Tag Archives: horror

May 20, 2013 · 3:00 am

Interview + Giveaway – PLOW THE BONES Author Douglas F. Warrick

Author Interview

I’m thrilled to welcome Douglas F. Warrick to the blog today, author of Plow the Bones, which I recently reviewed here. This amazing collection of stories is the first book in the Apex Voices series, which highlights up-and-coming writers of genre fiction.

Plow the Bones

Books, Bones & Buffy: First off, welcome to Books, Bones & Buffy! I appreciate you taking time to answer some questions for my readers. Plow the Bones is one of the most unique story collections I’ve read in some time, and believe me, I’ve read some very unique collections this year. At the risk of asking a very over-asked question, where do your ideas come from? (And I really do want to know!)

Douglas F. Warrick: Ha! Tough question. I don’t really think any person whose trade is in creative fabrications knows exactly where their ideas come from. Maybe we should. Maybe if we were more vigilant and perceptive, we would. In my case, I’m usually working through some frustration or phobia. But that really addresses where my themes come from, not so much my ideas. I guess if I’m being honest, my ideas are probably some combination of the stimuli that I absorb and the obsessions that I nurture. I wish I could offer a more insightful answer!

BB&B: Hey, that answer works for me:) Let’s say someone comes up to you and asks you to describe Plow the Bones. What do you tell them?

DFW: The stories in Plow the Bones don’t stay put in a single genre. Sometimes they wear horror masks or fantasy masks or science fiction masks. They dress up like courtiers, or they pull on their patched-up punk-rock leather jackets, or they stand around naked and stare at themselves in the mirror. They are sad and strange and scared and hopeful. If you like Harlan Ellison, Haruki Murakami, Jorge Luis Borges, Jeff VanderMeer, Catherynne Valente, Alissa Nutting, and writers like that, you like some of the same writers as me. That doesn’t necessarily mean that my writing is anything like theirs, but you can at least open the book knowing that we have something in common.

BB&B: I love Ellison and VanderMeer, I can totally see the comparisons. Your stories are full of images that don’t always fit together in the imagination. Did you make a deliberate choice to use imagery this way in order to make the reader feel uncomfortable?

DFW: The images toward which I gravitate are those that appeal to me. I like combinations of images that make me feel like real life has adopted the logic of dreams. In my experience, there’s a weird flavor of discomfort that overlaps with the sublime. There are two real-life examples that come to mind. The first: in my hometown of Dayton, Ohio, there’s an annual Halloween block party. Bands play, the bars hold costume contests, people wander the streets dressed as dead things and video game avatars and superheroes and fairy tales. That collision of spookiness and sublime abandon, the juxtaposition of all these disparate characters engaged in everyday celebration, it creates a scene that I find both uncomfortable and unspeakably exciting. The second example is Bangkok, Thailand. Walking around Bangkok at night is extremely strange. The tourists cluster inside of Starbuck’s while fifty feet away Buddhists pilot a giant dragon puppet through a neon red-light district. People ride around in tuk-tuks (essentially taxis that look like motorcycles with canopies and couches bolted to the back) past street vendors with waxed mustaches selling mints labeled as Viagra. There’s a mean streak to Bangkok, a nasty misogyny, a huge disparity between rich and poor, but there’s also a lot of joy. That disparity bothers me and compels me. I try to create that same feeling in my stories. Not so much for the reader, who I hope exists, but for my own self-exploration.

BB&B: I know you must have a slew of influences, both literary and artistic. Your stories are so visual, and disturbingly visual at that. Which artists and writers speak to you the most?

DFW: I tend to wear my influences on my sleeve. I’m glad to hear you find the stories to be visual, that’s a huge compliment. Visual art informs a lot of my stuff. I’m a big fan of the Surrealists, Magritte in particular. He’s the best. The films of Lynch and Jodorowski, trashy stuff like Russ Meyer’s filmography, a bunch of Bunuel’s movies. I’m influenced by bunches and bunches of fiction writers. Thomas Ligotti, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Flannery O’Conner, Stewart O’Nan, tons and tons more. These days, I find myself leaning increasingly on music for inspiration. I’m particularly fond of old punk rock acts (Richard Hell, The Buzzcocks, Violent Femmes), lo-fi blues (in particular, I’ve been really digging Black Ace and Son House lately), and spooky ambient music.

BB&B: I like that your influences are so varied. Several recurring themes stood out as I was reading your stories, including inanimate objects that come to life, and your use of very unsettling, non-traditional monsters (like human body parts that are fused together in strange ways). Why do you think you tend to use these images over and over again?

DFW: I was a film major before I started writing. In film school, they talk a lot about auteur theory. Now, let’s be clear, I don’t mean to self-identify as an auteur. I don’t think I am one. But one of the qualities that defines an auteur is a recognizable recursion of themes and images. Fellini has his fat women, his dwarves, his carnivals. Truffaut has his young men in love. Lynch has his awkward conversations, his small-town secrets, his enigmatic nightmares. The Cohen brothers have their hapless put-upon protagonists and their sinister and mysterious strangers. I think most creatives return to something over and over again. With me, maybe it’s inanimate objects or non-traditional monsters. It’s funny, because I believe you when you say that I write about those things over and over, but I don’t do so intentionally and would have a hard time pulling out examples of my own recurring themes.

BB&B: You seem to have a handle on the short story form, but have you written any novels, or are you planning to?

