Halloween Night on Monster Island by Clark Roberts

I was offered a free copy of this book by the author. However, it was available on Kindle Unlimited at the time and so I read it through that. All opinions are my own, genuine ones.

I was the biggest fan of Goosebumps back in the day and honestly, I still am. I was really intrigued by the premise of this book as evil theme parks and Halloween check a lot of my horror boxes, and the promise of Goosebumps-like thrills drew me in. Delightfully, this book managed to provide everything I could hope for and more.

Halloween Night on Monster Island is the story of a group of children who go to stay with their mysterious Uncle Victor for Halloween. Victor happens to own a spooky theme park called Monster Island which the kids have all to themselves, except for Victor's young assistant and the creepy park caretaker. Things start to get a little too spooky though as it seems like real monsters might be on the island.

I mean it as the biggest compliment when I say this book perfectly captures the tone and unique feel of Goosebumps. I'd actually argue it's a little better than the modern books. The cliffhangers for each chapter are more subtly done, the characters a little more fleshed out and less interchangeable. I had an absolute blast reading this book and it is perfectly designed to read to your child at night. The chapters are very short which makes it easy to make sure you can time readings and they don't go on too long, and the aforementioned cliffhangers would make a child want to keep reading on.

Overall, I cannot recommend this book more. It's perfect for the spooky season or just for the child/child at heart who loves old school Goosebumps-type stories. I was pleasantly surprised by just how good this book was and it is well worth checking out.

Overall Rating:

.5

Dream Woods by Patrick Lacey

Horror is one of those genres that never really feels mainstream. More than any other book genre, I struggle to hear about horror and most recommendations that I do hear about are not big sellers. Dream Woods is the perfect example of the kind of gems that you can find simply by browsing through Kindle books and I am so glad I stumbled across it.

Dream Woods is a story about Vincent, an ageing rock star who sees a billboard advertising a theme park from his childhood. Dream Woods is a kind of Disneyland knockoff and though it closed down mysteriously several years ago, it appears to have reopened. He decides it is the perfect way to save his crumbling family as his wife is on the brink of leaving him and one of his kids struggles from life-threatening diabetes which puts a strain on all of them. When they arrive at the park, weird stuff starts happening and it becomes pure horror from there.

I LOVED the writing style of this book. Lacey perfectly sews the horror into the story, beginning with subtle, creepy images before developing it into full-blown horror. The park works by targeting each of the family members separately in different ways which leads to some really great moments of psychological creepiness. Too often horror can be over the top or comical and there is true skill here in the way it builds up an atmosphere. Even the overt stuff is done incredibly well and I was completely hypnotised and drawn in. It morphed into a kind of horror that I am not normally a fan of but in this instance, it was done so well and fit with the story that I enjoyed every minute of it.

I was also very impressed with the characters. These tend to be weak in most horror stories since they don't have to be strong for the plot or scary elements to work. Lacey manages to create a whole family of interesting people who actually feel like real people and who I became invested in. The husband/wife relationship was done excellently and fueled the horror rather than distracted from it. The sibling dynamic was similarly believable and a key part of the plot. It's so refreshing to read in the horror genre and it helped the subtle, psychological elements of the book along well.

Overall, this is a brilliant read for fans of old school horror. Horror things set at theme parks are a particular favourite of mine and I'm pleased the setting was used so well here. My only criticism was that I wanted more of this book, more of the creepy mascot and the lore behind it. I would genuinely read multiple books set in this world and I wanted to know every creepy thing that had ever happened here. If you like atmospheric horror with strong characters and interesting story, I could not recommend this more. It definitely deserves more attention.

Overall Rating:

Sinner's Retreat by Victoria Ellis

So I got asked by the author if I would consider reviewing an ARC of this book. This is the first time I've been sought out rather than me requesting it and I was pretty nervous. What if I hated the book? How honest could I be without hurting their feelings? Thankfully my fears were unfounded because I absolutely loved Sinner's Retreat.

