I love novellas, small enough to devour in one sitting, yet big enough so it doesn't feel like you have been short changed.  When a novella is done properly it should distill the very essence of the story into one concentrated hit of pure storytelling.  

The Waiting is the latest offering from Hunter Shea.  From my previous experience of Shea's work I was expecting another balls to the wall, pedal to the metal all hell breaks loose powerhouse of action horror.  To my surprise Hunter has put on the brakes, eased up on the gas, and written a much more measured novella.

Struck down on her wedding and rushed to hospital for life saving surgery, and trapped in a coma is not what I  would imagine is not how most women would want their wedding to pan out.  Sadly this is what happens to Cassandra,kept alive by hospital equipment and watched over by her loving husband Cassandra is trapped. But Brian isn't the only one watching over her.  The phantom of a young boy also watches over her visible to her husband, is this by an angel or is he something much worse?
 
I  was a big fan of  Shea's previous works, he has repeatedly shown that he is a master of action horror, so does this change of pace and style work?  Well you'll have to read on to find out....

I'm a creature of habit, I love routine, and I hate change. So as to why I decided to read this I'm not really sure. Perhaps it was the atmospheric cover ( don't listen to those who say don't judge a book by its cover), or it may have been the synopsis with it's mention of "mysterious barrows and stone circles" and the worlds first detective. Whatever it was Talus and The Frozen King ripped me out of my comfort zone and plonked me smack down in the middle of a prehistory Celtic land where murder is afoot.  The King is dead, seemingly murdered, and all the signs point to one of his sons being the killer.  Talus the Bard and Bran the Fisherman arrive just as the heinous crime is discovered and quickly find themselves at the centre of the biggest shock to ever hit the Island. 

Going Cold Turkey, I bet that's something a lot of you can relate to, hell I've gone Cold Turkey more times than I can care to remember.  It's a horrible process, where your life is reduced to small individual packets of time, a constant struggle of will.  Which is the total opposite of Carole Johnstone's Cold Turkey.  If going Cold Turkey was this enjoyable   I'd have done it years ago.  

Centered around Raymond (Raym) Munroe and his desperate battle to quit his addiction to cigarettes, it marvelously accounts the   slow and painful destruction of his life and all that he holds dear. Is the Tally Man  real, or are we just witnessing the heartbreaking,  scandalous and chilling descent into total madness?

Has it really been been eighteen years since David Moody first published his debut novel Straight To You?  How time flies.  It feels like just the other day that I was introduced to a new thrilling author, whose brilliant take on the apocalypse made me sit up and take notice.  

So here were are 18 years later, hell that's almost as long as I have been with partner, David Moody still remains one of my must read authors, so when he announced that he was going to release a totally new and rewritten version of this story I was intrigued to say the least.  

Straight to You,  despite the trappings of first novel syndrome was a very good book, it was clear that David was going to be an author to look out for, a strong confident style that balanced the horror of a dying world with a much more personal narrative.   Straight To You hinted at just how good David would become.  

So how does this new addition hold up.....

Zombies, zombies, zombies, no matter how hard I try I just can't seem to escape from their relentless pursuit.  I swear that I will stop reviewing these books every time I review one.  So why do I continually come back to these books? It is rather simple,  when the man who gave us brilliant existentialist horror with  The Respectable Face of Tyranny, and Emergence and Mythos busting horror with Conjure House decides to tackle the shambling dead you better sit up and take notice.  

Gary Fry is an author who always brings some new and unique to the genre.  He's not content to just sit back and knock out the same old cliches, so the thought of him tackling the most cliched of all horror genres is a prospect that should make for a very good read. 

I've got this feeling down deep in my soul that I just can't lose. 


Or so Lionel Richie tells us.  I have a similar feeling, but I don't think it's the same feeling as our dear friend Lionel.  My feeling is that the  beneath the effervescently crazy and jolly exterior Jasper Bark is one of the sickest and most twisted people walking the planet today.  Those familiar with Jasper's previous work in the horror genre will be aware that there has always been dark and twisted side to his work, hell who can forget the zombie sex scene in Way of The Barefoot Zombie,  I can't despite spending All Night Long in therapy.  

With this latest release from Mr Bark, he throws away all pretence of normality and delivers on of the most sick and twisted stories of recent memories.