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Book Review: Out of the Ashes by Kara Thomas

Out of the Ashes by Kara Thomas

Thomas and Mercer, 2023

ISBN-13 ‎978-1662509537

Available: Paperback; Kindle

 

Samantha, a nurse in a hospital ICU, is rushing to leave Queens and head back to her small hometown in New York, at the start of Kara Thomas’s engrossing thriller Out of the Ashes. It’s late at night, and as she passes a cruiser, she confesses to having been “skittish around law enforcement” since she was a tween. “No need to behave like a criminal,” she says to herself. “I hadn’t killed anyone. Not yet.” But, it is surprisingly soon that she assists in her very sick uncle’s suicide, and it is then that a flood of memories engulfs her as she has returned to the place where her mother, father, and little sister were shot and their home destroyed by fire in an unsolved murder several years ago.

 

Kara Thomas doesn’t waste any time plunging the reader into the fascinating recent history of Carny, New York and the sometimes complicated lives of Samantha’s relatives, friends, and enemies. We learn about the corrupt cop she fears, the addict who was once her friend, her harsh aunt, her loving father, and the men in the family farm business that seem to have some sort of hold over the town. In sharp, spare detail, Thomas draws multi-faceted characters and reveals their unique experiences with each other, experiences that tie them together in unexpected, for the reader, ways.

 

Samantha is an exciting protagonist: gutsy, smart, and aggressive. Her determination to find out whether her little sister might still be alive leads to a fast-paced investigation of people Sam already suspects to have been involved and those she adds to her list. Also, a detective new to the case poses alternative theories for Sam to consider. Whereas other crime novels might show us things are not as they seem, Thomas shows us Sam’s perspective as an unchanging story that steadily becomes more of what it seems. Sam herself tells the gripping story of her own weaknesses and mistakes and is a study in the effects of childhood psychological trauma.

 

There is never a dull moment in Out of the Ashes; it is never predictable. Thomas delves into the complicated: internet research, family histories, and psychological trauma. However, the reader is never forced to accept confusion as the author’s way of deepening the mysteries embedded in the narrative. This is a novel to lose yourself in – and maybe enjoy again someday on the big screen. Highly recommended.

 

Reviewed by Nova Hadley

 

Posted on June 17, 2023 by , Reply

Book Review: Hell Spring by Isaac Thorne

cover art for HEll Spring by Isaac Thorne

 

Hell Spring by Isaac Thorne

 

Lost Hollow Books, September 2022

 

ISBN: 9781938271540

 

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

 

March, 1955.  A handful of residents in a small Southern hick town get trapped in a mom n’ pop convenience store by a raging flood.  What could possibly go wrong?  Well, when one of those people is a soul-sucking demon masquerading as a Marilyn Monroe look-alike, a LOT can go wrong, and it does.  That’s the basic premise of Isaac Thorne’s Hell Spring.  It has its good moments, but may be a bit too slow and drawn out for most readers.

 

The setup chapters for each character before they become trapped in the store are the best sections of the book: well-written, and good enough to make the reader feel invested in the characters.  They are an eclectic bunch, each with their own little secrets.  The town piano teacher is hiding the fact that he’s gay, one lady isn’t mentioning that she just killed her abusive wretch of a husband…each person has their own little bit of shame or guilt.  These secrets, and the guilt they cause are what the Marilyn Monroe succubus feeds on while trapped with the townsfolk.  It’s the middle of the book, a couple hundred pages long, where things slow down and get somewhat routine.  Everyone is trapped in the store, and one by one, the demon Marilyn feeds on their guilt and reduces the victim to a chittering crawdad-like creature.  No one notices the disappearances, since she somehow alters time and perception around everyone.  People just vanish, and the others don’t even know they were ever there at all.  It’s interesting the first couple times but then gets repetitive, and bogs the narrative down.  The story does pick up again towards the end, and has a kicker of a finish set decades later.  Graphing the book, it would look like a peak at the beginning sloping down to a long, flat plain, and then another peak at the end of the story.  There are some quick peaks in the middle that involve characters outside the store; that help break up the slow pace and get a different setting involved.  Whether those are enough to compensate for the rest will depend on the reader.

 

Bottom line:  there are definite high points, but the somewhat long middle section may not be enough to keep the interest of most readers.  This is a story that might have worked much better in a slimmed down form, with the middle section involving the store condensed.  A novella of the narrative might have been a perfect fit.

 

 

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson

Posted on December 3, 2022 by , Reply

Book Review: To Dust You Shall Return by Fred Venturini

cover art for To Dust You Shall Return by Fred Venturini

To Dust You Shall Return by Fred Venturini

Turner Publishing, 2021 (release date June 21)

ISBN: 9781684426348

Availability: Paperback, Kindle ( Bookshop.org | Amazon.com )

 

If you only have the budget to purchase one book for the entire year, this is the one to buy.  To Dust You Shall Return is superior to everything else out there, might as well just hand the author the Stoker award for best horror novel of 2021 and skip the drawn-out nomination process.  It’s that good: other authors will be hard pressed to equal it.

 

Most of the story is set in Harlow, one of those Children of the Corn-type Midwestern towns you could drive through and not know if anyone actually lives there.  Curtis Quinn, an aging ex-Mafia hitman with a price on his head, is led there while on the trail of whoever butchered his beloved wife into pieces.  He suspects it’s a revenge hit to get to him, but what he finds in Harlow is much more sinister and terrifying than anything the Mafia could have dished out.  Harlow residents live in fear of the Mayor, a sadistic madman (or is he?) with inhuman powers.  The residents’ only hope is the legend of the Griffin, an outsider who may one day come to deliver the townspeople from the Mayor’s grasp.  Could Curtis, a cold-blooded killer, be that man, and is it somehow connected to his wife’s murder?

 

The story scores unbelievably high on every possible level, but the excitement and originality are the two best points.  After a brief prologue, the story shifts into high gear right away, and, in 352 pages, doesn’t let up.  There’s never a hint of a slowdown: this is the type of book you will keep reading well into the night, until exhaustion sets in.  For originality, Harlow itself is one of the most intriguing fictional towns ever invented; it’s an unusual cross between a communist community and Blake Crouch’s Wayward Pines.  Residents are provided for and given jobs, but the cost is never being able to leave the town, exceept for a forays lasting a brief hour or two.  The town is surrounded with razor wire and various traps to keep the people in.  If they do escape, rangers track them down and return them to Harlow, where they are ritually slaughtered in front of the townspeople in extremely painful and bloody ways.  This causes the book’s gore factor to run high at times, but it is always in service to the story, never gratuitous for the shock factor.  That said, some of the killings are as hardcore as anything Jack Ketchum ever wrote and will make readers cower in fear, praying to forget what they just read.

 

The characters and plot also sell themselves by their unpredictability: the story does not go where you would expect.  Numerous characters double-cross each other, and the book becomes a guessing game,  keeping the story engrossing.  The legend of the Griffin also helps drive the story’s unexpected twists and turns, as most stories with a creepy little town rarely use the “savior” angle.  It’s just another example of what sets this story apart from all the competition.  Bottom line: just buy this one, and prepare to be blown away.  You won’t be disappointed.  This is beyond highly recommended.

 

Contains: blood, gore, profanity, cannibalism, ritualistic torture.

 

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson

Posted on May 13, 2021 by , Reply
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