#Review - Here Lies a Vengeful Bitch by Codie Crowley #YA #Supernatural #Thriller #Suspense

Series: Standalone
Format: Hardcover, 304 pages
Release Date: August 6, 2024
Publisher: Disney Hyperion
Source: Publisher
Genre: Young Adult / Thrillers & Suspense / Supernatural

Murdered bad girl Annie Lane is back from the grave and hellbent on revenge . . . she just has to figure out who killed her.

This fast-paced thriller by a talented debut delivers a horror-infused hunt for justice that's at once furiously feminist, darkly funny, and utterly satisfying.

Between her careless mom, her cheating ex-boyfriend, and her rotten reputation around town, Annie Lane is used to being left behind. But she’s never been left for dead before—until she wakes up to find her body’s been dumped on a mountain rumored to raise the dead.

Annie can’t remember who killed her, but she’ll stop at nothing to figure it out and make them pay. Because girls like her don’t get justice unless they take it for themselves.

Codie Crowley’s propulsive debut Here Lies a Vengeful Bitch presents a furious and cathartic thriller skewering society’s condemnation of “unlikeable” girls. 17-year-old Annabel (Annie) Lane wakes up and learns quickly that her life has changed forever. It seems that someone dumped her body in the water, and she's dead. Or is she? She immediately meets Hunt, and Howl, and Fern, and Sam who apparently died in the 1950's. The only thing that Annie remembers is being chased through the woods.

When she wakes from the cold water of the Paulinskill River, she does so with a hunger for revenge on the entire small town of Hagley, and everyone in it who are acting like this is all somehow her fault. When she arrives at school, everyone looks at her like she's the walking dead. After getting into a argument with the principal and Sheriff who treated her like a second daughter, she returns home to a mother who is irate that she pulled some sort of prank.

What is even more strange is that Annie's best friend Maura seems to disappear off the face of the earth. This book was wild. As Annie tries to find out why she was murdered, it becomes a guessing game. Could it be the ex-boyfriend? Could it be a co-worker? Could it be someone close to her that she trusted? Then there's the mystery of Sam. Sam who becomes a fixture in Annie's life. Sam who may be the King of Lies, or just a person who was killed like Annie. 

One of the best things about this book are the short chapters, and the mixture of humor and horror that the author uses to tell the story. Honestly, you could have blown me over with some serious winds once the villain is discovered, especially after Annie gets a helping hand from her best friend. I usually don't post trigger warnings since the author does a good job of what is expected from the story. 

In this case, the trigger warnings are justified since a lot of really awful stuff happens to Annie before the book even begins. This is probably going to confuse readers, but Sam reminded me of bad boy James Dean with the way he talks, and of course his motorcycle. I think readers will be confused by the story itself. Is Annie really dead? Yes, even though she can be seen by others, she can eat like people who are alive, and she still has feelings, and no, she is not a vampire, or the walking dead. The curiosity lies with where Annie died, and the fact that she was resurrected and there are still things that will scare the crap out of you.

Amazon | Audible | Barnes & Noble

#Review - The Black Bird Oracle by Deborah Harkness #Fantasy #Occult #Paranormal

Series: All Souls Series (#5)
Format: Hardcover, 464 pages
Release Date: July 16, 2024
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Source: Library
Genre: Occult & Supernatural

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Diana Bishop journeys to the darkest places within herself—and her family history—in the highly anticipated fifth novel of the beloved All Souls series, hailed as “your next favorite fantasy read” (Harper’s Bazaar).

The stunning hardcover of The Black Bird Oracle features a custom-stamped case, beautiful endpapers, and a premium dust jacket!

Deborah Harkness first introduced the world to Diana Bishop, Oxford scholar and witch, and vampire geneticist Matthew de Clairmont in A Discovery of Witches. Drawn to each other despite long-standing taboos, these two other-worldly beings found themselves at the center of a battle for a lost, enchanted manuscript known as Ashmole 782. Since then, they have fallen in love, traveled to Elizabethan England, dissolved the Covenant between the three species, and awoken the dark powers within Diana’s family line.

Now, Diana and Matthew receive a formal demand from the Congregation: They must test the magic of their seven-year-old twins, Pip and Rebecca. Concerned with their safety and desperate to avoid the same fate that led her parents to spellbind her, Diana decides to forge a different path for her family’s future and answers a message from a great-aunt she never knew existed, Gwyneth Proctor, whose invitation simply reads: It’s time you came home, Diana.

On the hallowed ground of Ravenswood, the Proctor family home, and under the tutelage of Gwyneth, a talented witch grounded in higher magic, a new era begins for Diana: a confrontation with her family’s dark past, and a reckoning for her own desire for even greater power—if she can let go, finally, of her fear of wielding it.

The Black Bird Oracle, by Deborah Harkness, is the Fifth installment in the author's All Souls Series. Apparently, it has been Four years since the events of Time Convert. It has been 8 years since The Book of Life was released, and several years since the first book was turned into a TV show. As a summary, Deborah Harkness first introduced the world to Diana Bishop, Oxford scholar and witch, and vampire geneticist Matthew de Clairmont in A Discovery of Witches. 

Drawn to each other despite long-standing taboos, these two other-worldly beings found themselves at the center of a battle for a lost, enchanted manuscript known as Ashmole 782. Since then, they have fallen in love, traveled to Elizabethan England where Diana learned about her abilities as a weaver, dissolved the Covenant between the three species (witches, vampires, and daemons), and awoken the dark powers within Diana’s family line. They have twin bright-born children (Rebecca and Philip) who have characteristics of both parents. 

It is the year 2017, Diana and Matthew are living in Connecticut, getting ready to visit London for the summer when three portents happen. A conspiracy of ravens arrives and one seems to have the ability to speak with Becca. Next, a formal demand arrives from the Congregation saying it's time that Pip and Rebecca be tested. Testing brings back painful memories of losing both of her parents as well as memories of when she was a child. Diana also receives a curious deck of cards and a letter telling her it's time to come home.  

