Creature Feature Tomb of Horror

I've got a pair of fast-moving, full-tilt horror novels for you this week, TombRats! The first one is a supernatural thriller from a new master of terror, and the second is from an old master of the horrifying gross-out. Ready? Let's go!

TOWER HILL by Sarah Pinborough
I have become an avowed fan of Ms. Pinborough's work, and eagerly await her new novels for review. She possesses an extraordinary ability to instill a sense of unease that builds throughout her novels, drawing the reader along in breathless anticipation from first page to last. In her newest novel, the town of Tower Hill, Maine sits brooding over the world below, situated on shadowy high cliffs where a centuries-old church and a small private college overlook a rocky New England coastline. A charming priest and a handsome young professor new to Tower Hill might not be all they seem. Ancient artifacts lie hidden in Tower Hill and, once discovered, the finders become less and less human as they fall under the evil powers of the artifacts they have risked everything to find. When the evil is unleashed, it spreads outward, enveloping the college where students begin to mutilate and destroy themselves, becoming puppets of the unholy malevolence that has lain dormant for untold ages. Two college students, Liz and Steve, come to realize that the hideous deaths occurring in Tower Hill are due to supernatural origins, and it becomes their quest to find and destroy the source of the horrors before they, too, are claimed by the invasive evil that has seized Tower Hill. This is a spooky, elegantly graphic and satisfying excursion into small-town supernatural horror written by a talented author whose novels have been consistently excellent. Take a copy of TOWER HILL along on vacation this year--it will put a chill on the hottest summer day.

THE WOODS ARE DARK by Richard Laymon
This novel by the late, great Richard Laymon was originally published in 1981, but in a heavily expurgated form that excised nearly fifty pages of scenes thought to be too graphic for public consumption. Well. THE WOODS ARE DARK is baaaack, completely restored to its original gut-churning entirety. This is a classic Laymon hack-em-up that begins with two young women on a hiking trip encountering a hairy, legless monster that tosses a detached human body part at them. Turns out that the thing is one of a group that finds it entertaining and edifying to kidnap, rape, torture, mutilate and dismember strangers who venture into their woodlands. Extreme graphic violence and gore fill nearly every page of this novel, but this is definitely not trash horror. Mr. Laymon was one of horror's superstars who produced a huge canon of carnal and graphically horrific tales that are always entertaining, filled with interesting characters, cleverly plotted and delightfully written. Go figure. So, if you have a strong constitution (and stomach) and enjoy your horror raw on the bone, you'll love this grossifying, hurl-your-Cheetos thrill ride. THE WOODS ARE DARK is not a novel for the rainbows 'n' unicorn crowd, the kiddies or the faint of heart. And please, don't take this book with you on a hiking trip in the woods unless you plan to hole up in a triple-locked motel room for the duration. Enough said.

Your funky and fractious old TombKeeper has been reviewing some very hardcore horror lately, so I thought it was time for a change of pace. If you're looking for chilling horror without major gore, slip into these two chilling novels. My first selection is a ghostly novel for adults, and the second is a spooky paranormal tale for teens. Light a candle and accompany me into the darkness…

THE PRICE by Alexandra Sokoloff
The author of the Stoker nominated chiller, THE HARROWING, returns with a second spine-rattling tale. THE PRICE is a satisfying pact-with-the-devil tale in which Boston District Attorney, Will Sullivan, an up-and-coming politico with plans for becoming Governor of Massachusetts, must put his dreams aside when his little girl, Sydney, is diagnosed with cancer. With his beautiful wife, Joanna, at his side, Will becomes enmeshed in the colossal, gothic labyrinth of a hospital where Sydney has been placed for treatment. Briarwood Medical Center is long past its technological heyday, and has become a dark world where Joanna Sullivan becomes a stranger to Will after the intervention of a charismatic counselor who seems to be turning Will's wife against him. As the hospital and staff begin to seem stranger and stranger to Will, he wonders if evil has grasped control of the hospital or if he is losing his mind. In an effort to save his child, Will struggles collect all of his strength in order to confront the dark forces controlling Briarwood Medical Center. Fans of "Rosemary's Baby" and "The Omen" will adore the THE PRICE.

