Story News.... stuff

First off an interesting experiment the24project has posted one of my old stories "Mothy Mae" . Read it now if you haven't before, as it will only be online 7 days before deletion, BUT if you've shared the story link with someone else who reads it, then that means you WON'T have to worry about that phone call that whispers "seven days...." in your ear. So get on it. Make me proud.


Secondly (as second off seems too odd a phrase) my short story "Maddie the Fool" is only available in print in the Literary Lab's anthology "Variations on a Theme". The story is a re-telling of Chekov's "The Huntsman" and the anthology is available for sale at the super cheap price of $8.56.

That is all.... I think....

Book Review: Sin and Sacrifice (The Daughters of Eve Series #1) by Danielle Bourdon

Sin and Sacrifice by Danielle Bourdon

My rating: 1 of 5 stars


Evelyn Grant is one of four sisters, daughters of Eve blessed with immortality, and a divine secret so tantalizing the women live in constant flight from the all-knowing, all-seeing Knights Templar. Seperated from her sisters and on the run, her life lies in the hands of a mysterious CIA agent. For anyone who is a fan of high flying, globe trotting adventure, and conspiracy theories, this seemed like a pretty sure shot.

The novel opens up introducing the sisters as exotic, multi-cultural beauties who love night-clubbing, shopping, and sunning. Not much effort is put into establishing their characters other than quickly tacking on labels, a tomboy, a waif, a brain, etc... The main character, Evelyn, is described as a beauty who is a dead shot with a gun but faints at the sight of real violence... Oh boy.

The action strikes quickly, a murder, a kidnapping, torture, all vividly written I'll grant, and my hopes were high at that point. Evelyn is rescued from her tormentors, Knights Templars who treat her with all the tenderness of The Inquisition, by a hulking, leonine, green-eyed abs-monster named Rhett. He whisks her from her dungeon and into a car and on a breath-taking ride to safety. Rhett is CIA, he shows her his badge to prove it, and with all of her centuries of life experience, Evelyn takes one half hearted glance at the badge, accepts it, and proceeds to taunt Rhett's name. This of course sets it up so Rhett can taunt Evelyn's name, and they can banter, therefore establishing that sparks obviously are flying and we should be thoroughly amused.

My main problem with this novel, was the naive way Evelyn toddles through. She can't function emotionally without being behind Rhett's rock-solid V'shaped back, and she seems to fall into every trap and mistake in the book when not with him. I found it ridiculous a woman with her thousands of years experience would be so helpless. Even the one talent she is reputed to have, a dead-shot with a gun, is undermined by the scene in which she has to learn how to shoot a gun from Rhett as an excuse to get their yearning bodies pressed together.

Even more incredible, are the scenes in which supposedly seasoned Knights Templars, defenders of God and Faith, are clueless about bible history, and flip through it with ignorant wonder. Actually, even more incredible than that, is the assertion that the Templars are allied with the Church, considering it was The Church that had them excommunicated and destroyed some centuries back. A little historical research and flair would have seasoned this story at the very least.

The action scenes are written nicely, and the story itself certainly moves along without miring down, but overall I could not find myself enjoying this book, or even recommending it.





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Book Review: 44 (#1) by Jools Sinclair

44 by Jools Sinclair

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Abby Craigers drowned in a frozen lake and was pronounced dead for forty four minutes before miraculously returning to life. There is a strange side effect to her rebirth, however, she can only see in black and white--save the colors of the "emotional auras" of the people around her.



The easy, breezy prose, and swift pacing marks this as young adult novel with a clear voice. Abby is a broken protagonist, who has lost her old friends, her star spot on the school soccer team and is struggling in her relationship with her best friend, and possible love interest, Jesse. Regular hospital checkups and psychiatric evaluations mark Abby's days but this depression only serves to paint the canvas of Abby's character, and does not drown the reader in histrionics.



The plot moves at a lightning pace, and is a bit of a familiar one. I think by this point we are all familiar with serial killers, and psychic dreams, and heroines no one believes. Abby confides in her sister, an up and coming reporter who is drowning in trivial small town stories. Abby is having dreams of murders before they happen, and her sister is upon each and every story. Together, the girls set upon investigating the murders themselves and with all the pluck and vigor of classic detective sleuths. A little boy trouble thrown into the mix doesn't hurt proceedings any.



I found this read fun and refreshing, if a bit light. I would have liked to have had a richer sense of surrounding with Abby's color-blind affliction. I was disappointed at an apparent "blooper" in the prose where Abby describes in 1st person the sight of a pink dessert box, which should have been impossible for her to do. (Unless the dessert box was emitting some sort of emotional aura, which would make an entirely different sort of story all together!)



