of those books which will both split the critics and frustrate readers. Having said that, I still found it oddly charming. Potentially it could have been developed into a more substantial work as so much is left unsaid. Does it have a deeper, more symbolic, meaning? Only Rob Bliss can answer that question. Or perhaps it is simply about a mother and son being stalked by giant pigs? I’m happy either way.
 
3.5/5
Tony Jones

From "master of cosmic horror" (Library Journal) Mary SanGiovanni, comes the latest terrifying novel featuring occult specialist Kathy Ryan . . .A mind is a terrible thing to destroy . . .
Kathy has been hired to assess the threat of patient Henry Banks, an inmate at the Connecticut-Newlyn Hospital for the Criminally Insane, the same hospital where her brother is housed. Her employers believe that Henry has the ability to open doors to other dimensions with his mind-making him one of the most dangerous men in modern history. Because unbeknownst to Kathy, her clients are affiliated with certain government organizations that investigate people like Henry-and the potential to weaponize such abilities.
What Kathy comes to understand in interviewing Henry, and in her unavoidable run-ins with her brother, is that Henry can indeed use his mind to create "Tulpas"-worlds, people, and creatures so vivid they come to actual life. But now they want life outside of Henry. And they'll stop at nothing to complete their emancipation. It's up to Kathy-with her brother's help-to stop them, and if possible, to save Henry before the Tulpas take him over-and everything else around him.

From the bestselling author of The Silence comes a brand-new horror eco thriller. In large areas of the planet, nature is no longer humanity's friend
In a time when Earth's rising oceans contain enormous islands of refuse, the Amazon rainforest is all-but destroyed, and countless species edge towards extinction, the Virgin Zones were established in an attempt to combat the change. Off-limits to humanity and given back to nature, these thirteen vast areas of land were intended to become the lungs of the world.
Dylan leads a clandestine team of adventurers into Eden, the oldest of the Zones. Attracted by the challenges and dangers posed by the primal lands, extreme competitors seek to cross them with a minimum of equipment, depending only on their raw skills and courage. Not all survive.
Also in Dylan's team is his daughter Jenn, and she carries a secret - Kat, his wife who abandoned them both years ago, has entered Eden ahead of them. Jenn is determined to find her mother, but neither she nor the rest of their tight-knit team are prepared for what confronts them. Nature has returned to Eden in an elemental, primeval way. And here, nature is no longer humanity's friend.

This book may be my favorite read so far this year.  It’s a YA novel, but I sometimes really enjoy reading books aimed at an audience younger than me.  But it was a very enjoyable read and I found myself looking forward to reading it every day.  Between the believable characters, the clever storyline and Rhonda’s writing style, this is definitely one to pick up.
 
I liked the first-person narrative very much.  Rhonda did a very good job of writing in Morgan’s point-of-view.  Morgan is dealing with a couple of recent traumatic life events - one that has deeply affected her entire family - and another she is afraid to speak about and is trying to work through it alone.  I was able to see a deep and realistic world through the eyes of a teenager but also get enough perspective of the world around her to where I felt like I was part of her world.  I know that writing in the first-person POV can be a challenge, and I know some readers don’t like reading in that POV at all, but Rhonda did a beautiful job of helping me experience Morgan’s world like the teenager she is.
 
Rhonda has a very pleasant writing style.  Everything is easy to understand - there was no having to re-read anything because everything flowed so nicely.  Her dialogue between characters was very natural.  And I loved the detail she gave to the characters’ actions - their facial expressions, body language, and nonverbal cues were so realistic it was like watching a movie.   
 
While it took awhile for the action and the creepiness to pick up, overall the storyline was fantastic.  Every time I thought I’d predict a situation’s outcome, it would turn in a totally different direction.  And the parts that were meant to be creepy, where really creepy.  Some of the scenes took place in an old, abandoned hospital with a dark history and rumors of a ghost.  That always puts me in the mood for a creepy story.  I love abandoned buildings, so experiencing the creepy hospital with Morgan was a real treat.  I also liked the concept that a Polaroid camera could draw out the absolute worst in people with just a simple snapshot.  And there was some real beauty painted into the scary, nightmarish scenes near the end.
 
