Picture a disillusioned detective, haunted by memories of his past. Pair him with an ambitious young police officer, eager to prove himself and tired of a superior who does not care about his work. Place them in the Five Villages, a land from another time (somewhere between the medieval and the Victorian eras) and a place where peasant farmers live a short journey from elite salons of the upper class.
Richard Kadrey, best known for his Sandman Slim urban fantasy series, enters the world of YA fiction with Dead Set. Not a completely unexpected thing, as YA fiction has become an incredibly popular genre, with almost every popular urban fantasy author writing a YA novel. However, Dead Set strangely does not read or feel like a YA adult novel. It doesn’t focus on a lot of the current YA tropes such teenage romance, someone finding their destiny and or trying to save the world. Kadrey avoids these trappings by making Dead Set all about dealing with grief– specifically the grief of the teenage character, Zoe, who is still mourning the loss of her father.
2013 was the year of binge streaming. In the past twelve months we crested the hill and coasted into time shifting, streaming, binge-watching and mobile viewing as day-to-day options for the masses. Not only can we see the latest and preview the upcoming but we can go back in time and revisit series from other eras – whether on TVLand or via Hulu, Amazon et al.
In the spirit of goodwill, and a less-than-sober New Year’s resolution to be more charitable, has contractor Mel Turner volunteering to be “House Captain” for Neighbors Together, a charitable organization that renovates homes for the disabled and elderly. What this means is that poor Mel is not just wielding a hammer on an occasional Saturday, but is instead answering the endless nonsensical questions of earnest but extremely unqualified and very inexperienced volunteers.
Near the Appalachian foothills lies Hitching Post, wedding capital of the South, where Southerners embrace crazy and cellphones are useless. It is also where Carly Bell Hartwell happens to be a practicing hoodoo healing witch and is the owner of the Little Shop of Potions. When her neighbor Mr. Dunwoody, makes one of his never-wrong predictions of divorce the townspeople hunt down Carly, not to burn the witch at the stake, but to request preventative love potions to save their marriages.
It was a perfectly overcast night for a ghost hunt, and ghost tour guide Lorna Collins was hoping to please her ghost hunters at the Wilkinson House, a long-vacant Bear Creek home built in the 1900s and still up for sale. Unfortunately, the dead entity they discover on site is pretty corporal, as it is the body of a teenaged “Goth” boy with, very suspiciously, two puncture wounds on his neck. Ghosts are one thing, but a vampire–that is something even these spiritualists can’t believe actually exists.
We are so excited to be reviewing Christopher Rice's new supernatural thriller The Heavens Rise. We were also able to interview Christopher. This seemed like such a perfect fit for the Halloween season! Details on how to enter to win a copy of Heavens Rise at the end of this post.
In Steve Bein’s Year of the Demon (a novel of the Fated Blades), American-raised Detective Sergeant Mariko Oshiro has new responsibilities in Japan’s Narcotics force, resentment from other law enforcement officers because she exposed corruption in a major precinct and a price on her head. A Yakuza Under-Lord will call off the assassins if she will retrieve a strange mask that was stolen during a drug raid on his office. The thieves have also taken her semi-magical, highly-principled sword, a weapon that can kill in defense but will not murder in anger.
Dad's gone on a hunting trip...and he hasn't been home in a few days. – Dean Winchester
The series Supernatural kicks off with these words and it doesn't stop there, Brought to life in 2005, it's been tearing apart the hearts of those who view it and inspiring more out-of-context GIFs on tumblr ever since, thanks to one Eric Kripke.
As an adjunct English professor and a single mother, Georgia Thackery is accustomed to the nomadic lifestyle completely at the whim of colleges that provide minimal benefits, torturous class schedules, little respect and tiny salaries. Desks are optional. As the daughter of two tenured professors at McQuaid University in Massachusetts, Georgia feels no little inadequacy, but it is only while they are away on sabbaticals that she takes advantage of a sudden vacancy and accepts a temporary position at their institution.
