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Book Review: Lost Gods by Brom

Lost Gods by Brom

Harper Voyager, 2016

ISBN-13: 978-0062095688

Available: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition, Audible

 

Brom is a highly skilled author. The tale he weaves in Lost Gods, with its vivid and detailed illustrations, forges story, art, and nightmare into an amalgam of epic proportions.  Lost Gods is not a simple voyage; it is a soulful experience.

Chet Moran is freshly released from jail and on a mission to win back the heart of his girl, Trish.  Two things are standing in the way of his true happiness: Trish’s father, who is a very influential judge in the town of Jasper, and Chet’s own foolish past.  When he and Trish decide to flee, in hopes of staying with Chet’s grandmother, all hell breaks loose, and Chet is killed by an ancient horror.

The story takes the recently deceased Chet on a mission into, of all places, Purgatory.  He isn’t waiting idly for a spiritual decision; he has a serious purpose, with more than his soul at stake.  A war is about to erupt in a land where grisly creatures seek to end a soul’s existence and gods are itching to be remembered.

A big book, near 500 pages, Lost Gods puts the reader through trial after dreadful trial.  Chet begins as a loser, hoping for change, but becomes the embodiment of a hero.  The tale doesn’t rest only on Chet’s story, though; there are gods stewing in Purgatory, all looking for supplicants, days of old, and maybe a sacrifice or two.   In addition, there are factions looking to free Purgatory, as it can be a good place for souls to wander.

Lost Gods is a strong story, laced with love, family, painful deaths, gore and betrayal.  It’s multi-faceted, rich in lore, and in all the negative aspects of faith and religion.  It’s dark, and so fast-paced you never receive an inkling of boredom.  Purgatory is so well-developed, you see it– you experience it!  Any reader and lover of horror will find a great appreciation in Brom’s words, as well as the illustrations that bring it all to life.  Many times I found myself looking back at the pictures, seeing what the characters saw, making the read a legendary undertaking. Highly recommended.

Reviewed by Alyssa Renee Hunt

 


Posted on April 13, 2017 by , Reply

Book Review: By Summer’s Last Twilight by Robert J. Stava

By Summer’s Last Twilight by Robert J. Stava

Deathwatch Books, 2015

ISBN-13: 978-1515150749

Available:  Paperback, Kindle edition

 

This is a rip-roaring story, combining elements of action, mystery and horror with a coming-of-age story: think of Stand By Me, Jack Reacher, and Indiana Jones and The Temple Of Doom.  The story begins in a town in the Hudson River Valley, where the grandson of Aleister Crowley, the notorious occultist, magician and libertine of the early 20th century, plots to create a new age and open a portal into another dimension of dark forces.

A group of teenagers, an English-born detective, and a small group of men who are descendants of townspeople who battled the dark forces in the previous generation, face off against Crowley’s grandson, other clandestine occultists in the town and mercenaries led by a mysterious mastermind, called the Weatherman.  The detective, the Weatherman and some other characters appeared in Stava’s previous books in his Hudson Horror series (The Feast of St. Anne and At Van Eyckmann’s Request).

Stava adeptly creates a mood of suspense and dread in which nature itself seems to embody danger and evil.  The heroes slowly come together as they learn the enormity of the threat and power of their adversaries.  Each of them must use their special abilities to fight their human enemies and hideous monsters, in a dramatic, hair-raising showdown.

Stava’s characters tend to be one-dimensional.  Heroes are sympathetic, and villains are despicable.  Sexual scenes are mild.  Violence is graphic, but not gory.  There are more than forty misspellings and grammatical errors that interrupt the reader’s concentration.  These errors were probably missed by a spell/grammar-checking algorithm, but would not have been missed by a human editor.  I would recommend this book for adults if the errors were corrected.

Contains: Sexual situations, graphic violence.

Reviewed by Robert D. Yee

Posted on October 28, 2016 by , Reply
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