Don't let the description on the cover flap fool you into believing that Audrey's Door by Sarah Langan is another of the same old, same old. The allure is the same as your favourite horror tropes, but the result from cover to cover is the breath-of-fresh-air different that the horror genre has waited for. But wait, I still hear someone out there saying, "But it's about a haunted Manhattan luxury apartment, for Chrissakes!" Well yeah, you've got me there. But let me explain.

Audrey Lucas is smart and ambitious, but like most of us, her life hasn't been all peaches and cream. She's been the awkward girl out, only ten-fold. Too many of us can understand that. She was engaged too, but she ... (more…)

Review of The Unseen by Alexandra Sokoloff
St. Martin??(TM)s Press
$24.95 U.S./$31.95 CAN

Haunted houses still pack a wallop for me, even if they don??(TM)t have entirely new twists or concepts. Sometimes intriguing characters, atmosphere and masterful writing allow the expected eerie elements to fall into the background. That??(TM)s the experience I had when I read The Unseen by Alexandra Sokoloff. Laurel MacDonald, a psychology professor, takes a job at Duke University, after she discovers her lover??(TM)s affair, and is eager to move up the ladder. Except the lure of Duke??(TM)s past, the Rhine experiment, and the Folger house, send her and her colleague Brendan Cody ... (more…)

When you look at mass market horror today, you will notice at least a few trends. One is that horror is very sexually charged. Another is that the werewolf legend is very close to the vampire legend and visa versa. Religion has been written about constantly, but more often than not the Catholic Church has been the author's focus. In Bestial, Ray Garton touches on these trends, but also applies a generous slant.

Ray taps into his personal experience, having been raised a Seventh Day Adventist, to offer a fresh alternative to religion in horror fiction. This experience in a lesser known faction has helped him to create sympathetic characters that some readers might consider unbelievable, ... (more…)

First, a disclaimer: Everything I'm about to say is true. Second, I never tear an author down, but I don't gush over writers either. There's a first time for everything, but more on that later. Ever find yourself reflecting back on the kids you knew in school? If you have a spouse and children of your own, these players from your childhood might seem insignificant, but not for Patrick Beauchamp. He can't help but reflect on Kelvin Fish, who was likely the homeliest bastard in school. But he's more than just a little ugly. Aspects of his appearance, and pain threshold, are almost inhuman. Thus begins Mama Fish by Rio Youers, now available from Shroud Publishing.

Mama Fish is told in ... (more…)