THE SEER OF SHADOWS by Crispin Avi
Newberry Medal winning YA author Crispin Avi presents a ghostly, peek-through-your-fingers tale set in 1872 New York City, when photography was a brand new phenomena and, at the same time, spiritualism has reached an all-time popularity. What if spirits of the dead could be captured on these newfangled things called photographs? In THE SEER OF SHADOWS, teenage apprentice photographer Horace Carpentine is asked to participate in a deception whereby a rich client is lead to believe that the spirit of her dead daughter, Eleanora, has been captured in a photograph. Young Horace is given instructions to take photographs of Eleanor's likeness from oil portraits of the dead girl, but comes to realize that she was an abused child and that his photographs of her are evoking the vengeful return of Eleanora's ghost. Mr. Avi brings alive the era of Houdini and rampant spiritualism, early photography and Edith Wharton's New York City. While THE SEER OF SHADOWS might be a bit too scary for kids under the age of 10 or so, mature tweens and teenagers will find this novel quite thrilling.

Get ready to swash your buckles, TombRats, because this week I've got two thrilling adventure novels for you. You might want to wear oven mitts to read these ripping supernatural tales of derring-do because you're going to be flipping pages so fast you might burn your fingers!

BY THE SWORD by F. Paul Wilson

Indiana Jones may have his charms, but no one gets my bloomers all aflutter like Repairman Jack. The slam-bang, whoa-Nelly action continues as my all-time favorite serial adventure character hits the ground running on the first page when Jack goes all caveman on a blade-wielding goon who turns out to be much more than a mere mugger--and the thrills keep coming on like a freight train until the final page. In BY THE SWORD, Jack is hired to find a legendary samurai sword with an astounding past; it is a katana, a single-edged warrior's weapon that somehow survived the atomic blast that leveled Hiroshima, yet still retains its original cutting precision. There are many men who are willing to kill in order to own the katana, and Jack must outwit and outright battle a bizarre killer cult and members of the yakuza to return the sword to his client. Jack works out a plan whereby he will pit the two cults in a final fight-to-the-death, winner-take-all mêlée for the katana, providing him an opportunity to pluck the sword from their busy hands. As usual, Jack's plan hits a snag that severely limits his chances for victory or survival. And, lest we forget that Jack is also enmeshed in an ongoing cosmic shadow war that will determine the future of the universe, a pregnant teenager carrying a most unusual child becomes a pawn in the frantic and deadly hunt for the sword. Whew! When you read BY THE SWORD, you'll get an intense aerobic workout without ever leaving your reading chair! Hurry up and click on the cover, because these Repairman Jack novels sell out FAST! And for more about my hero, Repairman Jack, swing on over to www.RepairmanJack.com.

THE ROSETTA KEY by William Dietrich

Here's a new action/adventure character, Nathan Gage, who began his daring adventure in a previous novel, NAPOLEON'S PYRAMIDS, which closed with Nathan fleeing evil hordes above the Egyptian desert in a runaway hot-air balloon. I must admit that I didn't read the first novel in this series, but that did not preclude my enjoyment of the second, THE ROSETTA KEY, which is a fine stand-alone novel. Nathan Gage is engaged in the race to find The Book of Thoth, a magical Egyptian scroll from antiquity that will bestow upon its owner the secrets of the universe. With Napoleon Bonaparte's army, a sorcerer and a number of shadowy villains hot on his heels, Nathan rushes toward the prize, doing battle with all who would thwart his quest. THE ROSETTA KEY is a breakneck thrill ride in which the reader accompanies the swashbuckling 18^th century hero as he progresses across the Holy Land, filled with peril, humor and romance, to claim The Book of Thoth. If he should fail, dark forces will seize control of universe! For a fun summer read, consider an adventure in the company of the witty and charming Nathan Gage.

I have a quiz for you this week, TombRats. Question: What do you call a decaying, shambling, hideous creature who stumbles about mindlessly in search of unspeakable victuals? Answer: The TombKeeper, whenever she runs out of Cheetos! If you answered a zombie, however, I'll consider that a correct answer, too, because this week I'm bringing you a triple-header of synapse-burning zombie fiction from Permuted Press! Grooo!

