The Specter of the Covington Fencibles ~ William Deen

Well, the old adage says that you can choose your friends but you can't choose your relations and I'm sure some families would like to bury the memories of some undesirables within their ranks.  But not so with William Deen, for deep within the Deen family tree roots there lies a very unlikable man and an abhorrent act, and now he's been revealed!

Living in Australia I'm not too knowledgeable about the Amerian Civil War, but I found that the opening imagery set the scene very well and the overall feel was like that creepy Clint Eastwood Civil War movie The Beguiled.

We follow Deen's ancestor from the Civil War into civilian life where times were tough and he was tough on his family, and the victim of the crime that he committed when fighting as part of the Covington Fencibles is waiting.......waiting.... and one can only imagine the weight of the guilt that the real life L B McGrew carried with him to have been so haunted on his death bed.

With one foot firmly planted in historical fact and the other tottering in the spectral realm I found this a nice tight creepy read before going to sleep.  I was was pleasantly surprised.

Diary ~ Chuck Palahniuk

A dark satire about an island legend that is re-enacted every third generation.  It's a story about re-incarnation, torture and ritual sacrifice, and it really should be my cup of tea but I didn't like the way it was written.  The  novel is a 'coma diary', but it just doesn't read like a diary.  There is another diary is the story which is owned by the  protagonist's (Misty Wilmot) mother-in-law who claims to know what Misty is thinking or how she is feeling because it is 'in the diary'.  The reason for this becomes apparent towards the end of the novel. 

As in Choke, there was a repeated phrase throughout.  This one being 'Just for the record' or 'Just for the record the weather today is.......' with the weather being Misty's current mood.  It was quite a claustrophobic novel, and the vibe was very much The Stepford Wives.  

I think that if I had read the actual book instead of listening to it I may have enjoyed it more than I did as the narrator, Martha Plimpton, had a rather dull bland voice.

Something Wicked This Way Comes ~ Ray Bradbury

Will Halloway and Jim Nightshade are more like brothers than best friends, born just one day apart they live next door to each other in a small American town.  The novels opens with the promise of fun that only a child can see as Autumn begins, but a dark cloud is about to hover over them as an ancient carnival pulls into town.  The boys realise that something is very wrong with the carnival when they see one of its operators Mr Cooger ride the carousel backwards and so watch him grow younger and younger until he is a small boy.

Mr Dark, the illustrated man, seduces adults with promises of youth and his body is covered with the images of those he has lured.  What the adults don't realise is that to be young again will mean giving up all their friends, and finding themselves alone so frightens them when they have become a child that they beg to go back on the carousel.  They are promised that they will be given back their lives but first they must travel as freaks within the carnival.

One such freak is the blind Dustwitch - one night Mr Dark sends her out in a monstrous balloon to find the boys.  The sound of the balloon billowing in the wind and the blind freak holding out her hands to sense the boys is very creepy. They know the secret of the carnival and Mr Dark needs to silence them.......................  make no mistake, this is not a childrens book.  It is brilliantly told from a child's perspective, and I love how Will's opinion of his father grows.  He initially sees him as an old janitor at the library, but as the novel progresses Will realises that he seems taller and stronger - dependable and more importantly, he believes.  

Psycho ~ Robert Bloch

This is not the graphic horror that I was expecting, and it’s not particularly long, and because the story is so well known the revelations did not surprise, but I can expect it would have been an excellent read when first published in 1959.

Bloch does an excellent job of building the character of the self loathing Norman Bates.  There are three fractured characters, Norman the man who runs the Bates Motel, Norman the child who needs his mother, and then there’s Mother herself.  Mother is insanely jealous and when Norman shows an interest in a young lady who’s traveling alone it only spells danger.  The problem is the young woman is on the run with an investigator after her and it doesn’t take long to track her movements down to the Bates Motel. 

The famous shower scene is very disappointing— Mary is in the shower and when she sees the butcher's knife Bloch says it “was the knife that, a moment later, cut off her scream. And her head." Not a great deal of drama and horror there is there?!

What I liked about this novel was the question  it asked—how well do we know somebody?  And even—how well do we know ourselves?

Not a bad read at all but it shows what a great job Hitchcock did with the movie.

Darkfall ~ Dean Koontz

Overall I felt that Darkfall probably could have been an 'okay' novella.  However, this book is like a bad sequel to a great movie, which is a shame because a bad sequel taints the memory of the original.  Some things should not be messed with, and Lovecraft's creations are one of them.

