Recent Updates and Currently Reading | July 1

Somehow the year is half way over already. I was looking at my 2017 reading goals last week and wow, my progress has been terrible. Thankfully I'm ahead of my Goodreads challenge. I've read no non-fiction and my pre-2017 TBR remains unread although I am currently reading Dan Simmons' Summer of Night from my shelves, and I'm about to reread IT which will count, too.

If you've been thinking about reading Stephen King's IT before the movie comes out, author Daniel Kraus is doing a 10 week readalong/discussion over at The Booklist Reader. A lot of folks are planning to join in. It should be pretty awesome. Check it out and join us.

Posted Last Week

Book Review | No Mercy by Alessandro Manzetti
Book Review | Skitter by Ezekiel Boone

Read Last Week

After reading No Mercy I needed a palate cleanser. Edith Wharton's Summer did just the trick.

Review Copies

BEHOLD! Oddities, Curiosities and Undefinable Wonders edited by Doug Murano - This list of writers says it all: Clive Barker, John Langan, Neil Gaiman, Ramsey Campbell, Lisa Morton, Brian Kirk, Hal Bodner, Stephanie M. Wytovich, Erinn Kemper, John F.D. Taff, Patrick Freivald, Lucy Snyder, Brian Hodge, Kristi DeMeester, Christopher Coake, Sarah Read, and Richard Thomas. With a foreword by Josh Malerman.

A Life Removed by Jason Parent - I've had my eye on Jason Parent's books for a while now, and I'm excited to finally check one out. He's traditionally a horror writer, but this one looks more like a crime thriller.

An Angel Fallen by Andy Graham - Sometimes a book simply has me at "horror novella".

Current Distractions

Seriously, I dropped everything last week for GLOW. It's on Netflix, and it's incredible.

So what about you? Let me know what you're reading (or watching) this week or leave me some links!

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This post is being shared as part of Book Date's It's Monday! What Are You Reading?, Tynga's Reviews' Stacking the Shelves, and Caffeinated Book Reviewer's The Sunday Post.

Book Review | Skitter by Ezekiel Boone

Skitter is the second book in The Hatching series by Ezekiel Boone.

Tens of millions of people around the world are dead. Half of China is a nuclear wasteland. Mysterious flesh-eating spiders are marching through Los Angeles, Oslo, Delhi, Rio de Janeiro, and countless other cities. According to scientist Melanie Guyer, however, the spider situation seems to be looking up. Yet in Japan, a giant, truck-sized, glowing egg sack gives a shocking preview of what is to come, even as survivors in Los Angeles panic and break the quarantine zone. Out in the desert, survivalists Gordo and Shotgun are trying to invent a spider super weapon, but it’s not clear if it’s too late, because President Stephanie Pilgrim has been forced to enact the plan of last resort: The Spanish Protocol. America, you are on your own.

My experience with The Hatching series is sooo weird! I hate spiders, but I can't stop reading these books!

I'm going to jump right in and say I enjoyed Skitter even more than The Hatching.

Skitter upped the creep factor, but it's still very readable for those of us who do not enjoy the spiders. (Who does enjoy spiders? I'm not sure we can be friends.) I think the whole "black wave" of The Hatching and the size of the spiders really helps. Oddly enough, I appreciate a mass of spiders more than the singular creepy crawly. There are more to these spiders than we have previously known, though. I'm super freaked out about the next book. I'm sure I won't hesitate to read it, though.

I really enjoyed the science in Skitter. I was reminded of Crichton a couple of times, and I would love to keep seeing more of that.

If you enjoyed The Hatching, I'm sure you will enjoy Skitter, as well. It's a solid sequel that does a great job setting up the next book in the series.

7/10: Recommended Read

Review copy provided by publisher

Book Review | No Mercy by Alessandro Manzetti

No Mercy is a collection of horror poetry from Alessandro Manzetti.

From the Bram Stoker Award-winning poet that brought you Eden Underground...

The Lady in Black shows no mercy to anyone; she has cold skin, a job to do, and many lovers on Earth: Despair, Loneliness, Madness, and their soldiers and killers of daily life, armed with blades, hammers, teeth, and illusions. There are strange and bloody stories that tell all about it, if you want to hear them…

Are you sure? Well, you’ve found the right place, but consider that in turning these pages you’ll be thrown forward through time, until you reach the Apocalypse—the last stop.

So, like the Lady in Black, show yourself no mercy—sit down and read these stories, listening to Janis Joplin with a bottle of Southern Comfort cradled in your arm.

Don’t worry, you’ll find both of them inside this book, along with so many other dark pleasures.

No Mercy is dedicated to the late, great Janis Joplin. Some of these poems placed me right into Port Arthur, Texas and "the smell of river and summer". I had to look up where Alessandro Manzetti is from to find out if he is simply that big of a Janis Joplin fan or if he is actually from my part of the world. It turns out he lives in Italy.

I cannot claim to be an authority on poetry. I love reading it when I come across it, but I've never really made an effort to seek out modern poetry. I used to subscribe to a lot of fiction magazines (mostly horror) and that's where I've been exposed to most of the modern poetry that I have read save for a few anthologies that have included them. My personal feeling toward poetry is that it should evoke some sort of emotion from the reader. Perhaps I only feel that way because all of my favorite poems have done that, and as I stated, I'm not any kind of an authority on what poetry should or should not do.

