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A Scorpion's Labyrinth: The Collected Short Horror of Amanda M. Lyons

7/22/2023

Alright, folks, sorry for the long absence. Things were complex for a while and I wasn't keeping up here as often as I should have been. You have my apologies. I have been writing though, and continued to do reviews on Netgalley, Amazon, and Goodreads as well. For now I wanted to point out that I've put together a omnibus of my short horror stories and you can find it on Amazon in Kindle, paperback, and hardback formats. I sincerely hope that you'll appreciate having them all in one convenient package and getting to read a few shorts that weren't included in past collections as well. The cover art is from an old picture I took one day years ago while hiking on the local trail. I just may be the only one that sees a sad and somewhat sinister woman there in the form of the tree but I've always loved it, particularly with the small bit of altering I did to the image to bring her out.

Here are the details for A Scorpion's Labyrinth:

Visceral, dark, gothic, horrific, surreal, and character-driven horror shorts for all kinds of horror fans. This book collects the short works of Amanda M. Lyons previously published in the collections The Lesser Apocrypha, In Ventre Tuo, Sacrum Umbra, and The Hungry Season and includes other shorts.

Review of Brom's Slewfoot: A Tale of Bewitchery

7/13/2021

Abitha hadn't planned to be married to Edward, she hadn't planned to be betrothed to him either, or to travel here to the new world and all the restrictions of Puritan life, but she was doing her best to live her life all the same, She hadn't chosen Edward, she hadn't been raised to be married into Puritan life, nor was she suited to all of these rules and hardships, but she felt like she might be happy here if she could make do just a little longer. Except every time she thinks she has things figured out, that she's made just a little more room in the world for someone like herself, that she's gotten Edward to stand for them and their needs despite his meekness, everything seems to fall back into the harsher places they always do- particularly just when she needs it least and especially when the choices they make carry them out of the control of Edward's controlling and spoiled elder brother Wallace. Especially now that Edward, a good man she was just beginning to love a little bit more, is dead and she's all alone.

Or is she?

Someone in the dark of the cavern where Edward died there is a new voice and the whisper of something new, something that picks at her past, the mother she lost, and the hope she has to finally live her life for herself and no one else. Soon she'll find herself discovering so much about herself, the woods, the animals, the men all around her, and the religion that binds them all-if she lets it.

There is a lot to enjoy about this book and I hope that you'll agree it's more than worth the time invested to let it unravel word by word, revealing more and more about it's characters, the setting, the people, fate, and destiny. This could've been a book that followed all the same paths, told the same old stories about women who choose freedom, men who bend others to their will, the nature of religion and power, and all the old myths about what it is to be human and all too imperfect., instead we have so much to understand, fresh perspective, interesting connections, self-exploration, and a very well crafted narrative that is anything but what you're expecting as it plays out. Highly recommended for fans of myth, magic, mystery, and the nature of good versus evil.

Review of Lee Mandelo's Summer Sons

6/29/2021

Andrew thought he knew all there was to know about his friend Eddie- until he turned up dead of an apparent suicide just days before he was supposed to meet him and reconnect. Now the heir to everything Eddie owned, he's looking for answers for all the questions Eddie's sudden and inexplicable death have left for him including an explanation for the Haunt that's been riding him ever since Eddie died and answers for why Eddie had been digging up information about the shared past he swore they'd both been running from. Lost in his grief, torn by their past, and furious with his current circumstances but adamant that he'll discover what happened to Eddie, Andrew's in over his head in more ways than he can imagine.

Set in the area of Nashville Tennessee and featuring both the academic world of Vanderbilt and the rough and ragged rural party life of many young men and women of Appalachia this book is an absolutely intense blend of Southern Gothic, fast cars, wild youth, and the darker aspects of the supernatural, particularly those created by the very real ghosts of our personal pasts and those of our ancestors. It also has plenty to say about the high cost of being consumed by our inner darkness, the need to avoid confronting trauma, and becoming consumed by the world around us. This book absolutely grips the reader from the very beginning pulling us along on Andrew's journey as he tries to make sense of what Eddie's left for him in a life so perfectly planned in which he is both terribly absent and inexplicably present in all things. Yearning, grief, control, desire, agony, depression, angst, and trials all come off the page and make the reader want to devour the book whole from beginning to end. I absolutely can't exaggerate how compelling this read was and how very satisfied I was by the end of it. I'm really hoping to find many more novels forthcoming from this author and highly recommend this one to readers looking for a great gothic ghost story with depth, compulsion, and mystery.

