***

Julia Stone’s locked door is unlocked. Wood blocks spelling out her nickname are on her coffee table. Her digital clock is stuck on the same time; 4:06. Her shut window is wide open. Eyes stare at her from the darkness outside. Someone is obviously trying to gaslight her. Or maybe she’s just crazy. After years of therapy, Julia is having trouble distinguishing between what’s real and what isn’t. And she doesn’t know whom to trust. Her therapist who’s trying to help rid her of panic attacks? The local handyman who keeps showing up at her door? Her long-time boyfriend who is anxious to get married? Her nosy old neighbor? Or are they all just creeps like the nameless, faceless entities she conjures in her mind?

The Skull Ring is a psychological thriller, one that had me hooked from beginning to end. In fact, I stayed up till 2:00 a.m. reading the last six chapters because I just couldn’t put it down! I particularly liked Julia Stone; she keeps fighting to maintain her sanity, and rather than act like a helpless victim, she uses her background as a reporter to investigate her own past. She’s determined to overcome her panic attacks through therapy rather than drugs, and once she realizes the true character of someone she trusted, she doesn’t hesitate in rejecting him. She has moments of wanting to give in and give up, but she doesn’t. She keeps trying to overcome whatever obstacles are holding her back, whether they be real or imagined.

The Skull Ringis well written, highly suspenseful, and avoids being preachy despite its religious undertones. The ending was fairly satisfying, because I totally believed the methods and motives of some characters; for instance, the sheriff and the therapist. They had vastly different outlooks on how they wanted this story to end, but I believed them both. I liked the idea of a “long con” being played, and I like the idea of one (or more) fanatical true believers in a cult. But I don’t buy big decades-long conspiracies, especially one that leaves mutilated bodies in its wake. No one notices a pattern? Really? I won’t go into any more detail because I want to avoid spoilers. But I was a bit disappointed in some of the concluding reveals.

I also felt a few loose ends were left hanging, such as Julia’s aversion to a barn near her childhood home. She has a horryfiing memory while in the barn, but it’s never clearly explained how she came to have that particular memory. We’re left to our own conclusions about it, but I prefer things more clearly spelled out at the end, especially when the story has us constantly guessing between the reality and fantasy of the main character’s experiences. We also never find out specifically what happened to Julia’s father–we pretty much know what, just not the how and where. I would like to have known. Morbid curiosity, I suppose. And how the heck do you get a digital clock to stay stuck on the same numbers?

But despite my complaints here, I did enjoy the story overall and look forward to reading more from Scott Nicholson. Be sure to read my interview with him.

Click here to buy the paperback or Kindle version.from Amazon
Click here to buy the PDF version from DriveThruHorror.com (Read part of the 1st chapter for free)
Click here to buy all other versions from Smashwords.com (Read Chapters 1 – 3 for free)
Click here to visit the Author’s website
Click here to buy a signed trade paperback

No Date for Gomez! is a prequel novella to the No Hope for Gomez! series. It is a complete and stand-alone story. No Hope for Gomez! is now available from Amazon.
Price: Free
Author Bio: Graham Parke is responsible for a number of technical publications and has recently patented a self-folding map. He has been described as both a humanitarian and a pathological liar. Convincing evidence to support either allegation has yet to be produced.

No Hope for Gomez! is Graham’s fiction debut. You can visit his website at www.grahamparke.com.

***

When Graham Parke sent me an email requesting a review of No Date for Gomez!, my initial inclination was to turn him down. The description of his novella didn’t quite appeal to me, and neither did the cover. (I know, I know, don’t judge a digital book by its cover*.) But since I like to give authors a chance to win me over, I looked to see if by chance there was a preview of the first chapter to read. (I like to read a snippet of any book before I pass final judgment.) To my surprise, the entire ebook was a freebie! I downloaded the PDF version, figuring I’d read the first few paragraphs, hate them, and thus feel no guilt in sending a kindly rejection email.

But the first sentence got me interested, so I read more, then a little more, and by the time I finished the first chapter–a mere 2½ pages later–I was hopelessly hooked. I had planned to do some productive work on the computer (paying bills, working on taxes, etc.), but instead I spent the next hour or so reading the entire story, smiling and laughing practically the entire time. No Date for Gomez!is absolutely hilarious.

Gomez is a nerdy, nice guy (sort of like Peter Parker at the beginning of Spider-Man, before he gets his spidey superpowers) who is completely clueless when it comes to people of the female persuasion. He falls for the beautiful new girl in his building, Gretchen, and immediately tries to come up with schemes to get her to go out with him. His priority is to show her how cool he is, so that when he gets around to asking her out, she’ll say yes. Unfortunately, he becomes tongue-tied whenever he runs into her, so their conversations typically go something like this:

I could remember talking to people. Knowing the kinds of things one said in polite conversation. I could remember making people think and laugh. But, at that very moment, I couldn’t put my finger on any of the words one might use when running into a fellow human being in a hallway.

Gretchen smiled and said, “Hi!”

Which was one of the words one might use.

“How are you doing today?”

Which, I now recalled, was a bunch of others.