Koontz needn't have touched on Lovecraft, he's has imagination enough to create his own monstrosities, and he could have cut about two thirds of his awfully corny dialogue.  The ending did lift the story a bit, but unless you are a die hard Koontz fan you wouldn't really want to pick this one up.

However, for me, the highlights were the quotes/poetry from his fictional 'Book of Counted Sorrows'.   If he ever publishes this book, I would definitely be interested.

Heart Shaped Box ~ Joe Hill

This was a rather too long story of an aging rocker and collector of occult memorabilia who buys a ghost over the internet, and then spends the rest of the novel trying to get away from it.

The writing style is extremely similar to Stephen King even to the way he brings up music references, baseball references and repeating certain phrases throughout the novel.

A few years ago, I would have probably enjoyed it, however I do feel that Stephen King has done this all before, and that really there is nothing new here.

I think that Joe Hill is the exponent of the short story, rather than a writer of novels.

20th Century Ghosts ~ Joe Hill

This is a selection of short stories from the son of Horror Master Stephen King. Joe’s full name being Joseph Hillstrom King.


I was very pleasantly surprised at the quality of these stories. They’re not out and out horror to shock, they are very intelligent, and gradually draw you in, leaving you feeling very unsettled.

Pop Art was my favourite. This story was so sensitively written in it’s own way. It is a story about a young boy’s friendship with an inflatable boy. It was disturbing but quite beautiful and I just loved the last line. I have thought about it often since reading it.

Abraham’s Boys was a little twist on the Dracula theme but was very reminiscent of the movie Frailty. Having recently read Dracula I found the premise of the story a little hard to swallow, but I did think it was cleverly done.

20th Century Ghost tells the story of a haunted theatre, again it was beautifully written and quite sad.

Best New Horror was really good too, it actually reminded me of Coraline crossed with The Chainsaw Massacre!

Stephen King was one of my all time favourite authors when all I read was horror. During his later years, after his accident, I felt that he didn’t ‘have it’ any more. The stories were bland and the shock factor just wasn’t there. These stories do take you that one step closer to the edge, and the quality of the writing makes you want to peer over. Reading these stories has sparked my interest in horror again.

The Yellow Wallpaper ~ Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Gilman chronicles the descent into madness of a young mother obviously suffering post natal depression which was not recognized as such in Victorian times.


Installed in a room papered with yellow wallpaper where a madwoman was once kept, the delicate young mother spends her time tracing the pattern of the wallpaper with her eyes, making out shapes and trying to find a sequence to it.

She notices that the colour of the ‘hideous paper’ changes when the light changes and she imagines that she can see a faint figure behind it, shaking the pattern, wanting to get out. The hysteria that builds up to the finale is spine tingling.

The Turn of the Screw - Henry James

Considered one of the great ghost stories. The Turn of the Screw relates a governess’s experience with two children in her care, who are haunted by two evil dead servants of the house, one of whom was the previous governess to the children.


At first the children seem perfect and innocent but as time goes by she realises that they are completely aware of the haunting and even try to encourage it.

The subtle changes in the children’s personalities put the Governess on her guard and she fears for her safety. However her duty to her young charges comes first and she is determined to meet the threat head on ……...with unforeseen tragic consequences.

Duel - Richard Matheson

A salesman takes on a crazy truck driver on a lonely highway across the desert. The truck driver seems intent on killing him. Clever writing carries this story to it’s explosive ending.

I Am Legend - Richard Matheson

A different take on the Vampire myth. One man is immune to a virus that is sweeping the world. He is determined to find a cure, but he doesn’t figure on what the new vampires are planning..

Just After Sunset - Stephen King

Not the best collection of stories, however for a real ‘creep-out’ read “N”. 10/10

….. and for a giggle, the tongue in cheek “Stationary Bike” 9/10

Frankenstein—Book 1 The Prodigal Son ~ Dean Koontz

A modern take on the Frankenstein legend. Victor Frankenstein is now nearly 200 years old, and trying to create a master race of humans. These creations are living amongst us with some even working as priests and policemen.


When people are found murdered with body parts missing, Deucalion must come out of hiding and reveal himself to two detectives, and convince them about who he really is, and who they are really dealing with.


I couldn’t put it down! Great fun.

Frankenstein ~ Mary Shelley

Mary Shelley has conjured up a tortured soul in this classic horror story. The horror does not lie in the monster himself, but in how he became a monster. He did not ask to be given life, but when came into being, he was abandoned by his creator. He tries to learn the ways of man but is met with abhorrence at his appearance and violence. Violence begets violence and the monster seeks his vengeance on the man who had made him this ‘miserable wretch’.