Review of Chris Coppel's Legacy

6/18/2021

In Legacy, we're introduced to a sheriff's deputy and his family who've received an unexpected package in the middle of the night and soon face equally unexpected consequences for accepting it. On the face of things, this is a novel about the supernatural but I'd actually say this ends up being more of an adventure or thriller novel with supernatural elements mixed in for good measure. One might be able to call it a blend of the classic House horror film from the eighties and the equally campy Trancers series of the nineties featuring Jack Death only with the intent to tackle supernatural intruders from other worlds via time jumps. Fans of either of these film series may find a nice little b movie read in this book. Personally, I felt like there was still some work to do.

This story and its presentation have some solid points and a validly unique premise to work with but I think this one, the first in an intended series of books about our hero, really needed more time to percolate before it went into the cup. There are some grammar issues off and on and the narrative isn't always smooth, but I think the larger problems lie with the story. It's a bit all over between discussions of trauma that are in turns either very stark or very detached and often feel unused for character development or establishing. Not only are these trauma points suddenly dropped in our laps, but we're also just as suddenly jerked back to the main narrative without the two being fully connected. There are some really loose characterizations for everyone besides Craig, leaving most of the characters two-dimensional at best particularly because there is so much telling going on for parts of the story when we should be shown instead. Several points occur where gender stereotypes or cultural depictions interrupt our connection to these other characters too, up to an I including both Ahote, a magical Indian, and Craig's wife, Jenny. I have to be honest and say that these things detracted enough from the story that I wasn't able to fully enjoy it. I hope the author is able to work out some improvements with his novel and later installments of the series before he goes forward, there is some real promise and unique ideas here.

Book Review: Stephen Graham Jones' My Heart is a Chainsaw

6/12/2021

Jade is a girl who loves her slasher movies, not just any old horror, not werewolves and vampires, not ghost stories without structure and rules, just slashers. Slashers act with purpose, they're silent, deadly, and relentless. They can be relied on to arrive just when they're needed and provide more than enough chaos, and Jade knows that her little town, a little run-down lake town called Proofrock, is just dying to have one. See, Jade pays attention, she studies the rules, she knows her Slasher movies, and there are plenty of reasons her town has already got the makings of a slasher story all ready to go if she can just arrange the workings of her life to allow her to pay attention enough. Be ready enough to witness it. All she needs is a final girl and the ability to figure out which of the old stories of her town will pay off-ok, and also finishing out this whole high school thing, and getting her dad to leave her alone. If she can just do that, if she can just make it through long enough to have everything in her life somewhat in order no matter how much everyone else doesn't get it, Jade will have it made- Or so she thinks.

My Heart is a Chainsaw is easily one of my favorite books of the last five years. There's everything here, the joy of a lead character who's genuinely engaging and complex, equally complex and interesting secondary characters with their own narratives, a town with lots of detail and intrigue which we feel like we can slip right into, all the bloody gore slasher fans have been in love with since the seventies, and plot twists and turns that have the reader gleefully following Jade's narrative one minute and emotionally engaged and moved the next. I love nothing better than a book that pulls me in with its narrative and gives me an idea that I know where we're going, then surprises me by taking on a whole new direction or doing a 180 and going somewhere completely counter to my expectations. This book absolutely does everything it set out to do. I really hope people enjoy it as much as I did, especially my fellow horror nerd girls!

Review: Silvia Moreno-Garcia's Certain Dark Things

4/25/2021

Certain Dark Things is the story of Atl, a member of an ancient vampire clan born out of the Aztec empire and its ancient religious practices. The youngest of her mother's two daughters, she has just survived the brutal drug war centered slaying of the majority ( and possibly all) of her proud and storied clan. She lives in a modern world where vampires were outed in 1967 and cities like Mexico City have declared themselves vampire-free zones despite the very high population of vampires in Mexico and South America as a whole, many of these ten clans having handily centered themselves at the top of crime and drug syndicates who wield power over human and vampire lives alike.

Despite the ban, Atl finds herself hiding in a Mexico City occupied by so many differences- among them sanitation squads who hunt and destroy vampires, brutal poverty, and complex threats from police officers, a crime group called Deep Crimson, and other vampires. Atl is surviving by the skin of her teeth with no other company than her dog Cuilli until she meets Domingo by chance and things begin to happen which drag both Domingo and herself into a major conflict with the Necros clan which murdered her family, an old enemy of Domingo's named Jackal, Deep Crimson itself, and a police officer pulled into the fray by both her need to protect her daughter from this violent modern world and a past that included slaying vampires.

