Chanticleer Book Reviews

Tag: Horror

TWISTED by Steve Mullaney – Psychological Thriller, Internet Crime, Horror

In Twisted, Steve Mullaney gives readers a tale of fear, cruelty, and perversion, involving those who lurk in the darkest corners of the internet.

Readers are first introduced to Derek, a man who roofies women in order to record his sexual activities with them for profit on the dark web. He runs a complete operation to peddle his illegal media, including ways to cover his identity and launder the money as well as maximize his profits through technical skills and better equipment to up his production quality.

Meanwhile, Ned, a philandering family man, gets an offer to work remotely for three weeks each month away from his family. At his new job, he gives in to temptation and starts a romantic relationship with a woman named Gina. This relationship will lead him to cross paths with Derek, and become entwined in his horrific world.

Mullaney explores themes of depravity and assault, and the consequences of such activities through the eyes of both victims and offenders. Readers walk through the systems of rationalization that even the vilest characters assemble to justify their actions.

Ned, the character who holds the point of view for most of the story, starts as a narcissist who cares for no one but himself. His self-centered ways are put to the test when their consequences fester to the point where he must deal with them whether he wants to or not.

Mullaney does a great job painting a grim picture of how business in the dark web functions, as well as providing believable details of how a man can hide the fact that he has a family and kids in another state while dating single women. At times, the details can feel gratuitous, but they add a strong sense of realism that heightens the horror aspect of this story.

Overall, Twisted will give readers a feeling of grime, leaving them to wonder if and how characters like Ned will pay for their actions.

Anyone looking for a trip along the darker wires of the web will find just that in the pages of Twisted. Mullaney has penned a delightfully ‘twisted’ thriller with serious bite that will drive readers page by page to the end.

October 28, 2022
Spotlight on the October Awards! Don’t be Afraid!
Adventure rises. Will you answer the call?

October is the best month to step out into an adventure. We have three scintillating Programs to Submit to:
- Ozma Awards for Fantasy
- Paranormal Awards for Supernatural Fiction
- Global Thrillers for High Stakes Suspense
This spooky month feels like the best time for stories that inspire us to dream of realities beyond imagining, and threats to the world that leave us white-knuckled and waiting for the conclusion. What better place to find your next reads and submit your work than the Chanticleer Int’l Book Awards!

Here are the Awards that are hungrier for your work than a horde of zombies.

Ozma Awards

Fantasy is that special world where anything can happen. We often go beyond Earth for this, looking into swords and sorcery, chosen ones and villains awash with power.

Start out with our 2021 Fantasy Grand Prize Winner A Plague of Flies by Laurel Anne Hill.

Excellent prose & description with an effective mingling of historical and fantasy elements. The tension is gripping and the pace is good.

Follow that up with From Brick and Darkness by J.L. Sullivan, a great YA Urban Fantasy.

A new Teen Favorite, this Urban Fantasy delves down passages of mythology and more when Bax Allen unwittingly unleashes a demon into the world.

And then you can wrap everything up with the 2020 Ozma Grand Prize Winner, Divinity’s Twilight by Christopher Russell.

In the epic space opera a group of cadets must face the bloody past of their world, threatened by age-old conflict, and change the course of empires. Highly recommended!

See the full list of 2021 Ozma Winners for Fantasy Fiction here.

Paranormal Awards

What goes bump in the night and who are the superheroes who face them? The supernatural genre often involves vampires, werewolves, angels, demons, and superheroes. The characters may begin as ordinary, but they soon discover they may be extraordinary or transformed to be more than human.

We would be remiss not to crow about J.W. Zarek’s The Devil Pulls the Strings. Reminiscent of Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files, this book took home the Overall Grand Prize Awards.

J. W. Zarek weaves magic on the page, developing an epic, urban fantasy – first in series – readers will want to stick with for a long time. Highly recommended.

The Insane God by Jay Hartlove brings back the cosmic horror of H.P. Lovecraft in his mystery led by a trans woman.

