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

Hey guys. Ill start by saying I continue to be incredibly grateful for all the love and support this blog has earned over the past    less-than-year. Readers, writers, publishers and publicists have all acknowledged the blog in a myriad of ways to the point where I feel I've earned my own little corner of the horror fiction universe.  It's incredibly flattering. But life often gets in the way of this amazing hobby of mine. I've mentioned before I work three jobs. I'm also in a weirdo heavy punk band called Anxious Wave (which if heavy music is your thing, you can and should check out here ). I'm a newlywed, so I'm also trying to be a good husband and stepfather. That's the average week. Doing that stuff in conjunction with the blog. I prefer being busy, so it's far from a complaint. It's merely a note that I'm a busy person giving my 110% to all the things. Regardless, A few recent changes have occurred however where I am going to be puttin...

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yesssssssss. They Feed is exactly the kind of book I want to read. It's books like this that make me incredibly stoked to run this blog. I can't really see any reason why this won't make my best of 2018 list. I've read Jason Parent before, just a few months ago, with the Bloodshot Books re-release of his debut, What Hides Within. That novel showed promise and They Feed, while an entirely different book, delivers on that promise. This is a balls-to-the-wall, fat free, straight up, creature feature that cuts to the chase immediately and never once looks back. Exactly the books I needed, at exactly the right time. No huge literary twists, no flowery prose, no try-hard bullshit. Lean, mean, gory, creature filled fun with all the right fixings. I loved it. And I'm confident just about anyone, who's expecting ( and enjoys ) this type of thrill ride experience, will love it too. Slow burn types, need not apply. It's clear that Parent is an...

A few months ago, I was engaged in conversation with a fellow horror fan, about great horror films of the 90s. The movie, Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight came up, as it's one of my favorites of the era. I saw it theatrically when it came out. Twice, in fact. It was released the week of my 9th birthday, and I saw it twice that week. I was obsessed with it then and still consider it one of the best horror films of the 90s. In my 9 year old obsession, I also picked up the novelization, which I still own today. I read and re-read the book, until I could own a copy of the VHS, years later. Anyway, I grabbed the book in the conversation I was having to see who penned the novelization and found the author to be one Randall Boyll. In typical horror nerd fashion, I immediately took to Google for research on the guy and found much of his career had been spent writing novelizations, which I imagine was a more financially fruitful endeavor than original fiction. However, at the beginnin...

Josh Malerman is a unicorn in horror fiction circa 2018. Josh Malerman is not related to Stephen King. He's not writing about standard horror tropes with a built in audience, like zombies or vampires. He's not writing novelizations of movies or within "the universe" of a TV show or video game or whatever. But believe it or not, he is a relatively new author, with relatively new ideas, who is putting books out through major publishers, signing six figure deals and they're all horror flavored. Most importantly you can walk into a bookstore and actually find his titles! In 1988, this would be no surprise. In 2018, Josh Malerman is a unicorn. I hope he knows it. Bird Box, his debut, came out in 2014, to rave reviews, did well critically and is about to be released as a motion picture starring Sandra Bullock. It's a winner for sure, one of the easiest reads in terms of engaging, well-paced storytelling I can think of. Highly recommend that book. After reading ...

Pray, Serpent's Prey. I love that title. I love that artwork. I could have and wished to love the book. But the best I could come up with is, it'll do. OH...there's some spoilers below...so if you don't want to be spoiled, go read the book first. It'll do, if you've never read another horror book from 1988. It'll do, if you've read everything else and need your fix. It will do if you're due for something to read on your flight, that's particularly turbulent and you want to keep your mind off the turbulence. T hat last part was me. I was on a flight from Tampa, from a trip to visit some family members, namely my father, and brought a big stack of things to read with me on the trip. This was the last book I read on the trip... which, of note, while I was there, I hit up a fantastic used bookstore in St. Pete, that was just amazing. I ended up grabbing 14 books while there! Some really cool and hard to find ones at that! All of which will inevit...

I've been singing the praise of R. Patrick Gates since I first read him, just last year. He's quickly become an author I feel compelled to read all of the work of, and have since bought up every title I can get my hand on. I reached out to him to find a bit more about the background of his career and some of backstory on these wonderful books. If you haven't checked out Grimm Memorials or Fear or R. Patrick Gates in general...you're missing out.  Check out what Gates' had to say about his career, his work and his future! Undivine Interventions: Hello and thanks for doing this! I am a huge fan of your work, so this is an extra special interview for me. To any readers out there who may not know you, please share who you are and what type of work you publish/are most well known for? R. Patrick Gates: I publish under the name R. Patrick Gates, and have been a published author since 1989 when my first novel, FEAR, was published by New American L...

Let us get it out of the way. There are so many bummers in Kind Nepenthe. It's a downward spiral through and through. The biggest bummer for me, however, is that I didn't get to reading this last year, when it came out, because it easily would have made my best of 2017. I'd actually heard of the novel around its time of release, and it's concept lured me in for sure, but as things go it fell off my radar. Lo and behold, the author reached out to have me review it and what a lucky reader I am. Kind Nepenthe is a harrowing book, unflinching in it's look at drug culture, human behavior and the unfortunate demise that often grasps those wrapped up in it all. Addiction, human relationships and abandonment are all heavily studied here, with a strong nuance of supernatural horror. Think two parts Requiem for a Dream, one part The Shining and one part modern-day hipster culture exploration. If you think that's a lofty description for a book to live up to, check it ...