My Review of Lights Out: A Horror Short Story by Darcy Coates

This is a short story; I was able to read it in about an hour, and it had several good reviews so I decided to give it a try on a rainy afternoon when horror seemed like an inviting genre.
There's not a lot of input as to exactly where the story is taking place, other than a shopping centre, but the British spelling was a clue that maybe it was overseas somewhere. Turns out it doesn't really matter, and there were only a few words I thought might be British English, so it could be Anytown, USA or a similar mall anywhere in the English speaking world. The story opens with our main character, Jodi, the manager in a clothing store, working with some other employees to unload some crates out of the back of a truck.
From the beginning, Jodi gets a strange vibe from the eight crates she unloads. Once they get them inside, they discover each contains a creepy looking ceramic mannequin.  The other employees also feel uneasy in their presence, and once they are setup in the store, the customers begin leaving just as quickly as they come in. Clearly, something is going on with these faceless human-like forms.
As the employees begin to disappear, Jodi's predicament gets darker and darker.  Told over the course of a couple of days at a pretty steady pace, the storyline is a bit predictable, but it also keeps you reading. You have to find out what happens when, inevitably, the mannequins come after Jodi. I won't ruin the ending for you, but it did not turn out quite as I thought it was going to, which is always a plus in this genre.

Who wants a hug??

There wasn't anything spectacular about this book, but it was a thoroughly enjoyable read. I like Coates's writing style. Clean, polished, to the point, without being overly flowery or wasting a lot of inconsequential words. I also appreciate the fact that this book was clearly edited and proofread, which is becoming a rarity, unfortunately, when it comes to the eBooks I've been reading recently.
If you need a short read on a stormy night, you can find Lights Out: A Horror Short Story by Darcy Coates here. You can check out my four star Amazon review here.
Has anyone else read this one? What are your thoughts?

My Review of In Love With a Haunted House by Kate Goldman

I guess I either have unbelievably high standards or I'm just a magnet for good plot ideas that go nowhere.  This one, my friends, I'm sorry to say, is another disappointment.... And yet, the blurb made it sound so promising....
In Love With a Haunted House is about a woman named Mallory who lives in Chicago with her fiance Jim. He dumps her, she gets laid off, and so she moves back home to somewhere around Atlanta.  Her mother tells her that the beautiful Victorian home next door is for sale, since the ancient and elusive Ms. Lewis has passed away. Mallory hopes to purchase and restore the house despite the rumors that it is haunted.  (Sounds pretty good so far, right?)
When Mallory arrives at her mother's house, she runs into the ruggedly handsome Blake standing outside, eyeing the Lewis place. She soon finds out that he also wants to purchase the home.  When we are introduced to Blake's cousin, Lonnie, who wants to sell the house (here it starts to get a little complicated--Blake is Ms. Lewis's grandson from the baby she had in secret and gave to her dead boyfriend's parents to raise during World War II, and he knows it and Lonnie knows it, but other people don't know it, for some reason....) we start to realize the direction this story is going in. That's right--Blake and Mallory are going to have to team up to defeat the sinister Lonnie. And what's the best way to do that? To buy the house together.
But, you may ask, who would want to live with a stranger?
Don't worry! Mallory and Blake fell deeply in love sometime between a ghost in the old house throwing Blake in a closet, drinking coffee, and making out at her mom's house. It's perfectly normal!  After all, she broke up with her fiance a few weeks before this. It happens all the time! So, you may be thinking that there will be wedding bells in the future (winky-eye emoji-con) we'll have to wait and see!
I really don't want to ruin this for anyone who has a couple of spare hours on their hands and likes really silly ghosts, really quick romances, and really poorly written books, so I'm not going to tell you anything else about the plot line. Besides, you've all figured it out already any way, right? But I am going to tell you that once the ghost of Ms. Lewis gets a hold of Lonnie, the story goes into fast forward mode. It's as if the writer was given two days to write this book, and she looked up on the evening of the second day and was only about halfway through, so she dumped a bunch of words on the page.  We fly through the rest of the book and skip over some of what could have been the best parts, like, I don't know, the wedding!
I wish that these were the only issues with the book, but they're not.  The characters are very flat, and if you like to read books where you pick up subtle details about the characters from the things they do, this is not the book for you. Everything about them is very straight forward. We can see into their minds and we know what they are thinking and why they are doing the things they are doing. It's very annoying at times.  Also, the backstories for all of the main characters are not well developed at all, especially for Ms. Lewis and her boyfriend. The story says they never left each other's sight after they met, but then he had to sneak off of base to see her. Huh? Blake consistently refers to both Ms. Lewis and the woman who raised Ms. Lewis's baby--his father's grandmother--as his grandmother. Well, technically, the second lady is his great-grandmother.  And even Lonnie calls her "Grandma Lewis" when she would have been his aunt or cousin. I'm really not sure which because none of this story is developed well enough to be able to tell.
Not only is this book in desperate need of an editor, someone to go in and help the author take these great ideas and formulate them into a nice, well-thought out story, it also needs a good proofreader. I understand that in all manuscripts there are occasionally going to be errors. Some of these are blatant. It's almost like the author was using speech-to-text and didn't go back and read it when she was done. At all. Not even once. And that no one read it for her either.  Her are some examples:
"'Who wish she would have a child with anyway?'"