My only complaint with the book is that it was a little heavy on the inner workings of Morgan’s mind.  I know she was working through some very believable and very traumatic events, but I was hoping for more scares.  The ending felt rushed and I was left with a few big unanswered questions.  Normally that would bother me, but honestly I enjoyed the book’s overall atmosphere and Rhonda’s writing style so much that I’m willing to overlook it.  And maybe it was purposefully left open-ended to make room for a sequel??  I would totally dig a sequel.
 
If you enjoy YA novels or know of a teen looking for a horror book that’s not so much about being scary as it is about dealing with sad and traumatic past experiences, this is one to consider. ​

 
I’ve spent my whole life being late to the party, and my reading habits are just another manifestation of this general failing. I’ve not read a huge amount of Paranormal Romance or Urban Fantasy, despite both subgenres having been around so long that people are now muttering darkly about the markets being oversaturated. Moreover, the book I’m about to review, Blood Ink by Dana Fredsti, is in fact a sequel to 2017’s Spawn of Lilith, and I haven’t read that either. You may by now be wondering why I asked to review this book at all! Well, there are two reasons: i) I fancied a change from my usual reading material, and ii) I was attracted by the way Fredsti has managed to put a new spin on an area of fantasy which is, if not saturated, at least well- populated.

The heroine of Blood Ink, Lee Striga, is a young stuntwoman living and working in LA. In Fredsti’s world, Lee’s chosen profession is dominated by “supernaturals” – people who appear more or less ordinary on first inspection, but who turn out to be werebeasts or hemidemisemigods or what have you, and draw on their supernatural talents to excel in their jobs. Putting aside the unlikeliness of these “supe” stunt teams managing to keep their secret natures safe from the general population (this isn’t Ken Loach gritty realism after all), I was intrigued by the opportunity to learn about the life of a stunt performer, especially as the author is herself a B-movie actress who has done her own sword stunts in the past.

Things get off to a promising start. In lieu of conventional opening chapters or a prologue, Fredsti has made the unusual move of beginning the novel with two chunks of scripts from different films Lee has been involved with. These sections are interspersed with Lee’s own thoughts, and in the process we learn a bit about her backstory – she’s now recovering from injuries sustained on the disastrous film shoot featured in the first book. This is done in a way that flows well and doesn’t feel too much like an info dump.

Lee is finding it hard to get work after killing a producer, like you do, though we do get to see her perform a human-torch fire stunt, a scene full of interesting detail. After that things do start to wander a bit, however. The main action in this book is meant to be set in New Orleans, but it actually takes a surprisingly long time for Lee to touch down in the Big Easy. This absence of action is bad news for a novel of this kind, which should be quick off the blocks, pacey and full of pulpy thrills, though this state of affairs is perhaps partly explained by Lee’s underemployed status – the job she’s hired to do in New Orleans is not a very desirable gig, so some time has to be spent screwing her up to the right pitch of desperation to take it. On the plus side, Lee’s story is intercut with some suitably hideous scenes featuring victims of a dodgy occult tattoo artist. The poor saps’ sufferings are conveyed in deep third person in a way that should be nasty enough for most fans of horror, let alone fantasy.

The relative lack of hi-jinks in the first half of the book also gives the first-time reader a chance to become acquainted with Lee. In some ways she’s a very average urban fantasy heroine, with the usual propensity for ass-kicking and wry quips. On the plus side, some of these jokes actually hit the target, which is by no means always the case in this type of fiction, and she does have some likeable qualities. She’s a lot fonder of food and drink than you might expect from a Hollywood professional, and her attitude to the endless procession of buff paranormal studs draped throughout the book is reassuringly non-stupid. This is not the sort of book where endless scenes of otherworldly bonking are deployed to mask a lack of plot, either, and the reader will finish the book mercifully uninformed as to whether or not love-interest werewolf Randy is the proud possessor of a lupine knot.

But what of Lee’s friendships with other women? This, in my experience, can be a stumbling-block for some paranormal romance writers. In my opinion the field is too full of heroines who are presented as “tomboys” (despite being very conventionally feminine-looking), a condition which is then used as a springboard for slut-shaming the other female characters and engaging in all sorts of plain old misogyny.  I won’t deny that I  feared the worst when Lee announced that she’s always found it hard to form ties with other women, but fortunately Fredsti includes some welcome character development which has Lee both deepening an existing female friendship (as a bonus, her friend is the sort of character who’d probably get whacked with the slut-hammer in a less feminist book) and even making a new mate once she hits New Orleans.

