A Change of Heart - A Review

Urban fantasy is not my usual go-to genre, but tempt me with vampires and I can be convinced to give one a try.  The bonus is that the vampires in this one are bloody and brutal – just the way I like ‘em.

A CHANGE OF HEART by Mark Benjamin

Gabriel Harper could be the poster boy for the fellow they kick sand on at the beach.  Smart and nice doesn’t always cut it and the bullies soon found he was an easy mark for their fun.  Escaping from one such attack by diving behind a dumpster Gabriel never thought it would change his entire world.  That’s where he came across the dying Lucas, one of “The Royals” in the vampire community.  Lucas had never procreated but with his dying gasp he decided to turn Gabriel.

Alone and not knowing what was happening to him Gabriel navigates, with the help of a strange voice in his head, what it takes to be a vampire and the reader is introduced to a very unique world of vampires and the Silver Legionnaires – those who hunt them.

When Gabriel and three of his friends are unexpectedly yanked from their everyday lives and into the fortress of the Legionnaires life becomes very uncomfortable for Gabriel.  Although he is a “hybrid” no one knows his secret, so how does a new vampire live among those determined to eradicate them.  As the story progresses the reader realizes that things are not happy in either camp and, while each community is determined to rid themselves of the other, a little extra spice was added because each community also had traitors within their midst.  Would the vampires and the Legionnaires destroy each other or would they be destroyed from within?

This was a fairly lengthy book and just as I thought things could be moving ahead at a little faster pace Mr. Benjamin threw in a twist I was certainly not expecting.  Well done as it certainly gave me my second wind.

This book starts out with a bang.  Mr. Benjamin definitely drops you right into the middle of the action and then just as you feel you need to catch your breath he the reader back to the norm … Gabriel’s world as a college student.  From that point on the book follows a pretty straightforward time-line.  While the book is written in the third person each short chapter is headed with the name of the character that the chapter features.  I have no problem reading in this manner but the book has an overabundance of characters to keep straight and, rather than helping, the chapter headings seemed to make it more difficult to keep the minor characters straight.

I did enjoy this book.  It was, in my opinion, a very original take on the vampire tale while still staying true to the nature of the beast.  It also gave me a vampire protagonist I couldn’t help but like without making him too “twilighty”.  I did feel that some of the characters had rather juvenile reactions to certain situations considering their twenty-something age bracket but this is book one in “The Royal Blood Chronicles” so I am going to assume the characters mature as the series progresses.  I am also going to assume that I received an ARC because the book could have benefited from a last fine-tooth-comb edit.

I would definitely pick up the next one because I am curious as to where the story is going to go.

3.5-Stars for this one.

I would like to thank the author for providing me with the book at no charge to read and review.

This in no way influenced my opinion.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR (from his amazon author page) 

Mark Benjamin is the author of two books - one, in an adult urban fantasy series, The Royal Blood Chronicles; and the second, a short story. Devouring all books he could get his hands on from an early age, he managed to ruin his eyesight by reading (when he should have been asleep) under his bedcovers with a torch (video games had no say in his bad eyesight...okay, maybe a little). His love of books translated to a passion for writing, which he began aged ten (he still has his first juvenile novel to this day).

Currently working for a national bank, his dream job is to be a full-time author, a path he fully took when he sent a sample of his work to a ten-week introductory fiction course funded by an American foundation and conducted worldwide in 2010. Out of the 15 available slots, one was his out of hundreds of thousands of applicants (okay, perhaps a slight exaggeration, but it was advertised in the national dailies).

When not writing his third book or planning literary world domination, Mark enjoys spending time with his wife, entertaining his under one-year old daughter, playing on his Playstation (AnnA) and reading (obviously).

Checking Out the Katie Maguire Series

For me Graham Masterton is synonymous with “The Manitou”.  Mr. Masterton has been responsible for some of my most cringe-worthy horror reads and his Night Warriors books still remain some of my favorites.  For a long while he sort of dropped off my radar and then I came across his crime thriller series featuring Katie Maguire.  I started the series with the most recent book so I knew I wanted to go back and check out the first few.

WHITE BONES by Graham Masterton

When some construction on a farm building unearths bones D.S. Katie Maguire gets called to the scene.  It quickly becomes obvious that this is not a recent crime scene and after the forensics it turns out that the bones date back to 1915.  But why so many dismembered bodies in one grave – each with a piece of lace tied through the thighbone.