Gomez soon becomes convinced Gretchen is annoyed with him, which turns out to be true, but not for the reasons he imagines. My only confusion after finishing the novella was that the dark secret Gretchen is hiding isn’t revealed or even hinted at. When I asked Parke about that, he said that there is more to come. I can’t wait!

No Date for Gomez! is the most fun read I’ve had in a long time. Do yourself a favor; turn off the depressing news, skip the latest episode of Lost, and read this instead. It’ll put you in a better mood.

Click here to download No Date for Gomez!
Click here to visit Graham Parke’s website
Click here for a chance to receive a free signed, printed copy of No Date for Gomez!

*Update: Parke provided a new cover that I like better; that’s the one posted here. 

***

Mr. Darcy Broke My Heart isn’t your typical paperback romance, and for this reason alone I loved it. First of all, the heroine, Claire Prescott, isn’t perfect. Through the course of the novel she realizes her own frailties and flaws and by the end of the book she has made steps towards becoming a better person. She doesn’t blame everyone else for her problems. She learns that having a dashing “Mr. Darcy” sweep her off her feet doesn’t heal all hurts, nor does it rescue her from the realities of life. Her character’s motives and actions rang true for me, and it was refreshing to read a romance that didn’t espouse the notion that all a woman needs is a rich, handsome guy to magically wave away her neurosis by marrying her.

The secondary storyline, that of Claire meeting a slightly daft elderly woman, Harriet Dalrymple, whose greatest secret is ownership of the original First Impressions manuscript (which was destroyed after Jane Austen reworked it into Pride and Prejudice), was a delightful twist in the story. Pattillo imagines how the original plot may have differed from the story we all know, and treats us to her version. I was just as interested as Claire in reading the scraps of manuscript pages doled out to her over the course of a week’s time. For me it was a fun diversion from the main story; for laire it helped provide insight into how her life got off track and the motivation to correct it.

Amidst Claire trying to help Harriet with the secret manuscript and becoming ever more attracted to the dashing James Beaufort, her boyfriend unexpectedly shows up, threatening to ruin the little house of cards she’s built for herself during her week-long excursion in Oxford. Claire has to figure out what to do with an angry boyfriend when she’s got a chance to snag a Mr. Darcy of her own. I was completely satisfied at her solution—and the conclusion of the novel itself.

Overall, Mr. Darcy Broke My Heart is a fun and breezy read. I loved the humor and the light-hearted tone. The only thing I didn’t like is that due to my schedule I could read it only in bits and pieces over the course of a month. I hated having to put it down to attend to more pressing matters–I felt like Claire having to wait for the forgetful Harriet to find another section of the First Impressions manuscript! I recommend this book, especially if you’re tired of reading the same old retread romances.

Click here to order Mr. Darcy Broke My Heart
Click here to visit Beth Pattillo’s website

***

In The Side-Yard Superhero, Rick Niece recalls his childhood friendship with Bernie Jones, a boy in a wheelchair who is confined not only by his own body, but by the limitations imposed by the 1950’s and 60’s small-town society. When Niece becomes a paperboy in DeGraff, Ohio, population 900, one of his customers is Bernie Jones’ parents. Bernie doesn’t attend school–special needs children had few opportunities for education in those days–but he does spend a lot of time sitting outside in his wheelchair. Niece is afraid of Bernie at first, and has a disasterous first meeting with him. But after a pep talk from his father, Niece takes the inititive to try again, and so begins a long friendship. After Niece leaves for college, he loses track of Bernie. Decades later, he discovers where Bernie is, and sets out to see him, as the happy and bittersweet memories come flooding back.

I admit to being predisposed to like The Side-Yard Superhero, simply because I grew up in a small town myself (and still live here.) But even if you didn’t grow up in a small town, this book is a delight to read. The Side-Yard Superhero is a mixture of humor, adventure, and memorable characters. Rick Niece has fond memories of the people and events that shaped his childhood, and it shows through the way he tells his story. Although the main theme of the book is Niece’s friendship with Bernie Jones, many chapters describe other people Niece grew to know during the years he delivered newspapers. One such person was Fern Burdette, a “brassiere wearing, hard drinking, wooden leg walking, frequent spitting, world interesting” retired newspaper jounalist whose best friend was a dalmation named Duke. Another was Miss Lizzie Moore, a recluse whose fiancé had been killed in France during World War I. Then there was Mary Waite, an invalid who requested Niece read the obituaries to her when he delivered the paper. These and other colorful characters weave through Niece’s tales of childhood exploits and revelations of universal truths.

Funny and poignant, The Side-Yard Superhero is well written, and my only quibble is that the chapters aren’t perfectly chronological. For instance, one chapter takes place during Niece’s teenage years, while the following chapter takes place during his childhood. This made me a bit confused at times, because afterwards I wasn’t always sure of his age when he started a new tale in a new chapter. However, I can’t think of a better way he could have organized the chapters/stories, so I really have no cause to complain.

Niece calls his book an “automythography” which he defines as “A work of nonfiction that looks reflectively at what we think we remember and how we think we remember it; an iridescent memory based upon truth and fact.” Whether or not everything happened exactly as Nieice recalls it, he tells it well, and I loved reading his “iridescent” version of life in DeGraff. I highly recommend reading it.