For me, No Mercy was very successful in evoking emotion. For that, I think it is a wonderful collection. Unfortunately, the emotions it evoked for me were not pleasant. I feel like No Mercy did it's job, but I wasn't the perfect audience.

No Mercy is a perfect title, I suppose; it's a very bleak collection.

I have no doubt there is an audience that will connect with all of the poems in No Mercy, and it will be a solid collection for those readers. If you look at the ugliness of horror and see beauty, you might be the right fit. I look at horror as something to overcome. I see horror as a balance to the light. It's more of a source of entertainment for me than something I try to internalize. I don't want to dissuade anyone from reading this collection, though, because your mileage certainly could vary.

6/10: Good Read

Review copy provided by publisher

Recent Updates and Currently Reading | June 23

I missed posting an update last weekend. I think I was in "I don't want to because it's summer!" mode. This week has been dreary and rainy so I've had much more success on the reading front. I had some time off of work due to tropical storm Cindy so I was even able to catch up on some blog tasks and reviews.

Posted Last Week

Book Review | In the Valley of the Sun by Andy Davidson

Read Last Week

I've been starting more books lately than I have been finishing. I did, however, finish both Skitter and No Mercy this past week. In a move very unlike me, I have already written reviews for them so expect to see those soon.

Review Copies

No Mercy by Alessandro Manzetti - I dove straight into this one and finished it already. It's a horror poetry collection. How could I say no to that? Impossible!

Sea of Rust by C. Robert Cargill - I have no words for how much I want to read Cargill's latest book. He told me at Comicpalooza that this one is pure scifi. All that's left are the robots and now it's time for them to start killing each other. SIGN. ME. UP.

Everything That's Underneath: A Collection of Weird and Horror Tales by Kristi DeMeester - Everything That’s Underneath, Kristi DeMeester’s debut powerful horror collection, is full of weird, unsettling tales that recalls the styles of such accomplished storytellers as Laird Barron and Tom Piccirilli.

Ugly Little Things by Todd Keisling - I became a big fan of Todd Keisling after reading The Final Reconciliation. I'm looking forward to reading this collection of stories.

Entertaining Demons by Daniel I. Russell - A teenage girl is staring in a reality TV show about a paranormal investigation. I'm a complete sucker for hauntings so I will be giving this one a try.

Current Distractions

I have started watching Under the Dome on my lunch hour. Even though it is Stephen King, I haven't actually read the book. I will eventually.

I know my TV choices are weird right now! Hubs and I never really got into Game of Thrones back in the day so we've decided to start over from the beginning. We both know not to get attached to any of the characters.

Our summer of board games has continued with the last couple of weeks being mostly about Roll for It and Uno. My favorite thing about Roll for It is you can combine both editions and play up to 8 players. This works really well for our family of 5.

So what about you? Let me know what you're reading (or playing) this week or leave me some links!

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This post is being shared as part of Book Date's It's Monday! What Are You Reading?, Tynga's Reviews' Stacking the Shelves, and Caffeinated Book Reviewer's The Sunday Post.

Book Review | In the Valley of the Sun by Andy Davidson

In the Valley of the Sun is Andy Davidson's debut horror novel.

For readers of Joe Hill, Cormac McCarthy, and classic Anne Rice, a chilling tale of suspense and horror set deep in the Texas desert.

Travis Stillwell spends his nights searching out women in West Texas honky-tonks. What he does with them doesn’t make him proud, just quiets the demons for a little while. But his nights soon take a terrifying turn in a desert cantina, where Travis crosses paths with a mysterious pale-skinned girl in red boots. Come the morning, he wakes weak and bloodied in his cabover camper, no sign of a girl, no memory of the night before.

Annabelle Gaskin spies the camper parked behind her rundown motel and offers the disheveled cowboy inside a few odd jobs to pay his board. Travis takes her up on the offer, if only to buy time, to lay low, to heal. By day, he mends the old motel, insinuating himself into the lives of Annabelle and her ten-year-old son. By night, in the cave of his camper, he fights an unspeakable hunger. Before long, Annabelle and her boy come to realize that this strange cowboy they’ve taken in is not what he seems.

Half a state away, a grizzled Texas ranger is hunting Travis down for his past misdeeds, but what he finds will lead him to a revelation far more monstrous than he could ever imagine. A man of the law, he’ll have to decide how far into the darkness he’ll go for the sake of justice.

When these lives converge on a dusty autumn night, an old evil will find new life—and new blood.

Deftly written and utterly compelling, this is an atmospheric literary fiction debut perfect for fans of horror, psychological suspense, and Western fiction.

In the Valley of the Sun reminds me of my experience with The Girl with All the Gifts. I went into it not knowing what kind of horror book it was, and my experience was much better for it. In the Valley of the Sun never actually names the horror so I'm not going to either. My hope is that you will give it a chance without finding out too much about it. It's a really great book, but it's a great experience, too. One of my favorite things about In the Valley of the Sun was the slow unveiling of what was really going on.

In the Valley of the Sun is scary, too. I was so nervous for everyone, even the villains. Only the best of horror novels can make you love the villains, and In the Valley of the Sun is one of those books.

As much as I love the horrors in In the Valley of the Sun, every bit of the credit goes to Andy Davidson's writing. This book is so well written and so well crafted. He has given us a really beautiful addition to an old horror myth, and I could not be more excited about it.

This has been an amazing year for horror releases, and you will definitely see In the Valley of the Sun on my best of list for the year (maybe even in the top spot).

9/10: Highly Recommended

Review copy provided by publisher