About Alan Baxter

Alan Baxter is a British-Australian author who writes dark fantasy, horror and sci-fi, rides a motorcycle and loves his dog. He also teaches Kung Fu. He is the author of the dark urban fantasy trilogy, Bound, Obsidian and Abduction (The Alex Caine Series) published by HarperVoyager Australia, and the dark urban fantasy duology, RealmShift and MageSign (The Balance 1 and 2) from Gryphonwood Press. He co-authored the short horror novel, Dark Rite, with David Wood. Alan also writes short fiction with more than 50 stories published in a variety of journals and anthologies in Australia, the US, the UK and France. His short fiction has appeared in Fantasy & Science Fiction (forthcoming), Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Daily Science Fiction, Postscripts, and Midnight Echo, among many others, and more than twenty anthologies, including the Year’s Best Australian Fantasy & Horror (2010 and 2012). Alan also writes narrative arcs and dialogue for videogames and wrote the popular writer’s resource, Write The Fight Right, a short ebook about writing convincing fight scenes. He has twice been a finalist in the Ditmar Awards.

Caution: Contains Small Parts by Kirstyn McDermott – review

smallpartsCaution: Contains Small Parts

by Kirstyn McDermott

ISBN 978-1-922101-05-1

This book is a collection of four short stories by award-winning author, Kirstyn McDermott. There are themes here of gender and sexuality, damage and rehabilitation, but those themes never overpower the stories. It’s an excellent collection and well worth its recent Aurealis Award nomination.

McDermott is a powerful writer, evoking a great sense of place with all her work and her characters are well-drawn and fully realised. I found the writing in this collection to be a little less poetic than some of her other work, like the novel, Madigan Mine, for example, but no less impactful for that difference. And she retains her masterful use of language, the occasional phrasing that’s just so electrically right.

The four stories here are all bordering on horror and reality, skating that thin line between the real and the fantastic.

What Amanda Wants follows the trials of a counselor who has fluffed her way through actual qualifications because she has a supernatural ability to see to the very heart of people’s issues and actually, physically relieve them of those burdens. Until she is presented with Amanda, a troubled young woman whose walls are so solid, the powerful counselor can’t see anything through them.

In Horn, we have an unusual narrative broken into parts – regular storytelling, interviews, excerpts from academic papers – all slowly building the picture of a writer who hit the big time with a big fat fantasy series about warring unicorns and the problems that’s brought him. Very interesting asides into fantasy gender tropes in this story, but the format didn’t quite work for me as well as I might have hoped.

The title story, Caution: Contains Small Parts, is a poignant and disturbing horror story about a man haunted by a toy dog. He tries to get rid of it and can’t, it keeps coming back and will clearly continue to do so until he stops and works out what it wants. This is a very sad story, and powerfully written.

The final story is a long one, novelette length, I think, called The Home For Broken Dolls. This is a truly disturbing story about those realistic sex dolls that many people collect and truly obsess over. It’s told form the point of view of Jane, a woman horribly disfigured and traumatised in a moment of domestic violence, who has found peace in refurbishing damaged dolls. This story received a nomination for Best Horror Short Story in the Aurealis Awards as well as the collection as a whole getting a nod in the Best Collection category. You can see why. This is by far my favourite story in the book. McDermott does a great job in normalising the fetishes of these people, as of course, their fetish is entirely normal to them. It’s also very much on the border between literary/fantastic fiction and horror. It’s not a horror story like you’d expect, the darkness subtle and almost hidden behind the fantastic and the allegorical. But it is a truly excellent tale. And quite disturbing.

This is a great collection and a testament to McDermott’s skill. Highly recommended.

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The 2013 Bram Stoker Awards Final Ballot

The Horror Writers Association (HWA) is pleased to announce the Final Ballot for the 2013 Bram Stoker Awards®. The HWA (see www.horror.org ) is the premiere writers organization in the horror and dark fiction genre, with over 1,200 members. HWA has presented the Bram Stoker Awards in various categories since 1987 (see http://www.horror.org/stokers.htm).

“We are proud to present a particularly notable slate of nominees this year, showing the horror genre is strong and popular,” Rocky Wood, the HWA’s President, said.