THE UNDEAD: HEADSHOT QUARTET by D.L. Snell, John Sunseri, Ryan C. Thomas, David Dunwoody
The literary mayhem continues with this newest installment of Permuted Press's popular THE UNDEAD series, HEADSHOT QUARTET. I love that title and I loved the four novellas included in this jacked-up monster of a scream machine. The undead apocalypse opens with John Sunseri's muscular heart-pounder, "Million-Dollar Money Shot", in which a hit-man on the lam in Aruba with stolen mob money fends off attacks flesh-hungry zombies on land and killer fish-men from the sea. Up next is Ryan C. Thomas's "Enemy Unseen", an exciting bio-thriller/zombie horror hybrid that pits C.I.A. agent Rhonda White against a fiendish cabal that has created the zombie plague and is controlling the undead for their own purposes. David Dunwoody's "Lost Souls" is a moody, peek-through-your fingers-horrific tale about a trio of art students who uncover something quite terrible in a cemetery near their isolated New England vacation cottage. Tomb fave D. L. Snell brings down the house with his claustrophobic novella, "Mortal Gods", in which a man with utter amnesia awakens to find himself in an alley full of zombies in this riveting genre-bending story in which the undead, Lovecraftian beasts and magic collide. HEADSHOT QUARTET is a literary bullet fired dead-bang into the reader's imagination. Bravo!

THE MORNINGSTAR STRAIN: PLAGUE OF THE DEAD by Z. A. Recht
It's very true that there are viruses lurking in remote, uninhabited jungle areas, requiring only one human vector to catapult into a plague to rival or surpass the dread Ebola, and Z.A. Recht has constructed a nightmare scenario in which just such an event occurs. The Morningstar Strain doesn't merely kill its hosts; however, it subsequently reanimates them, turning its victims into flesh-eating monsters. By the time the world's health organizations realize the scope and seriousness of the original outbreak, Morningstar has already outstripped science's ability to deal with it. Attempts to close off the African continent to contain the virus fail dismally, and U.S. troops are repelled and overtaken by the rampaging zombie hordes. PLAGUE OF THE DEAD contains explicit, full-tilt zombie warfare underscored by an intelligent, rousing plot involving a heroic doctor, Anna Demilio, who may just be mankind's only hope…if she survives. If you're a fan of zombie horror, this novel is a must-have!

THE MORNINGSTAR STRAIN: THUNDER AND ASHES by Z. A. Recht
Just when you thought you'd be able to catch your breath after finishing Mr. Recht's first novel in this killer zombie series, you'd better think again. THUNDER AND ASHES, sequel to PLAGUE OF THE DEAD, continues the devastation, picking up the storyline from where the first novel in this epic zombie trilogy ended. I don't want to give away events from the first novel, so suffice to say that the second novel in the trilogy is most definitely up to the high standards of the first. The zombie hordes continue their rampage, the scattered survivors are on the run, the world has largely become a lawless dog-eat-dog red zone, and the race to find some kind of cure for the Morningstar Strain is underway. The action comes hard and fast, whisking the reader along through breathless zombie battle sequences and horrific cat-and-mouse set-pieces that crank the suspense factor to a high-pitched scream. Zombie fiction doesn't get any better than this. Whew! Okay, Mr. Recht, I'm ready for the next novel in this series!

The Godfather of Horror is in the house, TombRats! Thomas F. Monteleone is upstairs in The Vault, where I've got him staked out and almost live in high definition, yikes! In honor of his visit, I invite you to peruse these tthree exemplary horror novels from three of my favorite award winning authors, including Il Padrone himself!

SERPENTINE by Thomas F. Monteleone
The author turns his dark gaze and prodigious storytelling talents upon a creature of myth and lore, the Lamia, a demon in the form of a beguiling young woman named Sophia Rousseau, a languid and seductive young woman who is, in fact, thousands of years old. Sophia's long lifespan is supported by her consumption of the creative life forces of those she encounters as she moves through the ages of mankind. Sophia looks upon humans as her prey, but has no sense that she is evil. She survives, and to do so, she must feed. Released from a long imprisonment beneath a church altar, Sophia emerges in the form of a snake to resume her vampiric existence, finding sustenance in the creative energy of the geniuses of the period. She finds a new hunting ground in New York City, a hub of creative energy, where Sophia cloaks her true nature by working as a model and an actress. Her past conquests include Mozart and Van Gogh, from whom she obtained creative sustenance during sexual encounters, deriving her life force even as she killed her famous lovers. Her powers to seduce have always been irresistible, but a writer named Matthew Cavendish may prove to be Sophia's undoing. SERPENTINE is brilliantly imagined thriller from an author whose skills place the reader into an unrelenting dream-world that makes one wish that the story would never end. Erotic and satisfying, SERPENTINE is a novel to be relished. Yummy!

