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Book Review: Suck-U-Bus (New Adult Occult) by S.C. Mendes and Nikki Noir

cover art for Suck-U-Bus by S.C. Mendes and Nikki Noir

Suck-U-Bus (New Adult Occult) by S.C. Mendes and Nikki Noir

Blood Bound Books, 2023

ISBN: 9781940250588

Available::Paperback, KIndle edition

Buy: Amazon.com

 

 

This dark and crazy heavy metal horror is the first book co-written by two very good authors, S.C. Mendes and Nikki “Spleaze Queen” Noir.  The plot line is excellent:  a nice tweaking of the classic “we sold our souls for rock n’ roll’  trope.  How does it fare?  Well…make no mistake, it’s good, it just never feels like the overdrive gear kicks in and blows you away, which is what both authors do.

 

The band Suck-U-Bus (succubus), led by three women called the Mothers, promote their legend online and at shows.  After each show, three lucky winners get a meet-and -greet on the tour bus…with a demon, and they must have, um, carnal relations with it.  That’s the price for the band’s success.  The demon makes them famous, but needs to indulge in his devilish desires after each show.  Lisa Hummer and her brother Danny go to the show, and Danny gets chosen. Next thing, he is following the band everywhere, but NOT doing well.  Alarmed, Lisa goes after him, learning as she goes about the misfortunes of prior backstage winners.  In the process, she gets pulled into the dark legend-or-reality-that is Suck-U-Bus.

 

Those are the basics.  As far as writing, the two authors work well together.  It’s a good blend of the darkness Mendes usually brings to his writing, with the over-the-top insanity of Noir..  The pacing is decent, the story just never quite explodes all over the pages.  There is some real cleverness to it, though.  Lisa’s doubts about the reality of what is happening demonstrate this: is all the demon stuff true, or is this one of the best metal hoaxes ever, a gimmick to get money by using fake exorcisms and possessions? It’s over too soon, but the book does put together a nice final section and a banger of an ending: the final demon confrontation felt like classic Nikki Noir all the way.

 

Bottom line: it’s a decent collaboration, but I suspect the authors can pull a better one out of their trick bag. Let’s hope they do another.  Fun error: the song in the book should have been ‘Necropedophile,’ not ‘Necropedilia.’   Like the authors, I also happen to be quite familiar with the Cannibal Corpse discography.  Recommended. (The book. Well, the music too!)

 

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson

 

Posted on January 24, 2024 by , Reply

Book Review: Ruinsong by Julia Ember

Ruinsong by Julia Ember

Ruinsong by Julia Ember

Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2020

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0374313357

Available: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition ( Bookshop.org  |  Amazon.com) 

 

 

In this YA dark fantasy, Cadence is a corporeal mage whose magic comes through singing. While she comes from poverty, she is now the principal singer for the queen. Queen Elene, also originally a commoner, overthrew the previous monarchy and has forced the nobility to live in fear. Once a year they must all attend a Performing where the principal singer sings a song intended to cause pain and fear in the nobility. This is Cadence’s first year and when she sees the extraordinary pain her song is causing, she stops singing. Cadence’s disobedience leads to Ren, the queen’s torturer, murdering her dog. In return, Cadence has a tantrum that leads to the death of six people, and refuses to cooperate with the queen.

 

 

The scene of Cadence’s Performing is extremely dark and disturbing, and while we get some backstory on Elene that makes her behavior understandable, Ren and Elene’s cruelty was hard to handle.

 

 

Cadence’s mage training and social class separated her from her closest friend, Remi, who is forced to attend the performance. Remi is later arrested for going to the hospital, which is illegal for nobles, and her father is seized for treason. Elene tells Remi that if she can gain Cadence’s cooperation, she and her father can move to better quarters. Cadence is reluctant but doesn’t want Remi hurt. Despite Cadence’s monstrous actions and Remi’s position as prisoner, the two are falling in love. But Elene’s oppressive reign is about to fall to rebels, and Cadence is the one who has to decide how she will use her voice.