The letter is signed by Gwyneth Proctor—a great-aunt Diana didn’t know existed from a side of her family she thought dead lives in Ravenswood, shortly away from Salem. Diana decides to go alone to Ravenswood and meet Gwyneth as well as the Ipswich Witch Coven. Under the tutelage of Gwyneth, a talented witch grounded in higher magic, a new era begins for Diana: a confrontation with her family’s dark past, and a reckoning for her own desire for even greater power—if she can let go, finally, of her fear of wielding it.

As Diana learns how higher magic operates and how the Congregation withholds it for their own purposes, she’ll have to decide whether or not to embrace the darkness within her to protect her family regardless of how Matthew feels. She desperately wants to give her own children the chance to learn higher magic—a chance she never had—even if it means exposing them to the Congregation and their own dark sides. Diana's time in Ravenswood isn't all she expected. The local coven isn't happy that a Bishop has returned. 

They expect Diana to be trained in how to use her Black Bird Oracle cards, and if that wasn't enough, an Ipswich witch challenges Diana to a fight, only to betray her to the Congregation, which sends her off to Italy along with Janet and Isabeau. The return of congregation once again leads to my resurrected anger towards Peter Knox for what he did to Diana's mother and Satu who left a mark on Diana's body to remind her not to take anyone for granted. 

*Thoughts* This book ends on a cliffhanger which apparently means that the author intends to write another book or two? I don't see how she can't when a certain villain puts Diana's back to the wall, again. I would like to say that you can read this book as a solo release, but I would be lying. You definitely need to go back and read the original trilogy because there are names that are mentioned that will totally confuse you, and one of those people makes a return and tosses Diana's world upside down. I am totally a fan of Diana becoming much, much stronger by exploring the dark side of magic even if it makes Matthew uncomfortable. 

Chapter 1

In every soul, there is a place reserved for Shadow.

Mine was safely hidden, tucked in a blind spot at the corners of my memory, under a hollow bruise that I thought had healed long ago.

Then the ravens came to New Haven, carrying an invitation that neither Shadow nor I could refuse.

It was a Friday in late May when the invitation arrived.

“Hey, Professor Bishop! I just put your last mail delivery through the slot!”

I’d been woolgathering on the familiar route home from my office at Yale, listening with half of my attention to Becca’s excited chatter while the rest of my mind drifted. I hadn’t noticed that we’d arrived at the ornate iron gate that guarded our house on Orange Street, or that our regular mail carrier, Brenda, was just leaving the property.

“Thanks, Brenda,” I said, giving her a limp smile. The heat was withering. It was always like this in New Haven around graduation time, which led to frazzled tempers, damp academic regalia, and long lines for iced lattes at the city’s many coffee shops.

“You must be excited about getting back to England, Becca,” Brenda said. She was already wearing her USPS bucket hat and shorts, prepared for New Haven’s warmer temperatures and sky-high humidity.

“I am.” Becca hopped from one foot to the next to prove it. “It’s Tamsy’s first trip and I get to show her everything.”

Tamsy was a recent addition to the family: one of the historical dolls that were all the rage among the thirteen-and-under set. Marcus and his mate, Phoebe, had chosen the colonial era doll for Becca because of her fondness for Marcus’s house in Hadley, and her delight in the stories he told about growing up there in the 1760s and 1770s. Though she had been given a different name by the manufacturer, Becca had rebaptized her the moment she had seen the doll’s green eyes and red hair peeking out from the box’s clear, round window.

Since receiving the doll, Becca’s active imagination had been fully engaged with Tamsy and her world. She came with a variety of outfits and accessories that helped Becca bring her to life, including a horse named Penny. Tamsy was well supplied with home furnishings, too. Matthew added to them with a small replica of the Windsor chair at Marcus’s house that had once belonged to Grand-père Philippe and a Tamsy-sized version of a painted Hadley chest like the one Phoebe used to store household linens. It was fitted with a tiny lock, and Becca had already packed Tamsy’s clothes, her schoolbooks, her quill pen and ink pot, and her collection of hats for the journey to England.

Brenda gave Tamsy, who was hanging from Becca’s hand, a wave. She turned to me. “You must be excited to get back to your research, too.”

At the end of every school year, Matthew and I would take the children to England, where we spent the summer months at our house in Woodstock. It was only a few miles outside Oxford, which put me within easy reach of the Bodleian Library and made it possible for Matthew to work in his quiet Oxford University laboratory, with no colleagues or graduate students to interrupt him. Becca and her brother, Pip, had acres of land to roam, hundreds of trees to climb, and a house filled with curious treasures and books to occupy them during the inevitable summer downpours. There were trips to France to see Matthew’s mother, Ysabeau, over long, lazy weekends, and a chance to see more of Marcus and Phoebe, who would spend part of their summer in London.

I couldn’t wait to get on the plane and put Yale, New Haven, and the spring semester behind me. The prospect of a new research project focused on the wives and sisters of early Royal Society members beckoned, and I was eager to get my hands on rare books and manuscripts.

“I expect you have lots to do before tomorrow,” Brenda said.

She had no idea how much. We weren’t packed, the houseplants were still inside and not neatly arrayed on the back porch so the neighbors could water them, and I had at least three loads of laundry that needed doing before we could leave for the summer.

“I double-checked your mail hold. You’re ready for takeoff as far as the New Haven post office is concerned,” Brenda said, drawing our conversation to a close.

“Thank you,” I said, removing Tamsy from Becca’s grip and sticking her, legs first, in the top of my tote along with the campus mail.

“You and Pip have fun, Becca, and I’ll see you in August,” Brenda said, adjusting the thick strap of her mailbag.

“Bye!” Becca said, waving at Brenda’s retreating form.

I stroked her shiny hair, blue-black and iridescent as a crow’s wing. Becca resembled Matthew so closely—all long lines and contrasts, with pale skin and heavy brows. They were alike in temperament, too, with their confident reserve that could erupt into strong emotions in a heartbeat. It was Pip who resembled me. Comfortable with expressing his feelings, and quick to cry, he had my sturdy build, fair hair glinting with strands of copper, and smattering of freckles across his nose.