This book was described to me as 'Saw meets And Then There Were None' which got me pretty excited about the premise and was the main reason I agreed to read it. This is a story about five couples who get invited to a mysterious weekend retreat only to find upon arrival that they are being held captive by a killer intent on punishing them for their 'sins'. One half of each couple represents one of the sins and they are forced to confront their spouse one by one. Their spouse must then make a life or death decision-kill them or themselves. It borrows heavily from the basic premise of And Then There Were None but apart from that this stands as its own story and was all the better for it. There's not a whole lot of Saw in it to be honest and the violence is on the milder side but that wasn't a bad thing at all. The resulting tone is a mix of horror and thriller which works really well.

In terms of length, this book is pretty short and I read it entirely in a day because of that. The pace is great and it results in a fantastic binging experience. I will say that you can tell it is a debut novel. Certain details could have been expanded upon and I would have liked more of the book in general.The characters are strong but a longer book would allow for them to be explored in more depth. However, I am someone who loves a lot of character focus and so this is probably down to personal taste. As it stands, the characters work really well for the kind of story it is and they're a lot more solid than the kind you usually find in horror novels.

Maybe the weakest element of the plot is the sins themselves? Again, this is another element which was still very strong overall but it felt odd that there were seven sins and five couples. The seven deadly sins are kind of hard to define in terms of acts people can commit to embody them and the connections between sins chosen and the acts committed didn't always translate well to me. Ellis does a fantastic job considering how hard a task that is and it does result in a very cool premise for a book. I understand it's the hook but even without the sins, I think the book would have stood strong.

Overall, I was very impressed by this debut novel. It's a great read for anyone who likes thrillers, horror or both and it absolutely delivers on the kind of story you'd expect from the blurb. I will definitely be keeping an eye out for Ellis's future work.

Overall Rating:

The Secret Child by Caroline Mitchell

I received an ARC of this book thanks to Net Galley and publisher Amazon Publishing UK in exchange for an honest review.

I was so excited when I saw this book was coming out. I read the first book in this series, Truth and Lies, only a few months ago and I found it to be a really enjoyable thriller. I am pleased to say that the sequel continues this trend.

My main concern upon finishing the first one was that I wasn't sure where the story could go. The main plot of Truth and Lies is that a detective discovers her birth mother is a serial killer and she must work with her secretly to uncover the locations of victims' bodies to give their families closure. This plot actually follows neatly on from this and the crime that must be solved involves a secret facility that experimented on children. One of these children supposedly died in a fire years ago but now someone claiming to be him is kidnapping children in the modern day and forcing their parents to play a deadly game to ensure their child's safe return. This plot wasn't quite as compelling to me as the first one but it did neatly incorporate the themes of children being lied to about their past and it offered some nice character moments for Amy, our main protagonist.

The writing in this continues to be of top quality. It was engaging and well-paced, although the plot was a lot more linear than the first book. While the first one had various intriguing subplots going on, this lacks pretty much any. That's not really a huge negative quality, it was just something missing that I had really enjoyed. There is sort of a subplot involving Amy's reporter ex-boyfriend but it's largely downplayed. Her serial killer mother is clearly going to play a large part in the next book but her presence in this one was a little intrusive and mostly seemed to serve to make sure we didn't forget who she was.

Overall, this is still a really enjoyable police procedural series and I am definitely excited for the next ones to come out. I appreciate police procedurals with consistent themes and interesting characters which this provides in spades. The crime of this could have been stronger but it was a great thriller on the whole.

Overall Rating:

.5

The Heartbreaker by Mark Young

I picked this collection up on a whim through my Kindle Unlimited subscription and I am very glad I did! At first I was a little worried when I started because the first story is not really horror at all and I'm not much of a sci-fi/fantasy person. Thankfully the rest are primarily horror. As per usual with my anthology reviews, I will go through each story and my opinion of it.

