Spooky Twisties III, 13 Tales of Terror by Terri Bertha

April 17, 2019 By Leave a Comment


Spooky Twisties III, 13 Tales of Terror by Terri Bertha
Publisher: MuseItUp Publishing
Genre: Middle Grade, Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Suspense/Mystery, Horror, Paranormal, Contemporary
Length: Short Story (130 pages)
Age Recommendation: 10+
Rating: 3.5 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

House of Puzzles:Will Chris and Nick be able to solve the puzzles to save their lives?

The Best Book Ever: Can a school book report prove to uncover a little too much for one student?

Pretty Voodoo Doll: What will one of the girls resort to in order to make the cheerleading squad?

A Needed Friend: Why does the mysterious boy seem to be drawn to the girl who visits the graveyard?

Ghost Catcher: Lindsay meets a woman with some amazing abilities at the old-age home. Can you catch a ghost?

Saving Cardinals: Does Amy’s love of birds and animals prove to be a life-saver?

Two Bloke Boys:Will Nick and Chris find gold at the end of the rainbow?

Candle Sense: A thoughtful gift provides a haunting experience.
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Would You Believe?: The science fair and a revolution. Seriously, that’s why I didn’t turn in my homework.

Dronepocalypse: Buuuzzzz…did you hear that?

The Promenade: A trip to the historical museum and an old photo help solve the question of how to ask a girl to the spring dance.

Dire-Rama: WOW! That model looks so real!

Hello Me, It’s Me Again: Will an unexpected family reunion finally put things to rest?

The hidden references in these short ‘horror’ stories foreshadow future encounters and/or connect back to events of previous stories,and the twists in the story endings make reading the tales even more fun for ages 9 and above.

There’s not just one haunted house in this community. Many spots in this area have odd things happening in them.

This is the first time I can remember reviewing a collection of short stories that were about the same group of characters. It was quite interesting to me to read about the different adventures these kids went on with their various combinations of friends. Some of their experiences involved needing to do things like solve riddles or mysteries, so I liked seeing how well they were able to do this stuff depending on who they were spending time with at that particular moment.

It would have been helpful to have more details about the characters since the narrator didn’t describe what any of them looked like. While I did get a good sense of some of their personalities, it sure would have been helpful to be able to close my eyes and come up with full mental image of what each of the main characters looked, sounded, and acted like. They all sort of blended together in my imagination because of how few details there were about them in general.

The town where this book was set was quite the unusual place. Sometimes there were buildings that appeared and then disappeared again. Humorously enough, this was one of the least bizarre occurrences there . My favorite scenes were the ones that showed how the characters reacted to their familiar world being turned upside down at a moment’s notice. Without giving away spoilers, they reacted exactly how I’d expect them to. That alone made me want to keep reading.

This collection is the third in a series, but it can be read as a standalone work.

Spooky Twisties III should be read by anyone who is in the mood for something scary.

Filed Under: Horror, Mystery/Suspense, Reviews, Science Fiction/Fantasy, YA/Middle Grade/Children's Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Reaper: A Horror Novella by Jonathan Pongratz

April 11, 2019 By Leave a Comment


Reaper: A Horror Novella by Jonathan Pongratz
Publisher: Self-Published
Genre: Suspense/Mystery, Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Horror, Holiday, Paranormal, Contemporary
Length: Short Story (96 pages)
Rating: 4 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

Gregory and his little sister Imogen love spending Halloween with their parents. But this year is different. If he proves he can take care of Imogen all by himself, he’ll finally have the allowance he’s dreamed of.

That was before the basement door opened on its own. Before the strange door appeared in the basement and Imogen was taken from him by the monster.
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Now everyone in town is blaming him for her disappearance, but no one is listening to his story. Where did the door come from? What was that creature? And most of all, can he find his sister before it’s too late, or will he bury his memories of her along with his parents?

Parents are supposed to protect their children. After a young girl disappeared, the question of where she went and what happened to her was impossible to ignore.

Wow, this was a scary read. Gregory was someone who’d grown up with certain Halloween customs that were so ordinary to him he barely even thought to mention them to the audience. I was glad this was explained so well because it made the rest of the bizarre events Gregory experienced much more understandable. There were a couple of times when I would have run screaming from the stuff he went through. Somehow, those scenes were even scarier than they might have otherwise been because of how differently I interpreted them when compared to Gregory’s much calmer response.