I did find Abby and Kate spunky and likable enough to worry about their welfare, which is always a good thing.



There are no scenes of excessive violence, cursing, or sex. Although, Abby deals with the pains of love, it is not poured all over each page with the smothering treacle that many young adult novels seem to have these days. It really does make a great choice for a super picky parent overseeing their child's reading material.



As this book is the first of a series, the ending does leave off rather abruptly with a hook for more and I must say I won't mind taking a peek at future volumes.



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Book Review: The Missionary and the Beast by John Kenworthy

The Missionary and the Brute by John Kenworthy

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


The opening of this strange, cold tale set in the heart of sweltering Tanzania is a good one. Missionary Jadwin Ross is being pummeled in a creaky interrogation room, accused of a murder he did not commit. There is hardly a better way to open a book, and it hooked me instantly. Ross, as a character, is very clearly defined. Lusty, apathetic at times, and even mean-spirited, Ross is not your garden variety missionary.

He is in charge of a small village in Tanzania, and a flock of American visitors who range from the stereotypical dress-alike married couple, the mother with a problem goth-daughter, and a beautiful guest named Leah. Ross's peers also include a fellow minister, his beautiful bespectacled daughter Imura, and a misogynistic tour guide named Daud.
Imura and Leah are the best defined of the side characters, and both at times objects of Ross's lust. Daud is also well done, a vicious, sharp tongued sulker who becomes a thorn in Ross's side.

In between the day to day goings on of the characters, the story jumps forward to Ross's ordeal in interrogation. The story shines best with all the little details throughout. The Missionary work, Africa, traditions, local colloquialisms, scents, sounds, heat, sweat, smells, all of it shines through from an author who clearly has mastery of his setting and subject. I found it a personal joy to experience this detailed world I'd never previously put much thought to.

Ross himself, however, is a tricky fellow. A man of God, to be sure, and one dedicated to his work. This is outlined with a constant inner monologue, that, to be honest, got old fast for me. The florid quoting of scripture and lofty sentiments muttered over and over, comparing himself to martyrs and to righteous suffering became quite redundant for me to read.

The man of God lapses and quite often, I might add, into another man, an Earthy lusty fellow at that. A disturbing glimpse of his character is shown in a graphic sex scene where the woman in question is degraded to nothing more than a pliable sex toy to satiate Ross's lust.

The center of this novel is sprinkled with mystery and the specter of death. Nevertheless, it did sag somewhat for me. Although I did appreciate the flash-forward format, I still sometimes felt stifled by some of the pacing and befuddled by Ross's increasingly callous nature. I wanted a character to bond with, and Ross remained fiercely resistant to that, no matter how intriguing I found the plot.

A violent, surreal world spills across the pages in the third act however. Bloody, heart pounding, and heartbreaking, with just the right amount of twist, and with no regard at all for expectations, I found myself nodding and smiling at this brilliant final act. A few of the more "infuriating" points I found in the first two acts were actually cleared up for me with the final act and I am so glad to have stuck with it. "The Missionary and the Brute" is an offbeat, uneven thriller but the mastery Mr. Kenworthy has over his setting and the brutal confidence he has in presenting Jadwin Ross to the reader makes this a bizarre, deadly little read.



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100 Horrors and Literary Lab's Variations on a Theme: Anthology News

Got some exciting anthology news! :)

I'm honored to be in company with a chilling group of writers, 99 others to be precise, in "100 Horrors: Tales of Horror in the Blink of an Eye". 100 horror stories bleed on each page, each up to 100 words long, no more or less. It's perfect bite sized horror fiction, packs a punch and worth every penny.

My story "The Hole" is available only in this anthology.

The anthology is available right now on Kindle for 2.99 American, and 1.69 UK plust VAT. It will also be available in paperbook soon.

Links to purchase:

USA: 100 Horrors

UK: 100 Horrors



Also, I was excited to read the news yesterday morning that I have made the cut in the Literary Lab's third anthology release, "Variations on a Theme" alongside a bunch of exceptional writers I'm honored to be in the company of. The anthology is a collection of stories that are retellings of two classic tales, Anton Chekhov's "The Huntsman" and Hans Christian Anderson's "The Tinder Box".

My story "Maddie the Fool" is a retelling of Chekhov's "The Huntsman" and only available in this anthology which will go onsale for Kindle and paperback on March 15th.

