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Book Review: Halloween Carnival: Volume 3 edited by Brian James Freeman

Halloween Carnival: Volume 3 edited by Brian James Freeman

Random House Publishing Group – Hydra, 2017

ISBN-13: 9780399182051

Available: Kindle ebook

Halloween Carnival: Volume 3 is another installment to Freeman’s anthology collection  with five more tales of horror associated with my favorite holiday.

In Kelley Armstrong’s “The Lost Way,” we enter the town of Franklin, where children have a habit of losing their way every Halloween. Dale is determined to find out why his schoolmates keep disappearing. This Halloween, he follows his stepbrother into the forest, where he is forbidden to venture, and finds the reason. The problem is, he finds out the truth much later than he anticipates, and certainly not how he remembers it.

Kate Maruyama’s “La Calavera” focuses on Trish, who is mourning and struggling with the untimely death of her best friend and roommate, Jasmine. They always did everything together: the Día de los Muertos Festival at the Hollywood Cemetery used to be one of their shared rituals. Things changed when Hector came along. The time has come that Trish make her pilgrimage with an unexpected guest, to let her go, and to pay penance.

“The Devil’s Due”, by Michael McBride, takes place in the idyllic town of Pine Springs, Colorado, a thriving small community that has been prosperous for generations. All of this good fortune has not come without a cost, however: the townspeople have practiced special traditions, and, for these, the town goes on. When Thom refuses to take part, the townspeople become angry and demand the ritual continue.

Anne discusses the disturbing events of a picnic she enjoyed with her spouse, Evan, in Taylor Grant’s “A Thousand Rooms of Darkness.” Anne has been diagnosed with samhainophobia, a fear of Halloween, and phasmophobia, a fear of ghosts. She finally builds up the courage to tell Evan after experiencing an episode during a picnic, after she talks with the therapist she’s been avoiding for months. In the weeks leading to Halloween, when things for Anne get particularly bad, she receives a phone call that her therapist has died. Her paranoia increases as she worries about harm coming to Evan. Then there is the matter of the demon she hears as it gets closer to Samhain.

In “The Last Night of October”, by Greg Chapman, we meet Gerald, wheelchair bound and suffering from emphysema. Every Halloween, Gerald  waits for the boy in the Frankenstein monster’s mask to come knocking at his front door. This year, it is different. There is his nurse, Kelli, who waits with him, and hears Gerald’s tale of woe. Will they both be able to face the child and remain sane…or alive?

Something unique about this particular anthology is the theme of lies: lies people tell themselves to avoid the truth, lies about relationships, lies that a community propagates to its own end, lies about fear and sanity, and lies people tell so they can sleep at night. While there isn’t anything too graphic in this volume, I would recommend it for adults and teenagers who can handle their horror. Recommended.

 

Reviewed by Lizzy Walker

Posted on April 14, 2018 by , Reply

Book Review: Halloween Carnival, Volume 1 edited by Brian James Freeman

Halloween Carnival, Volume 1 edited by Brian James Freeman

Hydra, 2017

ISBN: 9780399182037

Available: Kindle edition

Halloween Carnival, Volume 1 is the first of five collections of five Halloween-themed stories, with each story by a different writer in the horror genre. Curated by Brian James Freeman, the short collections were published as individual ebooks in a series, with one releasing in consecutive order on each Tuesday in October of 2017.

Robert McCammon’s “Strange Candy” is a bittersweet ghost story. A father finds an odd piece of unwrapped candy is found in the bottom of his child’s candy bag, and when he doesn’t heed the kidding chides of his wife about eating tampered candy. and consumes it, he is visited by a spirit for each of the gnarled peppermint shaped fingers. Each one brings him urgent messages to deliver to the living. When he receives his own visit from a very human messenger, he knows what he must do.

Kevin Lucia’s “The Rage of Achilles, or When Mockingbirds Sing,” returns readers of his previous books to Clifton Heights. Father Ward volunteers to hear confessions on All Hallow’s Eve. The father of a dead boy apologizes for what he is about to do after delivering his story. Will Father Ward be too late to stop the distraught father, or is there something more to the events of this strange night?

