Month: February 2017

I had always considered myself a nice person. One who could always find the silver lining in a seemingly hopeless situation, someone who could lift others up when they’re straggling behind, and a follower of not only the golden rule but a great “golden” rule: if you can’t say something nice, then don’t say anything at all. Yessir-e-bob, that was me, until I read this book.

First of all.

My favorite line: “…he wasn’t dead; only badly injured. (Squirrelly Character) hit him over the head and made sure he became dead. In other words, he murdered (Unfortunate Dude).”

This line pretty much sums up the writing and the overall, let’s play fast and loose with words here for a moment, “logical” flow of the entire plot line for Elayne Kull’s The Keyhole House.

The basic premise of this story is that the newly-widowed Ashley moves with her teenaged and (shocker) stereotypically attitude-infested daughter, Saia, to a house that has been Ashley’s dream home since childhood: a large, historic brick home known as “The Keyhole House.”  The house is, brace yourselves, haunted, by a ghost that can walk, talk,  and shoot the breeze with “sensitive” individuals. Aside from a few spelling errors and the fact that the book read like a short story submitted at the last minute for peer review so that the author could get credit for a creative writing elective by the end of the semester (I wouldn’t know from experience or anything…),  the “normality” and “humanlike” conversationalist quality of the ghost really pulled me out of the story. The fact that we are aware of who the killers are before the story has a chance to progress, gives the story a severe lack in mystery, and renders the one plot line that is supposed to be the “big reveal” anticlimactic.

Listen, folks. Life’s too short to drink bad wine, and to read even worse books, and no amount of wine in the world would make this whole shebang interesting…

Oddly enough, I’ve said the same about a few dates, but the rule still stands. Perhaps that should be the new golden rule.

With a surprising turn from Darcy Coates’ usual horror-infested plot lines, in The Folcroft Ghosts, it is not the dead you should fear, but the living. Darcy Coates’ latest novel makes the reader shudder on a whole new level. She draws you, as the naive and unsuspecting reader into a false sense of comfort through May’s gentle grandmotherly warmth and Peter’s soft-hearted core surrounded by the gruff exterior of hardworking farmer.

After receiving news that their mother was involved in an accident, Tara and Kyle are whisked away to an isolated mountain town to be taken in by grandparents they had never met before, and who had only been spoken of in hushed conversations. When they pull up outside the isolated farmhouse, they don’t know what to expect.

May and Peter Folcroft are like any other doting grandparents, lavishing their long-lost grandchildren with gifts that align with their favorite hobbies, while filling their tummies with decadent foods and their nights with warmth, laughter, and the love that only a family can offer. But as always, things are never as they appear when it comes to an isolated farmhouse nestled away in the mountains.

If you’re looking for a creepy  ghost story, you may be a bit turned off at first by the lukewarm easiness and the sugary sweet family moments of the first few chapters, as ghosts and the supernatural tend to take a backseat in this tale compared to the horror extravaganza so often found in Darcy Coates’ stories. However, rest assured that this is sure to be a fast favorite for fans of Darcy’s work, as it chills the bones on an entirely new level.

Edgar Cantero’s novel, The Supernatural Enhancements, is a unique story about an unlikely “couple”: the mysterious “A.” and his mute companion, the seventeen-year-old Irish Niamh. The duo move from England to Axton House, a remote and decaying Gothic mansion in the Virginian wilds, after A. is named as the sole heir to Ambrose Wells’ fortune. Ambrose Wells, the deceased, is said to have left his entire estate “and all of its contents” to the hero of our story, his “second cousin twice removed”, after Ambrose takes a leap from his third-story bedroom window; the very same window, in the very same fashion, at the very same age as his father had done before him.

Cantero’s novel is an intricate web of puzzles, riddles, and interactive play-alongs, though the true genius I found in this tale is the author’s ability to give a vibrant and unique voice to a distinctly mute character. Niamh is the silent and smart companion in the background, though she has a very large presence as the backbone of the eclectic household. A. is the opposite of his female counterpart, with his young and cocky, devil-may-care attitude that sets the tone for the story. Though Niamh’s character is even younger, she is highly intelligent, charismatic and calm, and keeps our hero grounded.

The book itself is hailed as a gothic horror, though it is a mystery with gothic elements at best. The title draws you in with the tease of the supernatural, though the “supernatural elements” are interwoven into the story very lightly. It was disappointing to open this book under the pretense of settling down for a good satisfying session of thrills and chills, though despite the fact that it doesn’t live up to it’s promises, the novel still holds the reader’s interest nicely. It would be generous to say that this book is a thriller, though unfair to dismiss the intrigue of the story. All-in-all, the book is a conundrum for the mind, at times an unpleasant one, though given the fact that to confuse and befuddle the reader is seemingly the book’s exact purpose, in that respect, it does its job perfectly.

I sit silent and rigid, and somehow I’m still breathing despite this burning pain inside of me. It’s searing through my veins, and I don’t know how I’m still standing upright, but I am.

I suppose there’s a reason, a small one, that I don’t like to talk about my past, but maybe I’ve had just enough wine to do so. The things that matter to me will never matter to you, may not seem that little or big to you, but I do not care. They’re mine, and I’m telling you anyway.

I haven’t loved many men, but I have loved a few interesting ones. Each one is different and unique in their own right, and I understand how cliché that must sound, but in this case, it is very true. I don’t call them chapters in my life, I call them short stories or novellas, each of them a part of the compilation that makes up the unique anthology that is my life.