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REVIEW: My Heart is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones
My Heart is a Chainsaw is the latest release from Stephen Graham Jones and it brought me straight out of a reading funk. It’s a story that projected me back to the golden age of horror and opened up a new area in my brain – the area where all evil lurks, the knowledge about different slashers and killers coming to the fray. Jones should be protected, his novels are full of heartache, angst, and gore, I don’t think he can write a bad novel and I’m quite happy to die on that mountain. “Horror’s not a symptom, it’s a love affair.” My Heart is a Chainsaw is a love…
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REVIEW – Deadly Caller (Detective Jane Phillips) by OMJ Ryan
Deadly Caller is yet another novel by OMJ Ryan that never fails to get the gears moving. There’s only one thing you should do when seeing this in bookstores – THAT IS INSTANT BUY. It won’t be a shock to find out that Ryan’s skill impressed me from Jane Phillip’s first outing. He instigated my love of police procedurals and has only made that love grow stronger. The author has used the technology of a pandemic world and made it deadlier! A murder was witnessed over a zoom meeting. I’ve come to expect the unexpected from Ryan, but this is another stellar outing for Phillips and her team! “There is…
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REVIEW – A Ritual of Bone (The Dead Sagas #1) by Lee C. Conley
A Ritual of Bone is a unique and propulsive love affair with zombie fiction. It is new and refreshing and it was as ambitious as it was gritty and I was ready and willing to fight with the dead. It is the first book in the Dead Sagas series and manages to create individual plots (well more like mini-stories, really) that so perfectly interweaves at a crescendo leaving the reader gasping and hungering for more. The writing is visceral and the world-building takes you away into a time that bears no meaning but a time that aches to be discovered to be understood. Master Logan and his apprentice are dabbling…
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Review: Whisper Cottage by Anne Wyn Clark
Whisper Cottage is a domestic thriller about Stina and Jack, a young couple who are desperate to leave the rat race that is Birmingham. They are both sick and tired of worrying if they leave their front door unlocked even for ten seconds they are running the risk of aggravated burglary. They find their dream home in the Warwickshire village of Avoncote and they just know they are going to be genuinely happy here. Newlywed and expecting their first baby together and with the addition of the two-year-old border collie, Jobie life couldn’t be better. The only thing that niggles at Stina is the village gossip about their elderly neighbour,…
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Review: The Darkest Dusk by D.W. Ross
The Darkest Dusk excels in everything Norse fantasy. The landscape, the characterisation, and the brutal display of humanity is stark and painful. The sequel to Cold From the North brings us a continuation of the story without negating everything I loved from book one. The story continues with a rush, like a snowstorm that wants to blind your vision, it disorientates you, it leaves you cold to your very bones and anything can blindside you. D.W. Ross has honed his skill and you can tell the love and devotion that has gone into creating this sprawling epic Norse fantasy. Book two of the Onyxborn Chronicles, The Darkest Dusk and immediately…
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The Dark Remains by William McIlvanney & Ian Rankin
The Dark Remains is undeniably authentic and a true testament to everything Glasgow was in the ’70s and ’80s. I haven’t had the pleasure of reading the Laidlaw series by the late and great William McIlvanney but I will be rectifying that as soon as possible. Gangland Glasgow and its brutal violence and its territorial wars, the tone was set and it was addictive as it was horrifying. Ian Rankin had massive shoes to fill but he laced them up, took pen to paper, and paid homage to Scotland’s father of Tartan Noir. The Dark Remains is just that, dark. It doesn’t pull any punches, it doesn’t pretty anything up,…