DARK RIDE by Michael Laimo
In his newest short story collection, Michael Laimo struts his short form chops in a grouping of knock-your-socks-off tales of terror. The range and breadth of the author's talents are on display herein, gorgeously collected in a sumptuous signed and limited edition from Borderlands Press that illuminates Michael Laimo's tight control of language and plot. I recently enjoyed the great pleasure hearing Mr. Laimo personally read one of the stories contained in this collection--the shuddery "Contact Lenses"--and it became clear to me that Michael Laimo's voice is easily heard in all of his stories, whether or not the reader has ever heard the author speak. The author's storytelling voice slices like a razor through every selection, from harrowingly visceral ("Summer Fling", "The Rash", "Contact Lenses") to chillingly Lovecraftian (the never-before-seen novelette, "The Startling Supplements to Brione Heloise's Depictions"). Each of the 23 stories included in this collection are beautifully realized and masterfully written. My favorite? Ooh, tough call, but it would have to be the story that opened the collection, "Summer Fling", a tale so palpably horrifying that it made me physically cringe. Bravo, Mr. Laimo! DARK RIDE is a first class collection of short fiction from a first class author, prefaced by a thoughtful introduction from popular zombie-meister, Brian Keene. Available in several limited editions to satisfy every budget, you'll want to add this beautiful volume to your personal collection of terror tomes. Click on the cover. Buy the book. It's a very dark ride indeed.

LOST PRINCE by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
I have been an avid fan of Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's historical vampire series starring the courtly St. Germaine for many years, and it was with great interest that I began LOST PRINCE, a werewolf novel published by Borderlands Press. I was not disappointed. With her usual splendid style and attention to historical detail, Ms. Yarbro has penned a grand epic tale of sixteenth-century Spain and the high-born lycanthrope whose malady shapes his life and times. Don Rolon, heir to Spain's royal throne, is a young man unloved by his father and besieged by the full moon. Sent away from court in his youth, Don Rolon finds friendship and support from Lugantes, the dwarf court jester who accompanies Don Rolon in his exile. The Spanish Grand Inquisition is at the full height of its power, slaying its political enemies and all that it condemns as demonic. Beset by his power-obsessed half brother, who strives to push Don Rolon from his rightful place in the royal succession , Don Rolon's staff toils to hide the fact that Don Rolon is a werewolf, but each full moon brings more deaths. When Rolon is called home to an arranged marriage, he falls in love with his wife, a situation that makes his lycanthropy untenable and a search for a cure his utmost goal. LOST PRINCE is a beautifully written novel that will delight fans of horror and historical fiction. It's a beastly good read!

AAAAOOOROOO, TombRats! A spooky ground-fog is rolling across the moors just beyond Count Gore's Haunted Castle, and our resident werewolf, Ralph, is out prowling the grounds. I have a couple of truly magnificent debut werewolf novels for you here in the Tomb, but if you'll excuse me, I'm going to head upstairs to the Lab where I'm going to watch The Werewolf of Washington with Count Gore De Vol. Check out these two great books, and then come join us for the movie! I'll save you a seat!

SHARP TEETH by Toby Barlow

Talk about cutting edge! This debut novel by ad-man and Huffington Post reporter Toby Barlow blows the lid off of werewolf literature in particular and horror literature in general. Just when you thought the werewolf novel was a ho-hum, been-there affair, along comes an author who writes an edgy modern tale of urban professional werewolves with the ancient bite of epic poetry! Yes, that's right! Epic free verse poetry! Hip and scary, these postmodern lycanthropes go for the jugular in high style, going Beowulf on animal shelters and deftly infiltrating L.A. high stakes bridge tournaments. These canines are wolf-dog hybrid werewolves, and the narrative follows three packs, focusing on one led by the charismatic Lark, an attorney in his human form, and a fierce dawg with an attitude and a plan; Lark plans to take over the city by feral cunning. Canine homicides litter the city and a detective named Peabody follows the trail of seemingly disconnected mayhem while a dogcatcher named Silvo finds himself falling in love with a young woman who turns out to be…a real bitch. This is riveting and beautifully wrought debut horror fiction from a writer I'll be watching. My thanks to discerning reader and Creature Feature partner-in-crime Susan Dyszel for bringing this hot new novel to my attention! I love SHARP TEETH and so will you! Woof!

THE WOLFMAN by Nicholas Pekearo

This dazzling debut novel is a heartbreaker, TombRats. Not only because it is such a moving and brilliant book, but also because the young author was shot dead while volunteering as an NYPD Auxiliary Police Officer, gunned down in the streets of Greenwich Village where he grew up. THE WOLFMAN is the story of a troubled man named Marlowe Higgins, a Vietnam Veteran and an ex-con whose singular affliction has turned him into a drifter, taking him on an endless, dreadful trek from town to town because he has much to dread--the full moon being foremost. He's a lycanthrope whose compulsion to kill beneath the shadows of each bright moon unmoors him physically and emotionally; his victims number in the hundreds. Unable to end the nightmare of his beastly transformations, he resolves to limit his savage mutilations to those he feels most deserve such a fate. His focus becomes a serial killer named The Rose Killer for his grisly habit of inserting live plants into the empty eye sockets of his victims. The author of this horror novel/crime thriller twined the suspense factor around the stalker and the stalker's stalker so tightly that the reader actually experiences the presence of danger. Tragically, the bright future of this writer will never be known. Let us rejoice that he left behind his brilliant, star-crossed first novel. It is a marvel of fiction. Read it. Read it hard.

This week, TombRats, your gnarly and funkitudinous old TombKeeper is kicking it old school with two tales of small town horror. If you're looking for straight-up terror of the most horrific sort, try these two screamers on for size:

COFFIN COUNTY by Gary A. Braunbeck

Okay, I admit it: I love horror stories set in small towns. Why? Because, as in the 1951 film version of THE THING, everybody knows everybody and nobody can get away! This claustrophobic scenario has produced a number of bone-rattling novels by the best horror fiction writers, and now Gary A. Braunbeck has stepped quite comfortably into the very large shadows left behind by Richard Matheson and Stephen King. Multiple Bram Stoker award winner and former Horror Writers Association President Braunbeck has written a formidable and gut-clenching tale of small town terror to rival the best of the best. The small town of Cedar Hill, Ohio is rife with bad blood because the town was established in a history of blood and fire. Following a historical mass murder, Cedar Hill experienced a Great Fire that cremated the town's casket factory. After a series of gruesome murders, local detective Ben Littlejohn tracks the horror to an abandoned graveyard that ties the murders to a series of similar murders that occurred nearly two centuries before. The evidence points to a single killer that seems to have managed to pierce the veil of time, moving from past atrocities into the present. COFFIN COUNTY is an intelligent, cogent, powerfully written novel of supernatural horror supported by a solid and thrilling police procedural foundation. I know you will enjoy this truly horrific slice of the dark stuff from a writer whose talents have wowed me for years. Click on the cover graphic and pack this book alongside your snorkels and swimfins this summer. For more about this world-class horror author, please visit his online resting place at www.GaryBraunbeck.com .

BLOODSTONE by Nate Kenyon

If you are a fan of Stephen King's electrifying early novels, you will definitely want to pick up this debut novel by Nate Kenyon. Ex-con Billy Smith arrives in the small town of White Falls, Maine accompanied by a junkie prostitute named Angel he kidnapped and brought with him because they had been sharing the same horrible dreams. White Falls is a town steeped in dark secrets that have their genesis in a centuries-old history tied to a mysterious amulet. Billy is plagued by dreams of the undead that drive him to understand the part that he and his companion are compelled to play out in the town of White Falls. In an ultimate battle between good and evil, Billy must discover the best and worst within him to defeat the darkness that threatens to swallow him, the town and perhaps the entire world. White Falls is dying. Madness is spreading from home to home, neighbor to neighbor. The malignancy must be excised and the savior is himself tainted. Darkness grows. The dead watch, rallying to the march of darkness. The odds are long and the light is vanishing; who will win? This is a grand debut by an author I will be watching with great expectations. Click on the cover and grab yourself some terror. And be sure to check out the author's website at www.NateKenyon.com !