Sometimes the best possible way to go into any work of fiction, is to go in blind. It leaves little room for expectation and lets the story meet you on its own terms. While I have to admit that I did know the premise of this one, I basically went in blind. Essentially, all I knew was that it was an Encyclopocalypse audiobook (which never let me down), and that it was about a student veterinarian and conwoman becoming the target of a serial killer when she lures him into her honey trap.

Pru, the kickass female lead in this one, poses as an underage girl on dating apps to bait perverts into taking advantage of her. Usually, she turns the tide on them, takes their money, and escapes without harm. Unfortunately for her, one particular target, Calvin, is running the same kind of game. Only, he’s a lot meaner than she is. Calvin baits young girls and chops them into pieces. When their paths cross, Pru manages to escape her first encounter with Calvin, stealing some of his belongings as she flees.

As you can imagine, this one becomes a deadly game of cat and mouse for Pru. Calvin works his angles as he tries to recover the incriminating evidence Pru has taken from him, and Pru battles with her conscience as she decides whether to go into hiding or whether to seek justice for all of Calvin’s past victims.

With that kind of set-up, you’re going to know if this is the story for you, but what I’ll add is that this is a particularly well-told novel, and I’d love to see it adapted into a movie. There’s a great tradition of protagonists like Pru overcoming monsters like Calvin in cinema, and this would add to it. Seriously, if you dig films like Freeway and Promising Young Woman, you’re probably going to love this book.

Of course, Duncan’s character-work is what really makes this book so good. Pru is a genuinely likeable character. She’s flawed and she’s damaged by her past, but ultimately, she’s a hero you can get behind. She cares for injured animals, and while she’s trying to set herself up for a great future, she’s relying on the less conventional skills she has to earn enough to keep her animals going and to get herself through her studies.

By the same token, Duncan’s characterisation of Calvin as the classic traditional father in a God-fearing family and a serial-killing freak with serious perversions is just as effective. He’s created a truly terrifying character, and with his proclivities pitted against Pru’s wiles, this story is a tense and suspenseful affair.

Throughout the course of the novel, Duncan delivers enough moments of heartbreak, splatter, and genuine breathtaking tension to ensure his story grips you tight and keeps you holding your breath until the thrilling climax and unexpected twist. It’s great stuff.

When all of that combines with the high production values delivered by Encyclopocalypse Publications team of producers and narrators, you end up with an audiobook that’s guaranteed to hold you in its thrall. Felicity Day and Sean Duregger handle the perspectives of Pru and Calvin respectively, and they breathe so much life into the characters—thanks to Duncan’s excellent groundwork—that you might even forget you’re listening to character actors.
​
To sum it all up, I can offer no better praise than this: I listened to this audio as I travelled to work, and on two separate occasions, I was so engrossed, I forgot to drink my coffee.

In the August, 1928 issue of seminal pulp fiction publication Weird Tales (the same magazine responsible for first popularizing the material of cosmic horror pioneer H.P. Lovecraft), a story by legendary Conan creator Robert E. Howard appeared featuring a  somber and gloomy 17th century Puritan wanderer whose sole motivation was the destruction of evil in all its unearthly forms. Solomon Kane's inaugurate adventure, 'Red Shadows', set the tone for much of the character's later excursions⎯deeply religious, Kane sported all-black attire and boldly confronted his infernal enemies with rapier, dirk and a brace of flintlock pistols. Readers of the era lapped it up, and multiple stories in the series were released before Howard's tragic and untimely death.

Nearly a century later, Solomon Kane's two-fisted spirit lives in an army of movies and television shows. From Hammer Films' katana-wielding Captain Kronos, to Blade, Buffy and Dylan Dog, The Witcher, the Winchester brothers and Ash Vs The Evil Dead, to Exorcist Vengeance, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and everything in between, the never-ending war on the forces of darkness continues unabated. Yet in its medium of origin that same combative essence has waned through the decades. Now Crucifixion Press has brought blood-pumping pulp intensity back to prose with their new multi-author anthology, Shoot The Devil. Subtitled as 'Ten Double-Barreled Tales of Humanity Defeating the Demonic', editor Eric Postma has successfully assembled a roster of top-tier indie talent who revel in giving the horned one his long due defeat.

