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tten with a tight plot full of interesting cultural concepts and fully rounded characters and delivers a superb pay off regarding the contents of kasih s bag as harriet phoenix s story was also one of my favourites in the recent terrors from the toy box from phobica books she is definitely a writer to watch i also loved a spectrum of secrets by eric taveren this is the tale of alice a woman who works for genetech a cash strapped genetics company and whose young son is terminally ill with cancer when she sees the profile of jake a brilliant scientist on the space brides database she realises that he might have the skills to cure her son with no intention of marriage alice travels to stay with jake in a remote installation deep beneath the ice crusted sea of the jupiter moon europa and immediately starts to feel guilty about the deception especially when she realises she has genuine feelings for him this piece shines with slick storytelling and draws us in immediately the development of alice and jake s awkward relationship is convincing and the plot saves some eerie reveals before culminating in a taut and surprising finale i really enjoyed lapin chasseur by jennifer roberts here we find lunar dweller clarissa who travels all the way to pluto as part of a holiday trip but upon arrival she discovers with horror that she s been cunningly set up by her horrible twin sister clarissa s journey is a one way ticket and she s actually there to marry a plutonian mushroom farmer called doug in the caverns deep beneath the planet after a tense start this becomes a sweet and life affirming tale that easily draws us into clarissa s plight it has a strong sense of place a weaving plot and very relatable attention to detail despite the sf setting several of the characters shine with humanity contrasting the villainous elements and it saves some twists to conclude on a satisfying note the bulk of hope among the stars by luke t barnett is in the form of correspondence between agnes a previously rich but now impoverished woman from ganymede and william a successful businessman on mars they are very much the traditional lady and gentleman so their written courtship gushes with manners and etiquette but when disaster strikes during agnes space journey to him the story takes a surprising and dark turn in which most unladylike behavior will be required for agnes to survive this story stands out with its epistolary structure quaint characters and drama we are gently guided into rooting for agnes and william and the story constantly keeps us guessing as to how it s all going to pan out the last story she s a bit green by bogna jordan finishes the book on a high here we meet voymir a soldier who undertakes dangerous missions in a flying suit of armour after he is seriously injured after an attack on a pirate base his space brides match turns up in the form of nimfa a winged and green skinned woman who is used to a life of racism and rejection both broken in very different ways the characters and their mutual reticence are believable and their feelings really power this hopeful tale of recovery and longing special mention also goes to dana bell for had my reasons an immersive piece that shows us the potentially dangerous side of love with a not quite human on an asteroid and g a babouche s the titan and the princess is a fun and compulsive read that asks if love can flourish between a spirited jaded princess and a proud alien king of the stories with strong conceptual approaches credit to laura hilse for the clever romantic thriller romance of the algorithm which shows us the space brides process and explores how the ai used by such agencies could pinpoint things that mere humans might miss despite the niche theme space brides llc has plenty of variation and we meet all manner of characters looking to find their soul mate as well as all the above we meet a venusian witch a troubled clone who is running out of chances and a purple eyed alien general we see collapsing neptune mines exclusive lunar hotels virtual realities and a shootout in a martian tomato farm niche themes can become samey but this anthology deftly avoids that pitfall as i usually read horror and the darker and more bleak side of science fiction space brides llc was a pleasant and refreshing change of tone the clashes of culture and creed make for some colourful romances and thrillers and there are several heartwarming stories that show love against the odds and while that might be a well beaten trope it s a harmless one to indulge sometimes a neat concept thoroughly explored this an enjoyable escapist book available from wolfsinger productions here and through amazon kindle stores fiction reviews anthology bogna jordan book review books dana bell eric taveren fantasy fiction ga babouche harriet phoenix jennifer roberts laura hilse luke t barnett romance sage kelly science fiction space brides space brides llc speculative wolfsinger wolfsinger publications review we were seen by mark west 2 posted on may 12 2024 by matthew fryer it s been a few years since i read a mark west story and this novel from the book folks made me glad that i d decided to revisit and also wonder why i d left it so long we were seen is narrated by kim morgan a lecturer and councillor in the fictional english coastal town of seagrave as the story begins we find her attending a public meeting to protest the development of a golf course and hotel that will steamroll some local marshland a fight breaks out and after she is rescued from the violence by a young man the pair enjoy a spontaneous one night stand but it transpires that he s a student at the college where she teaches and someone has taken photographs of their encounter soon beginning an upsetting campaign of blackmail after the excitement of the opening chapters in which kim and her protector escape the meeting and are pursued by thugs the pace cools to an atmosphere of building tension despite the stress of being blackmailed kim attempts to go about her normal daily life but as the days go by she is stalked by an intimidating and obnoxious man and worries about who she can trust kim assumes quite reasonably that her blackmailer is something to do with the proposed golf course she opposes but the threatening letters that keep dropping on her doormat don t seem to demand anything specific and serve only to unsettle then a dead body turns up on the beach and the mystery and the fear really starts to escalate this is a slick and addictive novel kim is investable in her normality a likeable and self aware everywoman and the way she is torn between rationality and paranoia is convincing i love the way the unease is slowly stoked and kim starts to see menace in even the most benign locations of sunny seagrave s promenades streets and bars the small town vibes become very oppressive as the book progresses especially as further disquieting mysteries are trickled into the mix although a modern psychological thriller we were seen has fun shades of a traditional whodunit just like our unfortunate protagonist we suspect that the blackmailer is someone she knows or has at least met and there are a great cast of well written players to choose from as well as the obviously nefarious characters such as glover the unethical tycoon wanting to build the golf course and the creep stalking her we wonder who else might be involved her social circle includes several lecturers and staff