The nominees are:

Superior Achievement in a Novel

Joe Hill – NOS4A2 (William Morrow)
Stephen King – Doctor Sleep (Scribner)
Lisa Morton – Malediction (Evil Jester Press)
Sarah Pinborough and F. Paul Wilson – A Necessary End (Thunderstorm/Maelstrom Press)
Christopher Rice – The Heavens Rise (Gallery Books)

Superior Achievement in a First Novel

Kate Jonez – Candy House (Evil Jester Press)
John Mantooth – The Year of the Storm (Berkley Trade)
Rena Mason – The Evolutionist (Nightscape Press)
Jonathan Moore – Redheads (Samhain Publishing)
Royce Prouty – Stoker’s Manuscript (G.P. Putnam’s Sons)

Superior Achievement in a Young Adult Novel

Patrick Freivald – Special Dead (JournalStone)
Kami Garcia – Unbreakable (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)
Geoffrey Girard – Project Cain (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers)
Joe McKinney – Dog Days (JournalStone)
Cat Winters – In the Shadow of Blackbirds (Harry N. Abrams)

Superior Achievement in a Graphic Novel

Ed Brubaker – Fatale Book Three: West of Hell (Image Comics)
Caitlin R. Kiernan – Alabaster: Wolves (Dark Horse Comics)
Brandon Seifert – Witch Doctor, Vol. 2: Mal Practice (Image Comics)
Cameron Stewart – Sin Titulo (Dark Horse Comics)
Paul Tobin – Colder (Dark Horse Comics)

Superior Achievement in Long Fiction

Dale Bailey – “The Bluehole” (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, May/June 2013)
Gary Braunbeck – “The Great Pity” (Chiral Mad 2, Written Backwards)
Benjamin K. Ethridge – “The Slaughter Man” (Limbus, Inc., JournalStone)
Gregory Frost – “No Others Are Genuine” (Asimov’s Science Fiction, Oct./Nov. 2013)
Greg F. Gifune – House of Rain (DarkFuse)
Rena Mason – East End Girls (JournalStone)

Superior Achievement in Short Fiction

Michael Bailey – “Primal Tongue” (Zippered Flesh 2, Smart Rhino Publications)
Patrick Freivald – “Snapshot” (Blood & Roses, Scarlett River Press)
David Gerrold – “Night Train to Paris” (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Jan./Feb. 2013)
Lisa Mannetti – “The Hunger Artist” (Zippered Flesh 2, Smart Rhino Publications)
John Palisano – “The Geminis” (Chiral Mad 2, Written Backwards)
Michael Reaves – “Code 666” (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, March/April 2013)

Superior Achievement in a Screenplay

Fabien Adda and Fabrice Gobert – The Returned: “The Horde” (Ramaco Media I, Castelao Pictures)
Brad Falchuk – American Horror Story: Asylum: “Spilt Milk” (Brad Falchuk Teley-Vision, Ryan Murphy Productions)
Bryan Fuller – Hannibal: “Apéritif” (Dino De Laurentiis Company, Living Dead Guy Productions, AXN: Original X Production, Gaumont International Television)
Daniel Knauf – Dracula: “A Whiff of Sulfur” (Flame Ventures, Playground, Universal Television, Carnival Films)
Glen Mazzara – The Walking Dead: “Welcome to the Tombs” (AMC TV)

Superior Achievement in an Anthology

R.J. Cavender and Boyd E. Harris (ed.) – Horror Library: Volume 5 (Cutting Block Press)
Eric J. Guignard (ed.) – After Death… (Dark Moon Books)
Michael Knost and Nancy Eden Siegel (ed.) – Barbers & Beauties (Hummingbird House Press)
Joseph S. Pulver, Sr. (ed.) – The Grimscribe’s Puppets (Miskatonic River Press)
Anthony Rivera and Sharon Lawson (ed.) – Dark Visions: A Collection of Modern Horror, Volume One (Grey Matter Press)

Superior Achievement in a Fiction Collection

Nathan Ballingrud – North American Lake Monsters: Stories (Small Beer Press)
Laird Barron – The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All and Other Stories (Night Shade Books)
James Dorr – The Tears of Isis (Perpetual Motion Machine Publishing)
Caitlin R. Kiernan – The Ape’s Wife and Other Stories (Subterranean)
Gene O’Neill – Dance of the Blue Lady (Bad Moon Books)
S. P. Somtow – Bible Stories for Secular Humanists (Diplodocus Press)