In John R. Little’s “Demon Air”, Halle is headed to Australia on the cheapest flight possible. When the stewards and pilot get in on the Halloween fun, it seems like all fun and games, until the danger becomes too real on the long flight.

In Lisa Morton’s “La Hacienda de lost Muertos,” Trick McGrew, an old-time cowboy star of the silver screen, is thrown into a real ghost story when he walks onto the set of his new film in Mexico. He discovers the sad La Llorona, searching endlessly for her lost children, is more than just a legend. He also discovers the truth behind her death, and what became of her babies.

Everyone is using hashtags these days. What happens when someone takes it too far? That’s the question Mark Allen Gunnells poses in “#MakeHalloweenScaryAgain.” Dustin, an author working on his next novel, starts the infamous hashtag that will change the town he lives in forever. When journalist Shawn befriends the author, and the major suspect in a grisly chain of events, things get even stranger. The use of social media in this story adds to the intrigue the author sets. Who is using the author’s hashtag to drive his push to make Halloween scary again?

I enjoyed this short anthology very much. The stories are short, entertaining reads, especially appropriate for the most wonderful time of the year for those of us who love Halloween. “The Rage of Achilles” is a particular favourite. The story is subtle in its horror, and the author’s treatment of a child with autism is very real, well-written, and sensitive to the fact that not every person with autism has every single marker of the spectrum. Recommended.

Contains: some violence

Reviewed by Lizzy Walker

Posted on November 13, 2017 by , Reply

Book Review: Horror Library, Volume 6 edited by Eric J. Guignard

Horror Library, Volume 6 edited by Eric J. Guignard

Farolight Publishing, 2017

ISBN: 9780996115988

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition

“The Librarian will be looking for YOU.” With a tagline like that, I knew I immediately had to check out this book. Each story was selected by a former Stoker award winner, Eric J. Guignard, and he did not disappoint with what he included in the fantastic anthology. Horror Library, Volume 6 showcases twenty-seven new horror short stories—twenty-seven!—by new or under-published authors in the genre.

There are too many incredible stories in this anthology. Each one has a distinct feel, and a distinct way of lingering in the back of your mind. A son attempts to come to terms with his mother’s death, the horror that was visited upon him as a child, and finds out it really happened. When people go missing in the little town of Ophir, Eudora and Poppy, try to puzzle out what could be happening: Mountain lions? Sinkholes? A giant snake snatching them up? They find the answer in the ruins of the old Cartagena Hotel. Marta, a divorcée coming to terms with her situation, is disturbed at night by every noise in her old house. Her grandmother’s superstitions find a way to lurk in the back of her mind, emerging at night in the darkness of her old house. Marta also fears the old lumber truck that slows as it passes her residence. Who is behind the wheel, and what does it want, especially on Halloween night? Ethan and Earl, friends since childhood, are backpacking across Italy when the meet Il Mostro.  A man endlessly searching for his missing brother finds he may be looking for the woman with the red hands instead. Will he find either one? Andy and Julie need a plumber, but they get more than they bargain for when they call Bud. Gray attends some high school friends’ wedding, reminiscing about his lost love. An old man tells him Harlan Hall is angry. Gary resolves his feelings for his former love and appeases the Hall at the same time, whether he likes it or not. An elderly man loses an expensive package in an airplane restroom to an unknown creature hiding in the toilet, and the only one who can help him is a member of the American Neo-Nazi Strike Force. Which represents more evil: the Neo-Nazi, or the monster lurking in the loo?

I think one of the best things about this book is that the tales have a range of gore, naughtiness, and even some humor. Normally, I like visceral and brutal stories, but the authors selected for Horror Library Volume 6 have ways of communicating horror with the minimum of disturbing imagery, but the content…oh, the content of each expertly crafted tale is phenomenal.  This is the first Horror Library volume I have read. It makes me want to pick up the first five to see what they have to offer. Run out to get this immediately. Highly recommended.

Contains: gory bits, a little bit of sexual content, brief but spooky stalking

Reviewed by Lizzy Walker

 

Posted on September 25, 2017 by , Reply
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