DFW: You don’t even want to know how many novels I’ve started and then abandoned. It’s a self-doubt thing. I’m working on a few things now, and I’m hoping that by mentioning them in interviews like this one, I’ll feel obligated to finish them. One is a surreal crime novel called We Three Slayers of Beasts. The other is a novel about South Korea called The Memento Mori Year. I hope you’ll see one or both of those soonish.

 BB&B: If you had to choose a single image or icon that represents you, what would it be?

DFW: That’s so tough. Only one? I feel kinda compelled to be a jerk and ignore the premise of your question entirely by choosing, like, five images. See, this is why I couldn’t commit to getting only one tattoo. I’m gonna go with… a triceratops ballroom dancing with an octopus. Except that in my head, that looks a lot less silly than it sounds.

BB&B: Wow, I love that one! Just for fun, tell us three things about Douglas Warrick that can’t be found on your website.

DFW: This could be dangerous for me… #1 – In the past year, I’ve become addicted to the gym. Can’t stop going. Love it. #2 – I’m a huge fan of professional wrestling. I watch it religiously. I attend shows put on by independent promotions. I actually own a Mick Foley t-shirt. #3 – “Torn” by Natalie Imbruglia is one of my absolute favorite songs ever. If it comes on the radio, I sing it at the top of my lungs. It never comes out of rotation on my iPod. The rest of my taste in music is far less suspect, I promise.

This was a blast…thank you so much, Doug!

Doug WarrickAbout the author:

Douglas F. Warrick is a writer, a musician, and a world-traveler. His first published short story appeared in Apex Digest back in 2006. Since then, Douglas’s work has been published in a variety of periodicals, websites, podcasts, and anthologies, and has grown progressively stranger. Douglas originally hails from Dayton, Ohio, but his travels have taken him all over Asia. Douglas has screamed Buzzcocks’ lyrics with Korean punk rockers in the neon alleys of Seoul, marveled at the oddness of Beijing’s masked opera singers and illusionists, piloted a bicycle through Kyoto on the way to the Golden Temple, broken up a fight between an Australian tourist and a Thai street vendor in Bangkok, and learned that the world is much weirder more wonderful than anything he could fabricate.

Find Doug and Plow the Bones here:

Goodreads * Amazon * Barnes &  Noble * Author Website * Twitter

And now you can win your own paperback copy of Plow the Bones. If you are an aficionado of high-quality quirky genre-bending writing and you love to be challenged when you read, then this giveaway is for you. Simply enter the form below! Giveaway is open to US residents only, and ends on May 31 2013.

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May 15, 2013 · 4:33 pm

PLOW THE BONES by Douglas F. Warrick – Review

Plow the Bones 3D

Plow the Bones by Douglas F. Warrick

Genre: Adult Speculative/Horror Short Stories

Publisher: Apex Book Company

Release date: May 3 2013

Source: e-ARC from publisher

Pages: 228

four and a half

In a word:  hallucinatory, disturbing & unsettling stories, carefully crafted with glimmers of humanity.

They have crafted sharp teeth for themselves from the tiny crystal bones of their dead and mounted them in their mouths. Was it painful? You’re goddamn right it was! Setting crystal spines into their soft tiny moth-gums, drawing fountains of their own blood, God, how they screamed and cried.

I’ve read some unusual short story collections this year (Vampires in the Lemon Grove, Revenge, and The Miniature Wife), but Plow the Bones is almost in a category by itself. I’ll admit I had to read this book in small doses.  Each story by itself triggered goose bumps and an odd feeling of unease, the sort of unease that’s hard to explain. And so I drank this collection in small sips, letting each story settle in my stomach before going back for more. Like a bitter taste that nonetheless grows on you, the stories in this collection as a whole make up an impressive and award-worthy assemblage of monsters, damaged people, hidden rooms, and inanimate objects come to life. Here are some of my favorites:

Her Father’s Collection

An unusual ghost story about a man afraid of losing his beloved daughter, and so he devises a way to keep her with him forever, even after death. I found this story to be very sad but also a bit menacing.

The Itaewon Eschatology Show

Another story with an overall mood of sadness, this is also a good example of the unwieldy titles that Warrick seems to be fond of. I got a Clive Barker vibe from this story, about two men who perform as night clowns in Korea. The narrator, who is also involved with a prostitute, seems to be stuck between two different lives. I looked for a deeper meaning in this story but came up empty-handed. It made me wonder if I missed something, or if the author simply intended the bizarre quality of the story to be simply that: random events brought together for a short time on a piece of paper.

Come to My Arms, My Beamish Boy

One of my favorites, this is the story of a man with Alzheimer’s that is desperately searching for a lost memory of his wedding day. With the help of a ghostly visitor, he gets his memory back, but at a cost. A very affecting and poignant story about life, death, and memory.

Ballad of a Hot Air Balloon-Headed Girl

The title says it all: it’s the story of a girl who is certain her head is about to catch on fire, and so she crafts a hot air balloon envelope and attaches it to her shoulders, so she’ll be ready when it happens. When the narrator falls in love with her, he devises a way to reunite with her after she inevitably floats away.

And she kissed me. Our tongues touched, and I tasted smoke. Her mouth was hot like a stone beneath the sun and she tasted red and brown and old.

A strange but lovely story that gave me chills.

Stickhead (or…In the Dark, in the Wet, We are Collected)

Another head-scratch-inducing title, this story is pure horror. Not only does it contain a monster, like so many of Warrick’s stories, but it becomes terrifying because of the choices the human characters make.

I Inhale the City, The City Exhales Me

A manga artist’s drawings come to life as she draws, or are the drawings controlling her? It’s sometimes hard to tell in this story about the symbiotic relationship between an artist and her creations, but I quite enjoyed the mood and flavor of this odd tale.

