The Goodreads Dark and Fantastic Readers Group discussion

I finished 21st Century Dead: A Zombie Anthology and When We Join Jesus In Hell on New Year's Day. Reading Needful Things right now...

I just finished Sherlock Holmes: The Army of Dr. Moreau by Guy Adams.

Again, I have to say that I love when two genres that I love bump together. In Sherlock Holmes: The Army of Dr. Moreau, Guy Adams pits HG Wells's Dr. Moreau against Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes. A great combination.

This was the perfect follow-up to Sherlock Holmes: The Breath of God.


4 STARS

Currently reading The Racketeer by John Grisham and enjoying so far.

I have just finished Rage of the Fallen by Joseph Delaney

This is the eighth and final book of the original eight book Last Apprentice / Wardstone Chronicles YA series. What a great way to end it!

I have been very impressed overall with the series. I felt that the series slowed a bit towards the end but the eighth book picked up dramatically and is probably one of the best in the series.

Highly recommended!

Joseph Delaney has written at least two additional novels to tack onto the end of the eight book series and I see that there may also be a prequel. He has also written a number of related short stories (some of which may have gone into the additional novels). I am really looking forward to reading all of them.

5 STARS

I just finished The Black Book of Secrets. It is the first of four loosely related YA novels in F.E. Higgins's Tales From the Sinister City series.

I was thoroughly impressed. The book has a very dark theme that vaguely reminded me of Stephen King's Needful Things.

The hero of the story is a young boy who had a rough beginning to life and manages to land a position with a pawnbroker who buys the darkest secrets from people for a very high price. But, to what end does he buy these secrets?

5 STARS and favorited

I have just finished The Hunt for the Seventh by Christine Morton-Shaw.

An endorsement on the cover calls this YA book "a classic ghost story". I feel that is about as accurate a description as you can get.

A recently widowed father takes a position at an old manor house as head gardener. He and his two children live on the estate and the oldest child finds himself mixed up in the middle of a family curse that has claimed the lives of six children over the last two hundred years. Will he be able to prevent the seventh?

Ghosts, witches, ancient rites, a mystery and an old manor house. The story has all the ingredients!

4 STARS

Haunted Air: Anonymous Halloween photographs from c.1875–1955 by Ossian Brown.

I have just finished The Seer of Shadows by Avi.

Set in 1872, at the height of the Spiritualism movement, a young boy takes an apprenticeship with a photographer. When the photographer is approached by a wealthy, grieving mother to do a photo shoot, the photographer plans a minor fraud, a double exposure of a picture of the dead daughter onto a photo of the grieving mother to create a "spirit photo" in hopes of bolstering his slow business. But, when the photos are developed, something unexpected appears in the pictures.

This is a really good YA ghost story.

4 STARS

I just finished The Best of John Bellairs by John Bellairs, of course. The edition that I read includes the first three books of the Lewis Barnavelt series

I picked this YA book up in trade at my favorite used bookstore. I dropped off a bag of books for which they gave me $125 of store credit. I got this hardcover edition for $1.25 of that store credit and was out of pocket $0.18 ($0.12 tax plus $0.06 handling fee). I hate to use the cliche, but...WINNING!

This series of stories is set in New Zebedee, Michigan. Lewis Barnavlet is orphaned when his parents are killed in an auto accident. Lewis is sent to live with his quirky Uncle Jonathon who, despite his claims of being nothing more than a parlor magician, is actually a fairly talented wizard. With his neighbor Florence Zimmerman (who is also a witch) and his best friend Rose Rita, the group face several dark-themed adventures.

The three books included in this edition:

The House with a Clock in Its Walls - 4 STARS

The Figure In the Shadows - 3 STARS

The Letter, the Witch, and the Ring - 4 STARS

4 STARS for the collection, favorited

I just finished the YA novel The Bone Magician by F.E. Higgins.

This is the second book in the YA Sinister City series and it is every bit as well written as the first book, The Black Book of Secrets.

The series looks at the seamier side of life in Urbs Umida, which is a thinly veiled, Victorian-era London.

This book explores the squalor of Dickensian life on the wrong side of the river and touches on side-show horrors, phrenology and body-watching (a duty taken on by some undertakers to be certain that the dead were actually dead before burial).

While the books are loosely related, and the activities run in parallel to each other, there is a common thread that runs through the books that makes it IMPERATIVE that the books are read in order.

4 STARS

I just finished The Turtle Boy by Kealan Patrick Burke.

I was really impressed by this novella. The story was engaging and drew on the comforts of childhood while weaving a dark murder mystery / ghost story.

It was a great introduction to an author that is new to me and has me wanting to read more.

5 STARS

Just finished the 2nd book in Kate Elliot's Spirit Walker series. Great writer but loved her other series of books (Crossroads) more than this one. Found it a little hard to get into but once in found some surprising laughs especially reading her extra bits on the web - The Rory story in particular.

I'm reading Joe Abercrombie's First Law trilogy right now. Fun stuff.

I just finished Dark Entry by John B. Kachuba.

Kachuba has written a number of travel books related to ghost hunting in various states. After reading Dark Entry, I think he should spend more time on his fiction. The book was quite good.

Kachuba, draws on his knowledge of ghost hunting lore to build a story around the allegedly cursed and abandoned town of Dudley Town, Connecticut (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dudley_Town). He takes a point-of-view approach of several characters simultaneously and puts together a pretty decent tale.

I was a little surprised to see that this book has a low 3+ star rating on GR. It is quite a bit better than several other books that I have read with higher ratings.