“We do have lots to do, peanut,” I said. “Starting with taking care of Ardwinna and Apollo and sorting all this mail.”

After that, the house would need to be put in apple-pie order—a daunting task. My little house on Court Street had been far too small to contain a vampire, a witch, two Bright Born children, a griffin, and a deerhound. Matthew’s son Marcus had offered us his palatial home on Orange Street instead. He’d bought it just before the Civil War, when he was first studying medicine at Yale and mahogany and formal entertaining were very much in fashion. Every surface in the house was polished, carved, or both. It was a nightmare to keep clean and the spacious rooms filled all too quickly with the clutter of modern living.

Despite its vast size and formal appearance, the house had proved to be surprisingly well suited to family living, with expansive covered porches that provided a place for the children to play in rainy weather, a private backyard where Philip’s griffin familiar, Apollo, and my Scottish deerhound, Ardwinna, could join in the twins’ games, and numerous downstairs rooms that had once been allocated to residents according to gender and function. At first, Marcus’s house seemed too grand for our small clutch of vampires and witches, but families have a way of expanding to fit the space allotted to them. What we thought would be a temporary stay had turned into years of permanent residence.

Becca, who was attuned to my changing moods, felt my anxiety rise.

“Don’t worry, Mom. I’ll help you.” Out of her hip pocket, Becca pulled a Yale-blue kazoo that she’d found in the office, hoping to rally my flagging spirits by piping us the last few feet home. The kazoo’s strange, bleating squawk disturbed the birds settled in the nearby trees. They took flight with an irritated flutter of wings, the murmuration of dark shapes and raucous cries protesting this interruption in their sleepy afternoon routine.

I shielded my eyes, mesmerized by the swirling, attenuated black cloud of birds that rose and fell on the damp currents of air. Becca was also rapt at the sight, her eyes wide and filled with wonder.

A single bird broke from the formation, its shadow falling over our clasped hands. The outline of the bird’s head and curved beak extended onto the walkway, pointing the way to the front door.

A sudden chill fell, and I shivered. Curious as to what had caused the drop in temperature, I looked up, expecting to see clouds blotting out the bright sun.

Instead, all the color had leached out of the world. The mellow stucco of the house, the green canopy of the trees, the splashes of blue from tall stalks of delphinium and bearded iris in the perennial borders—everything was reduced to gray scale like a washed-out photograph of foggy London taken in the 1940s. My perspective was altered, too, the house looking too tall and wide, and the trees too short. The clear tang of petrichor replaced the usual green scents of summer, along with a sulforous note of brimstone. The usual sounds of the neighborhood—traffic, the call of the birds, the hum of lawn mowers—were all too loud, as was the drumming of my heart when a wave of the uncanny crashed over me.

Power, prickling and ominous, flooded my veins in response to the surge of magical energy that held us in its colorless shroud. I drew Becca toward me, sheltering her with my body.

The solitary bird that had been gliding overhead plummeted to the ground in front of us, wings outstretched and its head bent to the side at an angle that told me its neck had snapped on impact. Its curved, ebony beak and the ruffle of feathers at the neck told me this was a raven.

A rustle of birds’ wings filled my ears as the raven’s companions settled on the branches of the nearby tree, dark spots in the ghostly world that stood out in sharp relief like a string of silhouettes cut from black paper. There were not just a few ravens, but dozens.

Everything I knew about the significance of ravens—magical, mythical, and alchemical—raced through my mind. Messengers between the dead and the living, ravens often symbolized the first step in the alchemical transformation that led to the philosopher’s stone.

Amazon | Audible | Barnes & Noble | Kobo

#Review - Black Sheep by Rachel Harrison #Occult #Supernatural

Series: Standalone
Format: Hardcover, 336 pages
Release Date: September 19, 2023
Publisher: Berkley
Source: Publisher
Genre: Occult & Supernatural

A cynical twenty something must confront her unconventional family’s dark secrets in this fiery, irreverent horror novel from the author of Such Sharp Teeth and Cackle.

Nobody has a “normal” family, but Vesper Wright’s is truly...something else. Vesper left home at eighteen and never looked back—mostly because she was told that leaving the staunchly religious community she grew up in meant she couldn’t return. But then an envelope arrives on her doorstep. 

Inside is an invitation to the wedding of Vesper’s beloved cousin Rosie. It’s to be hosted at the family farm. Have they made an exception to the rule? It wouldn’t be the first time Vesper’s been given special treatment. Is the invite a sweet gesture? An olive branch? A trap? Doesn’t matter. Something inside her insists she go to the wedding. Even if it means returning to the toxic environment she escaped. Even if it means reuniting with her mother, Constance, a former horror film star and forever ice queen.

When Vesper’s homecoming exhumes a terrifying secret, she’s forced to reckon with her family’s beliefs and her own crisis of faith in this deliciously sinister novel that explores the way family ties can bind us as we struggle to find our place in the world.

Rachel Harrison's Black Sheep is the story about a cynical twenty something must confront her unconventional family’s dark secrets in this fiery, irreverent horror novel from the author of Such Sharp Teeth and Cackle. 23-year-old Jesper Wright walked away from her family when she was 18. For the past 6 years, she has worked as a waitress. Until she is terminated after cheese explodes in a customers face. Faced with the real possibility of having to start over again. Vesper left home mostly because she was told that leaving the staunchly religious community she grew up in meant she couldn’t return. 

 

But then an envelope arrives on her doorstep. Inside is an invitation to the wedding of Vesper’s beloved cousin Rosie and her husband to be Brody Lewis. It’s to be hosted at the family farm. Have they made an exception to the rule? It wouldn’t be the first time Vesper’s been given special treatment. Is the invite a sweet gesture? An olive branch? A trap? Doesn’t matter. Something inside her insists she go to the wedding. Even if it means returning to the toxic environment she escaped. Even if it means reuniting with her mother, Constance, a former horror film star and forever ice queen. 