Across the Dead Station Desert, Television Girl

It’s dirty in the between-world, a place made of screams, and she is always falling.

The longest story of the bunch, this was my favorite and probably the one with the most traditional narrative style. A company in a futuristic society has created the ultimate sex toy, Television Girl, a completely responsive Artificial Intelligence computer program that you can access through your TV screen. But Television Girl has found a between-world, a place that is neither her holding pen when she isn’t being used (the Shelter) or the bedroom where she is called upon to have sex. In the Dead Station Desert she discovers that she may be able to change her fate. I loved the hopefulness of this tale, and I adored Television Girl. It was a perfect ending to this unique and peculiar collection.

Some of the stories just didn’t work for me, but overall I was very impressed with the Warrick’s mind-bending vision and his skillfully written prose. If you are drawn to stories that explore the darker parts of human existence, Plow the Bones should not be missed. This first book in the Apex Voices series, created to shine a light on little-known writers of high quality genre fiction, is a promising start to the series, and I look forward to reading more.

Many thanks to the publisher for supplying a review copy. Quotes were taken from an uncorrected review copy and may differ from the finished version.

Purchase Plow the Bones * Add to Goodreads

Come back soon for my interview with Doug and a giveaway of Plow the Bones!

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May 1, 2013 · 5:00 am

DEAD LIGHT by Mike Pace – Review

Dead Light 3DDead Light by Mike Pace

Genre: Adult Horror

Publisher: Sapphire Star Publishing

Release date: April 4 2013

Source: e-book from publisher

Pages: 387

four stars

In a word: finely paced plotting, graphically descriptive, engaging characters and a terrifying and deadly light…

Why is it that stories rooted in Biblical legend can scare the bejesus out of me, but I can read books about vampires and werewolves all day long with nary a goose bump? There’s something unsettling about the devil, probably because of his religious affiliations. Debut novelist Mike Pace cuts to the heart of this fear with this top-notch horror story about what happens when the devil decides to visit a small town.

Here’s a quick run-down on the plot: In the small (and very conservative) town of Cumberton, Maryland, Reverend Jimmy Starr has convinced the town officials to relocate a 350-year-old cemetery so that he can build a dormitory for his fundamentalist Christian college, Starr College. Unfortunately, an old and very dangerous box is unearthed during the construction, and once it is opened, bad things start happening to the townspeople of Cumberton. And I do mean bad.

After a seemingly stable co-ed named Jill inexplicably drowns herself in Chesapeake Bay, Sheriff Estin Booker and visiting homicide detective Anna Tucci begin to investigate Jill’s death. But Jill is just the beginning. Soon people begin dropping like flies, and all the deaths appear to be suicides. But to Estin and Tucci, the clues add up to something else entirely. With the help of an English Lit professor named Harvey, O’Hara the old town eccentric, and even Reverend Starr himself, they begin to piece together a frightening picture of what’s really happening. Can Estin and Tucci fight the devil, and win? You’ll just have to read the book to find out!

I got so many Stephen King vibes while reading Dead Light, from the small town setting to the eccentric and quirky characters to the stomach-churning visceral horror. Pace doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to describing each gruesome death, and what makes it all the more horrific is that the deaths themselves aren’t supernatural in nature at all. The author has a talent for building a sense of dread. Before each person dies, they all experience the same things: the smell of burnt cookies, a stinging scratch on the back of their neck, and a pulsing light, followed by a frightening vision of someone from their past. So when Tony suddenly smells burnt cookies, you know what’s coming.

I loved all the characters, but I have to say my favorite was Tucci, the brash and tough-speaking detective from Baltimore, who unwittingly ends up helping with the investigation. Estin Booker can’t stand her at first, as she criticizes and makes fun of the small-town characters of Cumberton. But she proves to be a smart cop, and as they get nearer to the truth about why so many people are committing suicide, she and Estin get closer as well. Tucci’s got her own tragic past, mostly told through flashbacks, and it makes her more likeable. I was pleased to see a female character that doesn’t fit the usual norms in fiction.

The author alternates his present-day story with flashback chapters that take place in the 1660s and partially explain the mystery behind the wooden box and how it came to be buried in the cemetery. I thought he did a great job with these chapters, and even though I felt they were a bit too spread out, they were important to the reader’s understanding of Lucifer’s Light, the blinding flash of light that has escaped from the box. He also uses flashbacks with some of the key characters to explain their feelings of guilt that lead them to commit suicide.

A couple of things didn’t quite work for me, like the mysterious ice cream cones that keep appearing at the crime scenes, a reference to Tucci’s past that probably seemed like a good idea at the time, but ended up feeling forced; and a couple of misleads about the case suggesting mass drug use and subliminal messages that were just confusing. But these are small things in an otherwise tightly crafted story.

Pace makes a tongue-in-cheek moral statement about sex and death, since several of the characters meet their demise after having forbidden (to the fundamentalist church) sex. He also gives Tucci and Estin a firm disbelief in the supernatural, so it takes them a while before they start to believe that the deaths are connected to the light that’s escaped from the box. The final showdown between good and evil takes up the last quarter of the book, but by that time you’ll be turning the pages as quickly as possible to find out what happens.

Dead Light is a novel of Biblical proportions, literally! If it’s the dark you’re afraid of, you ain’t seen nothing’ yet. As the Dead Light’s victims say right before they die, “Beware the Light.”

Many thanks to the publisher for supplying a review copy.

Coming up next, don’t miss my interview with Mike and your chance to win an e-book of Dead Light!