This is a richly detailed noir laced with urban fantasy elements, a strong clan-centered vampire crime world, new and interesting vampire lore and diversity, and so much of Mexico's own cultural heritage. If I could compare it to any other vampire fiction I would say think of Nancy A. Collins' Sonja Blue and Nancy Baker's Creed duo which began with The Night Inside, possibly also elements of Vampire: The Masquerade which was also heavily centered on the interplay between differing vampire clan and types (All three of these were also major standouts in the genre and well worth your time. ). Vampire fans and fans of the noir are very likely to enjoy this original take on the old tropes and find themselves a new favorite in Certain Dark Things. I certainly appreciated it's characters, complexities, and layers after many years of having been a reader and writer of vampire fiction.

Review: Josh Malerman's Goblin

4/12/2021

When we enter Goblin we feel as if we're walking into something we know, maybe a fog banked small town that's only really creepy at night or a ghost town that hasn't quite died enough to be itself yet, but we're soon made aware of how wrong we are, the familiar edges slipping away and revealing something more like a monolith on a cold and forsaken hill in the middle of the woods that just happens to look like a town if we look at it from just the right angle. Goblin is a place with many variables and many, many moving parts. Just when you think you've figured it out another story begins, and with it, a new facet of the broader story of the town (and the terrible land it was before that town came to exist) reveals itself. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that Goblin is also a character, but one that lurks in the wider edges of the camera, the ones that we just perceive beyond the shoulders of the characters experiencing its energy. There's a lot to unpack from the stories themselves, but it's clear the point was always that we find ourselves haunted by the town itself by the end, having taken on its weight without even realizing it.

This is my first book from Malerman and I genuinely enjoyed the classic horror atmosphere, original narrative, and interesting characters. While it is made up of some conventional parts, or at least things that horror fans are familiar with, I absolutely wouldn't call Goblin a typical novel at all, and that's not just because it's a story made up of several smaller stories. I would go into each of the stories in turn here but I think that the actual experience of reading the book is just too good to spoil by laying every bit of it out and picking it apart in front of you. Instead, I"ll just express that Goblin is every bit its own city with its own legends and existing experiences, I really enjoyed reading each of the stories even when there were parts that left me feeling a little sad or conflicted, and that says a lot in itself. After all, how many authors manage to write something that allows you to feel those emotions and still find yourself genuinely glad to have experience them?

Review for Boneset and Feathers by Gwendolyn Kiste

4/2/2021

Boneset and Feathers is a beautifully written novel that I can genuinely say grabbed me from the first word. Set in a world where witches have come to resign themselves to a series of genocidal attacks from horrifically relentless witchfinders, it's also the story of a small village set just outside the central nexus of the witchfinders efforts, and with it, the story of a family destroyed by its own problems and the massacre of witches which have centered these horrors on the life of our main character, Odette. Odette, you see, is the witch who lived. After the witch-burning that took the lives of her family, she is also a figure with immense personal conflict and self-doubt, living in isolation in the woods and rarely ever coming into the village, even if she needs supplies. The villagers fear her, you see, and blame her for the things that befell their village and its surviving citizens. It doesn't help that on the one day that she truly must come into the village the birds have begun to fall from the sky, an omen of things to come.

Boneset and Feathers is a narrative I truly want you to step into and experience for yourself, in many ways I already worry I've said too much. Odette is a powerful voice expressing terrible things and I love what Gwendolyne Kiste has done with her story here, there are no wasted words or unexpressed experiences, you will genuinely want for nothing with her book and I sincerely hope you'll understand how much of a gift that actually is. Whether you're seeking a gothic novel, a book about witches and magic, or a narrative about perceived evil vs genuine evil this will absolutely satisfy, particularly if you want a novel that isn't overlong or too light on story. This is my first read from Kiste and I have already purchased some more of her work on the basis of this book.

I was fortunate enough to been chosen to get a copy of this book for review through NetGalley.

First Some Silliness and Then a Bit of Realism

9/13/2020

There, have a giggle, I certainly did!

First of all, thanks for your continued patience and understanding over the last year or so that I've been working at both rebranding my work as an indie and coping with the loss of my mother. Neither of these things was easy and I know it meant a lot of quiet from me, but we're all still here and things are continuing in realistic timing. Certainly much more realistic timing than I put myself under the pressure to create in the past. Trauma induced workaholism be gone!

