Alien Gothic by S.L. Stacy

Celeste is your not-so-typical high school student. Where she lives, there have been enough UFO sightings that there is an annual sci-fi convention celebrating aliens. So what makes her so non-typical? It’s not just her Goth style choices, and the fact that her usual crowd are not the popular group, it’s that she secretly has telekinetic powers, but doesn’t know why. She just knows that it’s something that must be kept secret. What she doesn’t know is that not only.is she part alien, but that she’s not the only one in the school.

I read a review copy of this fun young adult story. There are numerous pop culture references throughout the story, including alien/sci-fi TV shows and popular band references that show the author was familiar with both subjects and not simply naming ones that were popular at the time. The story involves a murder, multiple alien races, first love romances, and friends vs rival relationships. Overall, I found it very entertaining and fun to read. The characters' personalities come through very clearly, as do the reasons why they act the way they do. We get to see a range of teenage emotions from anger and depression to first love and heartbreak. And the plot of the story is not simply surrounding aliens, as there is also a murder that the main characters seem determined to try and solve themselves.

All in all, It was a fun first book in a new series, and I look forward to getting to read the next book in this series to find out what happens next. If you enjoy reading entertaining young adult stories involving high school students, aliens, murder, and music, I think you will enjoy this one. It may have its serious moments, but it is also quite entertaining.

Amazon requires me to state that I have an Amazon Associates account that I use to generate the links to the books on their website. Purchasing something after following those links will earn a few pennies for me off the sale, though as of yet I have not earned anything from my Amazon Associate links.

Witch of the Golden Veil by Maria DeVivo

Alex DeVille is a reporter who got her first break reporting on a murder in the Satanic Panic era. Since then, all of her assignments have involved a paranormal and quite often a satanic connection. She wants to report on bigger stories, preferably some that don’t include satanic, occult, or paranormal elements, but that is what she is currently known and recognized for. When she gets the chance to secretly report on a group of nuns performing unauthorized exorcisms in In Italy, she jumps on it. Using some vacation time, she doesn’t tell her boss what she is up to, hoping that this story will be her big break and allow her to move to bigger stories that are not just more of the same: small occult-related stories. After all, demon possession isn’t real. It’s just someone who is mentally ill but has not properly been diagnosed as such, right?

I read a review copy of this book, and love how it ties in with the previous stories in this series. This is the fifth book in this series and I do recommend reading the previous books before this one as I think it adds something when you see how each book ties in with the other books in the series. Yes, you would likely still enjoy this one even without having read the previous books, but reading them in order definitely adds to the complexity of the overall story arc.

It was interesting reading this book and seeing the character be very subtly manipulated, and I’m not entirely certain if she ever even realized it was happening. This story does involve previous incarnations of several of the characters, and as such, I’m uncertain how much of what I call manipulation was actually the knowledge from their previous lives coming through as they were made aware of who they used to be, and what they saw as their purpose in the world.

This is a great series for those who enjoy dark tales involving occult forces. This book, as it did in book one, takes place in the 1980s, but as the main characters are not high school students, I did not expect there to be references to some of what I remember as a teenager growing up during that era, so I did not miss their exclusion in this book. I did enjoy the reference to phone cords, making it clear that the characters were not using mobile phones (which were only beginning to be available in the late 1980s.) And overall, I believe that the author did a very good job of portraying the time period accurately.

If you enjoy horror stories involving the occult, demonic forces, and the paranormal incidents set during in the 1980s, then I believe you will enjoy this book. But be warned, it does contain a fair amount of graphic sex, violence, murder, gore, drugs, alcohol, and even a rape. (I call it rape because while the character appeared to be a partially willing participant, her mind was not under her own control when it happened.) So this is definitely not a book meant for younger readers.

Amazon requires me to state that I have an Amazon Associates account that I use to generate the links to the books on their website. Purchasing something after following those links will earn a few pennies for me off the sale, though as of yet I have not earned anything from my Amazon Associate links.