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April 3, 2013 · 7:15 am

Waiting on Wednesday (51) THE ABOMINABLE by Dan Simmons

Waiting on Wednesday copyWaiting on Wednesday is hosted by Breaking the Spine, and is a fun way to share the books we’re excited about with other bloggers and readers! I’m beyond excited about my pick for this week. Dan Simmons is one of my all-time fave writers, and has been for many years. He tends to write…well, very long books. But it doesn’t seem as if you’re reading a very long book, because the pages literally fly by in no time at all. Here’s his newest book that will be coming out this fall:

The Abominable2

The Abominable by Dan Simmons. Release date: October 22 2013 (Little, Brown & Company). OK, first off, love the cover. I can tell this story will terrify me simply because it takes place in the snow, and I absolutely hate to be cold! Not too sure about the title, it’s hard to say the word “abominable” and even harder to type it, LOL! Here’s the description from Goodreads:

A thrilling tale of supernatural adventure, set on the snowy peaks of Mount Everest from the bestselling author of The Terror.

It’s 1926, and the desire to summit the world’s highest mountain has reached a fever-pitch among adventurers. Three young friends, eager to take their shot at the top, accept funding from a grieving mother whose son fell to his death on Mt. Everest two years earlier. But she refuses to believe he’s dead, and wants them to bring him back alive.

As they set off toward Everest, the men encounter other hikers who are seeking the boy’s body for their own mysterious reasons. What valuable item could he have been carrying? What is the truth behind the many disappearances on the mountain? As they journey to the top of the world, the three friends face abominable choices, actions–and possibly creatures. A bone-chilling, pulse-pounding story of supernatural suspense, THE ABOMINABLE is Dan Simmons at his best.

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The TerrorThe story seems to echo the mood of The Terror, his wonderful book that takes place in the Arctic Circle and is truly one of the best horror stories I’ve ever read. So, peeps, what are you waiting on this week?

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April 1, 2013 · 3:02 pm

BLACK FEATHERS by Joseph D’Lacey – Review + Giveaway!

Black FeathersBlack Feathers (The Black Dawn Volume One) by Joseph D’Lacey

Genre: Adult Fantasy/Horror

Publisher: Angry Robot

Release date: March 26 2013

Source: ARC from publisher

Pages: 427

four stars

In a word:  a dangerous and violent quest, a world on the brink of collapse, and a boy and girl who might be able to save it.

I have to admit I almost stopped reading this book a quarter of the way through, but I’m so glad I stuck with it. Black Feathers isn’t the easiest book to read, but like many other books that I’ve initially struggled with in the beginning, by the end I was so wrapped up in the characters’ stories that I’m now salivating to read Volume Two.  The publisher calls this “fantasy,” which it most definitely is, but I have to call it “horror” as well. I’ve been reading horror for years and it’s getting hard to scare me these days, but there were scenes in Black Feathers that truly made me shudder. D’Lacey is one of those authors who can slowly draw out a story until the reader is practically screaming from the tension. Fair warning: most of the mysteries are not solved by the end of this book, and the author raises more questions than he answers. But if you’d like to see a master of storytelling in action, you need to read Black Feathers.

The story mostly alternates between two characters: Megan is a young girl who is chosen to become the next “Keeper,” an individual whose job is to observe and record the story of a certain boy whose existence is critical to the survival of humanity. Gordon is that boy, but he lives in a different time than Megan, so she must enter “the weave” in order to cross space and time to watch Gordon’s story unfold. Most of the book takes place when Gordon turns fourteen and is forced to flee his family and home after a group called The Ward take his mother, father and two sisters away. He manages to hide, but not without having several run-ins with two horribly nasty members of the Ward named Pike and Skelton. After receiving secret letters from his parents, delivered to him by a mole who is part of a resistance group called The Green Men, Gordon decides to follow their advice and look for the mythical Crowman, a creature who may or may not be evil and could hold the fate of humanity in his hands.

As Gordon sets out on his journey, Megan has her own quest to complete. At about the same age as Gordon, she sees the frightening Crowman in the forest near her home, and is later told that he has marked her as the next Keeper. With her parents’ permission, a mysterious old man known only as Mr. Keeper takes Megan to his home and begins to train her in the duties of being a Keeper. Megan’s part of the story is full of magic, mystery, pain and danger, as she must sacrifice her childhood in order to fulfill her calling. As the story evolves, Megan and Gordon seem to be coming closer and closer together, and it appears as though the two will eventually meet. But D’Lacey has plans for these two, and they might not be what you expect.

I was completely swept up in Gordon’s story and enjoyed it more than I did Megan’s. I think the reason I liked his story better was that his world felt more grounded and believable and was easier to relate to. As he is running away from the Ward and trying to stay hidden, he comes upon various groups of people. My favorite were a father and daughter named John and Brooke who are also on the run and hiding in the forest. Gordon only spends a short time in their camp, but he forges a tight bond with both of them, and I wanted their storyline to go on longer than it did. Gordon’s journey is fraught with violence and danger, and he escapes one perilous encounter after another, leaving a trail of misery behind him.

Megan’s story, on the other hand, is told in cryptic language and has a dream-like quality throughout. It was often hard to tell what was real and what was a dream, as Megan sometimes leaves her body to travel “the black feather path,” as Mr. Keeper calls her journey. She learns many things from Mr. Keeper, but the most important, and the true theme of D’Lacey’s story, is that she must learn to live in harmony with the land. He seems to want us to come away from this book understanding that if humankind can’t learn to live in peace with nature, our very civilization will crumble. It’s a theme that’s been done before, but never quite in this way. Both Megan and Gordon must fight to survive in the wild during their journeys, and the author even throws in an earthquake to make his point: watch yourselves, humans, or mother nature can take everything away from you.

