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Book Review: The Residence by Andrew Pyper

A note from the editor:

We are more than midway through October and Monster Librarian still needs to raise the funds to pay for our hosting fees and postage in 2021. If you like what we’re doing, please take a moment to click on that red “Contribute” button in the sidebar to the right, to help us keep going!  Even five dollars will get us closer to the $195 we need to keep going at the most basic level. We have never accepted paid advertising so you can be guaranteed that our reviews are objective. We’ve been reviewing and supporting the horror community for 15 years now, help us make it another year! Thank you! And now, David Simms reviews The Residence by Andrew Pyper.

 

cover art for The Residence by Andrew Pyper

 

The Residence by Andrew Pyper ( Bookshop.org | Amazon.com )

Simon & Schuster, 2020

ISBN-13 : 978-1982147365

Available: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition, compact disc, audiobook

Historical horror can be a mixed bag. The immediacy of the terror tends to be removed in a period piece, while dialogue and characterizations, not to mention obsolete settings, can deflate any true scares or dread from the tale at hand, no matter how well it is written.

However, The Residence rises above these obstacles to take up, well, residence, in the reader’s head. It’s in the vein of The Hunger or The Terror, both of which are recent landmarks in the genre.

Andrew Pyper knows how to deliver the horror in a novel. His Demonologist rivaled the best possession stories, and his other titles have been entertaining, chilling books.

This time out, Pyper ventures into terrifying territory– the White House. No, not the current administration. but that of Franklin Pierce, the 14th president of the United States. Pierce stars as a reluctant leader, one not expected to win, but turns out to be a popular man amongst his fellow Americans. A Democrat, he takes on the task of hoping to mend a divided nation.  Pyper transports the reader back to 1853, when Pierce and his family are headed to Washington for the inauguration. Pierce’s wife, Jane, senses that the move might not help them, especially after she and Franklin have already lost two sons.

Eleven-year old Bennie is excited to stand beside his father at the ceremony and live the dream of any young boy, but the train, and possibly external forces, literally derail any hope of happiness for the Pierce family during his presidency. At the bottom of the ravine, only one casualty is found– Bennie.

Grieving the loss of her son, Jane escapes into herself, building herself a “grief room” within the White House, and refuses any duties of a First Lady. Instead, she calls for a pair of psychics, the Fox sisters, to help communicate with Bennie. and salvage any hope she has for remaining in the land of the living.

What they achieve, though, invites something far more sinister: something that becomes a paranormal entity in the capital that threatens to destroy much more than the Pierce family.

Pyper sidesteps any pitfalls that could undermine the horror in this tight, family-centered story that is closely tied to actual history. The White House is reported to be haunted, by several spirits, and much of what is spun here actually occurred. Pyper doesn’t allow himself to become bogged down with an excess of period details or historical overload, rather focusing on the hauntings and how what is unleashed threatens to destroy the Pierces– and much more. Recommended.

 

Reviewed by David Simms

 

Posted on October 23, 2020 by , Reply

Book Review: Whitechapel Rhapsody by Alessandro Manzetti

A note from the editor (that’s me) :

We are midway through October and Monster Librarian still needs to raise the funds to pay for our hosting fees and postage in 2021. If you like what we’re doing, please take a moment to click on that red “Contribute” button in the sidebar to the right, to help us keep going!  Even five dollars will get us closer to the $195 we need to keep going at the most basic level. We have never accepted paid advertising so you can be guaranteed that our reviews are objective. We’ve been reviewing and supporting the horror community for 15 years now, help us make it another year! Thank you! And now our review of Whitechapel Rhapsody by Alessandro Manzetti.

cover art for Whitechapel Rhapsody by Alessandro Manzetti

Whitechapel Rhapsody by Alessandro Manzetti   (Amazon.com)

Independent Legions Publishing,  2020

ISBN: 978-88-31959

Available: Kindle edition, Paperback

Ever since Jack the Ripper prowled the streets, he has been the worst kind of nightmare, the shockingly brutal and chilling reality that monster-men can be living among us unnoticed, watching and freely choosing fresh victims. In his new book of poetry, Whitechapel Rhapsody, Alessandro Manzetti uses words from The Ripper’s letters to the police, information about the women and their possible murderers, and even one of the autopsies to access the mind of a killer who has never been identified for certain.

