Hide by Kiersten White Publisher ‏ : ‎ Del Rey; 1st edition (24 May 2022)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 240 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0593499166
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0593499160

Book Review by Tony Jones 

Kiersten White’s adult debut Hide is blessed with one of the most misleading by-lines I have read in years “The book you need after Squid Game” on its Amazon page. What complete and utter rot. If you buy this book on the back of enjoying the smash South Korean Netflix hit show then you will be deeply, deeply disappointed. All they have in common is the fact that they involve a secret game in which contestants are systematically eliminated, it’s obvious how the killing occurs in Squid Game and is a key ingredient of the mystery in Hide. However, whilst the games played in Squid Game are exceptionally clever, bloody, varied and imaginative, they are the exact opposite in Hide. All the fourteen contestants have to do is hide for long periods and that’s just about it, until something begins to go wrong. Is anybody bored already? I certainly was, and even though this was not a long novel (256-pages) it was a struggle to finish.


Kiersten White is an established YA horror and fantasy writer and previously won the prestigious Bram Stoker Award for the decent The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein back in 2018. Although Hide is pitched as an adult novel I could not shake off numerous YA leanings and perhaps it would have been more successful if it was pitched at that teen audience where there are many similar novels in the same ballpark as this. Instead of having teens as the main characters White shifts up an age-group to the mid-twenties with a group who mostly behave like teens or are dissatisfied with the way their lives have panned out. As events moved on, especially in the closing sections, I was reminded of the popular 1990s YA Point Horror novels and found the ending rather ridiculous. In these types of novels their credibility comes from how the events are framed and this yarn came up short as the blend of thriller and horror failed to click or convince.


In replicating the style of those teen Point Horror novels, the opening pages give a major hint of what lies ahead, by recounting the history of an unnamed amusement park, dating back to 1953. However, jumping forward to the 1970s a little girl disappears and the reputation of the park was ruined and it closed shortly afterwards. Set in modern times, Hide is set in the same fairground which has been left to disintegrate and be reclaimed by nature in the decades which have followed its demise. One would have thought an abandoned fairground would have been an atmospheric location for a horror thriller, but the descriptions were as bland as the game the contestants played.


The plot is based around a simple challenge: spend a week hiding in an abandoned amusement park and don't get caught. The contestants hide for long periods whilst seekers look for them, with two players being eliminated every day. Of course, the competition is shrouded in mystery and there is no wi-fi for budding social media influencers trying to make a name for themselves. Instead, the group find themselves isolated in the middle of nowhere as it slowly dawns on them that things are not as they should be. However, the big cash prize stops the players working as a team, as there can only be one winner and money talks.


Another issue I had with Hide was that there were just too many characters. It did not jump between all fourteen, but the third person narrative featured around half of them, including their back stories and there were very few who were likable and others which were cliché riddled or were obviously carrying baggage or secrets. At various points I also struggled to keep track with who was who and it might have been more successful if it focussed on less characters. As events moved on the story did limit its focus to fewer characters and Mack, a homeless woman with a troubled past, becomes the most interesting and engaging.


Some readers might be surprised the direction the novel takes, but I found it difficult to take it seriously, especially as it was framed as a thriller. Also, the whole idea of hiding in a carousel for ten hours; how on earth can that be sold as ‘entertainment’ for the reader or the poor sucker doing the hiding? As I read Hide I found myself picking holes all over the place, which is never a good sign, and was equally unconvinced by the diary style flashbacks which occur at various points attempting to connect the past and the present.


Hide failed as both a horror and a thriller novel and might have been more successful if it had nailed its colours to one of the masts, instead of hedging its bets and trying to do both. As a thriller it was too ridiculous to be credible and as a horror novel it fell completely flat. Also on the Amazon blurb: “Come out, come out, wherever you are.” Neither was I sure about that line, which might scare a ten-year-old middle-grade reader, the problem being the book was not aimed at that demographic and was rather undemanding for its intended audience.


Tony Jones

BEDBUGS (Can you see them?): An alien, man-eating insect story by Lee Andrew Taylor  
ASIN ‏ : ‎ B08FP3SVGQ
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Independently published (16 Aug. 2020)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 342 pages
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 979-8673289266

A book  review by Brandi Guarino  

After seventy-three years of lying dormant under Lemonsville, an old terror has awakened, and it is STARVING.
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One by one the town’s citizens, both young and old, animal and human, are attacked and used to revive a horde of alien insects bent on world domination.
A group of dedicated police officers set out to contain and destroy the threat to Lemonsville’s citizenry and solve why they are being brutally slaughtered or disappearing without a trace. Even if it means they die trying.




