Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories ReviewsLeave a comment on Review: The Maker’s Box by David Barclay 
The Maker’s Box by David Barclay
9 Swords (March 2022)
89 pages; $6.99 paperback; $3.99 e-book
Reviewed by Haley Newlin
Stephen King’s dreamscape fantasy Rose Madder meets the precise cleverness of Richard Chizmar’s Gwendy’s series in The Maker’s Box.
I’d never read anything from Barclay before The Maker’s Box, but now I’m blood-thirsty for more. Continue Reading
Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories Reviews, The Comic Vault1 Comment on Review: The Scarecrow Man by Miguel Goncalves 
The Scarecrow Man by Miguel Goncalves
Dark Pine Publishing (September 2023)
40 pages; $4.75 paperback; $0.00 e-book
Reviewed by Haley Newlin
Do you dare enter the Scarecrow Show?
From the pages of Devil’s Reject (by Dark Pine Publishing) comes Miguel Goncalves’s short story, “The Scarecrow Man,” where the line between reality and nightmare blurs into a devilish dance of psychological horror and crime fiction. As I devoured this debut, I couldn’t shake the echoes of Robert Bloch’s Psycho and A24’s cinematic masterpiece Pearl. Continue Reading
Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories ReviewsLeave a comment on Review: Vampires of El Norte by Isabel Cañas 
Vampires of El Norte by Isabel Cañas
Berkley (August 2023)
371 pages; $19.58 hardcover; $14.99 e-book; $20.25 audiobook
Reviewed by Haley Newlin
Some things are too precious to lose.
Nena and Nestor were inseparable as children. They even shared their first kiss. To Nena, Nestor’s voice is like coming home, but her father wishes to marry her to a wealthy rancher’s son to acquire more land for the family.
She didn’t always dread the idea of marriage, not when she envisioned it with Nestor.Continue Reading
Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories ReviewsLeave a comment on Review: Silver Nitrate by Silvia Moreno-Garcia Reviewed by Haley Newlin
Silvia Moreno-Garcia makes her much-anticipated return to horror (after Mexican Gothic) with her latest release, Silver Nitrate. It wasn’t just the Twilight Zone and Psycho-reminiscent imagery on the cover that pushed me to read Silver Nitrate; it was also because of its emphasis on oldies horror in the same vein as Hammer films and the rare chance to learn about Nazism in Mexico.
Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories ReviewsLeave a comment on Review: The Unhallowed Horseman by Jude S. Walko 
The Unhallowed Horseman by Jude S. Walko
Blue Falcon Productions LLC (Oct. 2021)
319 pages; $25.67 hardcover; $14.99 paperback; $3.99 e-book
Reviewed by Haley Newlin
“Villainy wears many masks, none so dangerous as the mask of virtue” – Washington Irving
Jude S. Walko’s The Unhallowed Horseman scrupulously reimagines the infamous tale of a silent secluded valley, a place laced with superstition and scandal, called Sleepy Hollow. Continue Reading
Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories ReviewsLeave a comment on Review: Looking Glass Sound by Catriona Ward 
Looking Glass Sound by Catriona Ward
Tor Nightfire (August 8, 2023)
352 pages; $25.19 hardcover; $20.53 paperback; $14.99 e-book
Reviewed by Haley Newlin
Catriona Ward lures readers with charming coming-of-age humor and strife in her latest novel, Looking Glass Sound, reminiscent of Stephen King’s “The Body.”
Those who’ve read Ward’s previous work, Little Eve and The Last House on Needless Street (favorites of mine), know the loveable and exciting are a facade. And the truth, particularly a harsh one, leaves readers black with poison, bitten by the spider, trapped in her intricate web. Twitching with metaphysical dread, desperate for answers.Continue Reading
Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories ReviewsLeave a comment on Review: Dead of Winter by Darcy Coates 
Dead of Winter by Darcy Coates
Poisoned Pen Press (July 11, 2023)
352 pages; $14.39 paperback; $4.99 e-book
Reviewed by Haley Newlin
Darcy Coates upholds her reputation as a deft storyteller with a knack for conjuring atmospheric page-turners in her latest release, Dead of Winter, “an icy homage to Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None.” Continue Reading
Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories ReviewsLeave a comment on Review: Graveyard of Lost Children by Katrina Monroe 
Graveyard of Lost Children by Katrina Monroe
Poisoned Pen Press (May 2023)
368 pages; $15.17 paperback; e-book $6.49
Reviewed by Haley Newlin
Katrina Monroe has done it again.