In “The Lair”, which begins the book, and in the rhapsody poems (“Sick Rhapsody,” “Entangled Rhapsody,” and “Madhouse Rhapsody”) which appear at intervals throughout the collection, we are plunged into the ugly, sordid, sick environment of physical and spiritual contagion that was the setting for the murders, if not the spawning ground of the murderer. Against this background, the poems describe the killer as a macabre artist who vows to his victims, “I will make art of you” and causes them to be “carved” by his “iron brushes,” his “long-bladed knife accurate like a Mozart composition.” True to The Ripper’s artistic vision, there is a focus on color, especially shades of red blood and the textures of the organs of the human body in each “still life.” This is the portrait of a demented artist whose imagination is a “giant” that “can feel the vibrating legs of a grasshopper ready to jump on a leaf of a remote island.”

This extreme sensitivity is on display in “She Knew My Name” which riffs on Poe’s “The Raven.” Both poems are about the narrator’s mind and what is happening inside it, how each is processing his experiences. Both narrators indulge in their madness, and that has an emotional impact on the reader. Manzetti confirms that it is not the facts of blood or death that most inspire terror in a reader but the evil imagination of the poem’s speaker igniting the active imagination of the reader’s “dark side.” This fascination that ordinary people have with horror is apparent in “Madhouse Rhapsody,” a reminder of Bedlam where the English citizenry actually went to enjoy the suffering of the imprisoned mentally ill as live entertainment. Also, many of the poems mention the opium, syphilis, perversions, and abuses which were common at the time and could be the source of madness.

Even though it is unlikely we will ever know Jack the Ripper’s identity or what caused him to kill, Whitechapel Rhapsody pulls back the curtain enough for us to fully feel the evil behind the facts and sense the cold, hard facts behind the dark poetic imagination.

Recommended.

 

Reviewed by Nova Hadley

Posted on October 11, 2020 by , Reply

Book Review: Belle Vue by C.S. Alleyne

 

Belle Vue by C.S.cover for Belle Vue by C.S. Alleyne Alleyne (   Bookshop.org   |  Amazon.com )

Crystal Lake Publishing, August 2020

ISBN: 9781646693115

Available: paperback, Kindle

 

Belle Vue isn’t a horror story.  Nor is it a suspense novel, or a crime thriller.  It isn’t even a story of the occult and ancient rituals.  It’s a beautifully entangled web of all of the above genres, with the author adding just the right dose of each to create a compelling, first-rate story.  Belle Vue deserves a serious look when next year’s nominees come out for ‘best debut horror novel.’

The story runs two threads concurrently throughout the book, and they join together at the book’s climax.  The present-day thread concerns Claire, a graduate student in her mid-20s, who just rented an apartment in Belle Vue, an old Victorian-era insane asylum that has been converted to luxury apartments.  The other thread is set in the late 1800s, and stars two sisters, Ellen and Mary Grady.  Ellen is the sweetheart who is always trying to help others, while Mary, to put it simply, is cold-blooded, conniving, and ruthless.  Mary has Ellen committed to the asylum for her own scheming reasons, whereas poor Ellen, kindhearted soul she is, thinks Mary is trying to help her deal with the death of her mother.  The true depth of Mary’s evil unfolds as the story progresses.

Both stories are the “slow burn” type, and both are equally compelling.  Claire soon finds her dream place is not all she expected, with the strange occurrences that happen once she moves in.  It’s to the author’s credit that many of the things that happen are fairly minor, but they are written well enough to leave the reader with a feeling of disquiet, expecting something worse to come (and it usually does).  The suspense builds as the story progresses, and the author snaps off a couple of well-placed curveballs in regard to the fate of some of the main characters.  The 1800s part of the story is less supernatural, but explains the complicated history of Belle Vue.  It’s a complex tangle of characters, supporting and backstabbing each other for their own ends.  It’s a wonderfully enjoyable net of intrigue, and this part also contains the occult section of the story, as the reader learns of a depraved pleasure and sacrifice cult that once called the asylum home.  The actions of the Belle Vue staff and cult members are horrible enough to justify considering this book to be a horror novel, yet it’s so much more.  Emotional swings for the reader should be expected when reading this.  Sometimes you can thrill to trying to figure out who will betray who next, other times you will be reading fast to find out what weird things will happen in the present day thread.  Occasionally, you just feel sadness, especially where the character of Ellen is concerned.  That’s a hallmark of a good book: it takes the reader on an emotional roller coaster.  Belle Vue does it exceptionally well.

This is a story no one should miss.  From its skillful cross-pollination of genres to its Hitchcock-style ending, this book should easily find popular acclaim.  It won’t scare you out of your seat, but instead leaves you with a feeling of unease that grows throughout the book, and lingers long after the conclusion.  Extremely well done, C. S. Alleyne is an author to keep an eye on in the future.  Highly recommended.

 

Contains: violence, profanity.

 

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson

Posted on September 25, 2020 by , Reply
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