You have my unending gratitude for everything, as always, and hopefully we'll be celebrating the release of Night is Falling sometime in the next year. I'm currently roughly halfway into the first draft and I feel really good about how it all feels. You all know that Gothic horror is my thing in most of my stories and novels, and this one is no exception, although its a bit unusual that it's become something of an Appalachian Gothic tale. Think of something like a blend of both my usual dark mood and a sort of isolationist story about rural poor folks who are honestly very like my kin in real life. Night is Falling is always changing and evolving as I go, but I'm very confident that it's central themes will remain at the end of the writing process.

A narrative about the importance of every life, the value and spirit in each of us, and the way in which many of us are senselessly forgotten, Night is Falling is horror, atmospheric, and a bit of an homage to the people who came before me and what mattered to them. That means this is a book in which everything has a story and every person has their own pieces to share, many of these pieces aren't forgotten by the people who make up the tiny place in rural Ohio but as in real life, are all too often treated like useless and meaningless facets of what it is to be human. I want you to care about everyone here and I want to see you get swept up in everything that happens. Like Bobby Gene himself, i can only tell you the story as I see it and hope that you understand why I wrote it to begin with. I'd like to think this is going to be fresh ground for me, it already is, but I think this will be a smoother and more natural place to work than I had in the past, something more like home.

Interview with Jeremy Tuman, Author of Stereo Killer

6/24/2020

Jeremy Tuman lives in New Orleans, where he teaches English at Xavier University of Louisiana and plays in the rock 'n' roll band The Great Twenty-Eights. STEREO KILLER is his first novel.

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/19646598.Jeremy_Tuman
https://www.amazon.com/Stereo-Killer-Jeremy-Tuman-ebook/dp/B07WW369M6/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1590794889&sr=8-1

Stereo Killer is the story of Chet, a former punk facing his middle ages with some reluctance. Can you tell us a bit about Chet and his process in the book?

Chet is a character who makes decisions based on immediate needs and immediate gratification, the way I think a lot of us do, but it's also a way that is socially discouraged as short-sighted, irresponsible, immature. This way of decision making is also seen as indicative of an aimless, wandering sort of life. While I think there's some truth in those perceptions, and we certainly can't make our way through by only addressing our immediate needs, I also think there's something very basically human in those instincts, and many times following them is exactly what's needed to maintain our sanity and give us some clarity in a messy and overstimulating society. Of course, punk rock is known as an immature genre of music that codifies resistance to social norms, including responsible decision making. So a decision to re-invest in punk rock as a middle-aged adult is an especially ripe decision for second guessing by responsible society. But even though punk rock has the visual and aural markers of prolonged immaturity, you don't need to look hard to see many other examples of this immediate gratification seeking that have been elevated to respectability, even desirability, such as consumerist fetishization, the "luxury" lifestyle, sports hero and celebrity worship. In a way punk rock stands against those other modes, and its fans see something noble in that stance.

Parker is a clear opposite number to Chet's calmer storm, tell us a little bit about him and why he was written this way. Do you like him?

Parker is a unique, singular, iconoclastic sort of person, very driven toward validation and acceptance by others, but insistent on retaining those unique and iconoclastic characteristics in the process. In other words, gaining respect in a scene by not selling out, which in a non-monetary sense just means by not compromising any core beliefs, in Parker's case, about good music, "real" punk rock and what it's made of. Looking around the music scene, for sure the underground music scene, and I'm guessing in mainstream music too, there are many Parker types in visible positions of success, in part because that type of uncompromising drive is what's needed to succeed. These people can be infuriating, unbearable, can be seen as total assholes, but there's usually another side as well, some key element of cool that attracts collaborators, fans, and maybe even some friends. Chet is a different type of creative person, more of a pure player in a musical sense, who seeks pleasure more from just the act of playing, and playing with others, the sound, the fun, the diversion created through playing music with others. But it's a longstanding trope with a ton of truth in it that people like Chet need people like Parker, and vice versa.

Where did the idea for Stereo Killer first spring from?

Years ago I told myself that at some point I would go back to school and try to get an advanced degree. I didn't know in what, but I knew that it was something I wanted and believed it was something I could achieve. After years of playing music and obsessing as a fanboy over certain branches of the rock music tree, including reading and loving writers like Lester Bangs, Richard Meltzer, Nick Tosches, and Peter Guralnick, I decided that I wanted to try writing about music. Guralnick's early, short portraits of people like Charlie Rich really influenced me. They were so well written and seemed so effortless. He's just go hang out with Charlie and catch his set in a nightclub, and that'd be the piece! I thought I'd try creative nonfiction and model on that, but it turned out I didn't have the personality to "interview" well-known people. I was much more comfortable writing about the scene I'd come up in, and the much lesser-known figures in it whom I'd interacted with over the years. Stereo Killer began as the essays I submitted to a creative nonfiction writing program and evolved over many years into the fictionalized novel.