Nine Minute Diner by Grzegorz Kunowski

This is a book that tells the same short story from the perspectives of multiple people in a small, rundown diner in a small town. It was a very interesting concept that, for me, had potential, but also had a number of problems. The entire book is about nine minutes that happened leading up to, during, and immediately after a robbery told from the individual perspectives of each person in the diner at the time of the attempted robbery.

First off, I believe the book could have used a good editor or at least a proofreader. At times, I felt that the author was trying to imitate a particular style of speaking for some of the characters, and at other times, it seemed like it may have been a poor translation from a foreign language, or maybe just needed some fine tuning.

Individually, some of the stories had the potential to be very enjoyable if expanded into a book of their own. For example, the deaf piano player was a character that intrigued me. Of course, I can’t help but wonder why a rundown small diner that seems to be in the middle of nowhere had a piano inside, as no small diner I have ever seen or heard of has space for a full-time piano player. The only exception to this that I can think of would be if it were a piano bar, which this place clearly wasn't. And this wasn't the only character that I wanted to know more about. There were a number of the characters whose stories, if expanded and broadened, would have made for much more interesting tales in their own right.

With each individual character’s story ending at the same point of time, I was often left wanting to know more about what happens to each character after the end of their part of the story. And while each character had their own individual background details about who they were and why they were there at the time of the robbery, in several cases the stories overlapped enough that they felt rather repetitive to me due to being very similar and containing nearly identical information.

I do need to warn you that within at least one character's story, there was what I believe was meant to be a date rape. Though depending on which character is telling their side of the story, it was (or wasn’t) consensual sex involving someone who wanted to have a baby and a guy trying to help her out knowing there would be no commitment between them. Honestly, the stories around this incident and the multiple characters involved left me rather confused as to what actually was or was not closer to the full truth of that story.

All in all, while some of the individual perspectives were interesting, there really is much more I would have liked to know. As it stands, I’m afraid that I'm rather confused as to the intent and purpose of the book as a whole. I think I would have enjoyed it more myself with fewer characters and more details tying them together into a longer, more complete story, or as individual short stories dealing with more about one or two of the characters and their full stories beginning earlier and running beyond the confines of this tying-together incident. As it was, there was just not enough time or space within each tale to truly feel invested in any of them, and I was left confused and wanting more.

It was interesting as a description of multiple people in a single setting. And anyone who wants to read a collection of character descriptions and short background histories would likely enjoy this book, but when I finished it, I felt like I had missed the purpose of the story as a whole. I feel like it needed something more to truly tie it all together. It was a very interesting concept, but one that, for me, needed more time and details to make it work as an individual novel.

I do hope that the author will continue to write and perhaps develop his writing with the help of a good editor and proofreader, because as I said, it was a very interesting concept and one that I had looked forward to reading. It just, in my opinion, needed something more.

Haunter's & Hauntings: Part One (Haunter's Tale) by J. Michael Roddy

This book is a collection of histories & stories collected from the people who create and run haunted attractions. This book encompases a variety of those who specialize in scaring us. We are given a glimpse into these people's lives, and their stories. They share why they have chosen to devote their lives to scaring others and where Their inspirations for their haunted attractions come from.

I received a review copy of this book and enjoyed reading it. I had never really thought about where the ideas for a Haunted House come, nor how much work goes into not just the design, but the amount of small details necessary to make not just something spooky, but something truly amazing and memorable.

The variety Of the tales in this book was fascinating. From simple haunted hayrides, to world record holding haunted houses, and even stories of actual haunting. If you enjoy hearing about what makes various styles of  haunted attractions so entertaining, then you'll likely enjoy this book.

Amazon Associates Statement

Amazon requires me to state that I have an Amazon Associates account that I use to generate the links to the books on their website. Purchasing something after following those links will earn a few pennies for me off the sale, though as of yet I have not earned anything from my Amazon Associate links.