The entire book is written in D’Lacey’s gorgeous and fluid prose. Combine that with graphic violence, the mysterious Crowman who is still not explained by the end of the book, and the unanswered question of the relationship between Gordon and Megan, and you have a story that is irresistibly addicting. For patient readers who appreciate the difficult craft of good writing and storytelling, Black Feathers is a must read.

Many thanks to the publisher for supplying a review copy. You can purchase Black Feathers here and visit the author’s website here.

And thanks to Angry Robot, I have an ARC of Black Feathers to give away! U.S. only this time (postage has gone up!). To enter, simply fill out the form below with your name and email address. One random winner will be drawn on April 12th and notified via email. Good luck!

This giveaway is now over, thank you to everyone who entered! My winner of an ARC of Black Feathers is Ron Pratt! Congrats:)

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March 6, 2013 · 11:53 am

INSOMNIA by J. R. Johansson – Review + Interview + Giveaway!

Thank you to everyone who entered to win my copy of Insomnia! We had a bunch of entries, but unfortunately, only one winner. Congrats to Angela Chen!

I’m so thrilled to welcome J. R. Johansson to the blog today! Her debut Insomnia doesn’t come out until June, but you have a chance to win a signed ARC and read this fabulous book for yourself, months ahead of time! Jenn was also kind enough to answer some questions, so keep reading after the book review for my interview with her.

InsomniaInsomnia (Book 1 of the Night Walkers) by J. R. Johansson

Genre: YA Psychological Horror

Publisher: Flux

Release date: June 11 2013

Source: ARC from author

Pages:  353

four and a half

In a word: nail-biting, page-turning, terrifying and heart-pounding craziness!

Where had I been last night? And the night when my window was left open? Had I snuck out that night as well? I closed my eyes and focused on keeping myself upright, on keeping my lungs breathing in and out as my brain flew into a state of total panic. What was happening to me? My life had become like watching myself in someone else’s dream.

I really had no idea what to expect when I started reading Insomnia, and sometimes that’s the best way to experience a book. I knew what the basic plot was, but I didn’t realize that the many twists and turns would keep me up late flipping pages. The story is a combination of supernatural mystery and down-and-dirty psychological thriller, and it’s not always easy to tell these elements apart. One of the things I loved about the book was how unpredictable it was, and just when I thought I had things figured out, the author took the story in a completely different direction. I won’t give away very much of the plot, because you are going to want to watch the story unfold without any spoilers.

Parker is very tired. For the past four years, he has been unable to sleep. Instead, he spends all night trapped in other people’s dreams—specifically, the last person he makes eye contact with before he goes to bed.  Because he’s always so exhausted, his friends think he’s sick and his mother thinks he’s doing drugs. Parker keeps the real reason for his haggard appearance to himself, because who’s going to believe him? But one day, he meets a girl named Mia whose dreams are so peaceful that he is actually able to fall asleep in them, and he wakes up the next day feeling rested for the first time in years. Mia turns out to be the new girl in school, but catching her eye every evening proves to be almost impossible. Parker doesn’t want to lose his new-found ability to sleep, so he makes it his mission to get as close to Mia as he can—even if she doesn’t want him to.

Johansson slowly builds momentum as Parker’s desperation grows. When Mia receives threatening emails, notes that thrust her back into a terrible memory from her past, Parker is more determined than ever to figure out who is trying to scare Mia while keeping his friends safe and trying to get some sleep.

Insomnia has so many layers, and it was refreshing to read a story with lots of action that offers the reader more than just surface thrills. The characters are so well done that I liked them all, even the ones you’re not supposed to like! Parker’s best friend Finn was one of my favorites. Finn is one of those supportive friends that will do anything for you, and lucky for Parker, Finn is right there when he needs him most. I also loved Finn’s sister Addie, the girl who Parker’s known his whole life, but who he’s starting to see in a different light now that she’s all grown up. And of course there is Mia, who is really the innocent of the story, a girl who gets caught up in the middle of something she doesn’t understand. When Parker goes into her dreams, he inadvertently uncovers a tragic event in her past, and he realizes he’s not the only one with secrets to hide.

I also loved the way romance was integrated into the book. We are listening to the story from Parker’s point of view, after all, and Johansson very smartly keeps the romantic entanglements subtle so they don’t overpower the suspenseful parts of the story. For this reason, Insomnia will appeal to both male and female readers.

And I can’t end this review without talking about Parker’s ability to go inside other people’s dreams. On the surface this idea seems a bit out there, but you need to suspend your disbelief and just go with it. Since this is the first book in a series, not everything is explained, which is a good thing because it makes the story exciting, but a bad thing too because this lack of explanation might frustrate the reader. But I loved this idea, as illogical as it sounds, and I almost wish I could watch other people’s dreams. Johansson uses Parker’s ability to create some really interesting situations; for example, after watching one dream, Parker is compelled to try to help a woman who is being abused by her husband.

The last half of the book is non-stop action and a dark and creepy trip into the unpredictable land of nightmares. Even the reader will start to question what is real and what is simply a dream. Although much is resolved, there are still some surprises and a cliff hanger of sorts that will make you wish Book 2 was already out. For fans of horror and suspense who enjoy a splash of romance, Insomnia is a must-read.

Many thanks to the author for supplying a review copy! Note: the quote above is from an uncorrected proof, and may be different from the finished version.