at the college her grandfather and his photographer protégé as well as other councillors locals and friends from the golf course protest group they re all fully rounded but often just enigmatic enough so that we can t completely eliminate them from suspicion this is what i enjoyed kim s paranoia even though perfectly justified is infectious as readers we start to be wary of everything and everyone the sinister in the mundane is a great tool and perfectly applied here this novel is easy to read with lucid prose and a well gauged pace and very compulsive i found it very easy to lose myself to just one more chapter this is all the more impressive in that its page turning quality doesn t need to come from chapter cliffhangers or sudden jeopardy it instills a desire to read on purely from the mounting insidious tone after this ratcheting of baleful atmosphere throughout the book the finale is breathtaking and dark the last few chapters are grim exciting and genuinely unputdownable i was gripped hunched over the page and unblinking as the real world faded to irrelevance around me which is not something that happens very often we were seen left me satisfied as everything falls neatly into place and also in need of a breather from the twist and reveal it s also credit to mark west s mastery of the writing craft that i was left with the feeling i d actually been to seagrave and met all these people thanks to his knack for characterisation and creating a palpable sense of place it definitely won t be as long as last time before i read another of his books in fact his list of thriller novels on the book folks site is calling out to me right now if this review has piqued your interest you could certainly do a lot worse than visiting it yourself mark west the book folks fiction reviews book review book reviews books fiction fiction review horror mark west novel reading the book folks thriller thriller novels new publication 0 posted on april 25 2024 by matthew fryer my story scars a darkly humorous tale about a jaded and hedonistic angel named chloe being pursued by the devil on earth is featured in this new book from dragon soul press fallen is an anthology dedicated to angels that have fallen from grace so chloe is in good company here and i m sure she would approve it s available now in print and ebook from amazon writing news review triptych three tales of frontier horror by richard beauchamp 0 posted on april 16 2024 by matthew fryer i ve never been a particular fan of traditional or mainstream westerns but the tropes of scorched plains dusty towns gunslingers and frontier justice provide a great canvas for a pulp horror story having read richard beauchamp s superb dystopian war born last year my favourite in the heavy metal nightmares anthology i thought his textured prose and talent for conjuring unforgiving wastelands would make him an ideal writer to smash these two genres together reading triptych certainly proved that to be the case it opens with the courier in which jeremiah the titular character meets a sinister man in a snow covered tavern he is tasked with transporting a strange artifact across several states in time for solstice eve and delivering it to a known practitioner of the dark arts his journey takes him into the harshest of blizzards during which jeremiah is stalked and attacked by men who try to warn him of what he carries townspeople and even mountain lions shy away from his presence and what begins as a professional dedication to his job soon becomes a protective obsession he regards the strangely warm package as his talisman and it seems to keep him going on his brutal journey long after any mortal should surely have perished this tale brings the classic setting of the loner traversing the american west on his trusty steed but slowly morphs it into cosmic and visceral horror i read it straight through driven by a hungry curiosity that was masterfully stoked by the author and the evocation of the frozen mountainous terrain is perfect an intriguing and compulsive read with a devilish pay off this is a sterling start to triptych following this is blood gulch which is by far my favourite piece of the three it doesn t hang around immediately presenting an infestation of slug like monstrosities that burrow into people s spines and control them as hosts our protagonist is maylene a woman in search of her missing husband who has been taken by the foul creatures along with countless others to an ominous subterranean cave at blood gulch what awaits there is a wrenching vision of hell and i wouldn t dream of spoiling the surprise maylene is a brilliant character a gun toting sharp tongued badass who will stop at nothing to look after herself and her own throw her into a story of revolting parasites against a backdrop of boiling sun alcohol blood and dust and you ve got an absolute winner it shines through its storytelling towards a satisfying epilogue and the plentiful and gritty period language seems authentic bringing a grounding realism to the sf horror concept with shades of cormac mccarthy s blood meridian david cronenberg calamity jane and the aliens mythos blood gulch is worth the price of triptych alone it comes for us all is the finale co written with korey dawson here we find a sharp shooting indigenous bounty hunter called sho keh he is transporting a dangerous criminal tom dallion across the bandit populated desert and frontier towns of the mojave to where he will finally meet justice but the wisecracking prisoner seems to be undergoing a strange transformation and once the blood moon rises pandemonium will be unleashed dallion s eyes shone in the moonlight somehow moving in the stillness of his smiling face like silver coins in the bottom of a disturbed well my complaint with this story is that i kept losing track of who was speaking especially during the opening scenes despite only two characters being present this was mainly due to the overuse of character tags as well as their names the older man said the bounty hunter said the man on the ground said which was confusing and unnecessary but the characters are solid the dynamic between the two leads is convincing and dallion s gruff retorts and escalating creepiness is a great foil for sho keh s pragmatic patience the foreboding tone slowly cranks up throughout their journey building to a grisly splatter western showdown richard beauchamp has definitely climbed up my horror watch list with this release triptych brims with exquisite turns of phrase and slick dialogue and he clearly makes an effort with historical attention to detail the landscape becomes an integral part of the tales essential with any quality western and the author s knack for creating an immersive atmosphere is perfectly suited to this kind of fiction merging the spooky eldritch with gore it should please fans of both camps as a devotee of both i had a splendid time hell comes at high noon indeed richard beauchamp fiction reviews blood gulch book review book reviews books frontier horror horror horror review horror western it comes for us all review richard beauchamp splatter splatter western the courier triptych western western horror review terrors from the toy box phobica books 1 posted on april 13 2024 by matthew fryer hot on the heels of their excellent heavy metal nightmares phobica books have produced another quality themed anthology in the form of terrors from the toy box the blurb promised devil dolls and terrifying teddies abominable ac...