More information here: The Literary Lab

Book Review: Trespass by Valerie Martin

Trespass by Valerie Martin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The first shot fired in this multi-layered novel about battlefields and victims, is over a basket of rolls in an expensive New York restaurant. Chloe Dale has met her beloved only son Toby's new girlfriend, and his girlfriend's first crime is being named Salome Drago, her second, being foreign. Despite identifying as a liberal, and despite her endless reserves of love and devotion Chloe has for her husband and son, the woman still cannot shake the itchy hand of upper class prejudice as she appraises her son's latest paramour. To Chloe, Salome is a snobby, snotty, humorless trespasser.

Chloe's life at home is no easier. As she works on painting book illustrations at home, her mind spins ceaselessly over the intrusion of Salome into their lives, and also upon the ever increasing presence of a rabbit poacher on her extensive property. Confronting this poacher unsettles Chloe as she realizes he is a foreignor. In her mind this man is Lebanese, and a stereotypical Middle Eastern terrorist in her backyard.

The story-line involving the unraveling of Chloe's life to intruders might have been more sympathetic if Chloe weren't so damned shrill, racist, and insufferable. Despite all of her war protests, and declarations of empathy for the downtrodden, Chloe's America has no room for fiery, war refugees whose fathers call themselves, "The Oyster King."

The Dale's as a family unit represent the very essence of placid, saturated, liberal America. Sweet tempered Toby's desicion to bring the ascerbic Salome into his family's life brings with it a massive shock, forcing them to face the realities of the underprivileged, and the sorts of social situations they attend rallies and marches to bring light to. The worst trials the Dale family has seen up to this point seems to be having to deal with Toby's string of girlfriends who always seem to be unacceptable or eccentric.

By contrast the lives of the Drago family span war, the loss of a mother, and a brother, and a resettling and rebirth in the bayous of Louisiana. They live hard , scraping an earning as Oyster farmers with Salome's ambitions for good education and a good career being the pride and joy of her doting father, Branko. Salome is a daddy's girl, and Branko warmly welcomes Toby into his heart as his daughter's intended.

It would be giving too much away to discuss the events that spiral this story on its head. Every single character is forced to face a shattered new reality in the second half of this book. The reader is taken from the safety of affluent, suburban America, and the ideals of college politics, into a world of genocide, war, and rape. No punch is pulled in the recounting of brutal warfare against women, but the scenes never lapse into gratuitous explicit description.

The final act of the story faltered, winding down to a completely expected conclusion that seemed tacked on hastily, and offered no variety to Chloe's character. I can forgive it, however, because the powerful scenes and characters along the way to the end left me moved, and startled. This book is definitely worth the time to read and absorb.


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Book Review: Love is a Dog From Hell by Charles Bukowski

Love is a Dog from Hell by Charles Bukowski
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

"Don't bring a whore, I'll only fall in love with her."

The verse appears more than once in Charles Bukowski's set of poems, "Love is a Dog From Hell." The majority of the poems are devoted to the various muses of his life, lovers and exes, some of them overlapping. Each one of these women is studied, catalogued, screwed, licked, tickled, and nailed into this shadowbox of poems like spread eagled Monarch specimens, not a single detail or secret concealed.

The human condition in this volume is showcased not as spiritual, but as animal, where base urges and bodily distresses are discussed with uncensored aplomb. Masturbation, defecation, oral sex, the desire to hear a lover urinate, all get devoted verses, mirroring the poem in which he fondly remembers a poetry reading in which vomiting seemed the thing to do, but no one else seems to understand that.

In true Bukowski fashion, pretty rhymes are dispensed with and he goes straight to slashing open a vein and pouring whiskey over it. This is a man who can't quite understand how he is getting scores of women to roll around on his bed, but he ain't gonna look a gift horse in the mouth, and he sure as hell is gonna go charging in like a bull.

He freely discusses his own insecurities in poems where he describes his openly listed phone number and the calls he takes from strangers just to feel a connection. He even betrays sparks of softness in a poem written for his ex-wife, or one written for his daughter. There's an eerie sweetness to his poem "an almost made up poem" which chronicles the affection he had for a young aspiring poet he never meets. "I probably would have been unfair to you..." he writes of their unconsummated love as if her untimely demise is far more merciful than eventual heartbreak in each other's arms.

Reading these poems made me feel as if Bukowski had wrapped his arm around my waist and pressed me onto a chair and locked the door, and with the revelation of each passing poem I felt less and less inclined to escape.

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