DAC buttonThis review is part of the Debut Author Challenge 2013, hosted by Hobbitsies.

J.R. Johansson

And now, I’m so happy to have Jenn answer some of my burning questions. Welcome to Books, Bones & Buffy, Jenn!

Thank you, Tammy! I’m so happy to be here! I love your blog and was so excited you wanted to have me stop by!

First, an obvious question. Have you ever had insomnia yourself? Is that possibly what propelled you to come up with such a unique story concept?

Haha, good question. Actually, not until very recently. The last month I’ve been struggling a bit with insomnia for the first time. I think it might have to do with stress and excitement over the coming release. Or Parker might be trying to get even with me for everything I put him through in the book:) The idea for Insomnia came to me one morning when I woke up after a particularly weird dream. I started thinking, “I wonder if other people have dreams like that?” and “What would other people think if they’d seen that dream?” Then it kind of evolved from there.

As a female writer, what made you decide to make your protagonist male, and to write from Parker’s point of view?

In the book I wrote before Insomnia (which shall be forever shelved, thank goodness), my favorite character by far was the male love interest and the same was true for my readers. It intrigued me that I’d written this very, very interesting male character that in many ways was much better than my female lead. So, I decided just for fun to try the next book with a male protagonist and I really liked it so it stuck.

What kind of research did you do while writing Insomnia? The passages of the book dealing with sleep deprivation and hypnotherapy seem very well researched.

I knew a bit about both from psychology classes in college, but I did a lot of research on top of that to clarify everything. I even looked into some information about forms of torture that involve not allowing people to sleep. Every detail in the book about what can happen to the human brain without sleep is true…and pretty darn terrifying, if you ask me.

I loved all the twists and turns in Insomnia. You really keep the reader guessing! Does writing this type of plot require lots of outlining?

I do very broad outlines from the beginning and they get more and more specific as I get further into the book. I know how I want the book to end and all the major turning points before I ever start writing, but I stay flexible and I wing it if a better idea comes along.

What has your experience been like, being a debut author? How long did it take you to write Insomnia and find an agent/publisher? And did you do anything else before you started writing? (Sorry, that’s a bunch of questions all at once!)

The whole experience has been incredible. I did a reading at a conference a few weeks ago and was surprised when a few people gasped at the perfect moment while I was reading the first chapter. It was surreal to know I’d evoked that kind of response from them. Very cool:)  I wrote Insomnia in about three months and then revised for three after that. It took just over a month to get an agent, and my road to publishing was a little bizarre because I sold internationally first, which was odd. That happened after about a month of submission. Before I started writing, I worked in both human resources and public relations. Haha, wow, big paragraph:)

We’d love to learn more about you! Please tell us three things that can’t be found on your website.

Fun! Let’s see. I have a car named Gidget, a hot tub named Paolo, and my husband is from Finland…sexy accent included.

OK, you might be the first person I’ve known who’s named their hot tub! Who are your favorite authors, and did any of them influence you to write Insomnia? Is there any other media you love (like movies or television) that had an influence in the creation of your book?

Haha, I think I name different ones every time I answer this question. I have so many favorite authors! Let’s see, a few for today: James Dashner, Helen Fielding and Jane Austen. I love TV and movies, but I’ve had to become a bit more selective because my schedule is pretty packed right now…Criminal Minds always gets me in the mood to write darker stuff and Eureka (which is off the air now and I’m still in mourning) always gets my brain surging with ideas.

You did something very smart with the ending of Insomnia, in my opinion: you left the reader satisfied, but you also leave us dying to find out what happens next. I’m not a big fan of cliffhangers, so I appreciated this.  So, without giving away any spoilers, what’s next? How many books will be in The Night Walkers series? Are you currently working on the next book?

I’m glad you liked the way it ended. That’s exactly the response I was going for. Without any real spoilers, let’s say things broaden out a bit in the sequel. This first book deals exclusively with Parker’s inner circle and the people around them. The next branches out to include a wider view of what is happening to him and why. It’s everything from the first book, and then some. The series is set to be two books and I plan to end with a bang. I am currently drafting the next book and all I can say is…Hold on tight.

Great questions, Tammy! This was really fun. Thanks again for having me!

Thank you for such a great interview:)

Find Jenn here:  Twitter * Blog * Website * Goodreads

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· 2:00 am

Waiting on Wednesday (47) DR. SLEEP by Stephen King

Waiting on Wednesday copyWaiting on Wednesday is hosted by Breaking the Spine, and is a great way to let everyone know which upcoming releases you’re excited about! I have another cover reveal today. This cover was just revealed last week, and I’ve been dying to share it:

Dr. Sleep

Dr. Sleep by Stephen King. Release date: September 24 2013 (Scribner). So, you’re an author and you decide to write a sequel to a book that was published…36 years ago?? You must be Stephen King! Dr. Sleep is the sequel to The Shining, and I’m sure I’m not the only SK fan who’s dying to read this. Here’s what Goodreads says:

Stephen King returns to the characters and territory of one of his most popular novels ever, The Shining, in this instantly riveting novel about the now middle-aged Dan Torrance (the boy protagonist of The Shining) and the very special twelve-year-old girl he must save from a tribe of murderous paranormals.On highways across America, a tribe of people called The True Knot travel in search of sustenance. They look harmless—mostly old, lots of polyester, and married to their RVs. But as Dan Torrance knows, and spunky twelve-year-old Abra Stone learns, The True Knot are quasi-immortal, living off the “steam” that children with the “shining” produce when they are slowly tortured to death.