Superior Achievement in Non-Fiction

Barbara Brodman and James E. Doan (ed.) – Images of the Modern Vampire: The Hip and the Atavistic (Fairleigh Dickinson)
Gary William Crawford (ed.) – Ramsey Campbell: Critical Essays on the Modern Master of Horror (Scarecrow Press)
William F. Nolan – Nolan on Bradbury: Sixty Years of Writing about the Master of Science Fiction (Hippocampus Press)
Jarkko Toikkanen – The Intermedial Experience of Horror: Suspended Failures (Palgrave Macmillan)
Robert H. Waugh (ed.) – Lovecraft and Influence: His Predecessors and Successors (Scarecrow Press)

Superior Achievement in a Poetry Collection

Bruce Boston – Dark Roads: Selected Long Poems 1971-2012 (Dark Renaissance Books)
Helen Marshall – The Sex Lives of Monsters (Kelp Queen Press)
Marge Simon and Sandy DeLuca – Dangerous Dreams (Elektrik Milk Bath Press)
Marge Simon, Rain Graves, Charlee Jacob, and Linda Addison – Four Elements (Bad Moon Books/Evil Jester Press)
Stephanie M. Wytovich – Hysteria: A Collection of Madness (Raw Dog Screaming Press)

HWA’s voting members will now vote on this Final Ballot, with voting closing on March 31 (only Active and Lifetime Members are eligible to vote).

The Bram Stoker Awards® will be presented at the 27th annual Bram Stoker Awards® Banquet held during the World Horror Convention 2014 in Portland, Oregon, on May 10th. Purchase of tickets to both the convention and the banquet are open to the public. The awards will also be live-streamed online for those who cannot attend in person.

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2013 Aurealis Awards finalists announced

AA-logoAfter a record number of entries, the finalists for the 2013 Aurealis Awards have been announced.

The Aurealis Awards are Australia’s premier speculative fiction awards. The ceremony will take place April 5, 2014 in Canberra. The venue is the Great Hall, University House, Australian National University.

Doors open 7pm for drinks, ceremony begins at 8pm. Details here: http://www.aurealisawards.com/

Congratulations to all the very worthy nominees!

The 2013 Aurealis Awards Finalists are:

BEST ILLUSTRATED BOOK OR GRAPHIC NOVEL

Savage Bitch by Steve Carter and Antoinette Rydyr (Scar Studios)

Mr Unpronounceable Adventures by Tim Molloy (Milk Shadow Books)

Burger Force by Jackie Ryan (self-­‐published)

Peaceful Tomorrows Volume Two by Shane W Smith (Zetabella Publishing)

The Deep Vol. 2: The Vanishing Island by Tom Taylor and James Brouwer (Gestalt Publishing)

BEST CHILDREN’S BOOK

Kingdom of the Lost, book 2: Cloud Road by Isobelle Carmody (Penguin Group Australia)

Refuge by Jackie French (Harper Collins)

Song for a scarlet runner by Julie Hunt (Allen & Unwin)

The four seasons of Lucy McKenzie by Kirsty Murray (Allen & Unwin)

Rules of Summer by Shaun Tan (Hachette Australia)

Ice Breaker: The Hidden 1 by Lian Tanner (Allen & Unwin)

BEST YOUNG ADULT SHORTFICTION

“Mah Song” by Joanne Anderton (The Bone Chime Song and Other Stories, FableCroft Publishing)

“By Bone-­‐light” by Juliet Marillier (Prickle Moon, Ticonderoga Publications)

“Morning Star” by D.K. Mok (One Small Step, an anthology of discoveries, FableCroft Publishing)

“The Year of Ancient Ghosts” by Kim Wilkins (The Year of Ancient Ghosts, Ticonderoga Publications)

BEST YOUNG ADULT NOVEL

The Big Dry by Tony Davies (Harper Collins)

Hunting by Andrea Host (self-­‐published)

These Broken Stars by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner (Allen & Unwin)

Fairytales for Wilde Girls by Allyse Near (Random House Australia)

The Sky So Heavy by Claire Zorn (University of Queensland Press)