Much like in her debut, They Drown Our Daughters, Monroe’s latest release, a modernized and stylish gothic grim, Graveyard of Lost Children doesn’t just scare. It lurks, prods, then manifests into a hellish dreamscape where reality bends and breaks. And it all starts with the skull-splitting cry of life of a baby.Continue Reading
Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories ReviewsLeave a comment on Review: Mothered by Zoje Stage 
Mothered by Zoje Stage
Thomas & Mercer (March 2023)
318 pages; $19.15 hardcover; $12.78 paperback; e-book $2.49
Reviewed by Haley Newlin
Zoje Stage’s latest release, Mothered, festers with feverish delirium.
Paper dolls can’t speak for themselves. They can’t escape the shears slicing through their limbs nor the violent grasp of their manipulator. That’s what life was like for Grace. Her chronically ill twin sister, Hope, was sickly pale with a delicate dust of warm freckles across her cheeks. Her smile fooled their mother, Jackie, and just about everyone else, but Grace knew that a glee-ridden Hope spelled trouble. Continue Reading
Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories ReviewsLeave a comment on Review: Mouth Full of Ashes by Briana Morgan 
Mouth Full of Ashes by Briana Morgan
Independently Published (October 2021)
158 pages; $9.99; $2.99 ebook; $14.95 audiobook
Reviewed by Haley Newlin
“Dear Diary, my teen-angst bullshit now has a body count.” – Heathers
I’m not typically into vampire stories, except for Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot and Bela Lugosi’s performance in Dracula.
However, Briana Morgan’s Mouth Full of Ashes dismembers supernatural horror and dark, campy teen film to conjure something scheming and bloody. Continue Reading
Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories ReviewsLeave a comment on Review: Whatever Remains Of Us In The End by Brandon Baker 
Whatever Remains Of Us In The End by Brandon Baker
Independently Published (March 2023)
132 pages; $10.99 paperback; $2.99 e-book
Reviewed by Haley Newlin
Power comes at a price in Brandon Baker’s Whatever Remains Of Us In The End, a supernatural thriller looming with feverish occult practices, the classic horror trope of “how far will you go to save those you love,” and lucid imagery reminiscent of the pulp horror era. Continue Reading
Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories ReviewsLeave a comment on Review: All The Living And The Dead by Hayley Campbell 
All the Living and the Dead: From Embalmers to Executioners, an Exploration of the People Who Have Made Death Their Life’s Work by Hayley Campbell
St. Martin’s Press (August 2022)
288 pages; $21.49; $19.00 paperback; $14.99 e-book
Reviewed by Haley Newlin
None of us are born with the knowledge of death. We have to stumble upon a fallen bird fluttering its wings, desperate to live. Or we lose a grandparent, a sibling, a classmate, and someone breaks the news: the deceased, those “in a better place,” won’t, can’t, ever come back.
The author of All the Living and the Dead, Hayley Campbell, couldn’t pinpoint the moment she learned of death. She tells readers she can’t recall a time before death, stating, “Death was just there, everywhere, always.”Continue Reading
Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories ReviewsLeave a comment on Review: A Lovely Girl by Deborah Holt Larkin 
A Lovely Girl: The Tragedy of Olga Duncan and the Trial of One of California’s Most Notorious Killers by Deborah Holt Larkin
Pegasus Crime (October 2022)
528 pages; $21.60 hardcover; $18.99 ebook
Reviewed by Haley Newlin
From the iconic mothers in horror fiction, like Norman Bates’ tormenting, ever-invasive mother, Norma, and Stephen King’s evangelically evil Margaret White from Carrie, to real-world terrifying tales of mommy dearests, motherhood captivates audiences. Continue Reading
Human Monsters: A Horror Anthology edited by Sadie Hartmann & Ashley Saywers
Dark Matter INK (October 2022)
376 pages; $19.99 paperback; $6.99 ebook
Reviewed by Haley Newlin
There’s something incredibly profound about horror anthologies. Organizers and editors decide on one bloodied but beating heart that thrums aching, booming life into stories. But it is the minds of the authors — those who conjure the devilish indulgences, the unquestioned yet morally gray, ahem, black methods of group leaders, and the deceiving nature of the desperate, and who reveal the snapping jowls of humanity — that give collections such as Human Monsters breath and mobility. Continue Reading
Author Cemetery Dance OnlinePosted on Categories ReviewsLeave a comment on Review: What Lies In The Woods by Kate Alice Marshall 
What Lies In The Woods by Kate Alice Marshall
Flat Iron Books (January 2023)
336 pages; $26.09 Hardcover, e-book $14.99
Reviewed by Haley Newlin
Little girls follow adventure. There’s a wilderness to them, as Kate Alice says in What Lies In The Woods. The local woods was the heart of Naomi, Cass, and Olivia’s childhood fantasies…and nightmares. Among the trees, they created a mystical game, “The Goddess Game,” which guided their lives, fate, and friendship. It was their secret, one they only shared with someone who could never speak the truth. Continue Reading
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