In fact, apart from the opening chapters, Lee’s burgeoning friendship with the hard-up young tattoo artist Tia is probably the best thing in the book. While Fredsti’s evocation of the touristic delights of New Orleans is not going to be costing James Lee Burke any sleep, there is a scene where Lee visits Tia’s makeshift home that feels very real, and it offers some much-needed ballast in a novel where things eventually start getting very supernatural indeed. Fredsti is going for a full-on Lovecraftian Elder God thing – in fact the word “Lovecraftian” is used twice as a descriptor – and there are great quantities of squamous, rugose beasties and revolting occult/human hybrids for those as want them.

Personally, although I enjoyed Lee’s original use of a plastic coffee-shop knife in her fight against the slobbery-tentacled forces of evil, I would’ve liked to see more of the stunt stuff and less of the cosmic horror elements, which I find often work best when used sparingly. Considering Fredsti’s background there are surprisingly few details about film-making and stunts. “Write what you know” is a dreadful cliché, but I honestly think she should make more use of her knowledge of this fascinating world. It’s certainly a strategy that works when she puts her experience of cats to hand! (Fredsti is a cat charity advocate, and one of the book’s most lifelike scenes involves some werekittens tumbling about in an endearing manner while inadvertently switching back and forth between their human and feline forms.)

All in all, though, I’m pretty sure ‘Blood Ink’ will satisfy lovers of writers like Charlaine Harris and Lilith Saintcrow. Although it has some pacing issues it’s not a hard slog, and is in fact the kind of easily digestible, escapist fiction that is often described as a good “beach read”. Though rest assured, the beach in this case would definitely be writhing with the abominable spawn of the Great Hydra Mother and drenched in the blood of sunbathers who’ve failed to dodge the salty wrath of Dagon. And that is how it should be.

Lee Striga—stuntwoman and demon-killer extraordinaire—is in dire need of a job, any job. After the disastrously bloody events of her last movie, word has got around that Lee’s a dangerous woman. Hollywood—even the supernatural side of it—has closed its doors to her. That is, until a mysterious new producer appears with a job offer that seems too good to be true. Pity Lee can’t stand the sight of him.
But beggars can’t be choosers, and soon Lee is in New Orleans, working stunts on a horror movie like no other—with a cast and crew of werecats, crocodile-men, and an artistically frustrated ghoul. But before she even arrives on set, Lee’s demon-killing legacy as Lilith’s descendant draws her into a whole new mystery, and a desperate fight for survival.

​
The Twisted Ones is a creepy folk horror with nods to (or maybe a unknowing sequel to) ‘The White People’ by Arthur Machen. From a troubled childhood into an equally (by the sounds) troubled adulthood, Mouse has the unfortunate duty of going to clean up, and empty out, her deceased grandmothers’ home. Not a task anyone relishes, even more so when you didn’t really get along with the lady, or even like her very much. I thought it was a nice touch that they acknowledged that families may not get along or even like each other, but if you need them, they will be there.

With her Redbone Coonhound ‘Bongo’, she begins the arduous task of going through one cluttered room after another in this house of a hoarder, eventually coming across her late step-grandfather’s journal. It seems like nonsense, the ramblings of a mad man, but then Mouse witnesses the ‘ramblings’ first hand in the woods.

“I made faces like the faces on the rocks, and I twisted myself about like the twisted ones, and I lay down flat on the ground like the dead ones.”

I quite enjoyed this tale, more so for the character element than the story itself. There are some great characters, Foxy particular being my favourite of the book. A vivacious lady with a heart of gold who has no trouble saying what she thinks.  I also found the descriptive element, and the snark of Mouse quite refreshing. I especially enjoyed a scene early on while she is going through the house and finds ‘the doll room’, referring to it as a “monument to infanticide”. I find dolls extremely creepy, especially those porcelain ones that could almost be real.

The Twisted Ones is a great read, particularly like I said, if you are a fan of The White People. It full of chills and it genuinely creepy with a soft side, the relationship between Mouse and Bongo. It’s a fantastic character story, filled with ups and downs and some great relationships with a side of scary.