BEST HORROR SHORT FICTION

“Fencelines” by Joanne Anderton (The Bone Chime Song and Other Stories, FableCroft Publishing)

“The Sleepover” by Terry Dowling (Exotic Gothic 5, PS Publishing)

“The Home for Broken Dolls” by Kirstyn McDermott (Caution: Contains Small Parts, Twelfth Planet Press)

“The Human Moth” by Kaaron Warren (The Grimscribe’s Puppets, Miskatonic Press)

“The Year of Ancient Ghosts” by Kim Wilkins (The Year of Ancient Ghosts, Ticonderoga Publications)

BEST HORROR NOVEL

The Marching Dead by Lee Battersby (Angry Robot Books)

The First Bird by Greig Beck (Momentum)

Path of Night by Dirk Flinthart (FableCroft Publishing)

Fairytales for Wilde Girls by Allyse Near (Random House Australia)

BEST FANTASY SHORT FICTION

“The Last Stormdancer” by Jay Kristoff (Thomas Dunne Books)

“The Touch of the Taniwha” by Tracie McBride (Fish, Dagan Books)

“Cold, Cold War” by Ian McHugh (Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Scott H Andrews)

“ShortCircuit” by Kirstie Olley (Oomph: a little super goes a long way, Crossed Genres)

“The Year of Ancient Ghosts” by Kim Wilkins (The Year of Ancient Ghosts, Ticonderoga Publications)

BEST FANTASY NOVEL

Lexicon by Max Barry (Hachette Australia)

A Crucible of Souls by Mitchell Hogan (self-­‐published)

These Broken Stars by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner (Allen & Unwin)

Newt’s Emerald by Garth Nix (Jill Grinberg Literary Management)

Ink Black Magic by Tansy Rayner Roberts (FableCroft Publishing)

BEST SCIENCE FICTION SHORT FICTION

“The Last Tiger” by Joanne Anderton (Daily Science Fiction)

“Mah Song” by Joanne Anderton (The Bone Chime Song and Other Stories, FableCroft Publishing)

“Seven Days in Paris” by Thoraiya Dyer (Asymmetry, Twelfth Planet Press)

“Version 4.3.0.1” by Lucy Stone (Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine #57)

“Air, Water and the Grove” by Kaaron Warren (The Lowest Heaven, Pandemonium Press)

BEST SCIENCE FICTION NOVEL

Lexicon by Max Barry (Hachette)

Trucksong by Andrew Macrae (Twelfth Planet Press)

A Wrong Turn At The Office Of Unmade Lists by Jane Rawson (Transit Lounge)

True Path by Graham Storrs (Momentum)

Rupetta by Nike Sulway (Tartarus Press)

BEST ANTHOLOGY

The Year’s Best Australian Fantasy and Horror 2012 by Liz Grzyb and Talie Helene (Eds), (Ticonderoga Publications)

One Small Step, An Anthology Of Discoveries by Tehani Wessely (Ed) (FableCroft Publishing)

Dreaming Of Djinn by Liz Grzyb (Ed) (Ticonderoga Publications)

The Best Science Fiction And Fantasy Of The Year: Volume Seven by Jonathan Strahan (Ed) (NightShade Books)

Focus 2012: Highlights Of Australian Short Fiction by Tehani Wessely (Ed) (FableCroft Publishing)

BEST COLLECTION

The Bone Chime Song and Other Stories by Joanne Anderton (FableCroft Publishing)

Asymmetry by Thoraiya Dyer (Twelfth Planet Press)

Caution: Contains Small Parts by Kirstyn McDermott (Twelfth Planet Press)

The Bride Price by Cat Sparks (Ticonderoga Publications)

The Year of Ancient Ghosts by Kim Wilkins (Ticonderoga Publications)

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The Cormorant by Chuck Wendig – Review

TheCormorant-700pxwideThe Cormorant by Chuck Wendig

Published by Angry Robot Books

The Cormorant is the third book in Wendig’s series following the adventures of Miriam Black. Miriam is hard-talking, asskicking heroine with some serious social issues born of her ability to see how people are going to die just by making skin to skin contact with them. Her “gift” has brought her more trouble than joy and things are not getting any easier in this third instalment.