Haunted by the inhabitants of the Overlook Hotel where he spent one horrific childhood year, Dan has been drifting for decades, desperate to shed his father’s legacy of despair, alcoholism, and violence. Finally, he settles in a New Hampshire town, an AA community that sustains him, and a job at a nursing home where his remnant “shining” power provides the crucial final comfort to the dying. Aided by a prescient cat, he becomes “Doctor Sleep.”

Then Dan meets the evanescent Abra Stone, and it is her spectacular gift, the brightest shining ever seen, that reignites Dan’s own demons and summons him to a battle for Abra’s soul and survival. This is an epic war between good and evil, a gory, glorious story that will thrill the millions of devoted readers of The Shining and satisfy anyone new to the territory of this icon in the King canon.

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Maybe some stories are better left alone, but that won’t stop me from reading Dr. Sleep. Have you seen this cover before? Will you read it? What are you waiting on this week?

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January 30, 2013 · 5:00 am

Waiting on Wednesday (42) ANOTHER LITTLE PIECE by Kate Karyus Quinn

Waiting on WednesdayIt’s Wednesday again, already?? January sure is flying by! Waiting on Wednesday is hosted by Breaking the Spine, and is a great way to share your excitement for books with other bloggers. This week I’m waiting on:

Another Little Piece

Another Little Piece by Kate Karyus Quinn. Release date: June 11 2013 (Harper Teen). Any book whose blurb includes the name “Stephen King” is an automatic “to read” title for me, and this is one of those books. Here’s what Goodreads says:

The spine-tingling horror of Stephen King meets an eerie mystery worthy of Sara Shepard’s Pretty Little Liars series in Kate Karyus Quinn’s haunting debut.

On a cool autumn night, Annaliese Rose Gordon stumbled out of the woods and into a high school party. She was screaming. Drenched in blood. Then she vanished.

A year later, Annaliese is found wandering down a road hundreds of miles away. She doesn’t know who she is. She doesn’t know how she got there. She only knows one thing: She is not the real Annaliese Rose Gordon.

Now Annaliese is haunted by strange visions and broken memories. Memories of a reckless, desperate wish . . . a bloody razor . . . and the faces of other girls who disappeared. Piece by piece, Annaliese’s fractured memories come together to reveal a violent, endless cycle that she will never escape—unless she can unlock the twisted secrets of her past.

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The description doesn’t give much away, so I’m extremely curious to see what this is really about. Don’t you love the cover? I can’t wait to read this! What are you waiting on this week?

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January 27, 2013 · 10:08 am

THE MADMAN’S DAUGHTER by Megan Shepherd – Review

Madmans jkt Des1.inddThe Madman’s Daughter by Megan Shepherd

Genre: YA Horror

Publisher: Balzar + Bray

Release date: January 29 2013

Source: eARC from the publisher via Edelweiss

Pages: 432

four and a halfIn a word: gruesome, scary, thrilling and romantic.

“Memories of my father flooded me. As a surgeon, blood had been his medium like ink to a writer. Our fortune had been built on blood, the acrid odor infused into the very bricks of our house, the clothes that we wore.”

The Madman’s Daughter was not what I expected. It had a gothic creepiness that really got under my skin, and even days after finishing it, I am still thinking about certain passages that were quite shocking. I haven’t read H. G. Wells’ The Island of Dr. Moreau, on which this story is based, but I did go back and do some research (thank you Wikipedia!) and was surprised to find that The Madman’s Daughter echoes many of the details of Wells’ story. What’s different here, however, is the very smart addition of a daughter for Dr. Moreau named Juliet, a sixteen-year-old girl who goes in search of her lost father, only to find herself trapped in a hell that is nearly impossible to escape.

When the story opens, Juliet is living in near poverty after her father has disappeared in the wake of a medical scandal, and her mother has died. With no one to support her, she has found work as a maid at a medical facility, where she surreptitiously studies anatomy and medicine while cleaning up after the medical students. Late one night as she is about to leave work, she happens upon a terrible sight: several students are gathered around an operating table performing an illegal vivisection on a rabbit.  Juliet tries to stop them, and in the process she notices a familiar scientific drawing of a rabbit with the initials H. M. in the corner. This important clue that suggests her father might still be alive sends Juliet on a journey that she will come to regret.

After forcing one of the boys to tell her where he got the paper, Juliet sets off to look for her father, but instead finds an old friend that she hasn’t seen in six years, a boy named Montgomery. She persuades him to take her with him to the island where he has been living with Juliet’s father and assisting him in his research. And here’s where the good part starts. Juliet is reunited with her father, but he’s not the man she remembers. He has been working diligently on a secret project, and Juliet is about to experience his handiwork first hand.

I don’t want to give away any surprises, because I think this book is best if the reader discovers the horrors without any spoilers. Shepherd builds the tension slowly and never gives the reader a chance to relax. The gruesome secrets of the island keep coming as we learn what Dr. Moreau is really up to, the truth behind Juliet’s childhood illness, and the creature responsible for killing several of the island’s inhabitants. Telling the story in first person from Juliet’s perspective gives the narrative an urgency that makes this book really hard to put down once you pick it up.

One of the things I loved about this story is the relationships between the characters and how fragile they are. Juliet wants to believe that her father is a good man, but her faith is shattered when she discovers that he is selfish and cares nothing for anything but his experiments. The story does have a love triangle, but I have to say it worked really well for me. Juliet is attracted not only to Montgomery, but to a strange man named Edward whom they rescue at sea during their voyage to the island. Both Montgomery and Edward were appealing in different ways, so it was believable to me that Juliet would be attracted to both of them. A cast of secondary characters, Dr. Moreau’s creations, adds another layer of poignancy to the story. I loved the characters of Alice and Balthazar, who are more or less servants and take care of the household. Alice is a sweet girl who seems to be in love with Montgomery, but discovering the mystery of who she really is will break your heart.