The Heartbreaker-This was not a great start to the anthology, mainly because it's much more of a sci-fi/action story. This is about a soldier who gains a mysterious power and wakes up in a facility after an accident. Not really what I was expecting and so I didn't enjoy it much.

Black Mist-This was a surprisingly deep story about a young girl who has been abused by her stepdad and gets the chance for mystical revenge. It felt on the cusp of problematic with some of the details, but this was one of the stories with the characters I was most invested in and I couldn't predict where it was going.

Curse of the Dreamweaver-This was a solid little fable about a footballer who doesn't appreciate what he has in his life. It's predictable and a little confusing in its description near the end. It also had some imagery that made me feel physically sick which wasn't great. However, it told a good story and there was some interesting stuff happening.

The Artist-This is about an actress who catches the eye of a mysterious man who decides he wants to paint her. It was fairly predictable but told well and had some nice elements revolving around the main character being an actress.

Let's Not Talk About Kevin-A boy named Kevin has been chained up by his family. This story has an interesting start and subverts expectations but it felt a bit lacking? I wanted more detail about what had happened to Kevin and less of the repetitive action sequence it ends with. I feel like this story had more to tell.

Heavenly Waters-A man goes fishing and encounters a mermaid. Sexy times ensue followed by horrific times. A fairly linear plot but it doesn't suffer for this. The sexual elements are...interesting.

The Good Boy-This was about a man whose son has gone missing. His wife claims to be visited by their son's ghost and tells him to go search a cave for him. Again, there was a little confusion in the details of what was happening but it had a cool premise and a creepy atmosphere.

Living With Your Parents Can Be Murder-Did not like this story. It's about a 42 year old man living with his parents and he has like a devil on his shoulder talking to him the whole time. There were no surprises and the ending was abrupt and weird.

The Vanished-A boy who is bullied accidentally wishes away the entire world except him and his bully. I feel like this could have been better than it was but again, it was a little weird in the execution. It's low on horror elements but it was more my speed than the first story.

The Unforgiving-This one was really cool. This is about a man and his son, and the dad was responsible for bullying someone to death when he was a child. He's experiencing guilt from that in the present day so he goes to talk to his dad about it but creepy stuff starts happening from there. A lot happened in this story and it was all so interesting and hard to predict. It felt like it had enough detail to be fleshed out into a full book, compared to some of the others which are more like snippets of horror.

Gone-Oh god, this one is weird. A man gets bitten by a mosquito and then...stuff happens. Very gory and full of disturbing details, but also it doesn't go where I expected it to which was a nice surprise. Perhaps the weirdest story which is saying something.

The Diary of Ethel Edie Browne-A woman moves into her new house and discovers an old diary with dark secrets. The characters in the present day were very odd-acting but the diary part was compelling and I really liked where the story went, even though it used something I'm usually not a fan of.

Protege-A man goes to interview someone and bad things happen. This was a really good story to end on and has some genuinely scary/disturbing moments in it. This was probably the story closest in tone to a modern horror movie.

So overall, this is a good little collection of horror stories. The writing style is decent and straightforward which is how I like my horror. There is a fair amount of gore, some sexual content in certain stories and also gross-out stuff (which I am particularly sensitive to and so found difficult to read). I would recommend checking this out if you're looking for some short horror to devour quickly. There are definitely some gems in here.

Overall Rating:

.5

Little Deaths by John F.D. Taff

Now this was a pleasant surprise!

Honestly I wasn't expecting this collection to be great. I haven't had much luck with horror anthologies on Amazon and most of them tend to be either forgettable, weirdly sexual or just entirely gore-based. The stories in this aren't (on the whole) any of those things. Most of them are really unique, very gripping horror stories that manage to be surreal at times without crossing the line into absurd or incomprehensible. Alas not every story in this collection is great and I was slightly put off by the author gushing about his own stories at the end which knocked off a star or two.

