Back on December 28, 2007 I reviewed right here in the hallowed pages of Fear Zone Michael Louis Calvillo's first novel, I Will Rise. I found the novel eminently worthwhile and Calvillo to be a promising writer. The Horror Writer's Association membership agreed, as I Will Rise was subsequently nominated for the 2007 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a First Novel. Of course, regular Fear Zone readers will recognize Michael's name as he has been providing highly entertaining columns here on videogames and other topics for quite some time now.

Roy K. Robbins' Bad Moon Books has just released Calvillo's second novel, As Fate Would Have It. The book is available, in typical BMB fashion, in a beautiful signed, limited hardcover edition of only one hundred and fifty copies for fifty dollars, as well as an even more deluxe and expensive Lettered edition of just twenty-six copies. The novel itself runs to over two hundred and fifty pages and further includes an Introduction by noted author and current Stoker Award finalist John R. Little, an Afterword by Stoker Award winning author Lisa Morton, and striking artwork by artist Peter Mihaichuk.

The promise and potential that author Calvillo showed in I Will Rise has blossomed into full bloom in As Fate Would Have It. Calvillo's new novel is a mature, creative, and at times even breathtaking work. The prose, characters, and storyline are all so well accomplished, developed, and coordinated that you will find yourself thoroughly immersed in the novel and unwilling, or unable, to pull yourself away except for an unusually urgent intrusion by real life.

The novel's protagonist is Montgomery, a thirty-four year old gourmet chef with a very bright future including an up-and-coming restaurant and a beautiful, brilliant and headstrong young medical student, Liz, for a girlfriend. However, all is not sunshine and rainbows for Montgomery as the young man has a deep and very dirty little secret that is, if you'll pardon the pun, eating him up alive. You see, the Maserati-driving Montgomery just happens to be a real life "yuppie" cannibal who is addicted to the taste of human flesh, and who regularly kills to obtain his "long pig."

While the preceding paragraph should be more than sufficient to give appropriate indication of just why As Fate Would Have It is correctly viewed as a contemporary novel of horror, this novel, as brilliantly written by author Calvillo, is so much more . The book is an intense, fierce examination of love, loss, regret, and even co-dependence. It is the complex tale of two unusual couples. There is Montgomery and his live-in girlfriend, the soon-to-be doctor, Liz. Liz isn't your usual medical student; she has suffered through a painful and somewhat mysterious past and has various fears, jealousies, and neuroses as a result. Liz becomes the dominant personality in their twosome. Montgomery's past actions increasingly prey upon his entire psyche to the point he demands that both the killings and the cannibalism cease. It is Liz who not only disagrees with him, but who has become so hooked on the taste of human flesh that she engages in psychological warfare with her boyfriend and pulls out all the stops to not only force the killings and degustations to continue, but to include her in all aspects of the "hunt."

In addition to the couples dynamic occurring between the decidedly upper-class Montgomery and Liz, As Fate Would Have It also explores in depth the relationship between the lower middle-class Ashley and Henry. Ashley is twenty-three years old and works for next to nothing at Chaos Records, a local record store. She lives with Henry, a slacker who is a member of a local punk-rock band that is just good enough that there is a potential future in the music industry there. These two young people not only have to contend with normal relationship problems, but have both been hooked on heroin for the past year. Calvillo utilizes this relationship to examine contemporary male and female interactions from a slightly different perspective than that which he employs when examining the relationship between Montgomery and Liz.

Calvillo also provides a brilliantly executed and carefully constructed catalyst between these two disparate couples - Heather. She is a sexy co-worker and long-time best friend of Ashley's who also becomes intimately connected to Montgomery, and through him, to Liz. It is because of Heather that these two couples lives collide. The fallout of this collision, the life-changing consequences, are what make the book so ultimately riveting.

Calvillo presents very rich, deep characters with strong, believable motivations. The depth and verisimilitude of his characters are what make his story the huge success that it is. The single most dangerous portion of the entire novel is the presentation of just how Montgomery became a cannibal. If not handled just right, it could easily and irrevocably demolish the necessary suspension of disbelief in the reader and make As Fate Would Have It an unintentionally hilarious and unlikely black comedy, just where the tale needs to be serious and plausible. It is all the hard work that Calvillo puts in to making Montgomery a complex and credible human being that pays off in the reader's ability to find Montgomery's tale sufficiently believable to accept it as credible without being pulled or thrown out of the story itself. The detailed and nuanced handling of all the characters by the author similarly allow Calvillo to take these characters places and have them do things that will seem both surprising and inevitable. This is the very essence of excellent storytelling.

As Fate Would Have It is a chilling cautionary tale of psychological horror and a revelatory examination of relationships, love, loss, regret, and the possibility of salvation. It is a bravura display of authorial acumen by Calvillo, and a book well worth purchasing and reading for the short time in which copies are still available for purchase. Those of you who act quickly enough will in future years be most thankful that you managed to procure a copy.