"Mallory through her hands up in the air."

This isn't grammatically incorrect, but check out this sentence. "'I'm not sure what you mean.'" Mallory wasn't sure what he meant, how could they share the house?" Not only is this a sentence only Captain Obvious could love, but there is also a comma splice--one of about a billion in the story.  Even the first sentence of the story has a comma splice in it. For realzies.

"The comforter on her bed had a stained from the night she had drawn a slumber party..."  What does that even mean?

Maybe this one is on me. I tried to figure out what it meant. I even Googled it. Any ideas? "He would know how to stint if you gave him a manual and explained it to him." What is stinting? Someone please explain it to me....

"How could anyone stand a cell something so beautiful..."

This one makes me think Mallory is actually a zombie. "She moved a little bit closer, so close that he could smell her sweet perfume and see the small dab of jelly on one corner of her mouth from the toe she had been eating for breakfast." Yuck!

"Jim's cold eyes took in her be dry gold appearance..."  Does Rumpelstiltskin know about this?

Look, I'm the first to admit I have a hard time with words that sound the same but are spelled differently. If you've been reading my blog for a while, you've probably seen me do this from time to time. And, no, no one proof reads my blog before I publish it except for me. But I'm not attempting to sell my blog to people for their hard-earned money either.  And, for the love of monkeys, if you ever see errors as egregious as these in my writing, please let me know!
I know that Ms. Goldman has written lots of books, and that many of them appear to be doing well. In fact, this book has a lot of positive four and five star reviews. So I guess some people enjoy this sort of fast pace story and didn't mind the errors.  I am not one of those people. I had to give it a sad little two stars. I did like the premise. And that's where I must leave you, Ms. Goldman.  To read my review on Amazon, click here. If you'd like to try this one on for size, you can find it here. The price is currently $2.99 and as I am writing this, it is in the Amazon top 10,000 for Kindle books, which is amazing and something to be proud of. Bez tuf luk, Ms. Goldman!
 

My Review of Sensing Serafina by Elisa Ellis

This is a love story--but not one like any I have ever read before. I spent the first few chapters of the book trying to get a grasp on what is happening. And I don't mean that in a negative way--it isn't as if the author's writing is vague or she leaves us with those plot holes that some of the other books I've written have where you have no idea what is happening because the author just assumes you know. No, in this case, Ellis knows you don't know. And she likes it that way. It's written in a way that keeps you guessing, trying to figure things out on your own, attempting to get there one step ahead of the story. This is the type of story I like to read; it keeps me thinking and engaged.
The main character, Cal, has just come to from a major motorcycle wreck where he has lost his sight. His beloved girlfriend, Serafina, was with him at the time of the wreck.  And when he is finally out of a coma and able to comprehend, his mother tells him that she is gone. Grief stricken, Cal must find a way to go on, now without the love of his life and without his sight. As you can imagine, this is very difficult. He struggles with motivation. As a person who planned on leaving town right after high school graduation, which has happened without him, he now has to change all of his hopes and dreams. Eventually, with his mother's loving guidance, he enrolls in art school and finds he has quite a talent for sculpting. He is finally making friends, including a cute girl.  It looks as if Cal is about to be able to put the pieces of his broken life back together.
And then the unthinkable happens.
Really, I'm a pretty good guesser, and I did not see this coming at all!
It's impossible for me to review the second half of the book without giving the plot twist away, so I won't. I will tell you, however, this is a worthy read. Not only is Ellis's writing style unlike any other writer I've ever read, the creativity that went into the crafting of this story is very unique.  It's definitely worth the time it takes to read it, and it will stay with you after you've read the final chapter.
That isn't to say it's perfect. There were a few things that threw me off a bit, a few things I thought might go a different way. But everything is plausible, and in this particular world, for these particular characters, this is how the story went, and it all works together in the end.
There is some strong language from time to time, as one may expect from a character in Cal's position.
This is a new release, and I think it will do really well! You can buy it for yourself here for only $2.99 and you can check out my five star review here.
If you read it, come back and let us know what you think!

