The Exorcist’s House: Genesis by Nick Roberts
Crystal Lake Publishing (September 2024)
Reviewed by Rowan B. Minor
Writer and educator Nick Roberts is a West Virginia native who currently resides in South Carolina. He holds a doctorate from Marshall University and is an active member of the Horror Writers Association and the Horror Authors Guild. Roberts has had work featured in several publications, such as The Fiction Pool, The Blue Mountain Review, Falling Star Magazine, Stonecrop Magazine, and Haunted MTL. His books include one self-published novel: Anathema (2020), and four titles from Crystal Lake Publishing: Mean Spirited (2024), It Haunts the Mind & Other Stories (2023), and The Exorcist’s House (2022), for which the sequel, The Exorcist’s House: Genesis (2024), has just been published. Continue Reading
Everyone’s a critic these days, but within the literary universe, the art of critiquing is no task for the meek. Dissecting the nuts-and-bolts of what makes a story work — or not — takes a trained eye. There are miles of distance between a one-star stinker and a five-star phenomenon, and recognizing those differences requires the work of the assertive; those unafraid to flay the flesh from characters and dig deep into the viscera of influences and motives, or to call out those narrative plot holes big enough to drive a truck through. It’s the business of Rick Hipson and the like, shored up by chops that take decades of commitment to develop. Or 
“B.I.R.D.S.”