The crime is passed on to an anthropologist to puzzle out until a new murder victim surfaces, oddly enough with a piece of lace tied to the thigh bones as well.  Now Katie has a recent and a decades old murder to investigate.  Is it possible that it is the same killer?

I can’t say Katie Maguire is a fresh take on murder detectives … women have been taking the leading role in a lot of crime fiction lately but she is an interesting leading character.  She has a shady husband and some pretty questionable “friends”.  What made this book a little different is Mr. Masterton takes some pretty fascinating Irish folklore and ties it into a crime thriller. 

Oh?  Those cringe-worthy moments I mentioned?  Yup – still there.  I’ve read some pretty gruesome crime fiction in my day but this one had me grimacing, had it been a film I was watching I definitely would have been peeking out through my fingers.

4 Stars.

BROKEN ANGELS by Graham Masterton

If you are out fishing on a chilly spring morning it’s because you hope to land a big one, but not necessarily as big as a human body.  Father Heaney’s bloated, tortured and garrotted body snags the fishing line and it’s quite obvious that he didn’t accidentally fall in the river.  When Katie Maguire is informed about the murder of a second priest, also similarly tortured she has to amp up the investigation despite the Church trying to throw red herrings and cover-ups in her way.

Again, the story line of this thriller is not an entirely new concept but he does give it a fresh spin, once again drawing in some myths and legends.  The manner in which Mr. Masterton has his crimes executed it pretty bloody and leaves no doubt as to the reason for the killings.  I had that part figured out before it was explained, but that in no way took anything away from the rest of the story. 

Reading this book immediately on the heels of “White Bones” I immediately noticed a pretty serious continuity flaw.  One of the characters that very definitively died at the end of the first book was very much still alive at the beginning of this book.  It sounds a little petty but with 35+ books under his belt Mr. Masterton’s uncaught discrepancy set my teeth on edge.  I found myself reading the rest of this book anticipating other inconsistencies as I did so.  It was a bit distracting.  Mr. Masterton also likes to use the hospitalization of a family member as a distraction for Katie, once or twice I can accept, so I will pick up the third in the series somewhere down the road  - hopefully some of those personal peeves will be left out.

3 Stars

ABOUT THE AUTHOR (from his website)

Graham Masterton's debut as a horror author began with The Manitou in 1976, a chilling tale of a Native American medicine man reborn in the present day to exact his revenge on the white man. It became an instant bestseller and was filmed with Tony Curtis, Susan Strasberg, Burgess Meredith, Michael Ansara, Stella Stevens and Ann Sothern.

Graham Masterton was born in Edinburgh in 1946. His grandfather was Thomas Thorne Baker, the eminent scientist who invented DayGlo and was the first man to transmit news photographs by wireless. After training as a newspaper reporter, Graham went on to edit the new British men's magazine Mayfair, where he encouraged William Burroughs to develop a series of scientific and philosophical articles which eventually became Burroughs' novel The Wild Boys. At the age of 24, Graham was appointed executive editor of both Penthouse and Penthouse Forum magazines. At this time he started to write a bestselling series of sex 'how-to' books including How To Drive Your Man Wild In Bed which has sold over 3 million copies worldwide. His latest, Wild Sex For New Lovers is published by Penguin Putnam in January, 2001. He is a regular contributor to Cosmopolitan, Men's Health, Woman, Woman's Own and other mass-market self-improvement magazines.

He lives in Surrey, England (sadly his wife, Wiescka died in April 2011). He has just finished writing a black thriller featuring Ireland's only female detective superintendent, Katie Maguire, set in the Cork underworld; and a dark fantasy, Jessica's Angel, about a girl's search for five supposedly-dead children.

He has written several new short stories and is currently working on a new horror novel, as yet untitled.

Fosgate's Game - A Review

I’m always on the lookout for a good horror story so when I got the email that I’d won a copy of this one I was quite excited to read it.  I’ve read a few other novellas by Mr. Cassidy and, like those, this one did not disappoint. 

FOSGATE’S GAME by David C. Cassidy

Chadwick and Fosgate were business associates but that was all they had in common.  Fosgate is a hunter, a brute, insensitive to other people’s feelings, concerns and fears.   Chadwick was more sensitive – his ulcer flares up when he is in Fosgate’s company, the hunter’s trophies on the wall disturb him and thunderstorms are a phobia – and tonight’s dinner did indeed take place a very dark and stormy night.  Chadwick understands that Fosgate takes a perverse sort of joy playing on his fears but it cannot be helped; these ongoing evenings are a necessity of doing business.