My Review of Lord Love a Zombie: Dead Inside: Welcome by Nina Hobson

I am intrigued by zombies--vampires, ghosts--if it's scary, I wanna read about it. And when this book showed up on one of the many book deal email promos I subscribe to a couple of days ago, my interest was piqued. The premise was so unusual; I'd never heard anything like it before. Imagine a world where zombies have used up all of their reserves. They are running out of food and are beginning to turn on themselves. Meanwhile, a small band of surviving humans decide to take a leap of faith and trust a group of zombies that promises to help them hide from the raging zombie masses.  Sounds pretty cool, right?
Well, it was't. Not even a little bit.
My first clue that this was not gonna be a great read should have been the cover. I know how much a good cover costs--I know how much a stock photo costs--and I know it's pretty much free to go take a picture of your own house, slop some words on it, and call it a cover. I think this author may have gone for option three.  Nevertheless, there was already a five star review that sounded convincing. And since it was free, I downloaded it.
Turns out my instinct was right on the money.

Another reader, perhaps? Photo courtesy of Pixabay

From the very beginning, we are thrust into scene after scene with a long list of characters but little to no information about any of them.  And we never get any! There's a group of humans--I'm not even sure I can name them all, but I'll try; let's see--Marshall, Henry, Cynthia, Julia, Jeff, and Connor--who eventually run into a zombie family--Abner, Ernest, Anna, and Jackie--and then start on their way to some human camp. Of course, they don't make it there.  And some of them get killed or turned into zombies.  And no one really seems to care, so why should I? Even when someone loses their spouse, there is no emotional outburst; it's kinda like, "Meh...." Maybe this is the author's attempt to show how detached we will be in the future during the zombie apocalypse. Or maybe  the author doesn't know her characters any better than we do.  In fact, she doesn't even bother to tell us what they look like. She does mention at one point that one of them is 52, but it's stuck in like someone read through her book and said, "Hey, tell us about your characters so we can imagine them," and she was like, "Okay, this guy is 52." How am I supposed to become emotionally invested in a bunch of characters that I can't tell apart?
And then there is the language of the book. It is written like stage directions. No, really. At first, I thought I was reading a screenplay and at any minute it would go to characters talking with their name out to the left. But it didn't. 'Cause it's not a screenplay. We just get gems of sentences like, "'Hey guys,'" zombie Henry lurches into view as he lowers his gun." End scene. And this one is so bizarre, I actually read it out loud to my husband, "Outside, Ernest, Abner, Anna, Connor, Marshal, Cynthia, and Henry stand around in a loose circle." Is that really the most creative way that sentence could have been crafted?
Sometimes it is hard to tell who is speaking because more than one person talks per paragraph. Sometimes it's hard to tell who is speaking because everyone is basically the same flat-lined character, and it doesn't really matter who is speaking.
The real tragedy here, however, is that this author had such a fabulous idea, but she sucked the life out of it more so than any zombie ever could have. As a freelance editor, I have read a lot of crappy books that had no great idea. This one has a great idea but still ended up being... not so fabulous.  Perhaps with the help of a great--or even semi-talented editor--Ms. Hobson could fix this nightmare.  Maybe she could infuse some life back into her  dead book. Otherwise, well, I'm sad to say, I don't think it's gonna make it. And that's disappointing because it really is a good idea--in theory.
It also makes me very sad to see yet another example of a self-published author (I am assuming) falling into that stereotypical profile of lousy writing. I know there are great self-pubs out there, but this one could be used as evidence to the contrary.
On a positive note, it was a very short read, and I was able to finish it in less than two hours.
I know there are some people who honestly enjoy a bad read, much like watching the show Mystery Science Theater 3000. If you're that guy, then this one is for you.
I hate to leave bad reviews, and I hate that Ms. Hobson may read my review and be upset, but I hope that she can see the positive in it, that I am giving her sound advice from both a writing and editing aspect.  And I've got to be honest. Y'all wouldn't read my blog any more if you thought I was lying to you, right?
If you'd like to read my two star Amazon review of Lord Love a Zombie: Dead Inside: Welcome (why all the colons?) you can find it here.
If you'd like to try this one for yourself, I'm sad to say it's no longer free. You can purchase it on Amazon here for $2.99.  If you give it a go, please come back and share your thoughts, especially if you disagree with me. Hey, that other lady gave it a five star review, so maybe I'm just way off base (but no, I don't think so....)