Tell us a bit about your experiences in the punk and music scenes, do you see yourself as a bit like either Parker or Chet?

For sure I was like Chet, coming up in a college-town music scene that was so fun and felt so vibrant. Being in a small town in the south really freed us from identifying too closely with any one particular style or sub-genre. As this was taking place in the eighties, genre-blending and busting underground music was already spilling out of places like Athens. It was a wonderful noise! Part punk, part hippie psychedelic, later a huge dose of sixties garage, surf, rockabilly, and straight up southern-fried weirdness. The mid to late eighties were an exhilarating time, and the record store and the underground rags like The Bob and Forced Exposure played a huge part.

Do you have other books in the wings? If so, what will they be about?

Yes, I am working on a second novel, no title yet. It will be a follow-up in a certain thematic sense, but definitely not a sequel. The main character is somewhat an older version of Chet, but with an entirely different set of challenges to face and questions to answer, not having to do with creative endeavors (although that's in there) but with how to situate oneself and (re)forge an identity and confusing, rapidly changing, and potentially dangerous society. I know that sounds crazy vague! But of the key themes those questions get at, I'm not yet sure which one or ones will provide the thrust of the book. So far the vignettes are exploratory, reaching in different directions. On that process, part of why Stereo Killer took me so long to finish, even though much of the writing was done for years, was I needed to answer a few key structural questions, the ones that end up holding the whole thing together. Sometimes the hardest part isn't the writing, but to step back and see clearly what it is you have and what you want it to be, and what it wants to be.

How have you liked your experience as an author thus far? Any advice for other authors writing works like Stereo Killer?

Response to Stereo Killer has been overwhelmingly positive. It has truly blown me away. I've not moved a ton of copies, but the critical response has been amazing. Selling a few is fun, and selling more would be great, but when I get messages or see posts or reviews from readers, who I believe to be genuine, some of whom I respect tremendously (and who have no reason to blow smoke), I'm absolutely thrilled, humbled, and honored. To see readers enjoying your writing (your writing!) and seeming to appreciate the care you put into your sentences is an infinitely rewarding experience. As for advice, it's been said many times but it's still a trip when it happens to you, the aspects of your book you worry most about, no one else ever keys in on those as weaknesses. They'll find plenty of other weaknesses for sure! (I've had a few readers very put off by the cursing in the dialogue. That one threw me.) And they'll key in on strengths that you'd never considered. So the takeaway is to worry, worry is a good thing, but don't let it paralyze you because you're inevitably reading your reader wrong on some level. They won't see what you see.

Thanks for this opportunity to talk about the book It's been a blast!

Review for Stereo Killer:

***** 5 Stars

Punk Rock Chaos Meets Genuine Humor

Stereo Killer is absolutely a book for music fans, particularly those of us who were ever into Punk Rock. Here you’ll meet Chet, a former punk now in the role of teacher to some less than enthused teenagers who have no idea about his past. It could easily be said that in many ways Chet himself is a bit less than enthused about it, though he can look back at that part of his life pretty readily and count himself among the more informed people who could be teaching his students. A little lost between both the mundane and everyday world of regular life and the punk life of his past, he’s still trying to find where he fits in his current life when Parker, his old bandmate calls him up and eggs him on to join him and a couple of others on a spontaneous tour of Europe born out of new interest for the old band. With some reticence, and the awareness that he had left for a reason, but no idea why he’d decided to, Chet starts to get ready for the middle-aged version of a garage punk tour de force-except what will he do about the life he’d just started to invest in? Will the woman he just connected with still be there when it’s over? Will HE still be there when it’s over?

This book is an absolute blast and more than worth your listening time! Paul Burt does an excellent job of conveying the scene, it’s characters, and the shifting changes of mood and character throughout, even doing a nice job with the musical bits. The book itself is just as complex and engaging as the punk rock scene it portrays, I’ll definitely be keeping an eye out for more books from Jeremy Tuman. If you’re looking for a general idea of the mood before listening or reading, think of things like SLC Punk! and High Fidelity, where both dramatic mood and humor are in play, all blended together with music and chaos.