Here’s the blurb:

Miriam Black knows how you’re going to die.

All it takes is a touch — a little skin-to-skin action.

Now someone — some rich asshole from Florida — wants to pay her so he can find out how he’s going to die. But when she touches him, she receives a message sent back through time and written in blood: HELLO, MIRIAM. It’s a taunt, a warning, and the start of a dangerous and deadly game for everybody’s favorite carcinogenic psychic, Miriam Black.

So can you imagine driving a sweet 70s muscle car at high speed through an urban area? Not some sleek sports car, but a heavy, gas-guzzling muscle car that has power up the yin yang but handling it is like wrestling a bear. Imagine the feeling of tearing through shopping malls and along beaches and across busy intersections in that car (maybe a Trans Am Firebird or a Mustang convertible) the wind tearing your hair back off your head, people screaming, knuckles white on the wheel of a ride you can’t get off, but that’s okay because you’re loving the shit out of every second of it. That’s this book. It’s a good description of the writing style, the plot and the crazy protagonist herself.

I’ve reviewed the first two books already (Blackbirds here and Mockingbird here) and I really enjoyed those. But with Cormorant, Wendig has cranked the dial up to 11. His voice as a writer here is more assured and tight than ever. It’s written in third person present tense, which means it’s visceral and relentless when done right. It’s hard to do right, but Wendig pulls it off with style.

The plot is deceptively simple, but with enough twists and turns and subtle complexities to keep it riveting. The chapters are small, addictive little bastards that keep you up at night. Just one more. Oh, just one more. Oh, damn you, Wendig!

I’m gushing a bit here, but that’s because this is a bloody great book. I’m already a fan of Miriam Black and in this instalment we see more of her kickass power, but also a lot more of her vulnerabilities and weaknesses, which is refreshing. We get to see more of how her power is as much a curse as a gift. We see the effect of her abilities and her past actions spiralling away in the lives of so many other people. And it also sets up some very interesting possibilities for book 4. I really hope there’s a book 4.

This is a great example of crime cross-genreing with horror, urban fantasy and action. If you haven’t read Blackbirds and Mockingbird yet, I would not recommend going straight in with The Cormorant. You’ll miss out on a lot. But I do highly recommend reading them all, as each book is better than the last. Wendig has knocked it out of the park with this one. And by “park”, I mean the hot, sweaty land wang of Miami and by “knocked it” I mean cracked skulls clean off with severed limbs, all the while snarking about it with artful dialog. Get yourself some Miriam Black. You won’t be disappointed.

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Path of Night by Dirk Flinthart – review

PathofNightCoverPath of Night by Dirk Flinthart

ISBN: 978-0-9807770-8-6 (print)

ISBN: 978-0-9874000-8-6 (ebook)

Michael Devlin is the first of a new breed. The way things are going, he may also be the last.

So goes the tagline for Path of Night by Dirk Flinthart. This is Flinthart’s first novel, but his extensive experience in shorter fiction means it doesn’t read that way. It’s a new, dark and scientific take on the vampire mythos, which Flinthart reinvents in an extremely Australian way. Fundamentally, everything set up in this novel has been done before in various ways, but Flinthart makes it his own. Set in Sydney and drenched in Australian humour, this is an interesting read.

We follow two main threads – medical student Michael Devlin, infected with a strange disease which vampirises him, and Jen, a tough cop who’s investigating a murder Devlin inadvertently got tied up in. His disease and the killing are connected, his flatmates are murdered and Devlin becomes a reluctant hero with superpowers on the run while Jen relies on tough, dogged police work to try to track him down.

Path of Night is excellently written and very well paced. Flinthart’s humour is ever-present but rarely gets too much. It’s occasionally distracting, but not often. I would have preferred the secrets and world-building to have been delivered a bit more slowly through the book to increase the mystery and tension a little, but that’s a small gripe.

The police procedural side of this book is excellent and feels thoroughly authentic. The vampiric and monstrous aspects are woven in well using scientific ideas rather than purely supernatural ones which does a good job of making an old subject matter fresh and interesting, particularly combined with Flinthart’s style and the Australian setting. It’s always good to see non-US settings for novels and Australian writers are really turning up the goods lately.

