Officially Underway!

I'm sure you noticed the wonderful graphic provided by my publicist, Erin Al-Mehairi from Hook of a Book, on the previous post. Well, now there's an official tour page posted as well. You can check it out over at the Hook of a Book website. Also, feel free to check out the Publicity page above for the confirmed dates as well.

If you want to follow along on Facebook and Twitter, just watch for and use the hashtags #Consequences or #SummerofConsequences. If you'd like to be a part of the tour, offering a review or hosting a guest article, or whatever you think would help, make sure to email Erin at hookofabook@hotmail.com and put "Consequences Publicity Request" in the subject line.

Up next, I'll have a guest article up at Shane D. Keene's Shotgun Logic (Tuesday, 7/12), followed by a review from Angela over at Horror Maiden's Reviews on the 29th, so be sure to check them out, and watch for more awesomeness to come as the Summer of Consequences tour continues!

Summer of Consequences: Review at The Haunted Reading Room / Mallory Heart Reviews

The Summer of Consequences publicity tour continues! Thanks to Mallory Heart Reviews / The Haunted Reading Room for this awesome 5 star review for Consequences!

"A well-written, well-executed, well-played novel, a horror-thriller, coming-of-age, first-love-blossoming, rural redneck insanity, CONSEQUENCES is a biting, gory, thrill-a-minute roller coaster ride in which the suspense never lets up."

Check out the full review here, and be sure to keep checking back for more dates on the Summer of Consequences!

Also, thanks to Erin over at Hook of a Book for the awesome tour graphic!

A Horror / Western Masterpiece

I seem to be doing a lot of book reviews lately instead of making actual blog posts, but that's because there's not a lot to report and I've been doing a lot of reading in my spare time. Today's a treat, though!

Here is my review of Kristopher Rufty's latest, Seven Buried Hill.

Kristopher Rufty has managed to find a distinctive voice when he writes. In the same way I can listen to a song and recognize Eric Clapton or Slash or Keith Richards as the guitarist, I can read an excerpt of writing and just know it’s Rufty. That distinct voice means whatever he puts out will most likely be good, which is why I tend to snatch it up within the first week of its release.

His latest, Seven Buried Hill, is no exception. I will admit to being curious and slightly worried once I realized that it would be a western-themed horror novel, and wondered if the setting would prohibit the signature Rufty style from shining through. Once I finished it, I was pleased to discover my worries were completely unfounded.

Henry Hardin was an outlaw, once upon a time. The longer he did it, the more he realized how much he was risking his life, so he’s out of the business, trying to take honest jobs for a change to reform his ways. Catherine Dalton is heiress to one of the largest tobacco plantations in North Carolina. When her father goes missing and the law won’t help her, she turns to Hardin for help. With his “boys”, Red, Pete, Drippy, and Charlie, Catherine herself, and Catherine’s effeminate fiancé Everett, the posse heads out looking for Papa Dalton. Unfortunately, they find something else, something worse, something that not all of them will survive.

The story owes as much to The Hills Have Eyes as it does to The Unforgiven, or even established horror westerns like Bone Tomahawk. The tone actually feels like the old west, even though it was set in the east. Thankfully, Rufty avoids the stereotype of making Indians the bad guys, and even shows a bit of acceptance through some of the characters for the Native Americans and their way of life. And the moments of tension—of which there are many—are suitably gripping and kept me turning the pages.

Henry and his boys are well crafted, with distinct personalities that shine through on the page. Catherine seems at first like the cookie-cutter “girl trying to prove herself in a man’s world”, then you get to go a little deeper into her thoughts and realize that she’s considerably more faceted than you first assume. Hardin himself, who could easily fall into another tried and true stereotype, manages to show real depth of character as he tries to maintain his hardened exterior while falling under Catherine’s charms.

In fact, if there’s one character here who seemed a bit under-developed, it was Charlie. He tended to wear his motivations on his sleeve, meaning the reader could see what was coming with him long 

before it actually happened. His fate was exceptionally satisfying, so this one was easily overlooked.

Where the story shines, though, is in the villains of the tale. They’re sick and twisted, make no mistake about that, but one can actually see the reasoning and logic behind why they act the way they do, even if there’s no question they went much too far with it. The sympathy they manage to evoke even made me wonder by the end whether I was wrong to feel nothing but sympathy for how things ended for them.

Overall, this is a shining example of Rufty at his best, weaving a story that sucks you in and makes you feel like you’re actually living it. It’s no accident that he’s one of my favorite modern horror authors, and a major influence on my own writing as well. If you haven’t picked it up yet, don’t hold back. Just prepare yourself for a thrill ride of a horror western as it plays across the screen of your imagination.

5/5 Stars

You can find Seven Buried Hill on Amazon here.

How To Defy Classification: A Review of Jeff Strand's Novel: Blister

Since I started reading this sometime this morning and couldn't put the thing down until I was finished, I figured I'd do a quick review of Jeff Strand's latest novel, Blister.

Jeff Strand has a tendency to be a strange sort of author. Trying to put his books into one category is an exercise in futility, since he has a knack for blurring the lines between the genres he writes in. Blister is no exception. At parts horror, crime thriller, sarcastic humor, and sweet love story, it's hard to tell precisely where this one falls on the spectrum.

Ultimately, however, none of that matters, because the story is wonderful, and that's all that really matters.

Jason is a cartoonist who gets sent to his agent's cabin in rural Georgia after doing something foolhardy to retaliate against neighborhood kids being mean to his dog. While there, he hears about the local legend: a girl they call Blister, horribly disfigured five years ago, who lives in a shed behind her father's house. Jason's really a nice guy at heart, though, and he gradually makes friends with Blister, whose real name is Rachel. As he gets to know her, he also discovers that this little town has secrets, and they are terribly bad at keeping them.

I won't get into much detail, since I don't want to spoil the story for anyone else, but when even the characters occasionally think they're living in a farce, you know things are getting interesting.

On full display is Strand's trademark humor, which like my own tends toward the sarcastic and ironic, which meant I laughed out loud more than once, occasionally at times where I wasn't really sure laughter was called for. The story was well-crafted, revealing a lot of the needed backstory without getting bogged down or losing its pace. These are characters you can't help but care about, and at times I found myself wanting to hang out with them and have a beer or something. There's enough twists and turns as the third act kicks into high gear to keep you wondering what's going to happen next, and when the ending finally came around I was both satisfied and sad, wishing I could spend a little more time with these folks.

If you've read Strand's work before, you'll definitely want to take a look at this one, and if you haven't this is a great place to start. Highly recommended!