Right from the first page, I knew this was going to be a fun, gory trip of a book. It grabs you by the wrist and pulls you along to fight these bloodthirsty bugs. No one is safe in Lemonsville—young children, elderly persons, animals; everyone and everything is on the menu for the Bugs. So let this be your trigger/content warning.
The story had great pacing and flow; my attention never once wavered. There was great chemistry between the cops themselves, as well as with most of the townsfolk. You feel the dread and fear of the victims, and the anger of the townsfolk who want answers as to what and who is causing scene after scene of carnage. If you weren’t afraid of bugs before this, you will be now.
Even though the story is bloody and brutal, there are moments of hilarity and some tongue-in-cheek jokes. I loved the camaraderie between the officers of the force and their chief. 
All in all, I really enjoyed Bedbugs, and I’m never going to bed without checking under my bedsheets again.




4/5 Stars




Thank you to author Lee Andrew Taylor for providing me with a review copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

​‘NIGHT, NIGHT, SLEEP TIGHT AND DON’T LET THE BEDBUGS BITE’

In 1947, around the same time as the Roswell alien landing, another UFO crashed to earth, falling deep within the soil of Lemonsville County, UK.

And during the night five people were slaughtered.

But nothing happened for the next 73 years.

In 2020, an earth tremor shook Lemonsville to leave an opening for the new killers of the night to attack.

Now, the local police chief and his small group of officers must find a way to solve the mystery of why people are being killed or have gone missing?

It takes him on a journey to the past, where his grandfather was a witness to the original murders, but, as the chief tries to uncover what happened all those years ago, more and more people are being killed.

Will he work out the link and save the people of Lemonsville, or will he too fall to be destroyed by the things that want to take over the WORLD?

The BEDBUGS are coming!!!

Whenever I sit down to pen a review of a Tremblay book, I can’t help but feel that everyone who knows me must automatically expect me to write something flowery and full of praise. My admiration for Tremblay’s work is well known among my small circle of bookish friends. The fact that those assumptions are typically proven accurate does little to assuage a genuine concern about things such as predictability and, even worse, any impression of bias. But I’m here to say with all honesty that every word of praise I’ve ever heaped on Tremblay’s work (and heaped, I have) has been truly sincere and entirely well-deserved. 

As a matter of fact, I will fully admit that when I first heard about his latest project, a memoir-slash-novel whose inconsistencies and loose adherence to the truth are continually called into question by one of two unreliable narrators in notations hand-written in glaring red ink along page margins throughout the book, even I was a little dubious. There is no question THE PALLBEARERS CLUB is unlike any of Tremblay’s previous books. Which should come as no surprise to those already familiar with Tremblay’s work, as no book of his is really like any of the others. He seems to be constantly reinventing himself. And in a genre in which a certain amount of success can often be found in little more than a simple adherence to tried and true formulae, Tremblay’s willingness, which may be better described as eagerness, to continually experiment with a writing style that has garnered such critical and commercial success is commendable and, yes, even brave. Imagine if New York Yankees Hall of Famer Joe DiMaggio had changed bats after every game of his 56-game hitting streak, an idea which I’m certain Joltin’ Joe never for a moment entertained. Why would he? Don’t fix what isn’t broken, right? 

Yet this is exactly what Paul Tremblay does. Over and over again. And still his hitting streak continues.

THE PALLBEARERS CLUB introduces us to Art Barbara, a socially awkward high school senior who, in addition to being branded as something of an outcast, is forced to deal with the unfortunate and debilitating effects of a severe case of scoliosis. Art has a fondness for punk rock music and a desperate desire to leave his small-town life behind. With this as his ultimate goal, Art decides to create The Pallbearers Club in an effort to bolster his college acceptance prospects which, while strong academically, are woefully lacking in extracurricular activity. The idea is that members of TPC will volunteer at local funeral homes as pallbearers and attendees at funeral services conducted for the recently departed homeless and elderly who may not have many (or any) loved ones left to bear witness to their passage into the great beyond. It is during the second service attended by the club that Art meets Mercy, an unapologetically forthright and mysterious girl with the macabre habit of photographing both the living and the dead with her ever-present Polaroid camera in an attempt to discover evidence of lingering spirits. Mercy (the author of the ubiquitous red-inked notations mentioned earlier) will play alternating roles of friend and nemesis throughout the remainder of the book. She and Art come together and drift apart over the course of many years. The drifting apart always precipitated by the strange and often terrifying things that seem to happen whenever Mercy is around. 