Though its specific genre is debatable (Weird Western? Steampunk?), N.R. LaPoint's 'Phantom Ridge: From The Case Files of Virgil Everness', unleashes an unquestionable amount of thrilling mayhem as a husband-and-wife duo comes face-to-fang with an invading force of galactic beasts. 'Who Rules The World?', by L. Jagi Lamplighter gives readers a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the lives of Cornelius, the blind leader of the all-powerful Illuminati, and Ida, the woman who loves him despite her secret vow to crush his clandestine organization. An indisputable horror-western, James Pyle's gripping 'Wolf In The Wind' focuses on a haunted lawman who reluctantly pairs with a spiritualist to stalk a most unusual lycanthrope.

Fiery angelic swords, elf lords, teleportation and yetis (yes, yetis), figure into Russell Newquist's 'Game Warden: A Tale of Peter Bishop', an amusing romp that heralds the book's second half and whose unconventional titular hero happily skews every 'Chosen One' trope when he must protect a group of Boy Scouts from some decidedly high-fantasy poachers. That's followed immediately thereafter by Steven G. Johnson's similarly magical 'The Silver String Job', a taut tale that paints elementals and wizardry with glistening noir polish. 'Last Chance Lane', Michael Gallagher's wry yarn about a demonically-infected plot of ground and the childhood friends who battle the fiend responsible for it, showcases the author's trademark humor and rapid-fire wit to electric effect. And a practitioner of the black arts who's traded everything for a pair of spectral spectacles looses part of his sight but regains his soul once he crosses paths with the Divine in Corey Comstock's redemptive 'Eye Hath Not Seen'.

As a complete work Shoot The Devil is more than the sum of its many parts; it's fun, entertaining and robust with memorable characters. There are, however, minor pitfalls. As with most anthologies, not every story will satisfy themselves among all audiences; given the singular theme an understandable repetition exists among the chosen tales, and irksome times arise when certain entries feel less like fiction than proselytizing sermons or poorly disguised political screeds. Any trifling complaints, though, are quickly forgotten amid the pulse-pounding fury of these pages: fisticuffs, gunplay, sword fights, sorcery and psionics⎯there's rarely a dull moment, and at times the reader must step back just to catch their breath. But that crackling kinetic energy is exactly what sets this compilation apart from the current crop of terror-tale tomes; these aren't woe-begotten stories wallowing in existentialist misery, nor nihilistic exercises in brutal torture porn excess⎯this is about re-establishing the genre's endangered Good-Triumphs-Over-Evil motif, and to that end three efforts within Shoot The Devil deserve outstanding mention above their peers.

Tense from first line to last, the volume's very opener, Daniel Humphrey's 'An Exorcism For The Demon', kicks the anthology off on a strong note as a paranormal investigator with a commanding psychic ability called the push is summoned to purge ghosts haunting the house of a man who might be a serial killer. And ripping action highlights Declan Finn's wonderfully clever 'To Catch A Monster', whose mysterious-yet-vaguely-familiar demon slayer may have been more monstrous than any devil in his day.

But of all the tales, none is more worthy of unabashed praise than John C. Wright's chill-inducing masterpiece, 'Fell Beasts'. Digging deep into his characters' psyche, this simple yet powerful narrative straddles the thin line examining precisely what it means to be alive, dead, and undead, then deconstructs that overdone vampiric archetype into something genuinely new, thought-provoking and frightening. Wholly unique, 'Fell Beasts' is not only the valedictorian of Shoot The Devil, but one of the most original pieces of vampire fiction in recent memory.

With its congress of kick-ass leads intent on delivering a bullet to the skull of Satan's many earthly minions, Shoot The Devil will undoubtedly provide readers hours of vicarious demon-dispatching enjoyment and allow the faithful soul of Solomon Kane to exist well into the new millennium.
​
I hereby bestow Shoot The Devil a well-earned 4 (out of 5) on my Fang Scale. Will Crucifixion Press reload their literary six-guns to Shoot The Devil again with a sequel? I wouldn't be surprised if the answer is yes.