What must be said is that Vesper grew up in Hell's Gate religious community which believes in Satan. The question becomes who sent the invitation to Vesper? It obviously was not her mother Constance the so called Scream Queen of Horror films. When Vesper’s homecoming exhumes a terrifying secret, she’s forced to reckon with her family’s beliefs and her own crisis of faith in this deliciously sinister novel that explores the way family ties can bind us as we struggle to find our place in the world.

*Thoughts* Vesper is a truly cynical soul with little happiness in her life, missing her father when, speak of the devil, he returns. It is hard to not say more for fear of spoiling the story. Her attitude takes on deeper meaning once you learn the environment she grew up in, taking family drama to a whole other level, truly making the devil shine in its dirty little details. The best parts of this story were the parts when the author goes back in time and explains to the reader what happened to Vesper that caused her to leave her "Cult" like family and try to make it on her own and the subsequent revelations of who her father is that she's been searching for for years.

 

1

As I stood singing the birthday song for the fifth time that evening, I realized I was wrong for not believing in hell. Hell was the birthday song. Hell was Shortee's. Hell was the green polo shirt, the khakis, the whole stupid fucking uniform. Hell was my life.

"And the happy Shortee's happy birthday to you, hey!" I clapped, and I thought, This must be it. This must be the summit of loathing. I imagined a climber atop Mount Everest, only bitter instead of victorious, grappling with their dissatisfaction with the view.

Kerri presented the chocolate lava cake to the kid, and when he blew out the candle, we all applauded and whooped and I longed to feel what I typically felt, which was numb, instead of what I felt in that moment, which was miserable.

The kid's parents kissed his forehead, ruffled his hair. His sister asked meekly if she could try a bite. I observed them as I distributed extra spoons and napkins, and for the first time in a long time I thought about my family.

For the first time in a long time I missed them.

Or, if I'm being honest, which I suppose I should be, it was the first time in a long time that I admitted to myself I missed them, and how much. In that moment, I surrendered to the tidal pull of family. Of blood.

My hand found my neck, which was naked, absent the token of my youth, a sometimes coveted but more often resented piece of jewelry.

"You okay?" Kerri asked, ushering me back to the kitchen.

"Sure," I said, unconvincingly.

"Awesome. Yeah, so, I was wondering . . ." she said, trailing off, distracted by a stain on her polo. "Ugh! Chocolate. That is chocolate sauce, right? Shit."

"Wondering what?" I asked, checking the window for table eight's order.

"Do you think you could cover my section 'til close?" she asked, batting her lashes, flakes of mascara falling to her cheeks like ash.

"Why would I do that?" I said, poking my head into the window to see what the line cooks were up to, suspicious they were once again slacking off.

"Because I'm asking very nicely," she said. "And because you owe me."

"I owe you?"

"I pick up your shifts all the time."

I snorted. "When?"

"Last week."

"I was sick," I said. It wasn't a lie. I was sick. Sick of working.

"Please, Ves?"

"Why do you need to leave early?" I said, sidestepping an overambitious busser who was barely balancing a tray of precariously piled dishes.

She picked a waffle fry off of a plate in the window. A plate that was not for table eight. "Sean."

"Sean?" I asked, dumbfounded. "Really? That guy? You're ditching work for that guy?"

"You're so judgmental."

"The guy treats you like a travel toothbrush. He'll use you for a week straight, then forget about you for months," I said. "And you either don't care or your self-esteem is too low to do anything about it. Either way, the whole thing is messed up."

Her jaw hung open for a moment, eyes widened like those of a child discovering something new about the world, something brutal. Your burger was a cow. Moo. I knew this look. I'd offended her with my honesty. But the truth was the truth, and she needed to hear it from someone. Might as well have been me.

She crossed her arms over her chest. "Will you take my section or not?"

"I don't really want to be aiding and abetting, but sure. I'll do it. But I swear, if I have to sing that goddamn birthday song one more time, it's game over."

"Thanks," she said, turning on her heel. She paused on her way to the back room, looked over her shoulder at me. "You know, you're not pretty enough to get away with being as mean as you are. And you're really pretty."

I almost applauded. It wasn't easy to burn me, and she'd straight up smoked my ego.

"Order up-got eight in the window," yelled one of the line cooks. When I went to retrieve it, I thanked him, and then I heard him whisper under his breath, "You're welcome, Your Highness."

There were worse nicknames, worse insults. Worse things.

⛧


After ten p.m. Shortee’s turned into a cesspool of drunks and rubes, and some nights I’d have the patience for it and other nights it’d make me want to cartwheel off a cliff.

This night was one of the latter.

"Four top at bar," Amy, the host, told me while snapping her gum. Staff wasn't allowed to chew gum, but she did anyway, and I respected her unwavering commitment to such a small act of rebellion.

"Great," I said, checking the clock. Close was in less than forty-five minutes, and I doubted this new table would be out by then, meaning I'd have to stay late. I cursed Kerri and her bad decisions. I cursed my own.

I peeked over and saw that the party was four dudes, one in a backward baseball cap. If I smiled, feigned effervescence, maybe-maybe-I'd improve my chances of a solid tip. But I doubted it. At that point I'd been at Shortee's for three years, and in the food service industry for six, ever since I left home at eighteen. I could tell just by looking at someone what they were going to tip, down to the cent. It was like shitty magic, like an evil fairy bestowed a cruel, useless gift on me. A highly specific power of foresight.

"Hey, how we doing tonight?" I asked the guys, approaching the table, struggling to summon any artificial zest. "My name is Vesper and I'll be taking care of you. Can I start you off with something to drink or do you need a minute?"

"Yeah, uh, I'll take a . . ." was how each of them ordered.

I kept my head down, scribbling in my book, trying to ignore the hot nudge of a stare. I was being scrutinized in a way that was, unfortunately, quite familiar to me. I knew in my gut what was coming. I considered running.

This is what I get for thinking of them, for missing them, I thought. I've called them back in.

"Vesper?"

I looked up, instinctively, at the sound of my own name.