I mentioned earlier that no two Trembly books are alike. While that is certainly true in terms of the path he takes to get his stories across, I found the kind of creeping horror found in THE PALLBEARERS CLUB to be very much like that found in Tremblay’s fantastic, Bram Stoker Award-winning novel A HEAD FULL OF GHOSTS. TPC is a quirky, strange, and, at times, humorous book. But make no mistake, the kind of cleverly ambiguous, what-the-hell-is-going-on-here scares that are so emblematic of Tremblay’s work are most certainly there. And they are there in spades. To that point, there is a line in the book that I consider to be among the scariest sentences ever written in a horror novel (slash memoir). I hesitate to reveal it because it would be a tad spoilery. But I put it right up there with “And I think she’s still waiting for her goodnight kiss” from Stephen King’s ONE FOR THE ROAD and “Good God! Whose hand was I holding?” from Shirley Jackson’s brilliant THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE. I trust you will know it when you read it by the shivers running up and down your spine.

Believe me, THE PALLBEARERS CLUB is the kind of book that will make you hesitant to turn out the lights at bedtime. It contains some of the more genuinely creepy scenes I’ve read in quite some time. It’s also got every bit of the emotional pull of Tremblay’s earlier works; populated with exceptionally well fleshed-out characters that you will very quickly grow attached to and the things they are forced to confront throughout the course of the book are not exactly what you would describe as pleasant. 

THE PALLBEARERS CLUB is now among my very favorites of Tremblay’s’s books. I simply cannot recommend it enough.
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And I mean that sincerely.

George is a lifelong fan of horror fiction with a particular interest in small press and indie authors. He is also a proud member of the Horror Community on social media. You can find him on Twitter as Book Monster @Sshh_ImReading

​

I have a confession to make; I don't even know where Exeter is, and after reading David Watkin's techno-thriller-horror, rollercoaster of a novel, I have no wish to step foot in the place, for it is a cursed (you need to pronounce that as cur-said for full effect) place, a place of death, doom and destruction, a place that will after reading this novel leave you with a feat of balls.  


While I have read most of David's work, this is the first full-length review I have written for one of his books; the last review was for his story in Leaders of The Pack, a werewolf-themed anthology, which turned out to be one of my favourite stories in the anthology. As for David's novels, I have always had a fun time with them, but more importantly, I have seen the progression and development of David as a writer; yes, The Original's Return was an entertaining werewolf novel. Still, it did have some of those first novel issues that often stop a debut novel from being brilliant rather than very good. It sounds as though I am being negative about it, which is far from the truth; there was more than enough great writing and great ideas to put David on one of my lists, not that list, although I can't remember his stance on coffee creams. Dave, do I have to put you on that list as well?  


This brings us to his fourth novel, The Exeter Incident, a balls to the wall, pedal to the metal, all guns blazing, horror, techno, police procedural thriller that hits the ground running from page one and refuses to give up until the final page is turned over. Your eyes and brain are smoking from the relentless narrative drive of Watkin's writing.  


The Exeter Incident starts with a pair of detectives investigating some gruesome murders, but they quickly realise that these murders are far from the ordinary, and soon they, along with the rest of Exeter fighting for their lives against an ancient enemy that won't stop killing until vengeance has been found. As Exeter finds itself cut off from the rest of the world, it is up to our rag-tag bunch of heroes and antiheroes to save the day and battle a ferocious enemy that is relentless in the desire to kill. 


Since reading The Exeter Incident, I have been wracking my brain trying to think of a novel that comes close to the manic intensity on show here, and I can't think of one. Watkins has a perfect grasp on how to create a narrative that forces the reader to keep on reading, from exciting, cinematic set pieces that remind me of the classic science fiction novel The Legacy Of Heriot, especially when all hell breaks loose, to the resourceful use of some familiar horror and sci-fi tropes, to the spartan but compelling characters and character development, all of which work together in perfect unison to create a story that delivers on all fronts.  


