Horror – Page 3 – Baskerville Book Reviews

Review: Love in an Undead Age

Surviving the zombie apocalypse was hard but finding true love might be fatal.

Urban farmer Miranda Tucci is lucky to be alive in what’s left of California’s Silicon Valley, despite a love life that’s dead on arrival. Then an old flame turns up and she wonders…does her DOA love life have a pulse?

A ruthless governing council controls the cure for the zombie virus. If Miranda joins a plot to steal it, will the vaccine be used for political advantage, or can she survive long enough to usher in a new age of civilization? It’s only the fate of humanity suddenly resting on her shoulders.

If she can bring her love life back from the dead how tough can saving the world be?

Review: The Wonderful World of Scary Ass Shit

Your parents are lying bags of dicks, everything you ever had a nightmare about is real, and probably was hiding under your bed.

Parallel dimensions exist, let’s get that out of the way right now. What matters more is that something is causing them to merge. A process, to put it bluntly, that can only be described as slamming one’s tit in the proverbial plane of existence’s door… or simply put, maximum unpleasantness in all the wrong places.
Monsters, creatures, anything really that can trigger that burning fear sensation that makes you wish you were already dead, they are real. Like real-real, like really-really real. Trust me, but also no one… see what I did there? The Aurora Wasteland seems to be the epicenter of it all. A focal point for the strange and weird. It’s an area that lives beyond man-made borders. A place made up of people you wouldn’t want to meet. People you wouldn’t want to be, because escaping from the nightmare that is the Aurora Wasteland, well, that’s just not possible.

Logan, Gabe, Monahan, and Jeff are and have been best friends since childhood, only they’ve never met, except they have and know everything and nothing about each other. Perfect stranger and the tightest of friends. Makes sense? Because it shouldn’t, it doesn’t to them.

Not that any of that matters, because as their dimension merges with another, they seem to be the only ones that remember anything about it… the old dimension that is. Even then, only their memories remain, while their lives have been swapped out like a saggy bag of gold. Merged with the them from the new dimension. It’s ok to be confused, none of it makes sense to them either, even if it should.

Then there is Patty, the fifth friend they didn’t even know they had, except they did. Patty knew it was coming and tried to stop it, The Merge that is. Only he failed and died graphically for it. Dragging the knowledge he had about everything to his grave. Now the four friends have to figure out how to try to pry themselves out of this dimension and to get home if it’s even possible. All while navigating their new lives, relationships, and the strange and weird known as The Aurora Wasteland, that just keeps pulling them in deeper.

Lost and with little to go on, a book by the title of TETHERED is found to be left specifically for them. A book written by the so-called discoverer of The Aurora Wasteland. A book whose contents may seemingly be more important to them than they know.

It’s ok to be confused and scared, but I should warn you, if you’re reading this, then it’s already too late. The Aurora Wasteland has you. It knows you. There is no escape. Trust me, because well… it’s better you just figure out what’s going on, for your own sake and sanity. Read, watch, listen, do that you have to do, consume it all. Because you’ll need it.

Review: Siphon

There is an urge inside you….

Dr. Gary Phillips, the resident hematopathologist at Claybrook Medical Center, is a lonely man struggling with the duress of an all-work and no-play lifestyle.

Burdened with an unhealthy infatuation with his co-worker, a burning disdain for his boss, and an abusive relationship with his grandfather, Gary just can’t catch a break.

That is, until a workplace accident ushers in a bizarre but empowering experience that evokes a new sense of self, forcing repressed memories to surface while encouraging him to pursue his fantasies with unconventional methods.

Review: Depths of Nolcavanor

What happens when a barbarian prince delves into the dark places of the world?
A swords and sorcery tale of high adventure set in the fantasy world of Stratvs!

Young Prince Lucas finds a journal and a map in the clutches of a long-dead dragon. His kingdom left in the hands of his uncle, Lucas undertakes an epic journey to the ancient city of Nolcavanor to seek glory and riches. What will his pursuit of the legendary treasure reveal? Can such majesty as Nolcavanor still exist?

Review: Try the New Candy

Taste a new horror.

Which foul flavor amongst these 10 tales of torment and otherworldly strangeness will please your palate? An imbecilic man is taken advantage of for decades before finally considering an act of sweet revenge. A single, soon to be mother experiences a bizarre sequence of events triggered by her artificial insemination. A wide-eyed boy goes along to housesit with his poor excuse for a father, only to find out the property harbors some disturbing secrets. A newly married couple that enjoys pushing their limits to the extreme gets access to a special museum exhibit that is not quite finished. A pervert accidentally slays his mistress during an outlandish sex act, but did she deserve it? Two girls head out to the club to celebrate reaching the legal drinking age only to encounter the most hellish nightlife imaginable.

Choose from all these and more. Step into the shoes of the disturbed fringe of society and explore the potential for evil in humanity. Your misery awaits…

Review: Musings of the Muses

Sing O Muse, of the rage of Medusa, cursed by gods and feared by men…

From the mists of time, and ages past,
The muses have gathered; hear now their songs.