But this night is different.

This night Fosgate shares a mysterious secret about an object he picked up in his travels, a chess set with pieces so grotesque Chadwick could not comprehend why and who would have carved them.  The set should have stayed hidden in it’s case.  It emanated evil, but worse; Fosgate wanted to play!

This book had me in its grip from the first page.  Chadwick’s fear and loathing of Fosgate was palpable and as the evening and Chadwick’s discomfort progressed so did mine. Since I don’t care for Jason and Chainsaw “slasher” type horror finding a good old-fashioned scare seems few and far between these days.  Rest assured there is still the requisite amount of mayhem, death, blood and gore but Mr. Cassidy does not feel the need to slap you in the face with it … one quick mention and the rest is left to the readers imgination … like some of the masters of the genre he understands that this reader does not need to feel splattered in blood to feel fear.  How does it all turn out?  Satisfyingly twisted thank you very much!

Kudos!

I’d like to thank Mr. Cassidy for providing me with this book through a contest

with no expectation of a review.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR (from amazon)

Award-winning author David C. Cassidy is the twisted mind behind several best-selling novels of horror and suspense, including The Dark, Velvet Rain, and Fosgate's Game. An author, photographer, and graphic designer--and a half-decent juggler--he spends his writing life creating dark and touching stories where Bad Things Happen To Good People. Raised by wolves, he grew up with a love of nature, music, science, and history, with thrillers and horror novels feeding the dark side of his seriously disturbed imagination. He talks to his characters, talks often, and most times they listen.

But the real fun starts when they tell him to take a hike, and they Open That Door anyway. Idiots. David lives in Ontario, Canada. From Mozart to Vivaldi, classic jazz to classic rock, he feels naked without his iPod. Suffering from MAD--Multiple Activity Disorder--he divides his time between writing and blogging, photography and Photoshop, reading and rollerblading. An avid amateur astronomer, he loves the night sky, chasing the stars with his telescope. Sometimes he eats.

To learn more and connect with David, you can follow him on Twitter and Facebook, or visit his website: http://davidccassidy.com http://www.facebook.com/davidccassidyauthor http://www.twitter.com/davidccassidy

The Lady and Her Monsters - A Review

When I was in High School (yeah, I’m surprised I can remember back that far too!) we had a wonderful Advanced English teacher who allowed us to do one term on Horror books – the classics.  We read Dracula, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and, of course, Frankenstein.  (We also watched Hitchcock films and were allowed to choose a modern horror book of our choice for independent study.)  Despite dissecting and reassembling these books ad nausium I did not learn as much about Mary Shelley and her monster as I did from reading this book.  English teachers, as awesome as some of them might be, could learn a lesson here and occasionally take a few steps outside the actual book.

THE LADY AND HER MONSTERS – a Tale of Dissections, Real-Life Dr, Frankensteins and the Creation of Mary Shelley’s Masterpiece by Roseanne Montillo

From the frog experiments of Luigi Galvani in the mid-1700’s through to Mel Books’ “Young Frankenstein” man has always been fascinated with reanimation of the departed.  Ms. Montillo does not spare those readers of a more delicate constitution from the realities of these experiments.  Gruesome as they were it is important to understand how Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley might have come about some of her knowledge about these experiments in a time when well mannered women were kept in the dark about science.

Not only does this book offer an explanation of how Mary Shelley may have come up with Frankenstein’s monster but also serves as a comprehensive biography of Shelley and her family, as well as several of the prominent people in her life; Byron, or course and Percy Shelley are among others both well known and not.  As far as the truth behind the stories and myths surrounding the writing of the book itself … ‘twas indeed a dark and stormy night.

Ghoulish as it makes me sound, I was also quite fascinated about the goings on of the “body snatchers”.

Packed full of obviously well researched information and written in an easily readable style I definitely have to give five stars to this fascinating read.

 ABOUT THE AUTHOR (from the book jacket)

Roseanne Montillo is the author of The Lady and Her Monsters. She holds an MFA from Emerson College, where she continues to teach as a professor of literature. Roseanne lives in Boston.

HauGHnt - A Review

A deathbed confession, a family curse, a dark and stormy night complete with a mysterious stranger; really, what more could you ask for in a horror story?