4 STARS

I just finished I Am Eternal by Athanasios.

I am suffering from a severe case of "origin of the ancient vampire" fatigue. This theme has been played, hashed and re-hashed by author after author, some of whom have no right to even touch the same topic graced by masters like Stoker and Le Fanu.

I Am Eternal spends a fair amount of time on that thread. But, Athanasios has done so with a goal in mind, the establishment of a pedigree for his "vampire hunter" hunter. The hunted is now the hunter.

More to follow? Surely!

A qualified 3 STARS for I Am Eternal. But, if Athanasios is heading where I think he is with this one, the subsequent titles should carry higher ratings.

I just finished The Willows by Algernon Blackwood. I read it based on the recommendation of a friend as a short-story that every horror fan should read.

It is a very intense psychological thriller.

This is the first work by Algernon Blackwood that I have read. I will be reading others.

4 STARS

I just finished The Listening Post by L.K. Jay.

A lighthouse (win!), a coastal English village (win!), WWII (win!) and a ghost (win!).

All-in-all a well written ghost story. It is not a rip-your face off type of horror but rather more of a slower paced village life haunting.

Worth checking out....especially since its free on Amazon right now:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005...


3 STARS

Thanks, Ken!

Just finished The Long Midnight Of Barney Thomson by Douglas Lindsay.

Our hero is a serial killer. Not in the sense that Dexter is a serial killer. More like Barney Fife meets Mr Bean.

A great dark sense of humor!

5 STARS

BTW, free on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006...

I just finished The Haunted Hotel by Wilkie Collins.

This one is less a horror novel than it is a murder mystery. It certainly has a horror element. But, its strength lies in the mystery that is laid out early in the novel and keeps you guessing until the end.

5 STARS

I just finished Reliquary by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child.

I enjoyed this book up until the climactic action scene that composed the last 100 or so pages of the novel.

Its funny when in the tongue-in-cheek James Bond flicks our hero races against a timer strapped to an explosive and amazingly stops the clock with 007 seconds remaining. In the thrill of action sequence you will have lost track that 15 minutes of the movie has passed when the clock initially had only 2 minutes until apocalypse.

But, in this novel it just didn't work. With the countdown to destruction set at T-minus 2 hours, agent Pendergast had a laundry list of weapons to procure, SEAL teams to enlist, plans to be drawn up, guides to engage, arguments to be had, blah blah blah, not to mention he actually had to stop that proverbial ticking clock. It just didn't work for me! Granted, Pendergast is faster than a speeding bullet and more powerful than any runaway locomotive, there is just no way in any bit of seriousness that he could have pulled this off!

Okay, I'm no fun.

3 STARS

I just finished Peter and the Dead Men.

This was a fantastic YA book and a great introduction to Darren Pillsbury.

Peter, his mother and younger sister move from California to rural Duskerville. They live with Peter's eccentric grandfather in a old mansion that is a fitting home for someone as eccentric as the grandfather.

Along with his new-found friend Dill, Peter stirs up a two centuries old town curse that will have to be addressed.

I read this as part of the collection of Peter Normal stories in
Peter And The Vampires.

To address some of the other reviews on this book that I have read:

1. Yes, the younger sister is annoying and there seems to be a rather large dose of her upfront. Baby talk will grate on you and I'm not sure why any author would write it. Look past that. It is a bit part and goes away after the first couple of chapters.

2. It seems that at least one reviewer was annoyed that this book undermines parental control and encourages children to ignore their parents and act out! Seriously? Well, if that's the way you feel, I might suggest avoiding other books such as The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Peter Pan, Pollyanna, etc. Or better yet, go back to your hole and turn on The Brady Bunch reruns.

5 STARS

I also just finished Peter and the Vampires. This is the second book in the YA Peter Normal Series by Darren Pillsbury.

Peter and his friend Dill find themselves in the middle of a vampire mystery that has been part of their town lore for centuries. Eventually, they have to pull Peter's grandfather into the mix to help them get out of the mess that they find themselves in. There is a lot more to grandfather than they expected.

A very dark YA series. And very fun.

I read this as part of the collection of Peter Normal stories in Peter And The Vampires.

5 STARS

I just finished The Man Who Was Poe by Avi.

This middle-reader is the second book that I have read by Avi, the first being The Seer of Shadows, which I enjoyed immensely. Avi tackles some pretty dark topics.

In this book, we find Edgar Allan Poe acting as Detective Dupin to help a young boy find his missing mother, sister and aunt. In the process, he finds himself in the middle of a murder mystery and investigating a bank heist.

This book had all the ingredients: Poe, murder, kidnapping, robbery. But, I found this book overly confusing.

Avi doesn't write Disney characters. He writes Poe as a alcohol-addled drunkard, more interested in his art than in actually solving the crimes he is investigating. Poe moves in and out of lucidity often confusing reality for the story he is writing. It almost seemed Johnny Depp-ian at times...and that didn't help the resolve some of the complexity of the story.

I didn't NOT like this book. I just found it a little too confusing and would think the the targeted middle-readers would be completely lost.

3 STARS

The Light is the Darkness by Laird Barron.

Right now I'm reading my first ever Straub novel, Ghost Story. Loving it so far!

I just finished Lullaby by Amanda Hocking, and now I'm reading the 3rd Ghost Huntress book by Marley Gibson.

Blood Will Have Its Season by Joseph S. Pulver.

Really digging this read! NOS4A2