Undivine Interventions: Reviews of Horror Novels, Past and Present.

My favorite day of my favorite month means I'm feeling particularly ambitious this evening. And so, for the final blog of October, I'm going to go pretty big. A whole bunch of stuff. First, let's talk about the blog, up to this point. I'm just saying, thus far, I am so proud of the small, but engaged audience it's garnering. I am doing about a hundred hits a day, getting comments from authors many of us idolize, and just had my first post that surpassed 1000 views. It's pretty flattering to have people consider my opinion on these books when deciding on whether to read something or not. My opinion is purely that, an opinion. We've all got 'em and for mine to have an audience is just amazing. So thank you, faithful readers. I appreciate every view, comment, share and follow. Next, November is in just a few hours. For some reason, I have selected November to be my first themed month here at Undivine Interventions. That theme being RICHARD LAYMON MONTH...

It's opposites day here at Undivine Interventions. Usually, the artwork and title of book are way cooler than the actual book. Especially with all of the books of the 80s...how many times have you picked up a book with cover art that promises so much more than the book delivers? If you've been around the same block as me, quite a few hundred times. When Sean McDonough sent me a copy for review and I saw the title and artwork, frankly, I was dreading this book. I thought the title was hokey and the cover art was even worse. This was not going to be good. Incorrect. The age old "never judge a book by its cover" thing... I clearly need to subscribe to it more frequently. Rock and Roll Death Trip is a tongue-in-cheek, straight-to-video blast of a book. Notes of Troma, Near Dark and your favorite werewolf/shapeshifter movie, blended together into a sweet, bloody puree. I had a great time with this book, telling us the story of Jackie Galindo, a pretty corny Nu-M...

When we think about horror authors who tend to push the envelope on lurid subject matter that sometimes borders on distasteful, but remains well written, authors like Laymon, Lee and Ketchum tend to be the first names to pop up. I have read a lot of all of those authors, and of what I read, this here, Torture Tomb, knocks distasteful out of the park. In hindsight, I am reading a book called Torture Tomb. What the hell did I expect? I love gore and brutality in my horror novels, even more if they go that extra mile and turn it up to 11. But this, kinda just left me feeling... dirty. The story deals with a young woman searching for her sister, of whom she is having horrifying nightmares of being tortured. She seeks the help of a former lover turned novelist, who turns her on to a coven to help find the sibling. There's some supernatural interference, but they find her (chuckled a bit at the fact the sister's name is Bernice Sanders)...in the Torture Tomb, a man-made undergrou...

Ladies and gentlemen, I present you my first review as a married man. Me and my absolutely gorgeous best friend got married on Friday the 13th, celebrating our honeymoon in Punta Cana for the week afterwards. We got home a few days ago, got our bearings back, and here I am. Back on my nerd game. I got to read quite a bit on vacation, mostly while flying, so there should be a little influx of reviews over the next few days, the first of which is this, It's Loose. I was a bit apprehensive to start this one, as my previous experience with Warner Lee, Into the Pit, had all the potential in the world and no payoff. It was incredibly tame and had a very rushed ending. I was pleasantly proven wrong. It's Loose is an awesome, classically told tale. Not much different from anything else you've read, just doing it a little better. Warner Lee writes a tight ship, keeping his story reminiscent of The Thing and choose-a-small-town-horror-tale blazing along, this is a fat free book. ...

I went into this one completely blind. Wesley Southard sent me a request to review the book and I obliged. Simple as that. I usually do some research on the author, read another review or two, see what I am getting myself into. But not here. Perhaps because this is one of the busiest times of my life...I am getting married in a few days, working extra hours to pay for it, and still trying to maintain some level of workmanship to reading and reviewing. This book essentially showed up at my door and I cracked it open. I always prioritize reading new books by new authors as the review tends to hold a bit more leverage than it does when I'm reading something that came out in 1987. Johnstone doesn't need anymore press. His ship sailed long ago. Writers like Southard absolutely do. So, I read it blindly. In context, I just came off reading The Amulet by A.R. Morlan, which was incredibly detailed and somewhat heavy read. I felt a bit drained by that book, and needed something a li...

It's a no-brainer. Halloween is like my Christmas. And I imagine if you're reading this, you feel similarly. As such, I'm pretty stoked to announce a fantastic book giveaway! Some of the best new Horror writers working today will be contributing signed co pies of their latest works, e-books, and I will be giving away some old school "classics" to give ONE LUCKY WINNER a massive pile of scares, gore and grue to read into the night. We are talking about some of my favorite reads of 2017 here. This isn't a contest to be missed. Books/Authors include (all of these are signed!!!!): Glenn Rolfe 's Blood and Rain. This one reads like a blast from the hey day of horror novel past. Werewolves, lots of blood and well...rain...from one of the nicest dudes writing in the biz. Originally published by Samhain, Rolfe has recently re-published the book himself and it's a killer. From the author of The Haunted Halls, Chasing Ghosts and Becoming comes a gory, fun...

I had never heard anything about this book or its author, prior to a stop in what is one of the best used bookstores in the Northeast, The Book Barn. I saw this book and its follow-up, Dark Journey, for just a dollar each. Of course, I grabbed them both, mostly on account of Dark Journey's amazing cover art and this, on account of the fact it precedes that book. Upon undertaking my standard research procedure, I found there were very limited pieces of information on both the books and the author. But what I found was both tragic and fascinating. My preemptive decision was made to do a bit of a retrospective on A.R. Morlan, after reading both books. My post-emptive decision was to not. At least not in one large article. I'll get to my reasons shortly. First, the author. Morlan passed away in 2016, taking her own life. Her life history is somewhat detailed online through bits and pieces, but the gist is that Morlan had a very troubled life, struggling with..well, a lot of thi...