HauGHnt by David C. Cassidy

As his father lies on his deathbed Paul Steele finds he can barely look at the man let alone offer him any comfort as he takes his last breaths. His father’s life-long quest to find peace in the bottom of a bottle destroyed Paul’s mother and alienated Paul. What the old man has to say before he dies does nothing to change Paul’s feelings, but now Paul may understand his never ending drinking. Paul’s father committed an unimaginable crime and avoided prosecution by making the proverbial deal with the devil. “We’re all damned. It’s just a question of when”. For Paul Steele the mysterious “when” turns out to be “right now”.

This short story is the first of Mr. Cassidy’s “Dark Shapes, Dark Shadows” series and after reading “HauGHnt” I am looking forward to what’s to come. Mr. Cassidy seems to enjoy taking an ordinary person with an ordinary life and putting them in the most extraordinary situation. It certainly makes for a chilling read.

Short stories are not my usual go-to read because, by their very definition, they are – well – short. It’s difficult to come to care for characters in the few pages allotted to the read but Mr. Cassidy packs a lot into this one, so I found myself totally involved in Paul’s dilemma. I couldn’t get to the end fast enough – in the good way! And the end? Paul shocked me as did HauGHnt and that’s always a good thing in a horror story.

I admit to wishing the story were just a tad longer, but taking the “creep” factor into consideration I’m giving this one 4 ½ stars.

* I’d like to thank the author for providing me with this book at no charge in exchange for an honest review. This in no way influenced my opinion. *

ABOUT THE AUTHOR (from his Goodreads page)

Award-winning author David C. Cassidy is the twisted mind behind several best-selling novels of horror and suspense, Velvet Rain, The Dark, and Fosgate’s Game. An author, photographer, and graphic designer—and a half-decent juggler—he spends his writing life creating dark and touching stories where Bad Things Happen To Good People. Raised by wolves, he grew up with a love of nature, music, science, and history, with thrillers and horror novels feeding the dark side of his seriously disturbed imagination. He talks to his characters, talks often, and most times they listen. But the real fun starts when they tell him to take a hike, and they Open That Door anyway. Idiots.

David lives in Ontario, Canada. From Mozart to Vivaldi, classic jazz to classic rock, he feels naked without his iPod. Suffering from MAD—Multiple Activity Disorder—he divides his time between writing and blogging, photography and Photoshop, reading and rollerblading. An avid amateur astronomer, he loves the night sky, chasing the stars with his telescope. Sometimes he eats.

Why Did You Lie - A Review

Yrsa Sigurdardottir has been a fave of mine since I read the first book in her Thora Gudmundsdottir series.  This standalone novel showcases what Ms. Sigurdardottir does best … chills up your spine and not just because of the cold Nordic setting

WHY DID YOU LIE by Yrsa Sigurdardottir

Nina’s life has slipped off the track a little bit.  She is a pariah among her fellow police officers for filing a sexual harassment suit.  Now she is working on dead files in the basement of the building where she has entirely too much time to think about her husband who is lying in a coma after attempting suicide.

Helgi is a photo-journalist doing a photo shoot on a very small, very remote island where a team was sent to refurbish a defunct lighthouse.  Helicopter troubles keep them on the island longer than usual and during a raging winter storm one of them disappears. 

Noi and Vala return from a trip to the United States where they had house-swapped their home with an American couple.  Coming into their house they sense that something is off but cannot put their finger on what it is. 

What do these people have in common?  At one intersecting point in their lives they lied!  Now, someone or something wants them to pay for those lies.

I enjoy Ms. Sigurdadottir because she give me the all the thrills and chills I love without the “in-your-face” horror.  In “Why Did You Lie” she tells four seemingly unconnected stories that each hold your interest independently but when she brings them together at the end of the book it is in the most deliciously unexpected way.  If you enjoy mystery thrillers with a touch of what might or might not be a supernatural element I highly recommend you add Ms. Sigurdardottir to your TBR.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR (from the book cover)

Yrsa Sigurdardottir works as a civil engineer and lives in Reykjavik.  She is the author of six novels in the Thora Gudmundsdottir series and two previous stand alones, “I Remember You” and “The Undesired”.  All of her books have been European bestsellers.

In 2011 "I Remember You" was awarded the Icelandic Crime Fiction Award and was nominated for the Glass Key.  The most recent Thora novel, “The Silence of the Sea”, won the Petrona Award in 2015.