A web of revenge spun ‘neath the moon;
A poet’s wife who breaks her bonds;
A warrior woman on a quest of honor;
A painful lesson for a treacherous heart;
A goddess and a mortal, bound together by the travails of motherhood.
And more.

Listen to the muses, as they sing aloud…HER story.

Musings of the Muses, 65 stories and poems based on Greek myths, is an anthology of monsters, heroines, and goddesses, ranging from ancient Greece to modern day America. They, like the myths themselves, cast long shadows of horror, fantasy, love, betrayal, vengeance, and redemption. This anthology revisits those old tales and presents them anew, from her point of view.

Review: Sunwise

Sunwise is the sequel to Helen Steadman’s best-selling novel Widdershins. Both novels were inspired by the Newcastle witch trials, where 16 people were hanged. Despite resulting in the largest mass execution of witches on a single day in England, these trials are not widely known about.

Sunwise continues the story of women’s struggle for survival in a hostile and superstitious world. Spurred on by the successful execution of 17 proven witches, the witchfinder travels north to Berwick, where he continues his quest to rid the world of evil. But will he hoodwink the Berwick authorities as easily as those in Newcastle?

Sunwise begins after the Newcastle witch trials as Jane Chandler’s lover, Tom Verger, returns from the navy to find her unhappily married to his betrayer. Jane is caught in an impossible situation. Still reeling from the loss of her mother at the hands of the witchfinder, Jane has no choice but to continue her dangerous work as a healer while keeping her young daughter safe. As Tom seeks a way for him and Jane to be together, the Scottish witchfinder is still at large. Filled with vengeance, John Sharpe will stop at nothing in his sworn mission to free the world from the scourge of witchcraft.

The Historical Novel Society said of Sunwise: “The novel is rich in fascinating details: Jane’s remedies and the village customs, partly Christian, partly pagan. Ancient names for plants and festivities, both seasonal and Christian, add colour to the narrative. Jane’s story is based on true events, and Jane represents the many women whose healing gifts made them victims of superstition and violence.”

Recommended for anyone who has enjoyed Stacey Halls’ The Familiars, Beth Underdown’s The Witchfinder’s Sister, AK Blakemore’s The Manningtree Witches, Elizabeth Lee’s Cunning Women, Louisa Morgan’s A Secret History of Witches, Jeanette Winterson’s The Daylight Gate, Madeline Miller’s Circe, or Deborah Harkness’ A Discovery of Witches.

Review: The Sleeping Sickness

If you die in a dream, you die in real life – that used to be a myth!

Howell Warren hasn’t seen another human face for over five years. If he did, that person could die at any time. This is the world of the “Sleeping Sickness”.

As the world recovers from a devastating solar flare, society is just getting back on track when a strange phenomena begins. Violent dreams are coming true all over the world. Those featured in the dreams are killed in real life, showing terrible injuries like those in the dreams. No one is safe because no one can control their dreams.

The more worried people become, the more likely they are to have bad thoughts at night. It’s only a matter of time before you kill someone. At least that was how it was until everyone started wearing masks and disguises, and people began to forget the faces of everyone they ever knew.

In this new world, the reemerging internet is filled with rumor and fear. Howell Warren hates living behind a mask. His new love, Catherine – many cities away – feels the same. Their one hope of a ‘normal’ life is to travel over dangerous, still mostly lawless terrain to make it to the city of Asitwas, a place where everyone lives as before and the only time people wear masks is at Halloween.

Can they manage to meet and cross hostile terrain to make their dreams come true. Or will the lawless world or the Sleeping Sickness get to them first?

Review: Mouth Full of Ashes

Mourning the sudden loss of her sister, Callie Danoff wants nothing more than to embrace a fresh start in a new town, leaving the haunting memories of her sister’s death behind. But when her brother Ramsay drags her to a spooky boardwalk, the two become entangled with a local vampire gang and its enigmatic leader, Elijah. Callie refuses to accept their existence…until she and her brother unknowingly ingest vampire blood. Now, they only have three days before they turn into vampires themselves.

With her carefree summer thwarted, Callie must trust a group she barely knows in order to save her family.

Review: Blood and Water

Seventeen-year-old Jay Harris lives in a world struck down by a deadly virus. His parents are dead, along with half the planet. When Jay’s sister Maia falls ill, he must find a cure before he loses her, too. But unbeknownst to Maia, Jay is also sick…and he’s running out of time to save them both.

When Jay’s friends tell him there might be a cure for him in France, he must decide whether to pursue it. The journey will be difficult and dangerous, especially in his weakened state, but with little time left – for himself and for Maia – it soon becomes clear there’s no other choice.

Jay leaves the relative comfort of London to search for help, knowing he may never find it. Along the way, he experiences the effects of disaster on the bonds of friendship and fluctuating notions of family. These teens, decimated by a dangerous plague, face stark choices in their search for help, not knowing if their efforts will end in loss and pain. Will Jay and Maia find a cure before the virus takes them?