"First of all, that's a rad name," the guy said. He was the oldest at the table, about the right age. Mid- to late thirties. Old enough to have snuck into her movies, to have rented the videos. He had a five-o'clock shadow, wore all black. His ears had been gauged once upon a time. A former Hot Topic punk. He'd probably bought her poster, had it up on his wall. I knew the one. In a cemetery she posed provocatively in black fishnets, a chain mail bra, and a signature piece of jewelry that everyone assumed she wore just to be cheeky. "Second, has anyone ever told you that you look exactly like Constance Wright?"

"Who?" I asked. It was how I usually responded, because I knew it'd piss her off.

"The scream queen? You know, the chick from Death Ransom, Bloody Midnight, Farm Possession, The Black Hallows Coven Investigation?"

I shook my head, deriving devious joy from the lie.

"Seriously? You've never heard of any of those movies?"

"I'm not into horror," I said, another lie. "I should get those drinks in."

"You don't need to be into horror to know Constance Wright. You have the exact same face. I swear to God."

He took out his phone, and I bailed. "Be right back with those drinks."

I'd hoped that by the time I returned to the table they'd have moved on to another topic, but no luck. When I went back to drop off their beers, the guy still had his phone out. He'd Googled her, pulled up her image page.

And there she was. My mother.

"You seriously don't know who this is?" he asked. "She's an icon."

"Dude, relax," one of the other guys said.

"I don't see it," I said, shrugging. "I'm sorry."

"Really?" he asked. He seemed disappointed, and I felt a twinge of guilt for deceiving him. But it was necessary deceit.

"Maybe it's the hair," I said. I'd cut it off in an attempt to avoid situations like the one I was in, but the pixie didn't make a difference. It didn't change my face.

The man nodded, retrieved his phone. He stared at the screen, scrolling through picture after picture of my mother.

"Guess you're a little young. You missed the golden age. Get high, go see the latest slasher. Get scared shitless. Everyone's talking about horror now, but nothing's scary anymore. It's all saying something. Doesn't need to say anything. Just has to be scary . . ." He was talking to himself at that point. Muttering. "Probably why Constance Wright doesn't really make movies anymore. You know, she lives down in Jersey. She has a farm out somewhere."

"Oh wow. Cool," I said, acting like it was surprising new information. I hadn't inherited Constance's acting talents. "Are we ready to order some food, or are we good with the drinks?"

They ordered the spicy Southwest nachos and boneless wings, and any dream I'd had of getting home before one o'clock died tragically right then and there.

I brought them round after round, each guy chugging whatever drink I'd delivered him within minutes, racking up a bill that, in theory, should have led to a decent tip, but they were getting so hammered that I wasn't exactly optimistic that any of them could do the simple math of calculating 20 percent.

The one guy, the former punk, didn't bring up Constance again, didn't bother me, but the one in the backward baseball cap started to annoy me. He'd had the most to drink, and it showed.

"Vessie," he said when I dropped off the nachos and wings. Only Rosie was allowed to call me that. "Vessie, you make these? You go back in the kitchen and make these for us?"

"Sure," I said. "Put them in the microwave and everything."

When I turned to walk away, he reached out for me, swiping my ass with his palm.

I spun around, and he laughed. "Oh, sorry. My bad. Can I get some more of this cheese sauce?"

I nodded and retreated into the kitchen. It wasn't really Shortee's policy to give out sides of nacho cheese, but I scooped some into a ramekin and nuked it for a minute, figuring it was easier to shut the guy up than try to explain the arbitrary rules of a chain restaurant.

I checked the clock. It was eleven fifty-four. It also wasn't Shortee's policy to kick anyone out. If they arrived before eleven thirty, we had to let them stay, let them finish. Shortee's prioritizes hospitality, my manager, Rick, would always say. I had this theory that he was a corporate bot masquerading as a real human. I had a lot of theories about Rick.

Just as I thought of him, he popped into the kitchen.

"How we doing, Vesper?"

In restaurant speak "we" is "you," and if you're asked a question as a member of the waitstaff, the response had better be positive.

"Good," I answered through clenched teeth.

"What we doing?"

"A guy asked for more nacho cheese."

Rick frowned.

"I know, I know," I said. "But customer first, right? I'm prioritizing hospitality."

"Just be sure to charge," he said. "Two dollars."

"Really? Two dollars?"

He frowned again.

"Got it. Thanks!" I said, taking the cheese out onto the floor, eager to get away from Rick, though not eager to return to the rude, handsy, nacho-hungry bro.

I wove between the tables slowly, inhaled the vague lemony scent of the cleaning solution we used to wipe everything down. It smelled like the end of the night. It smelled like time to go home. But I knew I wasn't going home anytime soon, and my heart tumbled at the thought of another long, sleepy bus ride in the dark.

I stifled a yawn, stifled the urge to throw the cheese at the wall, rip off my polo Incredible Hulk-style, and set the whole place on fire.

"Here you go," I said, sliding the ramekin onto the table.

"Let me ask you something," Backward Hat Guy said, leaning into me, gifting me with a rancid exhale. "We were just talking about how all hot girls have daddy issues. You have daddy issues, Vesper?"

I laughed. It wasn't polite, or a coping mechanism. It was genuine.

If only he knew.

He must have taken my laughter as a signal of some kind, because he touched me again. This time his hand found my waist, and he pulled me in close. For a moment, I thought of Brody. What it'd felt like to be touched by him. To have his hands on me, hands I wanted, that had permission.

"Hey," I said, snapping out of my memory and stepping back from the table. "Don't touch me."

"Whoa, whoa," he said. "Relax."

I laughed again, but underneath this laughter was a staggering rage. It wasn't fresh; it was there always. A seething I kept stashed away, like a baseball bat behind the headboard. I experienced it in the usual way. A brief flare of blinding, white-hot anguish, followed by a mild chill of despondence, and finally a return to indifference.

"I'll be back with the check," I said, turning to leave.

"We're not done," he said. "You'll do what we tell you. We tell you to bend over, you bend over, or no tip."

I whipped around, stunned by the audacity.

"Who's your daddy now?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. The rest of the guys snickered, shook their heads, said nothing.