Exposed to the weird worlds of horror, sci-fi and comics as a boy, Damascus Mincemeyer was ruined for life. Now he spends his time doing lurid book cover illustrations and publishing fiction in various anthologies. He lives near St. Louis, Missouri, USA, and has one volume of short horror stories, Where The Last Light Dies, and a forthcoming horror novel, By Invitation Only, to his credit. He spends his spare time listening to music nobody else likes and wasting far too much time on Instagram @damascusundead666

So how far WOULD you go to get what you wanted, to achieve the success and adoration that you think you deserve? Would you step over friends, family, and colleagues to get what you want? Would you hold them back while you got ahead?
Or would you kill for it?

In the second book from Lizzie Fry, Cat Crawford goes a little further than just asking the question. Initially befriended by Erin, the woman she idolises at work, the shining example of what she wants her career to be, a silly misunderstanding leads to revenge, murder and promotion!

Lizzie's second book is a fun thriller exploring just how far people will go to get what they want. It's a tale of obsession and misunderstanding; Fatal Attraction without the sex and rabbits, although who knows where things might end up with Cat!

Lizzie's writing is clear and unfussy, taking you straight into the heart of the story and pulling you through the pages, wasting no time in keeping the story flowing. The book switches from first person for chapters dealing with Erin's perspective and then to third person for Cat's sections. This is a fantastic way of portraying a story that is really Erin’s, but which actually has two leads. It works really well and, while I know some people have an issue with first person prose, I don't, and Lizzie uses it well in Kill For It. It may even suggest that Erin is telling the whole story from her perspective, filling in the gaps around Cat's story after the fact; just like the reporter she is. I have no idea if that is the case, but it does potentially raise questions about Erin's reliability as narrator if she is reporting her own version of a story in which she is not entirely blameless. However, you will have to read the book to decide whether I am an unrecognised genius or talking out of my arse. (And, when you have read Kill For It, please don't feel obliged to tell me which you think it is! 😁)

The story unfolds in a fairly predictable way as the first few chapters introduce us to our leads as they drift into each other's worlds. However, once things are set up and the ball is rolling, it very soon spins out of control and there are plenty of twists and turns to keep everyone guessing; I definitely didn't see them all coming, and the book certainly didn't end quite the way I expected.

And that is definitely a good thing!

Kill For It is a great follow-up to The Coven from Lizzie. While the two books have vastly different storylines and worlds (office politics v witches) they both focus on issues faced by women on a daily basis, the forces that conspire to hold them back and the lack of value placed on them by society.

I know that is going to put some people off because it sounds 'woke,' or you don't want feminism shoved down your throats. Well, that's your loss. While the message is clear, it is not heavy-handed and, to be honest, if it makes you uncomfortable, then you are probably part of the problem.

At the end of the day, Kill for It is a tight thriller that will keep you second-guessing Cat's next move and, ultimately, ready for more from Lizzie.

Buy it now from Amazon!

Lizzie Fry is a debut author of high concept thriller The Coven (published by Sphere books), but you might know her better as LV Hay. LV’s books previous books were crime fiction: The Other Twin, Do No Harm (Orenda Books) and Never Have I Ever (Hodder). The Other Twin is currently being adapted for the screen by Agatha Raisin producers Free@Last TV.

Enter the Darkness by Sarah Budd

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Brigids Gate Press, LLC (6 Nov. 2022)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 202 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1957537108
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1957537108
​
A Horror Book  Review by Yvonne Miller

Enter the Darkness sucked me in from page one. Darkly claustrophobic, it takes your deepest fears and makes them a reality. Spooky season may be over but you’re going to want to get your buy now finger at ready!

Claustrophobia has always been a key factor in my nightmares. Wandering aimlessly in a place that resembles a maze is terrifying. The darkness, the air running low, and the silence would have my body gearing up to enter survival mode. Enter the Darkness is a story that enters the void with the ricochet of a bullet, you need to stay alert to the potential of being hit at any time. Sarah Budd draws a large red line between realism and fiction; jumping between the two is hazardous but oh-so-fun!

I am a complete sucker for horror novellas – give me the dilemma between the human condition and the things that are not easily explained and I’m a happy reader BUT…

Enter the Darkness is different from other horror novellas,
Enter the Darkness is unlike anything I’ve read in the genre.
Enter the Darkness forges its own way, its own path, albeit dark and abandoned, but you find yourself blindly feeling your way, unaware of what will be awaiting you at the end.