I particularly loved the villains of this story, Watkins could simply have gone down the road of creating a one-dimensional set of creatures whose only desire is to kill, but Watkins instils them with a rich and interesting backstory and a wry interpersonal relationship. Obviously, the confines of this story prevent it from reaching the epic levels of something such as Game of Thrones; nevertheless, the motivations and characterisations of these creatures are totally satisfying. I would love to read more stories about their history, where they came from, and how this family fits into the culture of their world. The interplay between "the family" is a nice touch, with infighting, distrust, and discontentment with the status quo; it adds a gratifying layer to the narrative. 




As for the story's heroes, Watkins has ensured that the characters' cast is varied and realistic; one highlight was the relationship between Paul, a criminal on the run desperate to make a new life for himself and the police inspector John Carter. Yes, it veers into a buddy movie territory at times, but Watkins steers their relationship away from the hard shoulder of cliche and keeps it on the straight and narrow.  


In terms of character development, there isn't a great deal on show here, but this isn't the type of novel where you want the action to be bogged down by excessive navel-gazing and long conversations; suffice to Watkins has given all of the significant players enough dimension and substance that you will care about what happens to them, just be prepared for some cheering and a lot of cries of "NOOOOOO!!!!"


Be warned; there is a LOT of blood and guts on display here; the creatures are pure killing machines, from spiked ball tails to skin dissolving toxins and a gloriously crazy method of transportation that isn't so much balls to the wall but walls right through the walls and anything that happens to be in the way.  The Exeter Incident is brimming with creative ways for the supporting cast to die, and boy, do they die in droves.  




Back in the late 80s and early 90s, Graham Masterton, before he went off the rails and became a bit gammony, was the go-to writer for this sort of mish-mash of horror genres; but its time to move over Masterton; there is a new master of techno horror; The Exeter Incident is a glorious over the top thrill ride of unrelenting horror, that thankfully has a fantastic modern sensibility, that manages to be horrific without being atrociously offensive.  ​

A CITY IN THE GRIP OF TERROR

As a series of gruesome murders are discovered in Exeter, Detective Inspectors Danni Brent and John Carter begin to suspect the killer may not be human. Their investigation is only a few hours old when they also realise the murderer can’t be acting alone.

There’s more than one.

A lot more.

Paul Kingston is on the run and hiding in Exeter. Whilst trying to secure a new identity, he comes face to face with an impossible monster. Hunted, alone and afraid, who can he turn to? Who can he trust?

None of them know that Exeter is about to experience its darkest day.

None of them know time is running out.

The clock is already ticking….

WHO WILL SURVIVE AS THE CITY FALLS?

Available 6/24 on Godless and 7/8 on Amazon!

​Cover art by Don Noble

Sons of Sorrow by Matthew A. Clarke 
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Planet Bizarro (25 Mar. 2022)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 224 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1739792300
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1739792305

Review by Joe Ortlieb

Firstly, I would like to say that this is not necessary a book for people who like clear, straight forward narratives or extreme horror, despite the ugly murders of children and (much to my own horror) animals. The Falls very much reminds me of one of my all time favourite Stephen King books, Needful Things. It is a long, complex and twisting narrative from multiple character perspectives, some of them deliciously awful. Combining to tell an interesting and touching story about friendship and what it takes to cause a small town to go bat shit crazy. In the Falls, the town where the story is set, all it takes is a few violent animalistic murders. After all, hasn’t the town suffered enough already? The narrative is set three years after a local serial killer is caught, that legacy lives on in the narrative and explains a number of plot points such as the under staffed and incompetent law enforcement department.

    Overall I enjoyed this book. I liked how the stories came together, the characters were rich and complex, and plenty were worth rooting for. Even the kids were realistic arseholes, characters turned out to be wrong and not everything was explainable. Real prejudices, pain and the horror of our shared existence runs though the plot like veins beneath the skin.
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    The story over all kept me reading and interested. I would say that some of the characters and narrative could have been cut in places, that the amount of characters made remembering who was who tricky at times. The friendship between the three central characters seemed, well odd to me, but still entertaining. This is an interesting book with a mystery that keeps you entertained. This is a piece of written woven art with bodily mutilation at the heart.

Mysterious disappearances. An urban legend rumored to be responsible. And one group of friends determined to save their city at any cost. Stranger Things meets Jordan Peele in this utterly original debut from an incredible new voice.

For over a year, the Bronx has been plagued by sudden disappearances that no one can explain. Sixteen-year-old Raquel does her best to ignore it. After all, the police only look for the white kids. But when her crush Charlize's cousin goes missing, Raquel starts to pay attention-especially when her own mom comes down with a mysterious illness that seems linked to the disappearances.