 

 

I like magic systems that involve music, but the magic system can’t stand alone. The character of the mage also matters. This year I have also read the YA fantasy Edgewood, which, while very different in its world building and overall plot, also has a main character who discovers she is a song mage, and she claims her agency even in the face of a cruel and capricious ruler. Cadence is passive, complicit, and easily provoked, so even though I felt sympathy for her situation, I couldn’t really cheer her on. This is supposed to be a sapphic romance inspired by Phantom of the Opera, but outside the mask wearing and the singing I didn’t see much of a connection to Phantom, and while Cadence and Remi did develop a romantic relationship, I don’t see how it could have a happy ending.

 

 

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski

Posted on November 2, 2022 by , Reply

Book Review: Ghost Wood Song by Erica Waters

cover art for Ghost Wood Song by Erica Waters

Ghost Wood Song by Erica Waters

HarperTeen, 2020

ISBN-13 : 978-0062894229

Available: Hardcover, Kindle edition, audiobook  ( Bookshop.org  | Amazon.com )

 

 

Shady Grove grew up in a haunted house, and her father owned a violin that could raise ghosts, but it disappeared when he died in a car accident when she was twelve. Like him, Shady is a talented bluegrass fiddle player, but she’s never gotten over her father’s death, and is obsessed with the violin.

 

After her father’s death, Shady’s mother remarried to his best friend, Jim. Shady, her troublemaking older brother Jesse, her toddler half-sister Honey, her mother, and Jim live in a trailer on the edge of town. Jim is an alcoholic with an anger management problem, and he and Jesse are always clashing.

 

Shady and her friends Orlando and Sarah enter a music competition at a local cafe. They discover Jim’s son Kenneth is also participating, as are his friend Cedar and Cedar’s sister Rose. Shady is impressed by Cedar and Rose’s playing (and a little by Cedar himself) but is unsure about asking to play with them out of loyalty to Sarah and Orlando. Jim and his older and more respectable brother Frank show up as well. Kenneth gets into an altercation with Jesse that ends with Kenneth in the emergency room. Jim and Jesse end up in a fight, Jesse storms out, and the next morning Jim is found dead, killed with a hammer. The logical conclusion is that Jesse did it in a fit of anger, but Shady refuses to believe that Jesse could be responsible and decides the only way to find out for sure is to find her father’s violin and raise Jim’s ghost for the true story. But there is a dark and terrifying price to pay for playing the violin.

 

Set in small-town Florida, Erica Waters tells this Southern Gothic tale of grief, guilt, shame, anger, and family secrets, with gorgeous prose. Her poetic language flows through wild areas, jolting both characters and readers with electrical shocks from emotional events. Hauntings unsettle, and Shady’s violin pulls her deep into shadows that may lead to her destruction… or to discover what her family has been hiding all these years.  Waters describes the setting in such a way that I could see stepping right in to the forest or climbing into the attic of Shady’s former house.

 

In addition to the ghosts, the mystery of Jim’s death, and the secrets of the house she grew up in, Shady has to navigate relationships. She has deep feelings for her best friend Sarah, but is getting mixed signals. She’s also attracted to Cedar, who loves the same music, and is waiting for Shady to figure out how she really feels. Sarah and Rose are both lesbians, but with very different personalities, and it’s nice to see varied representation there. While it’s more common to see gay and lesbian protagonists in YA fiction, bi protagonists (and characters) are less frequently seen. With bi erasure a problem in society as well as fiction, I was glad to see bisexual representation.

 

Ghost Wood Song is a beautifully, darkly told story filled with moments of terror and deep feelings of love, grief, obsession, and fear, most certainly worth its place on the Stoker ballot and an excellent contender for the award.

 

Contains: attempted suicide, violence, murder

 

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski

 

Editor’s note: Ghost Wood Song is a nominee on the final ballot for this year’s Bram Stoker Awards in the category of Superior Achievement in a Young Adult Novel. 

Posted on May 19, 2021 by , Reply
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