It’s not a big surprise to find out that I freaking loved this story.

I’ve always enjoyed Sarah Budd’s work. Her short stories rival some of the best. Her ability to put the reader into the centre of the story is unrivaled. She knows how to slide into her reader’s minds and set up home there. Inhaling their worst fears and translating them into her specific brand of horror. The story is fantastic but that’s only one part of the package – Sarah Budd’s immeasureable skill ensures that Enter the Darkness is the whole damn show!

How many times have you wandered over the streets of London and wondered just what lay beneath your feet? Well, for me it’s never because I’ve never been to London (I’m a small-town girl at heart) BUT I can appreciate the vast amounts of history that we are walking on. This is the beauty of Enter the Darkness; the history is at the character's fingertips, but a far more ancient evil is lurking in the shadows.

Four characters go into the cave system under the Pavements of London. Garth – a newly hired tour guide of the caves who’s willing to do anything to save the girl he has his eye on. Cassie – a girl who plans to use the cave system for her own emotive gain. Bill – Garth’s boss with more than a few skeletons in the closet and makes it his mission to save Cassie and Garth. Sienna – a girl whose conniving ways have finally taken a trip down karma alley and finds herself as a sacrifice. Each of the characters have their why for being down there and Budd really excels at writing morally grey characters. It’s her examination of the human condition that draws you in – the intricate and slippery ways of human behaviour in times of stress that had me enthralled.

Get prepared for the similarities between As Above so Below (which is one of my favourite horror movies, so I was delighted.) The action was just as jumpy and blood-pumping as the movie and I was on the edge of my seat during scenes. The pages got turned and soon time escaped me. I enjoyed Cassie’s character the most, she wore her emotions like armor, and I could feel her hurt and grief pouring through the pages. She’s lost someone extremely close to her and experiencing those relationships made me think and made me make a phone call. The blame she puts upon herself is what anyone with a conscience would do and it just made her more human. More relatable. I look forward to more work by Sarah Budd. She brings the horror and the human into a concoction of ratcheting tension.

Wow guys, this is over all an amazing anthology. The stories and perspectives are widely varied and diverse, each one is entertaining. It was really refreshing to read portrayals of bigger protagonists and antagonists; most the stories are too complex and intertwined to make the characters easy to define. Each main characters, who were mainly female, were unique and distinct, without fat girl stereotyping. This is very important, because like it or not, people are getting bigger and deserve more representation as real people. Besides, who wants to read the same old character types described repeatedly? Yawn!

I couldn’t pick my favour story after reading the anthology, but a few remain in my mind, a few weeks later, at the time of writing this review. These stories are ‘Cinderella and her Demon God-mother’ by Stephanie Rabig, ‘The Floor is Lava’ by Nikki R. Leigh, ‘Easy Bake’ by Sonora Taylor, ‘The Red Dots in the Window’ by Judith Baron and ‘Like a Thief in the Night’ by Kay Hanifen. Each one is, in my opinion, especially well written, memorable, and entertaining. Several the stories, if not all are first person narrative, which really helps the characters pop out as they con, kill and try to survive the end of the world.


All in all, this is a very good anthology full of strong, larger female characters that jump out of the page up at you.

Beach Bodies by Nick Kolakowski

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0B6XVBP6Y
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Independently published (18 July 2022)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 139 pages
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 979-8841267577

​A Horror Fiction review by Zachary Ashford

Nick Kolakowski takes the home invasion to farther shores with his latest novella Beach Bodies

Every now and then, an author comes along who’s doing something a little bit different to others in the genre. Nick Kolakowski is one of those authors. Delivering high-octane thrills liberal helpings of sci-fi, crime, and horror, his wheelhouse is a little to the left. I’m here for it.

I first became aware of Kolakowski’s work when Brian Asman (yes, that Brian Asman) recommended ABSOLUTE UNIT to me. I devoured it. That’s a bizarro take on body horror that reads like UPGRADE done pulp-horror/bizarro novella. It’s trippy, it’s funny, and it’s violent.