My Review of Onyx Webb Episodes 1, 2, and 3 by Waltz and Fenton

This is an unusual one, and I came to be reading it this weekend in an unusual way, so it's only fitting that my review will also be a bit out of the ordinary.  This is what I would describe as an "incomplete book" in that the first installment doesn't have a complete story arch, and yet I still gave it five stars. If you've been reading my reviews for a while, you will know that this is very strange for me, as I usually start no higher than three stars for these types of novels. But Onyx Webb is different, and despite the fact that I was left hanging at the end of Episode 3, the well-written, interwoven, complex story portraying the unfortunate lives of several different characters completely held my interest from page one until the end of the first installment--and I will definitely be reading on.
The story starts when Onyx Webb is a little girl on the way to the World's Fair with her father in 1904.  When Onyx goes missing, we are introduced to a serial killer, Obedience, whose description is creepy enough to keep you up at night if you dwell on it.  I won't give anything away, but the events in Onyx's early life had me turning through the pages quickly to find out if she lives or not. After all, when we first meet  Onyx in the prologue, it's made pretty clear that she is a ghost.  I had to find out if it was Obedience that killed her!
But even though this portion of the book isn't particularly long, it is interrupted by the stories of two other characters.  We travel to the mid-twentieth century with Juniper and her family, and we go to near present day with Koda.  Their stories are also spell-binding, and while I was in a rush to get back to Onyx, I was also extremely captivated by the worlds of Juniper and Koda as well, particularly when we find out that Juniper has gone missing and Koda has seen a ghost.  The way the book is woven together demands that you keep reading; once you are updated on one character, you have to continue reading to find out what is going on with the others. Also, the more you read, the more you realize these stories are all related somehow, though by the end of Episode 3, it's still not exactly clear how.
Not only are these main characters well-developed and interesting, so are the supporting characters in each of their stories. You can't help but be intrigued by Koda's best friend, Dane, or immediately dislike his ex-girlfriend Mika.  Juniper's brother is the ideal older brother, and his search for his missing sister is heart wrenching.  Even the backstory of Onyx's parents, which we get in flashbacks and stories told by her father, is well-thought out and raises many questions about who--or what--Onyx really is.
As a fan of historical fiction and horror, this book was a perfect balance of the two for me.  It is so well-written that fans of literary fiction will appreciate its value as well.  Even though I don't generally read mysteries because I become too emotionally invested in the characters and become too upset when something happens to them, I am certain readers who appreciate these types of novels will also enjoy this book.  I read another review that said this book created a new genre, and while I'm not sure if I'd go quiet that far, I absolutely understand why it was stated--this book is certainly a genre crosser. Basically, if you like books, this one has something for you.
While I am certainly bothered by the abrupt ending with no resolution, as I said before, it didn't bother me like it usually does. I think one main reason for this is that I knew it going in.  The authors make it abundantly clear that this story is told in installments and that there are currently twelve of them.  I still adamantly say that all books sold as individual units should contain an entire story arch, and this one does not, but at least I knew that going in.  Also, the story itself is so well-written, I didn't take any stars off of my Amazon review due to incompleteness. If the scale had been 1-10, I may have given it an 8, but when we only have 5 stars to play with, I can't see omitting any for this reason.
Now, let me explain how I came to be reading this book this weekend. About a month ago I was contacted by one of the authors asking me if she could gift me the book in exchange for a review.  This is pretty common for book bloggers, though it hasn't happened to me too many times before.  I didn't accept her gift though--I couldn't--because I already had Onyx Webb on my Kindle. I had already downloaded it!  So technically I'm not obligated to make the canned statement that I was given this book in exchange for a fair review, although I would have been if I didn't already have it.  The reason it has taken me so long to read it is because I was wading my way through Noble Cause. I started reading Onyx Webb Friday night and finished it Saturday, not because it's short but because I couldn't put it down.
If you like American Horror Story (the first few seasons when the storytelling was still excellent) or Stephen King, or Dean Koontz, you will like this book. I honestly think Onyx Webb would make a great television series or a movie.  I believe it's currently on it's way to a cult following, and I can see why.  The price of the first installment right now is $2.99 and you can purchase it right here.  If it's a rainy Sunday where you live like it is here, and you have three or four hours, go get it now. You'll thank me--until you get to the end, and then you'll be mad at me because you know you're going to keep spending $4.99 for each of the remaining installments. Sorry! I promise I get no money for any of the books I recommend!
If you read it, please come back and leave a comment. I'd love to hear your thoughts! And don't forget to leave a review on Amazon. It's super important for the authors and other readers.
Now to figure out what to read next.... Oh, right, Onyx Webb Episodes 4, 5, and 6.

