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

The Blood Lights, as far as I know, is the debut long-form work of author Elaine Pascle, who if I read correctly, isn't too far from me, in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Cool enough, and worth a read to support a fairly local writer. The storyline mainly takes place there, jumping back and forth between the horrific happenings of "present tense" (which in this book, for a reason I am unclear of, is 2021) and a tropical island, which seems to be unfolding at the same time? I'm not sure, but honestly, for a quick 150ish pages, this one sure had me lost. It's the constant flip-flopping between timelines, an overabundance of characters with similar occurrences happening to each, that lost me. It wasn't particularly bad, middling stuff when all is said and done, with a few great moments to put it just a bit above "bad". The Blood Lights tells it's convoluted, jagged story of women transformed by the titular menace into pus- filled flesh eaters with eno...

I'm excited. And The House by the Cemetery is my reason. It's not because the book is groundbreaking or great or remarkable. No, it's not. But it's a solid throwback to simple times, where one could traipse into a Borders or Waldenbooks and find a novel like this one by the dozen. The best part is that it just might be exactly that. Not at those retailers, but whatever brick-and-mortars remain. You see, The House by the Cemetery is my first taste of a new horror line to be widely distributed by Flame Tree Press, who seems to have made a name for themselves in other facets, before deciding to roll out their line of horror last month. This is amongst the flagship titles of that endeavor, and they are doing it right. They've enlisted Don D'auria, reknown editor of several horror lines, most prominent being Leisure and Samhain to handpick the titles, as well as some top of the line authors to spear-head the operation. These include Jonathan Janz, Ramsey Campbell...