Sarah is cured of schizophrenia, only to face a battle with The Insane God. Her story balances humor, social issues like gender identity, and cosmic horror. Recommended!

And, of course, it never hurts to remember Stoker’s Dracula with a book like Suburban Vampire Ragnarok by Franklin Posner that won First Place in the Paranormal Awards.

Scott Campbell must face his divorce, job, and thirst for human blood, while caught in his fellow vampires’ political infighting. Recommended!

See the full list of 2021 Paranormal Winners for Supernatural Fiction here.

Global Thriller Awards

When you write a Global Thriller, you write about global consequences. The stakes are higher than ever before, whether or not this is a meticulously researched disease or a terrorist attack of epic proportions, you’ll want to read each one of these stories in one sitting.

Ron McManus’ The Chameleon won the 2021 Global Thriller Awards

Delightful to read with great development of story and characters. Clearly researched with a healthy dash of personal experience. A story to relish.

Then you have First Place Winner Mission: Angola by the prolific Randall Krzak. Anyone who needs a series would be wise to check this one out.

Xavier Sear is caught between dangerous factions and outnumbered in the first book of a new action-packed, tension-filled thriller series. Highly recommended!

For those who prefer more of an environmental story, check out A Divine Wind by Norman M. Jacobs, another First Place Winner.

See the full list of 2021 Global Thriller Winners for High Stakes Fiction here.

You Can’t Win if you Don’t Submit!

Enter the CIBAs today! Your book deserves to be discovered.
October 19, 2022
THE INSANE GOD by Jay Hartlove – Cosmic Horror, Paranormal Mystery, LGBT+ Fiction

Sarah, a transgender schizophrenic teenager, has spent the past seven years in a psychiatric ward. When all her symptoms of schizophrenia disappear after receiving a special necklace from a nurse, she must learn to live in a world that moved on without her, in The Insane God by Jay Hartlove.

She receives strange visions of two opposing gods in battle with each other, which Sarah and her brother Nate work together to understand. The reality of these visions threatens to endanger the lives of everyone on Earth unless they change the course of an eternal battle.

The Insane God touches on topics such as mental illness, mental health, gender identity, and racism.

While the author tells a complex story with these subjects, he doesn’t fully address them all to a satisfying degree.

What Hartlove does well with The Insane God is create a surreal horror novel. Sarah and Nate quickly accept their strange new reality, contending with surreal visions of these monster-like gods in a cataclysmic struggle of the cosmos. The Insane God will appeal to readers who like their expectations subverted.

Sarah shows remarkable strength in keeping herself together despite everything she has to endure. Because she is dealing with present and past struggles, her character development suffers within the confines of the story’s length and pace. The chapters that focus on Sarah generate the most interest through strong emotional engagement. Her gift is given by the necklace she wears; Sarah can just take it off and walk away from the conflict, but she chooses to face the gods, hoping that she can make a difference.

The Insane God is fast-paced, driving readers on with an excited curiosity to know what strange thing will happen next.

As the story reaches its climax and Sarah’s dreams are rapidly defying the laws of time and reason, it seems the threat is insurmountable. Will Sarah be able to fulfill her part in the workings of the universe? A strong current of humor balances this horror, even until the end.

Jay Hartlove’s The Insane God is a surreal science fiction journey that struggles at times to find its rhythm, but nevertheless tells an enthralling story like none other. Readers will be left wanting to see Sarah continue to grow, hoping that her story does not end here.

September 23, 2022
TOMORROW’s END (Book One) by G.R. Morris – Cyberpunk Sci-fi, Horror Literature & Fiction, Philosophy

A cosmic force of evil is rising, come to consume whole worlds and plunge them into darkness. Earth is next, and the only chance for humanity to survive is a pair of young, destined heroes who have no idea what dangers lurk in their future.