My Review of Noble Cause by Jessica James

Finishing this book was a bit of a Noble Cause.... It was really long, and I honestly didn't know if I should push through or just let it go. But I decided to push through because I hate to leave a book unfinished.
I have a degree in History, with the Civil War being my main area of study.  I love reading about the Civil War in every context--fiction or non-fiction--and I was very happy to see this book offered for free, especially since it has so many five star reviews, though after reading it, I'm really not sure why.
The book started off really great. Andrea, the main character,  was immediately likeable as a Northern spy. How strong must this woman be that she is willing to dress up as a man and fight for the cause she believes in. Although, I didn't think it was really believable that this beautiful woman is passing herself off as a man, I still liked her gumption. However, her character seems to constantly live in a state of contradiction. She hates the South but saves a Southern officer. Throughout the story, this seems to be a common theme--Andrea thinks and says one thing but acts in a completely different way, especially at the end. I don't want to give too much away, but the actions she takes in the last few chapters of the story seem very out of line with the over-the-to Union zealot we are supposed to believe in all throughout the rest of the book.
It was very hard to even get to the end. About 25% into the book, the story gets bogged down, and the plot doesn't move along for quite some time. Scene after scene is virtually the same. Two characters sitting on a porch talking about why one's believes are more noble than the other. Chapter after chapter and the book doesn't move forward. As a writer, I believe it is imparative to make sure that every scene adds something to the story. In this case, I think there were multiple scenes that could have either been combined into one or eradicated. Likewise, there are characters that add little to nothing. And many of the soldiers were so interchangeable, I couldn't remember which was which--and I guess I didn't really care either.
The author's decision to skip certain important events--such as four months Andrea spent in prison--and dwell on conversation after conversation that add little or noting to the story is confusing to me as a reader. Why not let us live through her eyes a bit in that Northern prison and live a little less through her conversations with Hunter, the character who eventually gets around to revealing that he is the hero of the story, at Hawthorn (his plantation house where he takes Andrea against her will after she has been reclaimed from the prison he accidentally put her in) that go nowhere?
In fact, the way that Andrea comes to be at Hawthorne and stay at Hawthorne are both unbelievable to me. And then Hunter--who is commanding a brigade of Confederate soldiers by this time--gets to come home from the war almost every day. I don't see how this is possible. In all of my studies, I don't recall reading about many commanders who just worked the Civil War as a day job.  Late in the war, this plantation that is so close to Northern territory has still not fallen into Union hands despite the fact that Andrea has to save it once earlier on.  (Why she would do that is another contradiction I cannot answer.) How is this possible? How is it that no Union soldiers ever decided to claim this giant plantation as a headquarters??
 I asked myself that same question over many events in the story--how is this possible? Andrea has a broken leg but still manages to use make-shift crutches to make it down a flight of stairs. Take it to someone who currently has a torn ACL--this could not happen!  She has to have her leg re-broken and re-set because of her shenanigans.Umm, I don't think she would have been doing it to begin with.  Hunter hears that Lee has surrendered from the safety of his own home, no Union officers showing up to arrest him, despite the fact that they are close enough to hear Union gunfire celebrating victory and church bells? It all seems a bit unlikely to say the least.
There are some things that the author does really well. The way she describes the setting is awe inspiring, especially when it comes to the beauty of Hawthorne. She also obviously cares deeply about her characters, which were fairly well-developed, if often illogical. She seemed to have done some research on the war itself, though the lack of historical data (actual battles, for example) was a little annoying to someone such as myself who has studied the war so thoroughly. She does mention one well-known soldier by name, and that's about it. It's almost as if she wasn't sure what battles were actually happening in that theater,  or who the real leaders were, so she avoided it altogether.  
There are also some punctuation mistakes, missing quotation marks, that sort of thing that while they didn't distract from the story were a bit annoying. Another thing that was confusing and often stopped my reading was when a character had been sitting but then was suddenly doing something he or she had to be standing in order to do, or when the characters were suddenly in what seemed to be a different location or position. In one instance, the author talks about Hunter pulling Andrea inside when she hasn't even mentioned that they are at a cabin. I was very confused and re-read that section several times before I gave up and went with it.It was as if we were supposed to be able to see some picture in the author's head that here words didn't always make clear.
Parts of this read were really enjoyable, but make sure you have several hours to invest in something that may or may not be worth it before you decide to give this one a shot. You can find my three star Amazon review here. If you'd like to try this one for yourself, you can purchase it here. The current price is a whopping $7.99.