Luke Walker

Luke Walker approached me recently with an offer of a free review copy of his book, Die Laughing. Since I have read, (and enjoyed), [b:Mirror of the Nameless|18297252|Mirror of the Nameless|Luke Walker|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1375794252s/18297252.jpg|25781196] I accepted his offer. I'm glad I did.

This was a collection of short stories and I'm not going to comment on them all, just the ones that knocked my socks off:

Dead Leaves: Kicked Ass!! This nasty little tale takes your feelings for the protagonist, crumples them up, throws them on the ground and then stomps all over them. An effective short story that delivered on the chills and my favorite story in this collection. Well done, sir! Well done! 5*

Death's Christmas Presence: You know, you never can trust the Devil or the Grim Reaper, or whatever role he's playing at the moment. I found myself yelling, (okay, in my head- but it was yelling) at the woman in the story , DON'T DO IT! But, of course, she did. 5*

The Approaching Darkness: This story put me off balance and then the pieces slowly came together, bit by bit. I was left wondering what I would do in such a situation. I'd probably wait on making a decision until I saw what happened with Margaret Thatcher. Sounds strange, right? That's why I think this would have made an excellent Twilight Zone episode. 5*

Neighbors : Ever had a neighbor that had no fear or respect? Ones that play their music at 11, (Spinal Tap fans know what I mean), and don't care if you have to work in the morning, and don't care if you call the police, (because they're so busy they wouldn't bother coming anyway?) If you've been there, you can understand what happened in this short story. That doesn't make it any less horrific, though. 5*

Upload : The times in which we live afford a lot of opportunities for these types of people we (all too) often hear about. I'm sure you've heard about the types I'm referring to- the guys in Walmart with cameras on their shoes, trying to get up-skirt photos for other weirdos to marvel over on the internet. If you found yourself the target of such a weirdo, what would you do? I liked that this story was from a woman's point-of-view, and it perfectly depicted how such a woman would feel, in my opinion. Again, I have to say: well done! 4*

The English Nowhere : At first we're walking in the English countryside with a group of men and it was nothing special. Then this story morphed into something completely different. Lovecraft! Fun! This was an imaginative tale and it was surprising too. 4*

At the end, the author added a little blurb about how each story came about, which I enjoyed, and then there was a bonus track titled How to Live Forever and I loved that story too. It put me in mind of Carlos Ruiz Zafon's Cemetery of Forgotten Books. If you think about a book's life and its relationship to and with other books, I think you'll find that a good one can and does, live forever.

Overall, this was an above average collection. The stories varied widely in theme and not all of them worked for me, but most of them did.

Highly recommended for fans of short stories, horror and dark fiction!

*I was provided a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. This is it.*

Find this review and others like it at HorrorAfterDark.com.… (mehr)

Benjamin Harwood is a horrible man. I guess I should say "was" a horrible man, since he's been dead for about 4 centuries. He's been hanging around various places with his dead pals since then. The day he spots young Hayley and her family checking out a new house, he makes a decision that not only affects his life, but also that of all his ghostly friends and a few demons to boot. Will his decision pay off in the end? Will Hayley and her family be okay? You'll have to read this to find out!

The story's main base was the town of Dalry, (also the setting of Walker's book HOMETOWN), and though it sounds kind of charming, so many terrible, (yet fictional), things happen there I know I would never want to visit!

It's hard not to get too spoiler-y while reviewing this, but lots of action occurs once Ben "contacts" Hayley's family. Crossing the countryside while gathering an army of dead folk to battle demons, (one demon in particular who kept him out of Hell up until this point), there is no one safe from Ben. As he wheels and deals, he betrays everything that was ever important to him. At this point, I felt the pacing slowed down a bit leading up to the denouement. Then, all hell broke loose, so to speak!

A few times I had issues with Hayley's behavior, being that she was a 15 year old girl, but I chalked it up to her maturity level being a bit higher than her actual age.

Overall, I enjoyed this book and its original premise. (There's more to it than I can get into here.) Even though most of the characters were not likable at all, they made for fun villains, and I liked and did root for Hayley. I bet you will too!

Recommended!

*I received an e-ARC from the author in exchange for my honest feedback. This is it.*… (mehr)

Nicola and Cate-I'll never forget them! If you read THE DEAD ROOM, I bet you won't either.

In the late fall, bombs begin exploding all over large cities in the U.K. Unfortunately, that wasn't the end of the terrorist activity. Shortly after the bombs, many of the remaining citizens started getting sick. That's how the survivors discovered there was also a biological component to the attacks. Few people who get the "Manc" ever recover.

This tale features two very strong women, who are just trying to live their lives, which in these times, is no small feat. One woman sets out on a trek to find her husband and daughter, and the other ends up with a group of people at a bombed out hospital. That's about all I can say about the plot without spoilers.

The main reason I liked this book so much was because of these well written women. I RARELY feel like any man knows what it's like to be a woman in the world in which we now live, never mind a post-apocalyptic world such as the one in this book. Women travelling alone become targets. You can trust no one. There is no longer any law or order. Unfortunately, this allows certain men to act with no regard for..well, anything. Nicola and Cate constantly had to hide from even a single man-the fear of beatings and/or murder paled in comparison to their fears of being raped. Some things are worse than death.

On top of all this real life stuff, there are also supernatural aspects to this tale. I feel that readers are going to read into these aspects what they will. I would be interested in speaking with someone else who reads this book to determine how they feel about what happened and what it means. In the meantime, I'll stick with my interpretation and say the denouement was poignant, sad, and I think I heard my heart crack a little bit.

The only negative thing I have to say is that this book could have been shortened a bit without having too much impact on the story as a whole. For this, I deducted 1 star. For now. I find myself thinking about Cate and Nicola almost constantly since I finished THE DEAD ROOM last night. Sometimes when that happens, I end up revising my rating upward, and I reserve the right to do just that, in this case.

Highly recommended, especially for fans of well written female characters and post-apocalyptic tales!

Get your copy here: https://amzn.to/2QCKxG3

*I received an e-ARC of this book in exchange for review consideration. I considered it, (said Hell Yeah!), and read the book.*… (mehr)

A handful of people are stuck in the hell that has become Greenham Place, after what they think is an explosion that may have ended the outside world. But that's not the worst of it. Something has been unleashed inside this tall office building, and it's after them. Will they survive? You'll have to read Ascent to find out!

Rod, Alex, Simon, Kelly and Dao were all strangers to each other before the explosion. Now, they may be all that's left of humanity. What I liked most about this story was how the characters were each introduced and how they got to know each other. Unfortunately, whatever was released into Greenham Place got to know them too, and it used that knowledge to torture them all.

I thought this story was beautifully told-the author took the time to develop each character and then tailored the horror to each one. Everybody has secrets, whether they be something that happened to them, or something they did to someone else. Now imagine a creature that could use all that and twist it around-using it to insert wedges between people, to make people hallucinate, or even just to guilt them to death-how can you defeat that? Maybe you can't?

I LOVED the ending of this book, but I imagine it might be a problem for some. As an American, in light of our current political problems, and the problems that other...unstable countries present not only to us, but to the world, it was easy for me to fill in the blanks. I think that helped the story to become more personal to me and I liked it that much more as a result.

My only complaint was that I thought the term "legging it" was a bit overused, but hey, if this stuff was going down anywhere near me, I would be legging it the hell out of there too.

More of a psychological horror story than anything else, (don't worry-there's plenty of bloody gore to go around too), Ascent was an impressive and imaginative story and I highly recommend it!

Available tomorrow everywhere, here: Ascent

*I was provided an e-ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review. This is it.*… (mehr)