Kevin Knight is a sixteen-year-old savior, the warrior foretold in an alien prophecy who will combat the Dragon. He’s also afraid of the dark and suffers the routine abuse of his stepdad. Though his mother Sara insists her son will have a bright future, Kevin refuses to believe it until the day his life is shattered. Kevin comes face to face with aliens, monsters, and a staggering truth about humanity. He must follow Robert’s teachings, an alien Changeling who reveals just as much as he keeps hidden. Oh, Kevin must also face down the very forces of Hell.

At the same time, an orphaned Changeling girl named Daren tries to find her place amongst the children who shun her and the adults in her life who have anything but her best interests at heart. As Daren grows and stumbles into the powers of her species, her desires are simple: to protect her only friend, Thomas, and find a mysterious figure whose destiny is bound to hers. But the more powerful she becomes, the more significant her trials, and the danger surrounding her surrounds the orphanage as well. Can she muster her strength fast enough to keep the powers of darkness at bay?

The characters of Tomorrow’s End are vibrant, each one driven by their own desires and philosophies. Kevin and Daren’s stories are focused on their internal struggles, with the fate of the world resting on their shoulders. Kevin must decide who to trust when he’s surrounded by mysterious people and morally dubious mentors. Daren must make do with no teachers at all. In time, both Kevin and Daren fight against bombastic, over-the-top enemies with ties to demonic power.

G.R. Morris fills this story with fantastic descriptions. The aliens and monsters are painted with inventive designs, creating visuals that are wholly unique and distinctive. The creatures, in particular, and the places they come from are visceral depictions of roiling, hellish things, all cast in darkness. The villains of Tomorrow’s End are intensely evil characters who commit graphic violence against nearly everyone around them—even innocent children, which Morris never shies away from showing.

The characters create and break illusory worlds, intricately shown in displays of light and color. These surreal mindscapes help illustrate the thoughts and desires of those meeting within them. Despite all of the otherworldly imagery in this dark science fiction, the regular lives from which Kevin and Daren originate are built with just as much care. Within the settings, expansive action scenes stretch for pages on end, mixing advanced technology with dangerous supernatural power, creating fight scenes larger than life.

Tomorrow’s End sets up its bizarre settings quickly, giving the characters space to breathe and ask questions ─ and their questions abound. This story’s world is full of mysterious societies and convoluted plans that stretch back and forth through time, involving cosmic beings, societal control, and Matrix-like technological constructs. Morris painstakingly develops the storyline, and, at times, the pacing of the novel seems to slow a bit. Things pick back up when the villains make their appearance. Morris shows the turmoil of individual characters as they understand what they should do and who they should choose to be.

Tomorrow’s End centers on a philosophy of free will and choice in every conflict. Evil and good are chosen rather than innate, and situations that appear random are always driven by earlier choices. Kevin must choose truth and have faith in his own purpose if he will have any chance to win the battle against the darkness. Daren learns that she’ll have to fight, to be defiant if she wants to keep those around her safe. And they both will have to understand that belief can change reality, that the choice to suffer could teach them the lessons they need, and that it’s not always so easy to pick light over darkness. All in all, readers will more than likely line up for Book II!

March 13, 2021
SOUL SEEKER by Kaylin McFarren – Occult Horror, Paranormal Romance, Occult Fiction

The realms of demons and angels clash, as the possibility of romance, plunges the beings of Hell into chaos. Kaylin McFarren’s Soul Seeker follows the otherworldly set as they flee for their lives, uncover millennia-old secrets about one another, and face the possibility of love in a very dangerous world.

But first, the demon, Crighton, wreaks havoc on his human target, a man named Poe, devastating the man and his family. You could say, Crighton’s at home collecting wicked souls for his boss, Lucifer. His villain persona is put into question when he meets the angel, Ariel. At first, Crighton believes the angelic Ariel would make an excellent prize for the prince of darkness, as the demon is well aware that his master adores ruining pretty things. However, when an undeniable attraction emerges between them, they wrestle with each other, pitting strength against strength. Beware any who would do anything to tear these two apart—that would spell certain death.