Hollywood totally destroyed the true meaning behind this novel. It needn’t be described as a horror story at all but more of a lesson in humanity and the knowledge even back then that we are the product of our upbringing. The guidance and protection from our parents are a vital part of childhood, without them who knows what we could become?

Dracula - Bram Stoker

Dracula is a genuinely creepy telling of the Vampire legend. The story is actually told by various journals and letters from various characters.


Jonathan Harker is the first to encounter Dracula in his native homeland, and has to draw on all his reserves to face him once again when he is discovered in England.

With the assistance of the legendary Dr Van Helsing Jonathan and his friends follow Dracula’s deadly trail and endeavour to free his tortured soul, and at the same time save Jonathon’s beloved wife who has fallen under the vampire's spell.

There are some genuinely spine-tingling moments in the narration, especially the ship’s log describing Dracula’s passage to England and why a crewman is found dead and tied to the ship’s wheel ~ a real goose bump moment.

House of Thunder - Dean Koontz

Events that took place in a cave system known as ‘The House of Thunder’ come back to haunt an amnesia victim whose boyfriend died there.


The build up to the final reveal was quite frightening and had me looking over my shoulder. Once the plot was realised it seemed a bit over done and silly; but the epilogue to this story did give me food for thought.

Strangers - Dean Koontz

An epic story about a group of strangers who are brought together after they suddenly start experiencing unexplained nightmares and developing frightening phobias. Their one thing in common is that they stayed at The Tranquility Motel ‘the summer before last’.


What suggests to them the idea of a government cover up, over a toxic spill near the motel, develops into a cover up of one of the greatest experiences in human history.

This is one of Koontz’s more ambitious novels, and apart from some of the character names and the usual corny dialogue, I enjoyed it immensely

The Strain ~ Guillermo Del Toro & Chuck Hogan

A different take on the vampire story. This one is set in modern day America with the mystery ’virus’ being investigated by members of the CDC, an elderly vampire hunter and a pest control expert. A little tongue in cheek maybe, but there were some genuine chills here.

This did read more like a movie, which is not surprising given Del Toro’s background, and it brought to mind various vampire and zombie novels/movies that I have read or seen and I kept thinking of the movie ‘28 Days Later’. There were the usual annoying sequences where a character is in imminent danger and could quite easily get away (and doesn’t) which is frustrating enough watching it on screen let alone reading it in a book.

The ideas may not have been totally original, but the characters were a little different, and being book one of a trilogy I am interested to see where books two and three will take me.

Ur - Stephen King

Originally written exclusively for the Kindle, I obtained this as a newly released audio book. (A must have for my Stephen King collection!).


Initially it reads like a brown nosing advert for Amazon and the Kindle, but once you get past this, it is quite an interesting story. UR’s are alternative realities that are accessed via a pink Kindle that is received in error by an English Teacher who has ordered one in an effort to catch up with the technological age. One of the UR realities has Ernest Hemmingway living for a few more years and writing more novels—all of which can be downloaded. This is all very exciting until our protagonist discovers a local UR which accesses the future news. The news of course isn’t good and with the help of two friends he sets out to prevent the looming disaster he has seen.

However, having broken the Paradox Laws, he now become a person of interest to the ‘Low Men’ who pay him a visit.

If you are a fan of King, you will relish the tie-ins to the Dark Tower series and Hearts in Atlantis.

Cold Heart Canyon - Clive Barker

Cold Heart Canyon is a tongue-in-cheek look at the underbelly of Hollywood. Todd Pickett an idol of the silver screen is on his way down. In a desperate bid to hang onto fame and adoration he opts for cosmetic surgery, which goes horribly wrong. Hiding in an old mansion from his fans and the paparazzi while he recovers he stumbles across long dead movie stars and the Cold Hearted actress from the silent age Katya Lupescu whose beauty and lust belies her true age and nature. In a city of many addictions non come stranger than the Devil’s Country, hidden in a room in the mansion, and those who are waiting in the darkness to view it again. Can Tammy Lauper, President of the Todd Pickett Fan Club, rescue her fallen hero before he succumbs to the Hunt and loses his soul to Katya forever?


An acquired taste, Clive Barker never fails to amaze with his fantastic imagination, unlikely heroes, beautiful but demonic women and nightmarish landscapes, all interlaced with sexual fantasy.

Not for the faint hearted, explicit at times, a conjurer of words, Clive Barker is a master of this genre.