SUBURBAN MONSTERS: THIRTEEN TALES OF TERROR BY CHRISTOPHER HAWKINS {BOOK REVIEW}

I have the feeling that Hawkins has a remarkable potential as a skilled narrator, but that he has not fully expressed it. If so, let’s consider this volume as a tasty appetizer of what he’s going to serve in the future to his faithful customers.

SUBURBAN MONSTERS
Thirteen Tales of Terror
By Christopher Hawkins
Reviewed by Mario Guslandi

​Here we have a collection of terror tales ( mostly reprints plus a couple of previously unpublished stories) bound to entertain and disquiet horror fans. Needless to say not all the stories are memorable, but on the whole the book appears to be interesting enough to deserve a place in your bookshelves.

I’ve especially enjoyed “ Green Eyes”, the touching but unsettling portrait of the squalid life of a young girl and of her sick mother and “ Ten and Gone” an offbeat story where a thief breaking into an  apparently empty house finds more than what he was bargaining for.

Other stories worth mentioning are “ Interude” , a heartbreaking tale about a boy whose body is transformed into an inhuman, pitiful travesty of his old self, “ Polly” an insightful, creepy tale describing the unexpected  outcome of a robbery in a peculiar store, and “ Sallow”, a grim piece of psychological horror describing the physical destruction of a lost soul.
​
I have the feeling that Hawkins has a remarkable potential as a skilled narrator, but that he has not fully expressed it. If so, let’s consider this volume as a tasty appetizer of what he’s going to serve in the future to his faithful customers.

Suburban Monsters 
by Christopher Hawkins 

The house at the end of the block with the overgrown lawn. The darkened store window in a forgotten corner of the shopping mall. The colorful characters of a children's TV show. What dark secrets do they hide?

From award-winning author Christopher Hawkins come thirteen tales of the horrors lurking right next door.
​

• A shut-in sets out to make a new life for himself by losing weight at the point of a scalpel.
• A store clerk with a mannequin obsession hides a macabre and tragic secret.
• A master thief tries for one last score in a house that doesn't want him to leave.
• Two friends learn the hard way that having superpowers doesn't always make you a hero. It might just make you a monster.
• A lonely painter finds freedom with the help of something lurking beneath the ocean waves.

At turns whimsical and somber but always unsettling, this debut collection of short horror stories is essential reading from a rising voice in dark literary fiction.

---

the outwaters is reviewed below 

the heart and soul of horror fiction review websites