But that’s ABSOLUTE UNIT. This review is about BEACH BODIES. This latest offering is in the same kinda off-kilter vein, and it’s a blast. I tore through this in one sitting, not wanting to put the book down. To start with, Kolakowski is a hell of a writer. His prose just glides off the page, eschewing the unnecessary and providing everything you need to know one-two punches of info and entertainment that are visual and clear.

As for the story itself, it starts with a simple set-up. A billionaire has asked Julia to keep watch over his luscious doomsday bunker on an exotic beach. It’s pristine. She just has to keep it clean and make sure no one comes inside. Except for Alec. Alec, who has an ass full of shrapnel from a battle in Kyiv is also there. So when three people, one of them severely injured, come knocking, they have to make a choice. Break the rules, or let a possibly innocent man die.

As you can see, the set-up is classic. If you’re bracing for a home invasion tale, you’d be spot on, but it’s what Kolakowski does outside of the sub-genre’s modus operandi that sets this tale apart. I won’t spoil what happens exactly, but let me just say that I was hooked. The story had me guessing about what various horrors were next, the action sequences were gory and tense, and the payoff hit with the force of a laser-guided missile.

It's a great book, and it’s one that any novella-devouring member of the horror-reading public should jump on as soon as possible.


Author: Nick Kolakowski: His work has appeared in The Washington Post, McSweeney’s, Thuglit, Shotgun Honey, North American Review, and Carrier Pigeon, among other venues. He lives in New York City.
Publisher: Final Round Press
Publication Year: 2022

​ First of I'm a sucker for local authors. I'm lucky because there is a lot of them in my general area. I'm also a sucker for books about places I've been to Baltimore being one of my favorite places near me.

So imagine taking some acid and you start reading Ghost of East Baltimore. It starts of in the gritty hard side of Baltimore, with the main character Worm just getting out of prison. When I started reading it I wasn't sure if I liked it or not. About 60 pages in is when that acid you took earlier decides to kick in.

Things go south  for Worm everything goes crazy. There's a new drug in the streets of Baltimore. There's people in gimp suits. A drug dealer in a mech suit. Filled with violence , drug use, and language. This might not be a book for everyone.

If you're one of those people like me who doesn't mind those things then this might just be for you. David Simmons does a great job showing that yeah sometimes the streets you grew up on might be rough but you always have a special kind of love for your hometown no matter how bad you want to leave.

Just remember the door locks at 9pm. So be there in time. A good fun solid read. Worth checking out.

​Save the Eastside, save the world.

In Baltimore, Worm has just returned from a two year stretch in prison. When he finds out that his hometown is being brutally destroyed by a dangerous new chemical, Worm is reluctantly catapulted into a phantasmagoric journey filled with chaos and destruction. Can one man save the city before his 9:00 p.m. curfew at the halfway house?


…

“Ghosts of East Baltimore is like The Wire meets Bloodborne directed by Takashi Miike. The wildest time I had reading a book in recent memory.” - J. David Osborne, author of Black Gum and Our Blood In Its Blind Circuit

…

“This is the greatest thing I’ve read all year. Fuck it, longer than that.” - Kelby Losack, author of Hurricane Season and Letting Out the Devils

She stove the baby’s head in with the cast iron skillet; it burst like a pale ripe melon. Laughing, at that moment, was exactly the wrong thing to do…


Three storytellers, working with nothing but the same opening line, gifted for use by best selling author Edward Lee. Add a challenge line supplied by multi-genre wordsmith Christine Morgan (HorrorSmut), fill an olympic-size swimming pool with chum and human waste, and see what splatter crawled out the other side. Exactly the Wrong Things is an extreme horror anthology harkening back to books like Triage (Lee, Jack Ketchum and Richard Laymon), wherein anything goes, and there are no rules. Franklin E. Wales (The Forgotten Dream Park), 2022 Splatterpunk Award winner Candace Nola (Baker’s Dozen) and the blind guy (SICK ‘N TWISTED) have the perfect addition to your body horror bookshelf, but could use some assistance in upping the print quality on this version of a classic ’80s chapbook. 40 pages of brutally nauseating terror, with advance reviews calling it one of the top 5 releases of the year. Help the page-turning garner lots of infected papercuts by backing us at one of the 5 tier levels below. If the fringe of fiction is where you skulk, this one’s going to test your cringe reflex.