Spore by Tamara Jones
Samhain Publishing (June 2015)
266 pages, e-book $4.24, paperback $15.99
Reviewed by Frank Michael Errington
The author started her academic career as a science geek, earned a degree in art, and, when she’s not making quilts or herding cats, writes tense thrillers as Tamara Jones and the award-winning Dubric Byerly Mysteries series (Bantam Spectra), as Tamara Siler Jones. Despite the violent nature of her work, Tam’s easygoing and friendly. Not sick or twisted at all. Honest.
Sean Casey is just an ordinary guy trying to get by as an artist for the Graphic Novel Ghoulies. He and his longtime girlfriend, Mare, live in Pinell, Iowa right by the Hobson Holiday Farm. What comes out of the farm on a Sunday morning in July will change their lives forever.
Spore is one of those novels filled with extraordinary circumstances, but with completely believable reactions. There is so much going on in this story. People long dead, living again. Children being abducted, tortured, and killed. The twenty-year-old secret behind most of what is occurring, finally seeing the light of day.
The characters are so well conceived and brought to life brilliantly. Some you can love and want to become friends with, others are so sick you just want to kill them yourself. I particularly liked the fight scene between Mare and Sean’s overbearing mother, Helene. Brilliant.
Spore is like a really good B-Movie filled with twists I never saw coming and an unforgettable ending.
Highly recommended.