There was a little bit too much foreshadowing in this tale. As someone who has a lot of experience reading this genre, I was able to figure out several of the plot twists well ahead of time. I still enjoyed reading it quite a bit, but it would have been nice to have fewer clues about what was going to happen next. I would have given it a perfect rating if this had been the case.

The ending was fantastic. It answered all of my most important questions but still left me wishing there was more to it. I liked the fact that it left space for a sequel while still feeling like a satisfactory conclusion if Mr. Pongratz decides to leave this universe as is. This is exactly how open-ended stories should be written!

If you love Halloween and all things creepy, I’d definitely recommend giving Reaper: A Horror Novella a try.

Filed Under: Horror, Mystery/Suspense, Reviews, Science Fiction/Fantasy Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Finnegan’s Field by Angela Slatter

April 9, 2019 By Leave a Comment


Finnegan’s Field by Angela Slatter
Publisher: Tor Books
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Horror, Contemporary
Length: Short Story (41 pages)
Rating: 3 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

Finnegan’s Field by Angela Slatter is a dark fantasy novelette about a six year old child who mysteriously disappears for three years, only to return home just as mysteriously–but not quite the same. At least, not to her mother.

When we do move on them we are often pleasantly surprised by the outcome feeling more “connected” to something much greater. levitra prescription http://cute-n-tiny.com/tag/english-bulldog/ A few examples cute-n-tiny.com purchase generic levitra of sexual crisis are erectile dysfunction, Anxiety, Relationship problem as well. On the central nervous, cardiovascular beneficial, hypotensive effect, but also diuretic, anti-virus, anti-aging, anti-tumor cute-n-tiny.com purchase cheap viagra effects. Thusly, before utilizing Kamagra Oral Jelly, please read the free cialis without prescription directions precisely. The only thing scarier then losing track of a child for three years is realizing that there’s something very odd about her after she finally comes home again.

Anne was such an interesting character. Her personality was well developed and three dimensional. I felt every ounce of her grief in the beginning and her anger later on once she got to know her daughter better and began to form theories about what might have happened while the girl was away from home. Seeing her personal development over time was fascinating, and it makes me want to read more from Ms. Slatter in the future.

There was one part of the storyline that didn’t quite make sense. It had to do with how the police responded after Madrigal disappeared. Officers interviewed multiple possible suspects, of course. What I didn’t quite understand was how they responded to certain members of the community who had shaky reputations for various reasons. While those people weren’t known to be kidnappers, I would have liked to see a more thorough explanation of how the police handled these folks. They didn’t seem to dig quite as deeply into those people’s lives as I would have expected to see, and that was distracting even though I enjoyed this tale quite a bit in general.

The plot twists in this story were quite well done. I didn’t see one of the major ones coming, and it chilled me to the bones in a good way. It was interesting to look back and think about the gentle clues I’d missed in earlier scenes, especially once Anne began to gather more and more evidence that her daughter wasn’t the same little girl she’d known before Madrigal disappeared.

Finnegan’s Field made me shudder. I’d recommend it to anyone who enjoys the dark side of science fiction.

Filed Under: Horror, Reviews, Science Fiction/Fantasy Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Ladies of Gothic Horror by edited by Mitzi Szereto

March 14, 2019 By Leave a Comment


Ladies of Gothic Horror by edited by Mitzi Szereto
A Collection of Classic Stories
Publisher: Midnight Rain Publishing
Genre: Suspense/Mystery, Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Horror, Paranormal, Historical
Length: Full Length (259 pages)
Rating: 5 Stars
Review by: Astilbe

Classic gothic horror stories from the literary mistresses of the past!

Many of gothic horror’s spookiest tales have come from the pens of women. Yet a substantial number of these women were overshadowed by their male contemporaries, especially with regard to the classics. “Ladies of Gothic Horror (A Collection of Classic Stories)” redresses this imbalance by bringing together a selection of gothic stories from the past written exclusively by women. Carefully edited and compiled by author and anthologist Mitzi Szereto, “Ladies of Gothic Horror” offers readers plenty of good old-fashioned chills and thrills. Whether you’re a devotee of the genre, a literature lover, an academic or a student, this volume of short fiction is sure to please. The biographies accompanying each story will show that these women were anything but typical for their time. Includes seventeen stories from authors Mary Shelley, Elizabeth Gaskell, Edith Wharton, Marjorie Bowen, Gertrude Atherton, Virginia Woolf, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Elia W. Peattie and many more.

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“The Lost Ghost” talked about a sad spirit whose life had ended far too early. One of the most interesting parts about it was how much empathy I developed for that ghost. While I can’t go into details about their backstory, I found myself thinking that I would have behaved quite similarly if I’d been in their shoes. This definitely wasn’t the reaction I was expecting to have to a haunted house, but it did make for some unforgettable reading.