Raquel and Charlize team up to investigate, but they soon discover that everything is tied to a terrifying urban legend called the Echo Game. The game is rumored to trap people in a sinister world underneath the city, and the rules are based on a particularly dark chapter in New York's past. And if the friends want to save their home and everyone they love, they will have to play the game and destroy the evil at its heart-or die trying.
​
One of the best things about writing reviews for Ginger Nuts is being able to find new writers and new worlds and pick books that sound like they are right up your street.

What is even more amazing is when you DON’T ask for a particular book and, with a mild communication hiccup, you get sent something that may well not have shown up on your radar otherwise.

Burn Down, Rise Up is one such surprise. It’s not like I deliberately didn’t ask for it, my attention was just grabbed by other books before BDRU. I have read a few Young Adult novels and enjoyed them, but they aren’t necessarily my first choice when looking for a new book. Although, having said that, I realise I have one sat next to me on my desk in the To Be Read pile!

But I’m glad there was some confusion, because I really liked BDRU.

The story opens with a character literally running for their lives. Vincent Tirado knows how to grab the reader’s interest and they don’t let go for the next 300 odd pages.

As the cover blurb tells us, Raquel and her friends have to navigate their way through a mysterious game that may have led to people disappearing, and maybe even killed a few, in order to save her own mom and their friend Cisco who is missing after playing the game – the chap running for his life at the start of the story.

And there you have the horror – a high stake game where, if you are lucky, you die quickly.

But you also get great characters who are facing the usual teenage stuff that makes life so difficult to navigate. It’s bad enough having to deal with school, parents and unrequited love, but once you throw love-rivals, neglected friendships, nosey cops and giant centipedes, life goes and gets a lot more complicated.

Frustratingly I can’t get into the plot much more than I have because I don’t want to give anything away. I wouldn’t say that there are lots of plot twists and turns in BDRU, it isn’t that kind of tale, but the game they play is woven into the history of the Bronx and I enjoyed learning about that at the same time as the characters did. To tell you much more about it would ruin the cleverness and originality of the game and how it relates to their neighbourhood. The fact that you get a great story is good enough, but BDRU embeds itself in the past and will, if you are anything like me, lead you off into the depths of the internet to find out more about what was a shocking period in history for those communities. Not only is this a kick-ass YA novel, it also has a serious message underpinning it.

While there are shades of other books and films, I thought it was a fairly original take and something that I haven’t seen in quite the same way before. There are elements here of Stranger Things with missing kids and a version of the “upside down” but with a fresh take and a cast of normally under-represented characters in a non-typical setting. There is more of a connection for Raquel and her friends with their version of the Upside Down which clearly reflects the harsher realities facing ethnic minorities today and how, in many ways, it hasn’t changed over the years.

Otherwise, the focus is on the characters, their relationships and how the adversity Raquel faces brings her back to old friends and pushes relationships to new levels; it’s a coming of age story, but potentially more embedded in reality than many cute, ‘realistic’ teen dramas. The characters are all believable and all the right ones are likeable. The central relationship between Raquel and Aaron is nicely developed and they have a great rapport with each other, which makes it all the more challenging for both when things come between them. The relationships just feel natural. Raquel’s parents are separated, but that doesn’t seem to define her, although it has clearly shaped her and potentially made her stronger – you don’t mess with the girl on the front cover of this book!

Vincent also doesn’t shy away from the darker side of YA horror (Amazon has it as Action and Adventure, but I would definitely see it as Horror (just wait until you join them in the Echo game) and all that comes with it; monsters, evil, injury, terror and death are all here. If you get stuck in the ECHO, you don’t tend to have a happy ending.

I wish I could talk more about it, without giving too much away, suffice to say, I enjoyed BDRU and I would recommend it to anyone with a love for YA fiction, but urge everyone else to give it a try. Vincent Tirado’s prose is smooth and unfussy, but evocative and it draws you in. BDRU is a gateway drug for horror, perfect for any budding horror fans and, while Amazon pegs this at 14-18 years olds, I don’t see anything in here that would be too shocking for mature kids of 12 and over – but that is just my opinion! Due diligence people – don’t get yourself into trouble like my grandparents, sending me a copy of Pet Sematary when I was 10! From those opening moments to the ending, this book could easily be a film, or I could certainly see this as a limited Netflix series. And I would definitely be here for more from these characters.