This is apparently the first in a series of Michael Devlin novels, but it didn’t feel like it. It’s a great standalone book and I’ll be interested to see what Flinthart does with this character next.

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‘Other Stories’ and Other Stories by Adam Browne launch

‘Other Stories’ and Other Stories by Adam Browne is a collection published by Satalyte Publishing and due for release soon. The official launch is happening on Wednesday 5th February at Southpaw, a supergroovy barcafe thing at 189 Gertrude Street, Fitzroy, Victoria. There’ll be artwork by the author on display and readings by the publisher and others.

There’s a Facebook event with the details here. Adam Browne is one of Australia’s most unique voices and a tremendously talented artist. Here’s the publisher blurb for the collection:

“From the warped mind that brought the world Pyrotechnicon

 

The Author takes this opportunity to apologise for any feelings of inadequacy that might arise in those who open this volume to encounter, glittering like living diamond laceworks, plangent with ideas and pungent with wordplay, the exquisitudinal stories herein contained, all touching on, or rather, pummeling  and stomping and cruelly toying with diverse fantastic notions, such as a man who quits drugs, then cigarettes, then everything else, an attempt by British colonials to terraform Hell (contrast with another story dealing with the late Carl Linnaeus’s attempts to classify the species of Paradise), a planet wrapped in fabric upon which pirates boom and roar in galleoned steam irons, a look at what it will mean to be disabled in the future … and so on — a book to be handled with care, for its close resemblance to a clutch of Faberge eggs, with Faberge chicks inside, waiting to be hatched forth by the Reader’s startled regard.

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Bloody Waters by Jason Franks – review

BW_cover_eBook_t-193x300Bloody Waters by Jason Franks

Possible Press, 2012

ISBN: 978-0980813531

Bloody Waters is the debut novel from Jason Franks, maybe better known for his comics work. I reviewed The Sixsmiths here a while ago. This first novel was nominated for an Aurealis Award for Best Horror Novel last year and I can see why. Here’s the blurb:

When guitar virtuoso Clarice Marnier finds herself blacklisted she makes a deal with the devil for a second chance. Soon Clarice and her band, Bloody Waters, are on their way to stardom… but cracking the Top 10 is one thing; gunfights with the Vatican Mafia and magical duels quite another. Clarice is going to have to confront the Devil himself – the only question is whether she’ll be alive or dead when it happens.

I had no expectations going into this book, other than knowing it had an award nomination. I was really surprised. It’s a unique read. The writing style is tight and powerful, the book clips along at a solid pace. We start with young Clarice putting aside Barbie dolls for a guitar and we follow her progress through high school and into her first band and beyond, where nothing else matters but the music. Absolutely nothing. The chapters are short and the description spare but complete.

Clarice herself is an interesting main character. She’s very well-realised by Franks as a balls out, takes no shit hero of rock’n’roll. If I have any complaints about this book it would be that sometimes Clarice is a bit too cold and calculating. I would have liked to see a few more moments of humanity in her, but it’s no surprise they weren’t there. She is a force of heavy metal nature and no one gets away with messing with her. Except, perhaps, the Devil himself…

This book definitely had extra appeal to me as I’m a guitarist and a total metal head myself. I’ve played in bands, I’ve worked in music journalism and been on tours (nothing major, I should add – I’m talking pubs and university gigs, not stadiums). But I’ve also been backstage at major metal events thanks to friends in the industry and journalistic bonuses. I say all this to clarify my credentials when I say how authentic the music business side of this novel is. From the gigs to the dressing rooms to the record industry execs to the fans and inter-band rivalry, Franks maintains an authenticity that I couldn’t see through. That’s really important in a book like this. And it’s icing on the cake for anyone who’s a fan of rock and metal as well as a good horror yarn.

The plot is clever and convoluted, but it’s always clear and it leads to a conclusion that I certainly didn’t see coming, which is always a bonus and a good achievement on the part of the author. The supernatural elements don’t come into the story for a long time, but when they do it’s a slow build that leads to massive things. And I have to say, Clarice’s boyfriend and Bloody Waters frontman, Johnny Chernow, is perhaps my favourite character of the whole thing. He’s the mellowest warlock you could imagine.

This is a great book, superbly written and one of those things you can call truly different. I hope we see more from Franks if this is where he’s starting out with novels.

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