The protagonist in “The Mortal Immortal” was someone who had lived a few hundred years so far without aging a single day. I can’t say much else about him without giving away spoilers, but I was fascinated by how he stumbled onto the secret of living forever without aging or dying. His descriptions of the many decades he’d seen over the course of his long life made me yearn for more. The final scene was perfectly satisfactory, but it also made me wish for a sequel. That’s a sign of great writing if you ask me!

As soon as I noticed the title for “The Room of the Evil Thought,” I couldn’t wait to find out more about how a room that had once been used as a minister’s study could have ever developed such a dark and terrible reputation. The author’s decision to give her audience so much freedom to come up with our own theories about how and why this room became filled with evil was a smart one. I truly enjoyed devising my own theories about what was going on there before testing them against the clues the narrator provided.

As much as I loved the stories themselves, the thing that convinced me to give this collection a five-star rating were the short biographies of each author at the end of their piece. I didn’t know anything about some of them, so it was quite helpful to get a quick overview of their lives after I read their work.

Ladies of Gothic Horror (A Collection of Classic Stories) is a must-read for anyone who loves the horror, mystery, science fiction, or paranormal genres.

Filed Under: Horror, Mystery/Suspense, Reviews, Science Fiction/Fantasy Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

TV Review: The Frankenstein Chronicles (Season One)

March 4, 2019 By Leave a Comment

Review of season one of Netflix’s The Frankenstein Chronicles.

Inspector John Marlott investigates a series of crimes in 19th Century London, which may have been committed by a scientist intent on re-animating the dead.

Review by Astibe.

As a longtime fan of Mary Shelley’s classic novel Frankenstein, I couldn’t wait to see how this film interpreted some of those ideas in a new way.

No, this isn’t a retelling of the original Frankenstein. Think of it instead as something that happened in a universe where people were aware of that tale and often horrified by the thought of interfering with the natural processes of life and death.

One of the biggest strengths of this TV show was the thorough way it explored the parts of 19th century London culture that clash with how people in western societies live today. Back then the thought of using cadavers to show medical students how the human body works was extremely controversial because any folks believed that anyone who was dissected after death would be denied entry to heaven.

These glaring cultural differences continued with the treatment of children in this time and place. Some of the crimes Inspector Marlott investigated involved kids, but because they were poor, and often orphaned or abandoned, it was difficult for him to convince his fellow officers that investigating these disappearances was worthwhile. The callous attitudes that many in the upper classes held about the fates of these kids was disturbing, but it was also historically accurate.

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Inspector Marlott’s backstory provided plenty of opportunities for the audience to get to know him better and to understand why he was so willing to risk permanently damaging his career and reputation by investigating the deaths of people that polite society liked to pretend didn’t exist. He had excellent reasons for making this choice!

Finally, the mystery was handled beautifully as well. There was an excellent reason why Inspector Marlott kept uncovering suspicious deaths and disappearances among people who didn’t seem to know each other or have much in common at all other than their poverty and tender ages. It was a great deal of fun to come up with my own theories about who the killer or killers might have been as I waited for the next clue.

I would definitely recommend this series to anyone who enjoys science fiction or mysteries.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qiV2p825HY]

Filed Under: Miscellaneous Musings, Television Show Tagged With: , , ,

The Weather by Caighlan Smith

February 5, 2019 By Leave a Comment


The Weather by Caighlan Smith
Publisher: Tor Books
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Horror
Length: Short Story (20 pages)
Rating: 3 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

In the middle of a barren wasteland, a small town goes through the motions as if nothing’s changed. Lolly has school, a part time job, a senile grandmother that needs looking after. But everything has changed, and Lolly’s always one storm away from facing that.

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One of the things I always enjoy the most about science fiction set in the future is seeing how it imagines our current era might be thought of by people who were born long after it ended. This story had several scenes that made references to things that people living in the twenty-first century would easily understand but that folks in this era found mystifying. I’ll leave it up to future potential readers to discover the specific examples I’m talking about here, but all of them made me chuckle. They couldn’t have been written better.

There weren’t enough details included in this story for me to figure out exactly how the world had changed. Lolly and her family made multiple comments about some sort of dangerous thing that was coming for them, but I couldn’t figure out exactly what they were afraid of. Their references could have been interpreted in so many different ways that narrowing them down to the truth was just about impossible. As much as I loved the atmosphere of this one, I would have enjoyed it even more if it had been clearer about what sort of conflict they were facing.

