The most wonderful thing about Penny Jones' writing is it is impossible to pigeonhole her into any specific genre box. While her stories do often have recurring themes, she approaches each one with a fresh angle of attack every time. She is never predictable nor does she rely on tropes, her characters are as likeable as they are often horrible, and her prose has a delicious, dark beauty to it where dreadful events are described in layers of lyrical narration.
If I could write only three words about this collection, they would have to be, “Read it immediately!” Twenty one fantastically different stories make up this anthology (plus an extra fifty-five 55-word flash fiction shorts) and every single one is remarkable and outstanding. Short stories can sometimes be difficult to get right, the author has
It seems very fitting that the first story in Steve Dillon’s “The Beard and Other Weirdness” begins with a quote from Clive Barker, being that this particular chilling collection would not be out of place rubbing shoulders with Barker’s works. The cover alone brings up good memories of the Books of Blood and Cabal. I
For some odd reason unknown to me I found Alan Baxter’s works quite late compared to many others. Which I am not mad about at all. There is something rather wonderful about finding an author you really relish, only to discover they have a plethora of other works already ripe for you to enjoy. I
I’m going to begin by saying I’m very conflicted by this book. “Grind Your Bones to Dust” by Nicholas Day is devastatingly beautiful and achingly well-written with gorgeous prose and some terrifying characters, and yet, if I am honest, I’m still not sure if I liked it. My feelings swing this way for a number
Deborah Sheldon’s “Perfect Little Stitches and Other Stories” won the Australian Shadows Award for Best Collected Work 2017, was shortlisted for the “Best Collection” Aurealis Award, and was long-listed for the Bram Stoker Award “Superior Achievement in a Fiction Collection”. It is easy to see why. This is an immersive and intricate collection where every
Few books have ever got into my head and stayed there in the way McCarthy’s ‘The Road’ has. It remains to this day the most haunting, beautiful, desperate and heartbreaking novel I’ve ever read.
To celebrate February being Women in Horror Month, I’ve compiled a list of twenty-nine books (novels, collections & anthologies) by some of my favourite female horror writers – one for each day of the month. 1. “Monster, She Wrote: The Women Who Pioneered Horror and Speculative Fiction” Lisa Kröger and Melanie R. Anderson (Quirk Books,
“Life is short. Every precious second counts, especially when it comes to good books. Resting Book Face brings you quick-fire micro-reviews in under 280 characters. A few seconds to find your next great read. Guaranteed.” Micro-reviews or #micrevs are super short, snappy book reviews. They are always fewer than 280 characters, the character limit of
Originally published in 2015 under the title ‘Landfall’, cli-fi novella ‘Where We Land’ by Tim Jones is quick to read but slow to leave you. Focusing on two very different characters — Bengali refugee Nasimul Rahman and young New Zealander Donna, a shop assistant and volunteer for the Shore Patrol — ‘Where We Land’ is set in
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