So let's start off with the good. 'Bolts' is pretty solid, albeit I was very put off by the weird vibes the main character's relationship had. It felt very forced and read like someone writing about a fantasy relationship. Thankfully this doesn't last and the story is a neat twist on a classic. 'Calendar Girl' was really great and one of my favourites. The suspense is built up well and its not entirely predictable which is great, 'Here' is beautiful and mesmerizing, and again you can't really tell what is going on as the plot sucks you in. It's not really even a horror story but it fills you with dread and the potential for horror keeps you guessing. 'The Mellified Man' was another favourite and, while predictable, I still loved every second. All of these I would give 4-5 stars.

Most of the rest I would give 3 stars each. 'Helping Hands' was one of the more engaging ones, and 'The Lacquered Box' only missed out by not really being very clear in what was going on. I hated 'The Mire of Human Veins' at first but it grew on me as it went on. My main problem was the overly-descriptive writing style which doesn't really fit with the other stories and comes across as pretentious. 'Orifice' was so close to being good for me but it just fell a bit on the weird side.

There were only a couple that I either didn't read properly or actively disliked. They tended to either be more on the sci-fi side or else I hated the format of the story. 'Sharp Edges' was very bland and I skimmed it after the first few pages. I couldn't even read 'Snapback' due to the terrible format of it being emails or reports or whatever it was. 'In Men, Black' was also uninteresting to me and I couldn't engage with the alien plot at all. Assume all the rest that I haven't mentioned are middle of the road for me.

Overall, I was very pleased with this collection. Though this review may seem fairly negative, I was genuinely enthralled by most of the stories and some of them I know will stick with me for a very long time. Taff's writing style is clear, enjoyable and quick to digest which is perfect for a collection like this. I would definitely recommend this for anyone who enjoys horror anthologies and I would love to read more from the author.

Overall Rating:

.5

Only the Truth by Adam Croft

I almost didn't finish this book. Seriously, that's how dull and uninteresting I found the plot. Not going to lie, the main problem of this book is its protagonist/narrator. It has been a long long time since I read about such a self-centered, stereotypically awful male protagonist. There are two female characters in this book and neither of them matter at all in terms of their character. For the most part, you are stuck listening to this whiny, self-pitying jerk narrate the really quite uneventful plot until the sweet release of the ending frees you.

Maybe it seems like I'm being too harsh. This book seems to be popular enough to be advertised to me on Amazon after all. I however can't find a single thing to say about it that's good. The plot sounds promising enough-the main character finds his wife's body in a hotel he's staying at and, in a fit of panic, runs away with his current lover who works there. But...it's just so bad. His wife is given zero personality and the protagonist mourns her very little. Even then, he only uses sentences like 'How can I possibly put into words how much I miss her?' without actually going on to attempt to tackle that challenge. The lover is slightly better but her character is tainted by constant physical descriptions of how slender and short she is, again seemingly the only thing the main character notices about her at all. She is however the only slightly interesting thing about the whole book which makes it even worse when SHE FREAKING DIES HALFWAY THROUGH.

That is the exact point I almost gave up. I basically skim read the rest of the book and I kid you not, it's just him going from one location to another with nothing worthwhile happening until the climax. Speaking of which, it's so painful. The lover turns out to be the one who killed his wife all along (of course, given that she's the ONLY OTHER CHARACTER) and she did it because...he's a jerk? The main character even acknowledges how little sense this makes, that's how bad it is.

Worst of all, the main character has learned precisely nothing by the end and escapes with no ramifications except a dead wife (we know just how much he cares about that). I actually agree wholeheartedly with the bad guy here and I'm not entirely sure I'm meant to. Aside from the fact she should have killed him rather than his wife, she was 100% right in my eyes. Ultimately, when you actively want the protagonist to suffer horribly, I don't consider that a great book.

Overall Rating: