Dracula (Norton Critical Editions)
Dracula is one of the few horror books to be honored by inclusion in the Norton Critical Edition series. (The others are
Frankenstein, The Turn of the Screw, Heart of Darkness, The Picture of Dorian Gray, and
The Metamorphosis.) This 100th-anniversary edition includes not only the complete authoritative text of the novel with illuminating footnotes, but also four contextual essays, five reviews from the time of publication, five articles on dramatic and film variations, and seven selections from literary and academic criticism. Nina Auerbach of the University of Pennsylvania (author of
Our Vampires, Ourselves) and horror scholar David J. Skal (author of
Hollywood Gothic,
The Monster Show, and
Screams of Reason) are the editors of the volume. Especially fascinating are excerpts from materials that Bram Stoker consulted in his research for the book, and his working papers over the several years he was composing it. The selection of criticism includes essays on how
Dracula deals with female sexuality, gender inversion, homoerotic elements, and Victorian fears of "reverse colonization" by politically turbulent Transylvania.
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
Washington Irving had a way with words that none could compare with. His simple and not very scary at all tale of one of the most famous "ghosts" in history is both delightful in it's humor and wit and charming in it's character description. If you are looking for something to send shivers up your spine and make you quake in fear, you have looked to the wrong story master. Irving was a story teller of everyday people in everyday situations. The comical and the endearing. He made his observations on life and living it and left the afterlife to speculation. That is why "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" is a true literary classic!
The Manicurist
This is another satisfying novel from Schieber offering the right balance of mystery and believability. The generational impact of maternal mental illness is explored gently and with humor. These are real, ordinary people who you might actually know. Her characters are vivid. The nuances and emotions between mothers and daughters, husbands and wives are so beautifully captured through Schieber's clear and controlled writing. As in her first novel, WILLING SPIRITS, I laughed and cried with self-recognition. She knows women. Schieber is a shining star on the rise in literary fiction. She really nailed it with THE MANICURIST.
The 9th Fortress
Detective Daniel Fox has just met with a grizzly end. The dawn of his afterlife is where our story begins.
To redeem his soul and earn a place in Heaven, Daniel must first venture to the 9th Fortress: Lucifer’s primary prison in the heart of hell-fire. There the worst of the worst are contained, and Daniel’s mission is to save one particular soul from its dungeon.
To help him achieve that almighty feat, the detective was given a defender--a samurai warrior called Kat--the most dangerous man who ever lived and the only one qualified, and capable of leading this perilous expedition.
Together, the Kat and Fox encounter the unnatural and supernatural on their decent to the pit, and all of it trying to stop them...
Season Of The Harvest
What if the genetically modified crops that we increasingly depend on for food weren’t really created by man? What if they brought a new, terrifying meaning to the old saying that "you are what you eat"?
MURDER
At a genetics lab where a revolutionary strain of wonder food crops is being developed, FBI Special Agent Jack Dawson’s best friend and fellow agent is brutally murdered. The killer was looking for very special seeds that Jack’s friend had taken from the lab, and tore his body apart trying to find them…
BETRAYAL
Jack is convinced that Naomi Perrault, the beautiful geneticist who leads a group of suspected eco-terrorists, is behind the murder. But when FBI agents who aren’t who they claim to be show up on Jack’s doorstep after a bomb devastates the FBI lab in Quantico, destroying the evidence from his friend’s murder, Naomi becomes Jack’s only hope of survival.
NIGHTMARE
Framed for murder and confronted by the terrifying truth of what the genetically engineered seeds stolen by his friend are truly for, Jack joins Naomi in a desperate battle across half the globe to save humanity from extermination.
Run
For fans of Stephen King, Dean Koontz, and Thomas Harris, picture this: a landscape of American genocide...
5 D A Y S A G O
A rash of bizarre murders swept the country…
Senseless. Brutal. Seemingly unconnected.
A cop walked into a nursing home and unloaded his weapons on elderly and staff alike.
A mass of school shootings.
Prison riots of unprecedented brutality.
Mind-boggling acts of violence in every state.
4 D A Y S A G O
The murders increased ten-fold…
3 D A Y S A G O
The President addressed the nation and begged for calm and peace…
2 D A Y S A G O
The killers began to mobilize…
Y E S T E R D A Y
All the power went out…
T O N I G H T
They’re reading the names of those to be killed on the Emergency Broadcast System. You are listening over the battery-powered radio on your kitchen table, and they’ve just read yours.
Your name is Jack Colclough. You have a wife, a daughter, and a young son. You live in Albuquerque, New Mexico. People are coming to your house to kill you and your family. You don’t know why, but you don’t have time to think about that any more.
You only have time to….
R U N
The Grimm Curse (Once Upon A Time Is Now)
Fifteen year-old Jake Grimm is the last living descendent of the Brothers Grimm, who wrote the famous fairy tales in the 1800's. But Jake grew up with foster parents in Los Angeles, never knowing his true destiny until he ran away from his unhappy foster home, to the place of his birth--Woodland--a small town nestled deep in a Northwestern forest.
In Woodland, Jake discovers that the famous fairy tales are all real, and they are happening today. And Jake, as the last living Grimm, is the only one who can stop the witches, big bad wolves, and evil stepmothers who are all alive and well, and about to wreak havoc in the small town of Woodland, following the death of Jake's great-uncle Eustace.
But these fairy tales creatures are not like those in the old stories. Woodland is a modern place, and the creatures Jake battles seem like completely normal, modern people--to everyone but Jake. Only Jake can see them for what they really are, and, together with his friend and apprentice, Madeleine, he must fight to prevent the evil that is all around the unsuspecting teens at Woodland High.
With the GRIMM CURSE, author Stephen Carpenter has done for the Grimm Fairy Tales what the TWILIGHT series has done for vampires--brought them into the real world of today, with real teens who find themselves in the middle of a centuries-old struggle between good and evil.
Because once upon a time is now.
The Red Church
For 13-year-old Ronnie Day, life is full of problems: Mom and Dad have separated, his brother Tim is a constant pest, Melanie Ward either loves him or hates him, and Jesus Christ won't stay in his heart. Plus he has to walk past the red church every day, where the Bell Monster hides with its wings and claws and livers for eyes. But the biggest problem is that Archer McFall is the new preacher at the church, and Mom wants Ronnie to attend midnight services with her.
Sheriff Frank Littlefield hates the red church for a different reason. His little brother died in a freak accident at the church twenty years ago, and now Frank is starting to see his brother's ghost. And the ghost keeps demanding, "Free me." People are dying in Whispering Pines, and the murders coincide with McFall's return.
The Days, the Littlefields, and the McFalls are descendants of the original families that settled the rural Appalachian community. Those old families share a secret of betrayal and guilt, and McFall wants his congregation to prove its faith. Because he believes he is the Second Son of God, and that the cleansing of sin must be done in blood.
"Sacrifice is the currency of God," McFall preaches, and unless Frank and Ronnie stop him, everybody pays.
Horror Stories
I enjoyed this collection of horror stories. Some of the stories verged more into the territory of "torture porn" than classic horror, but were enjoyable nonetheless. The Santa Claus story was incredibly clever and definitely worth a read. It does appear, however, that the book was rushed. There's a couple of typos and grammatical errors. At one point, it appears that a note from a reviewer or editor still remains in the story. I think if the copy were cleaned up a bit, I'd give the book another half a star.
If you've enjoyed other Kilborn/Konrath stories (many of which I read from the author's website some time ago) and have a stomach for gore, torture and squirmy situations, you'll enjoy these stories.
TORMENT - A Novel of Dark Horror
Small town reporter, Mia Durante, finds herself having brunch with the President of the United States on the day civilization comes to an end. An electromagnetic pulse blinds the U.S. Cars crash. Planes fall. Chaos reigns. Power is restored within minutes, but it's already too late. Russian nukes are falling. U.S. allies around the world are all ready wiped out. The United States will cease to exist inside of five minutes.
After giving the order to launch a full-scale retaliation, dooming the planet, the president, White House staff, Secret Service and those lucky enough to be visiting the white house, are whisked below ground where they board several Earth Escape Pods. As the EEPs launch into Earth orbit, missiles descend.
Less than forty survive the end of the world. When they return, they're greeted by survivors of a different sort. The bloodbath that follows leaves Durante and nine other survivors on the run. They find themselves fighting for survival in a world in which only torment remains and where death is the only escape.
Based on more than forty interviews with Jobs conducted over two years—as well as interviews with more than a hundred family members, friends, adversaries, competitors, and colleagues—Walter Isaacson has written a riveting story of the roller-coaster life and searingly intense personality of a creative entrepreneur whose passion for perfection and ferocious drive revolutionized six industries: personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, and digital publishing. 
