Review: The Gulp by Alan Baxter

Disclaimer: I received e-book version of from the author in exchange for honest reviews. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

The town of Gulpepper, known as "The Gulp" to locals, appears to be a small, quiet Australian harbor town. No one wants to stop there, the police won't come if you call them, and locals know that you can never really leave.  While things are quiet and business as usual during the day, everyone knows that you shouldn't be out in The Gulp after dark. In these five interconnected novellas are just a taste of what goes on in The Gulp.

We are introduced to Gulpepper in the first story, "On the Rim," by veteran truck driver George on his last shift to The Gulp training his replacement, Rich on his weekly route. George warns Rich to make the trip to The Gulp as quick as you can and then get out of town before dark. Rich takes this as the old man playing a trick on him and ignores his advice. While dropping off their load at a grocery store, there is an accident with their truck, forcing them to stay in The Gulp overnight. Despite George's advice not to go out at night and ignoring his requests for him to stay in the truck until the tow truck comes in the morning, Rich decides that he wants to get to know the town. He heads out and quickly finds himself in more trouble than he bargained for.

In "Mother in Bloom," we meet teenage siblings who are dealing with the aftermath of their mother's death and how to cover it up so that they aren't separated by social services. When the mother's remains morph into something unexpected, the siblings learn exactly just how far they will go to stay together. The characters and events in this story get a lot of callbacks throughout the book. This story, I feel, does have some mild body horror.

The third story, "The Band Plays On," introduces us to the legendary band Blind Eye Moon via a concert attended by four tourists visiting The Gulp while on holiday. After bonding with the band during the show, the tourists are invited back to their house to party afterward, and end up staying at the band's insistence for a few days.  The party keeps going and the booze keeps flowing, and soon the nightmares begin. While one of the tourists gets suspicious, the remaining three start looking and feeling haggard from the late night parties and subsequent nightmares. And the band is eager to keep the party going at any cost.

"48 To Go" is my favorite story in the collection, and when you read it, you'll know why. This is without a doubt, one of the craziest stories I've ever read.  After getting his mob boss's drugs stolen,  a local thug is given 48 hours to collect the $60,000 owed to his boss, or never be seen again. The lengths this character goes to is bonkers. This story has notes of occultism mixed with the supernatural. One thing is for sure, Baxter has changed how I look at guinea pigs for the rest of my life with this story.

The last story in the collection is "Rock Fisher," a tale of both eldritch horror and body horror.  After suffering a painful breakup with his girlfriend, a character goes fishing and catches an entity that takes over every area of his life and will change life in The Gulp as we have come to know it.

I thoroughly enjoyed every page of this book and was sad to see it end. In creating The Gulp, Baxter has created his own playland mash up of Innsmouth and Castle Rock. There are so many more big background stories to be told and so many more inhabitants to learn about. I hope we get to visit The Gulp again soon.

5/5 Stars

Review: In Darkness, Shadows Breathe by Catherine Cavendish

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from NetGalley and Flame Tree Press in exchange for my honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

In Darkness, Shadows Breathe, by Catherine Cavendish, is a dark ride of twists and turns through non-linear timelines on haunted hospital grounds to learn what evil seeks to possess souls and lives, and to what end.

 The book is comprised of two parts, one featuring Carol Shaughnessy, and the second featuring Nessa Tremaine.  The story starts with store clerk Carol is renting a flat for 6 months, during which she begins losing chunks of time and having both audio and visual hallucinations involving antediluvian medical treatments in a Victorian era hospital. As time passes, the attacks on Carol become increasingly more dangerous. Part two of the story involves Vanessa "Nessa" Tremaine in the hospital across the street. Nessa is in the hospital to have a life saving surgery to cure her cancer, and while in-patient begins to have nightmares and hallucinations about the primitive surgeries done to the female patients of the hospital in the Victorian era. The two women's lives and fates are intertwined as they fight back against the evil that seeks to possess them.

I greatly enjoyed this story and couldn't put it down. Before this book, I had never read any of Catherine Cavendish's writing before, but have since added all of her books to my reading list.  Cavendish is masterful in her use of imagery and use of descriptions. I was truly creeped out and surprised by some of the events of the book. Particularly effective to me was how Cavendish handled the switching of perspective of the characters of Carol and Nessa, as well as adding elements of gaslighting and disbelief of the peripheral characters in the story.

 I highly recommend In Darkness, Shadows Breathe.

#In DarknessShadowsBreathe #NetGalley

 4/5 Stars

Review: Into the Forest and all the Way Through by Cynthia "Cina" Pelayo

 "There are thousands of missing women in America. There are thousands of women who have been murdered, yet their case has gone ignored, forgotten, cold."