The atmosphere was fantastic, though. I really liked seeing how Lolly’s completely ordinary shift at work was mixed in with her quickly increasing fear that something awful was about to happen to her and the people around her. There’s something appealing to me about characters whose lives are interrupted in this way, and there was a lot of that in this tale.

If you enjoy endings that are open to many different interpretations, The Weather might be right up your alley.

Filed Under: Horror, Reviews, Science Fiction/Fantasy Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Fireside Chat with a Grammar Nazi Serial Killer by Ryan Suvaal

January 25, 2019 By Leave a Comment


Fireside Chat with a Grammar Nazi Serial Killer by Ryan Suvaal
Publisher: Self-Published
Genre: Suspense/Mystery, Horror, Contemporary
Length: Short Story (38 pages)
Rating: 3 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

Seventeen gruesome killings across the United States, within a span of six months and there is one clear connection among victims. They were all writers.
While media is decorating the murders with sensationalist stories, and law enforcement is playing catch-up, the homicidal maniac remains elusive and secretive.

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Grammatical errors are always annoying, but sometimes the consequences of these mistakes are more serious than someone feeling a negative emotion about them.

This was such a creative mystery. I never thought I’d say this, but the serial killer made some good points. It is irritating to buy a book only to discover it’s filled with punctuation and grammatical errors! Her solution to this problem was obviously far too harsh and violent, but I strangely enjoyed seeing the world from her perspective for a little while. It was like nothing I’ve never read before.

It would have been nice to have some character development. No one changed as a result of their experiences. Given how much was going on in their lives, that surprised me. I would have expected the main characters to learn something from the things they did and went through. If that had happened, I would have chosen a higher rating as the premise was quite attention-grabbing.

There were definitely some dark moments during the course of the plot. They fit the main character’s persona well, especially once she began explaining her twisted reasons for all of the crimes she committed. This is something that should be read by people who love grisly fiction. The horror elements of this tale were well done and felt completely appropriate for the subject matter, but they definitely were given more attention than the suspenseful sections of the storyline.

I’d recommend Fireside Chat with a Grammar Nazi Serial Killer to anyone who loves horror and mysteries.

Filed Under: Horror, Mystery/Suspense, Reviews Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Smoke & Mirrors by Eli Celata

January 21, 2019 By Leave a Comment


Smoke & Mirrors by Eli Celata
Publisher: Hidden Helm Press
Genre: Young Adult, Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Horror, Contemporary
Length: Full Length (246 pages)
Age Recommendation: 16+
Rating: 3.5 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

Death has come to Rochester. Saving the the lost children of Hamelin unleashes the most ruthless enemy Jon has ever faced. Blood saturates his nights, and demons stalk his every step. He might’ve gotten the children out of Shiloh’s void, but he put them in the cross-hairs of an old grudge.

When a trio of Daughters brings their kill list into the Grith, magic users turn against one another. Allies become enemies. Safety counterbalances freedom, and everyone wants a piece of Jon.

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Whether magic is used for good or evil depends on who is performing the spell.

Just like in earlier installments, I was blown away by the world building. Mr. Celata did an excellent job of creating a setting for his characters that feels every bit as real as our world. I could have sworn that I was seeing, hearing, and feeling the same things Jon was as he attempted to protect the children and keep his community from breaking out into war. There was so much attention to detail in these matters that I didn’t want to stop reading until I knew how it would all end for him.

At times I found it hard to keep track of the large cast of characters. It would have been quite helpful to either have a brief recap of who everyone was in the first chapter or to have a list of characters I could reference as I was reading. I’m saying this as someone who has really been enjoying this series so far. If not for my confusion about how everyone knew each other and who they were, I would have happily chosen a much higher rating for this tale. Everything else about it was fantastic.

One of the things I love about this universe is how complicated the rules of magic are in it. I still haven’t figured out all of them, but honestly I don’t think the audience is supposed to quite yet since many of the characters have had similar reactions to the complexity of them all. The author is playing the long game here, and I’m quite curious to see how it will all pan out in the end.

This is the third book in a series. I’d recommend finishing the first two installments, High Summons and Grimm Remains, before diving into this one.

Smoke & Mirrors should be read by anyone who loves wizards or the dark side of the urban fantasy genre.