A feeling of dread hangs over the entire story, and I found myself fascinated by Dr. Moreau’s horrible creations, unable to look away. Shepherd has done a wonderful job of making the reader uncomfortable while at the same time creating a story that is completely engaging. The only thing keeping me from giving this a five-star rating was the ending, which I wasn’t crazy about. But I’ll leave you to form your own opinions. For horror fans this is a first-rate tale that shouldn’t be missed.

Many thanks to the publisher for supplying a review copy.

DAC buttonThis book is part of the Debut Author Challenge.

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January 24, 2013 · 4:55 pm

THE SIX-GUN TAROT by R. S. Belcher – Review

Six-Gun TarotThe Six-Gun Tarot by R. S. Belcher

Genre: Adult Horror/Western/Fantasy

Publisher: Tor Books

Release date: January 22 2013

Source: e-ARC from publisher

Pages: 368

five starsWhat do an Indian whose relatives are coyotes, a sheriff who has been hanged three times and lives to tell the tale, and a man who keeps his dead wife’s head in a box have in common? They are all characters in this quirky, horrific and magical Western filled with some of the most interesting characters I’ve ever run across. The publisher describes this book as “Buffy meets Deadwood,” and they aren’t wrong. As the ultimate Buffy fan, I found lots of Buffyesque material to keep me happy.  Belcher’s first novel is masterfully written and constructed, and it’s a good thing it is. When I started reading I’ll have to admit I was wondering how on earth he was going to be able to bring the many seemingly disparate elements together, but not to worry! The Six-Gun Tarot will have you hooked from the beginning, and keep you reading up to the gory and yes, emotional ending.

Jim Negrey is a young man running from his past, trudging through the vast deserts of Nevada with his injured horse Promise and nearly dead from dehydration and heat exhaustion, when he is rescued by an Indian named Mutt and taken to the small mining town of Golgotha. Jim is on his way to find a “near mythical railroad job in Virginia City,” but when he arrives in Golgotha he decides to stay for a while. It isn’t long before he discovers that the residents of Golgotha are hiding secrets, and the biggest and most terrifying secret of all may be buried deep under Argent Mountain, the location of a now-defunct silver mine. When the good folk of Golgotha start to go missing, it’s up to Sheriff Jon Highfather, his trusty deputy Mutt, a brave woman named Maude, and Jim himself to stop the evil thing that just might be trying to break free and take over humanity.

That’s about the best summary I can come up with. On the surface this seems like just another good versus evil plot, but what makes this story different are the characters. Each one is painstakingly drawn and most are given detailed backstories. Jim’s story is particularly interesting. He’s running from the law, but he’s the kind of man who gives his horse the last bit of water from his canteen. Jim carries an eye made of jade, a peculiar object that used to belong to his father. The tale behind the eye plays an important part in the story, and Belcher slowly reveals the details of how he came to have it in a series of flashbacks. Just about every character in the book is intriguing and likable, except for the bad guys, of course, who are exceptionally bad.

But my favorite character is Maude, a woman with her own secrets who carries a flask of blood around her neck, blood that defines who she is and will ultimately determine the future of Golgotha. And here’s where the Buffy comparison comes in. Maude is descended from a long line of women warriors who are taught to carry “The Load,” and eventually pass their skills and knowledge on to another girl. This reminded me so much of Joss Whedon’s Slayer mythology that I was immediately drawn into Maude’s life as she trains her daughter Constance to eventually take over The Load. We also meet Maude’s grandmother Bonnie through flashbacks as she trains a young Maude to fulfill her destiny. I have to admit I wanted to read more about Maude and I wished her character had been more prominent. Here’s a wonderful quote during a scene where Maude and Constance are training:

The knives hummed from her hand like angry hornets, straight toward her daughter’s heart.

Belcher fills his story with a melting pot of religious and social groups that not only add to the craziness of the plot, but really show the amount of research he must have done to make these elements believable. Golgotha is home to a group of Mormons who live in luxury on the hill, squatters who have little or nothing and eke out a living on the fringes of town, the Chinese, or “Johnny’s” as they are referred to, who live in Johnny Town and keep to themselves, not to mention the whores, Protestants, merchants and other colorful characters that make up the fabric of a small western town in the 1800s. In one poignant chapter we learn that Mayor Harry Pratt, an upstanding Mormon with two wives, is in love with a piano player named Ringo. Swirling around all of this is a growing evil buried somewhere under the silver mine on Argent Mountain.

When the evil shows itself, watch out. Belcher adds enough gore to rival the best of Stephen King. I might even go so far as to compare the evil in The Six-Gun Tarot to Invasion of the Body Snatchers…but I don’t want to give away its best secrets. Even chapters that seem to come out of nowhere, like the ones that take place between two angels as they discuss the fate of humanity, eventually tie into the big picture. Belcher is a skilled weaver, as each dangling story strand is eventually tucked in and tied up nicely.

Despite the horrors in The Six-Gun Tarot, both human and supernatural, there is an underlying humanity that grounds this story. When I get to the end of a story and the author has made me cry, I know I’ve just finished a five-star book. What more can you ask of fiction?

Many thanks to the publisher for supplying a review copy. You can purchase The Six-Gun Tarot here.

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