He reached for the cheese, and maybe it was his own clumsiness or the result of an overzealous microwave, but somehow the cheese bubbled up.

It exploded, essentially.

And it exploded all over his face.

He didn't scream at first, so at first glance it seemed like an innocent spill. But then I noticed the curls of steam slithering from him like skinny pearlescent snakes. And then I heard it. The sizzling.

Then he screamed.

"Ah, ahhh! It's burning me! It's burning my fucking face! Ah! Help me!" He fumbled for his napkin. The former punk-a quick thinker-tossed his beer at the bro's cheese-scalded face, but the beer did nothing to mitigate the damage. The guy kept screaming. He had a napkin now and was wiping away the gobs of orange cheese. In their wake, pocks of skin were sunset red and peeling. And I could smell the injury, the burning flesh. A foreshadowing.

It was bad. It was really bad.

This time when I laughed, it wasn't because I thought it was funny, or because I was angry. It was nervous laughter. Doomsday laughter.

Amazon | Audible | Barnes & Noble | Kobo

#Review - A Fragment Too Far by Dudley Lynch #Thrillers / #Supernatural

Series: A Sheriff Luke McWhorter Mystery
Format: Paperback, 352 pages
Release Date: October 16, 2019
Publisher: ECW Press
Source: Publisher
Genre: Thrillers / Supernatural

True Detective meets X-Files in the first installment of the Luke McWhorter series. Nine physicists have been found dead in a remote house and Sheriff Luke McWhorter must work with the FBI to track down a serial killer. Could debris from Roswell’s 1947 UFO crash have anything to do with the mystery?

The medical examiner has determined that the victims died from drinking coffee laced with rat poison. The owner of the house, Professor Thaddeus Huntgardner, isn’t suspected, but his claim that a piece of the debris from Roswell’s 1947 UFO crash was hidden in Flagler might be true. Enter Luther “Luke” Stephens McWhorter, a Yale Divinity School–educated West Texas sheriff with all the right questions. Is the fragment real? If so, who is trying to locate it? And what has fueled the byzantine activities of Abbot County’s two secret societies for the past 70 years? Working with FBI agent and girlfriend, Angie Steele, Sheriff Luke begins to put together all the pieces and come to understand the connection between seemingly unrelated phenomena.

A Fragment Too Far, by author Dudley Lynch, is the first installment in the authors Sheriff Luther McWhorter Mystery series. True Detective meets X-Files in the first installment of the Luke McWhorter series. Sheriff Luther McWhorter is the Sheriff of Flagler County in West Texas stepping into the shoes of his grandfather, and his father before him. But the most curious thing about Luther is that he wanted to be a preacher. In fact, he has a Masters of Divinity Degree from Yale. Luther's girlfriend just happens to be Angie Steele a Special Agent in the FBI. 

 

On what appears to be just another ordinary day in West Texas while Luther is enjoying the day, slowly turns into a nightmare with possible national security implications after he follows the trail of buzzards to an abandoned home. In and around the home, Nine physicists plus another unknown person who appears to have been intentionally killed, have been found dead. Sheriff Luke McWhorter must work with the FBI to track down a serial killer. Could debris from Roswell’s 1947 UFO crash have anything to do with the mystery? The medical examiner has determined that the victims died from drinking coffee laced with rat poison. 

 

The owner of the house, Professor Thaddeus Huntgardner, isn’t necessarily a suspect, but his claim that a piece of the debris from Roswell’s 1947 UFO crash was hidden in Flagler might be true. Huntgardner was also affected emotionally after watching a nuclear explosion go off in the New Mexico desert on July 16, 1945. Is the fragment real? If so, who is trying to locate it? And what has fueled the byzantine activities of Abbot County’s two secret societies for the past 70 years? Working with Angie Steele, Sheriff Luke begins to put together all the pieces and comes to understand the connection between seemingly unrelated phenomena.

 

Thoughts: If you were a fan of the TV show X-Files, you will enjoy this story. It has a mystery, a serial killer, mysterious events that seem to tie into Roswell in 1947. With all the new Congressional awareness that aliens are visiting the planet, this book should give alien fans plenty to enjoy. Luther is an interesting character who has deal with the nuisances of being someone who has had the secret of what is actually happening in Flagler. Neither his grandfather, nor his father, both deceased, bothered to enlighten Luther before he agreed to become Sheriff. 

 

Now, he has to look at everyone in a different light. The professors he once trusted are keeping secrets, and the more Luke's pushes, the more things seem to be intentionally swept under the rug. His own people may or many not be involved in a major conspiracy. And, yes, the President of the US who is not willing to let Luther walk alone into the dark without shedding a bit of light on the reality of aliens and dangerous fragments. There is allegedly a sequel out in the universe, but I have not been able to find it. We shall see.

 

 

Drasher sent a glance toward the FBI special agent in the room. Angie raised her eyebrows and gave her head a tiny tilt. His call. “One of our major U.S. aerospace companies runs it.” “And its purpose is what?” “First and foremost, to cover any government official’s ass that needs covering.” “Sounds like a big job. Any particular ass-covering specialty? He unleashed a huge sigh. Laid his hands in his lap. And entwined his fingers. More silence. Maybe he was deciding on his answer. Or deciding whether he was going to answer. Or deciding whether to abort his whole mission. Then he seemed to realize he’d already crossed this Rubicon and needed to get to the point. “We operate at the bottom of the rabbit hole.” “No idea where to go with that.” Drasher said his private intelligence agency’s responsibility was to investigate UFO sightings, legitimate or otherwise. In the U.S. or anywhere else in the world when something interested them. Sightings by civilians, military personnel, local law enforcement, pilots or, as had once happened, the governor of Arizona. Sightings by anyone. But especially, sightings by anyone who might be intimidated by the noxious political correctness attitudes in the federal government. That was the rabbit hole. The need for it could be traced all the way back to Roswell. Within hours of that momentous summer day in 1947, the generals who ran the Army Air Forces were running for cover. Petrified by the fear that anyone might think they thought they were dealing with a real UFO crash. Lying about what had happened in the remote New Mexico countryside. Confiscating every piece of evidence of the crashed UFO they could lay hands on.  Warning witnesses of the most drastic penalties if they ever breathed a word about what they saw. Insisting that people should forget that their lying eyes had seen anything. Seventy-plus years later, he said, little had changed. To this day, nothing spooked officials at all levels of the American government more than being accused of treating UFOs and extraterrestrial visitors as real possibilities. Thus, the rabbit hole. He couldn’t—or wouldn’t—tell me which POTUS had created the IRAD solution. Said Truman would have if he’d thought of it. Or Eisenhower. Even Nixon. “But one of them finally realized we needed a rabbit hole. Literally. A hole in our intelligence capabilities where serious UFO and alien visitation researchers could disappear. And deal with their data in total privacy. That’s what my IRAD does. It’s been the only way to get around the official timidity and look seriously at the evidence.” “Your IRAD squad. It’s been active in Flagler for a while?” “We’ve come and gone and come and gone and, now, we’ve been back for three years. Chalk it up mostly to the erratic Professor Huntgardner and his claims and stories about his fragment. They’re like Tootle, the Little Engine—they just keep going. And coming. And now they’re getting people killed. One of our people, too, to our profound regret.”