Filed Under: Horror, Reviews, Science Fiction/Fantasy, YA/Middle Grade/Children's Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Skull and Pestle: New Tales of Baba Yaga

January 18, 2019 By Leave a Comment


Skull and Pestle: New Tales of Baba Yaga by Kate Wolford (Editor)
Publisher: World Weaver Press
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Horror, Paranormal, Historical, Contemporary
Length: Full Length (193 pages)
Rating: 4 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

She can be the enemy of your nightmares or the spirit guide to your dreams. Her hair is wild and gray. Her teeth are made of iron, and she travels using a giant mortar and pestle and lives in a shack on chicken feet surrounded by a fence of skulls and bones. She is Baba Yaga, a crone who ruthlessly uses the needy and greedy for her own devices. And in this anthology of new stories starring Baba Yaga, she lands in some spectacular scenarios.

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Not every witch is necessarily evil.

There was danger lurking everywhere for Vasilisa in “Vasilisa the Wise.” Not only did her stepmother not care if she lived or died, Baba Yaga actively tried to come up with tasks this character couldn’t accomplish so the old witch would have an excuse to eat her. I found Baba Yaga’s challenges and threats deliciously frightening. Since I knew almost nothing about this classic fairy tale villain, it was nice to start this anthology off with what I assume was a more traditional telling of who she was and how she liked to behave.

All of the stories in this collection were creative and worth the read. With that being said, I would have liked to see a little more attention paid to the character development in “Boy Meets Witch.” As intrigued as I was to see how Baba Yaga would respond to a young boy seeking her out for advice instead of all of the girls who had been written about in this anthology, I didn’t feel like I got to know Alex Rusnak, the protagonist, as well as I did the protagonists in the other stories. If he’d been equally well-developed, I would have given this collection a five-star rating!

“Baba Yaga: Her Story” was a wonderful take on Baba Yaga’s life before she became such a famous literary figure. When the audience met her in the first scene, she was an abandoned child who didn’t even have a name yet. I was as surprised by that as I was by all of the things that happened to her as she grew older and began to realize just how powerful her magic abilities were. While she definitely was a villain, I still grew to like her as I got to know her better and understood why she occasionally did such harmful things to ordinary people.

Skull and Pestle: New Tales of Baba Yaga should be read by anyone who loves fairy tales.

Filed Under: Horror, Reviews, Science Fiction/Fantasy Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

TV Review: The Haunting of Hill House

January 17, 2019 By 4 Comments

Review of Netflix’s The Haunting of Hill House.

Flashing between past and present, a fractured family confronts haunting memories of their old home and the terrifying events that drove them from it.

Review by Astilbe.

The Haunting of Hill House was originally a book written by Shirley Jackson about a family who moved into a haunted house. I have not read that book yet, so this review will only talk about things that happened in the TV series.

In the TV series, the Crain family moved into Hill House in the summer of 1992. Mr. and Mrs. Crain earned a living by, among other things, flipping old houses, so their plan was to live in Hill House while they fixed it up before hopefully selling it for a nice profit.

The only problem with this plan was that their new house was haunted, and not necessarily by friendly spirits. Since the Crains had five children who were approximately between the ages of six and fourteen when they first moved it, they had a lot of opportunities to meet the spirits who already lived there.

The Crain Family. Photo source: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6763664/mediaviewer/rm1972466432

Each episode contained two main storylines. One of them showed what happened to the family in 1992, and the other gave updates on what the characters were doing in the present day.

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One of the things I loved the most about this series was how many ghosts were in it. There had been a lot of untimely deaths at Hill House over the decades, and not all of the spirits who had been trapped there were necessarily interested in interacting with their newest roommates. Sometimes they simply lurked in the background of a shot and watched what was going on.

At times, that was scarier to me than the ghosts who were more active and violent! There wasn’t a single room in this house that didn’t have someone haunting it, and that makes it this a series I’m planning to rewatch in order to find as many of these scenes as possible.

This isn’t to say that all of the spirits were passive or harmless. Some of them roamed the halls of the house at night, and others could be very dangerous for any living being who crossed their paths. One of my favourite ghosts was a man who floated through the air and opened doors in search of something. While I can’t say who or what he might have been looking for, I did shudder every time I heard the tap of his cane against the wood floors.

I have not heard yet if there is going to be a second season, but I hope it will happen. This was a deliciously frightening series that I deeply enjoyed watching, and I’d love to learn more about the Crain family and the spirits who live in Hill House in the future.

This show does include acts of violence and references to the deaths of children and animals, so consider yourself warned if those are topics you find difficult to watch.

Filed Under: Miscellaneous Musings, Television Show Tagged With: , , , ,
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