Into the Forest and all the Way Through is a slim volume of true crime poetry that focuses on 100 of the thousands of missing women and young girls who are missing or murdered in America. At 156 pages, I thought that I would be able to read this book in one sitting, but I was very wrong. I could only read a few poems a night because of the heaviness of the loss of these women. From the prologue, I felt the gravity of what Ms. Pelayo set out to tell the world.

 Focusing on stories of women and girls from every walk of life and every state in the union, one can tell that Pelayo has immersed herself in their stories: children taken by people they trusted to protect them, a teenager who was killed by her own stepfather and still not at rest, women with disabilities who possibly just wandered away from their homes never to return.  Women who were hurt by those they loved and trusted the most.

From the first poem on, I felt compelled to look up each and every victim shared in this book. Seeing their faces and reading pleas from family members still looking for their loved ones, looking for justice, and looking to bring their daughter, mother, aunt or grandmother home to rest was haunting. I can still see their faces, frozen in time, to a time when they were still safe.

Part of Pelayo's advocacy in writing this book was to draw attention to the epidemic of violence against women of color. The sheer number of stories shared in this book of Hispanic, Black, Asian, and Native American women who go missing or are murdered are mind boggling. These cases are not shared in the media as often as other cases, and soon go cold or are forgotten.

Into the Forest and all the Way Through is a necessary and important read, and the way Ms. Pelayo sees each and every woman and child and brings them to life to share their story is masterful. 

Review: Octavia E. Butler: Kindred, Fledgling, Collected Stories Library of America edition #338

Disclaimer: I received an e-Arc of this book from NetGalley and Library of America to read and review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I was not familiar with Octavia Butler or her body of work. When presented with the chance to read and review Octavia Butler: Kindred, Fledgling, and Collected Stories (Library of America edition #338), I couldn't pass it up. Little did I know when I started this mammoth edition of her works, I would find a new favorite author.

At 790 pages, this collection is a masterclass in the genius that was Octavia Butler.  This  includes 2 full novels, 8 short stories, and 5 essays that discuss her writing process and how her race affected her work. There is also a chronology detailing the significant events of her life, which is interesting to see in comparison to where she was in her writing process and how it may have influenced her work.

The first novel in the collection is one of Butler's best known works, "Kindred." This story is about a young black woman named Dana who is sent back in time from 1976 California to Maryland 1819 rescue her white ancestor, who is also the eventual owner of her black ancestors . When Dana finds herself in danger, she mysteriously returns to present day California with little to no time passing. The next time Rufus, Dana's white ancestor, finds himself in peril, Dana and her white husband Kevin come back to 1819 to save him with serious ramifications to their future. 

The second novel in the collection was "Fledgling," which was the last novel Butler published before her death. The main character of the book is  a 53 year old vampire named Shori, who appears and is mentioned repeatedly as looking to be ten years in age. Shori awakens after a fire and experiences amnesia . She is found by a young man named Wright walking down a highway at night, who brings her home with him and allows her to feed on him. They begin a symbiotic feeding/sexual relationship. While investigating her origins at the site of the fire, she is met by her father who explains that unlike other vampires, she is the creation of genetic modification and can move about in sunlight.  Soon after, her father and his compound of vampires are destroyed in a fire much like the one that killed Shori's mother and siblings in the beginning of the story. She, Wright, and two symbiotes from her father's colony seek to find who is set to destroy Shori and bring them to justice.

In addition to the novels, this volume also includes the following short stories and essays:

Childfinder

Crossover

Near of Kin

Speech Sounds

Bloodchild

The Evening and the Morning and the Night

Amnesty

The Book of Martha

Lost Races of Science Fiction

Positive Obsession

Furor Scribendi

The Monophobic Response

This collection was carefully curated to show the best of Ms. Butler's work and is a great opportunity to either start an Octavia Butler collection or to fill in the missing pieces in an existing collection. 

5/5 Stars

#OctaviaEButlerKindredLibraryofAmerica #NetGalley

Review: Shiver- A Chilling Horror Anthology

Disclaimer: I received e-book version of from the editor in exchange for honest reviews. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Shiver is an anthology of stories that does it's best to send shivers down your spine. Stories of terror and monsters will chill and thrill you and make you look twice at the shadows in the snowfall. 

This anthology contains 30 stories and a wide variety of themes which include a twist on Japanese folklore, a group of final girls banding together against the evil stalking them, a comedic horror take on a night shift meat packing plant, a couple of lab skeletons, a vengeful Jack Frost, a hike gone very wrong, and many more.

My personal favorites in this anthology were The Snow Woman by Sarah Jane Huntington,  Waiting for Winter by Nicole M. Wolverton, Charlotte Frostheart's Box of Winter by Eric Raglin, and The Nightmare Man by Jessica Guess. Ms. Guess's contribution alone is enough nightmare fuel to give you chills for days.

Shiver is perfect cold weather reading if you are looking for a fun, chilly read to curl up with and beat your winter blues.

4/5 Stars