Amazon | Audible | Barnes & Noble | Kobo

#Review - Hide by Kiersten White #Thriller #Supernatural #Horror

Series: Standalone
Format: Hardcover, 256 pages
Release Date: May 24, 2022
Publisher: Del Rey Books
Source: Publisher
Genre: Thrillers / Supernatural / Horror

The challenge: spend a week hiding in an abandoned amusement park and don’t get caught.
 
The prize: enough money to change everything.
 
Even though everyone is desperate to win—to seize their dream futures or escape their haunting pasts—Mack feels sure that she can beat her competitors. All she has to do is hide, and she’s an expert at that.
 
It’s the reason she’s alive, and her family isn’t.
 
But as the people around her begin disappearing one by one, Mack realizes this competition is more sinister than even she imagined, and that together might be the only way to survive.
 
Fourteen competitors. Seven days. Everywhere to hide, but nowhere to run.
 

"Come out, come out, wherever you are."

Set in a long abandoned Amusement Park, Hide, by author Kiersten White, is a high-stakes hide-and-seek competition that takes a deadly turn in this dark supernatural thriller. Sponsored by a group called Ox Extreme Sports, they are putting together a contest of Olly Olly Oxen Free aka Hide and Seek tournament. The challenge: spend a week hiding in an abandoned amusement park that was closed after a little girl disappeared and don't get caught. If you get caught, you're out. No second chances. The winner will get $50,000.

For Mackenzie (Mack) Black, the price money is enough to change her life and make up for her past mistakes.Fourteen competitors. Seven days. Everywhere to hide, but nowhere to run. Even though everyone is desperate to win--to seize their dream futures or escape their haunting pasts--Mack feels sure that she can beat her competitors. All she has to do is hide, and she's an expert at that. It's the reason she's alive, and her little sister isn't. It's the reason why she agreed to participate in this contest since she blames herself for what happened to her sister Maddie years ago.

The Rules
-30 minute hiding window given at the start of each day
-the game is active from dawn to dusk
-no allowance for medical, bathroom emergencies or food runs
-a beacon will shine in the sky at dusk calling the contestants back to camp
-2 contestants will be eliminated each day.

As the people begin disappearing one by one, Mack realizes this competition is more sinister than even she imagined, and that together might be the only way to survive. She chooses to make an alliance with Ava, who is a veteran who nearly lost her legs in Afghanistan. To make things interesting, the author doesn't leave the reader hanging. She actually allows you to read certain sections of a dairy that explains what happened years ago, and why every 7 years, 14 people are chosen to come to this abandoned Amusement Park. 

As the game progresses, Mack realizes the prize for winning this mysterious hide-and-seek game is her life. Mack's an interesting character whose name is famous to those in this world's Horror genre. She has to choose whether she can win by hiding by herself, which she's good at, or finding someone to align with so that they can survive until the end. Mack's story literally begins with her in a homeless shelter where she just lost everything and later we find out who she really is as a character. 

I don't believe that you have to pay attention to all 14 characters in this story. By the time the game begins, 2 will already be dead, and then 2 more, until Mack and her allies realize something is really, really wrong here. It is fair to say that I will not compare this story to the Hunger Games. More like The Cabin at the end of the World. I am happy with the way the story wraps up. The story isn't all that gore filled as with other more dastardly horror novels. Readers get a look at the monster, but only through the eyes of Mack who is one of the only people in the entire contest who can see  it.

The Amazement Park opened in 1953.

get lost in the fun! posters advertised, and it was true: Crowds surged through the gates in the morning and didn’t stumble out again until the sun had set, and spotlights at the exit guided them free. The maps were useless, the You Are Here guides impossible to find. It was a park designed to swallow. Trees loomed over lush grounds. Signature topiary lined every walled and wandering path, adding to the sense of wonder. Roller coasters, swings, carousels, games, houses of love and fun and terror—though the house at the very center was always closed for refurbishment.

The park was open from mid-May until early September. whites only was on signs in the early years, heavily implied when such a thing became harder to officially declare. And, for one week every seven years, it was free. The gates would swing wide, and the summer migrant workers and distant relatives of the wealthy townsfolk, normally too poor to enjoy something designed purely for escape, would wander in, wide-eyed. There were no ticket sales, no attendance numbers, just a joyfully packed park.

In 1974, during the free week, a prominent businessman from upstate decided to visit. He hadn’t been invited, but he was considering investing since a cousin-of-a-cousin owned the park. He wanted to see the attractions for himself first, though. He brought along his wife and two children and made it a holiday.

Their little girl, five, was never seen again.

One of the migrant workers was arrested for her murder, but the negative publicity left a stain that didn’t wash out. So the Amazement Park closed its gates.

Eventually, the rumors died. The plants grew. Nature slowly co-opted the buildings, the rides, the roller coasters. What didn’t crumble rusted, and what didn’t rust leaned, and what didn’t lean sagged under the weight of ivy and neglect.

Somewhere, very close to the center—the house that was always closed, where few ever even got, owing to the odd layout of the park—a shoe had caught on the low branches of a topiary. Unchecked, the verdant beast slowly grew higher and higher until the shoe was eye level.

It was patent leather, dulled and cracked with weather and time. The perfect size for a five-year-old foot.

It takes money to make money, her dad used to say.

He also once said Come out, come out, wherever you are, dragging the knife along the wall as music to accompany the dying gasps of her sister. Mack might have imagined the gasps, though. Who could say.

She couldn’t, and even if she could, she wouldn’t.

She’s not saying anything right now, either, sitting across from the manager. The meeting was mandatory, a “shelter requirement,” though she’s been here several months now and this is the first one.

“Come on, Mackenzie. Help me help you.” The woman’s smile is painted on like her cheekbones and eyebrows, and just as artfully. Her expression doesn’t shift at all in the face of Mack’s silence. It’s impressive. Does she do stamina reps in the quiet dark of her bedroom, lifting the corners of her lips over and over, careful not to disrupt her eyes?

The manager clasps her hands together, fingernails painted dark red. “I’ll be honest with you. Things are going to change around here. I believe that we can help only those willing to help themselves. These shelters have stagnated—no hope, no progress. How can we live in a society without progress?”

The voice is animated, but the eyes remain untouched by the sentiments or the smile. Expressionless. Like they’re hidden behind something. Mack feels an odd affinity for this woman, alongside an instinctive wariness. But she disagrees. The point of a shelter isn’t progress. It’s shelter.

“I’ve looked at your file.” The woman gestures to a blank manila folder on the desk. Mack suspects it’s empty. She hopes it is. “It’s bad luck you’re here. I understand. No social safety net to fall back on. A few months without a job, without rent, and it’s hard to dig yourself out. You need to move on with your life. Contribute to humanity. All you need is a little good luck first.”

“Donation bins could use tampons more than luck.” Mack’s voice is soft and dry with disuse.

The woman cracks, something triumphant behind her eyes. Mack shouldn’t have spoken. The woman holds up an envelope. “It just so happens, some luck has come in the mail. Whether it’s good is really up to you. Right now, it’s an opportunity. And I think you’re perfect for it.”

Mack has never been perfect for anything in her life. Perfect feels like a foreign word, stiff and uncomfortable. But maybe it’s a job. A little money to get presentable and she’ll have an actual chance. As long as they don’t pry. As long as they don’t look too closely. She could make it work.

She takes the sheet of paper the woman slides across the desk. It’s thick. It feels expensive. Mack is suddenly aware of her hands—her bitten fingernails, her shiny burned palms, her ragged cuticles. If she sets down the paper, will she leave a smudge? It’s hard to be embarrassed at this point in her life, but the idea wriggles beneath her skin.

She’s so worried about leaving a fingerprint—one that will somehow count against her in this imaginary job interview—that it takes her several seconds to process what she’s reading.

“Is this a joke?” she whispers.

The woman’s smile doesn’t budge. “I know it sounds like one. But I assure you it’s legitimate.”

“Who told you?”

Finally, the woman’s cheeks relax, and her eyebrows draw close. “What do you mean? Who told me what? That it’s legitimate?”

About me, Mack thinks. Who told you about me? But the woman’s confusion can’t be feigned. Can it? If she can paint on a face, can she paint on emotions, too? Mack drops the letter. There are no fingerprints. But the words have left smudges across her mind.

“Why are you giving this to me?” Mack knows how lost she sounds, how scared, but she can’t help it. “Why me?”

The woman laughs, a single dismissive burst. “I know it seems silly. The Olly Olly Oxen Free Hide-and-Seek Tournament. It’s a children’s game, for god’s sake. But it’s a chance to win fifty thousand dollars, Mackenzie. You could use that to actually move up in the world. You’re young. You’re intelligent. You’re not a thief, you’re not an addict. You shouldn’t be here.”

No one should be here. They all still are.

The woman leans forward intently. “It’s run by an athletic company, Ox Extreme Sports. I can put in a good word and get you registered. There’s no guarantee you’d win, but—I think you have a shot. It’s more about endurance than anything else. Besides, you strike me as someone who’s good at hiding.”

Mack’s chair scrapes back, jarring them both. But Mack can’t be in this room, can’t think, not while she’s being looked at. Not while she’s being seen. The woman doesn’t know about Mack’s history, and still, somehow she knows.

“Can I think about it,” Mack states. It’s not a question.

“Of course. But let me know by tomorrow. If you don’t want the spot, I’m sure someone else will. It’s a lot of money, Mackenzie. For a silly game!” The woman laughs again. “I’d enter it myself, but I can’t go more than twenty minutes without needing to pee.” She waits for Mack to laugh, too.

She’s still waiting as Mack slides out through the door, not even a whisper in her wake.

Everything about the shelter is designed to remind them that nothing is theirs. There are no lockers. No alcoves. No closets. No bedrooms. In a featureless box of a space, the ceiling looming so far overhead a bird lives in the beams, there are cots. Each has the same stiff white sheets and scratchy blankets. The area beneath the cots is to be kept clear at all times. They are not allowed to use the same cot more than two nights in a row. Anything not cleared by nine a.m. will be confiscated and thrown out, so they can’t even leave their meager possessions on the cot that is not theirs.

When the cots are all filled, Mack is as good as hidden. She’s small. She’s quiet. But now she feels as though a spotlight has been trained on her. Everyone else has already cleared out for the day. Some will go to whatever work they’ve found. Several will sit outside on the sidewalk until they’re allowed back in at four p.m. The rest, who knows. Mack doesn’t ask. Mack doesn’t tell. Because she goes somewhere she doesn’t want any of them to know about, either.

Hidden behind a half wall, choked with the scent of burning dust, an old water heater sizzles and rages. She has permanent shiny burns on her hands from where she scales the water heater, wedges herself between walls, and shimmies up.

Amazon | Audible | Barnes & Noble | Kobo