McFarren leads us into Hell through the mechanisms of secret societies and across the earth’s crust, ever raising the stakes for her leading duo. Crighton and Ariel discover what a union between angel and demon truly means, and what has been conveniently left out of their histories.

Soul Seeker paints an intimate view of a supernatural world, seen through the eyes of characters who know it well—though not so well that there aren’t mysteries to yet uncover. In McFarren’s world, demons are more than just evil beings, but as those who suffer, desire, and ones with whom we empathize. More than any character, Crighton embodies the conflict between cruelty and mercy. Angels aren’t monolithic either. Indeed, McFarren portrays her cast of heavenly dwellers with their own doubts and failures that make them real and emotionally affecting characters, especially as Ariel learns that Crighton isn’t quite the monster she first sees him as.

Ariel and Crighton run through a thrilling and fast-paced narrative, full of ever-present tension and half-victories. The story keeps a brisk pace, and Kaylin McFarren builds on this momentum as the pages seem to turn by themselves, creating a sophisticated and remarkable otherworldly conclusion.

At its heart, this story is concerned with the personal thoughts and feelings of its characters. Crighton and Ariel become the emotional heart of the story as they slowly try to grow to accept each other, and change to meet their new challenges, but many of the characters are given space to grow and understand one another, providing a heartwarming journey alongside the fighting of demons, the family turmoil, and the enticing mysteries of Soul Seeker. In short, Kaylin McFarren has done it again! Those looking for a new, otherworldly thriller series, need look no further than Soul Seeker.

Order here.

October 7, 2020
DARK SIGHT by Christopher Allan Poe – YA Thriller, Horror, Occult

A strong-willed, gutsy teenager, Monique is one of two African American students in her white, uppity high school. Victoria, Monique’s white bestie since Kindergarten, may come from wealthy means, but her life is riddled with her own set of familial issues. All in all, the girls get along like sisters. They attend rally revival at Awakeners, a cult compound, and an argument ensues, leading to a car accident that leaves Victoria comatose and on life support. Ethan, the cult group’s son, gives Monique a talisman-looking necklace, which she uses to spark Victoria back to life.

Victoria, who is an artist savant, may be riddled with quirks, but her resurrection proves differently: she is not herself, especially when she feeds off the critters in the neighborhood. Based on “the new Victoria,” her friends deduce Victoria now bears the characteristics of a psychic vampire, or in layman’s terms—an energy-sucker.

Monique believes there’s a connection between Victoria’s altered condition and the cult group and seeks out Ethan for answers. Ethan responds with enough chilling information to indicate that Victoria’s life may be in danger. The only problem is, Victoria doesn’t see it that way—at all. To her, dead is just the beginning.

Rising paranormal author Christopher Allan Poe spins a wickedly twisted tale in his YA horror novel. Front and center of his tightly knit and well-rounded cast is a middle-class gal with plenty of moxie.

Besides creating a host of colorful characters—many of which are teens, Poe is a superb raconteur. He not only has a firm handle on defining his characters but also relaying a chilling tale. Poe’s writing style, which is both crisp and punchy, provides him the opportunity to state what he has to say, and at the same time suggestively highlight the plight of women, children, and racism.

Edgy dialogue scenes are the driving force behind Poe’s non-stop tension-filled chapters. Scenes are replete with a continual string of twists and turns, teen angst, and sexual lust. Poe provides light relief with Monique’s waggish tongue-in-cheek comments, as well as her sexually-laced similes and metaphors punctuated with infamous factual and fictional figures (i.e., Caligula, Jason Voorhees) and horror movies (i.e., Nightmare on Elm Street, Dark City).

Offering high appeal for YA and adult audiences, Dark Sight is a first-rate paranormal thriller with enormous Silver Screen potential.

May 2, 2018
RETURN to MATEGUAS ISLAND by Linda Watkins – Literary Thriller/Paranormal/Occult

Return to Mateguas Island picks right up with the same intrigue, suspense, drama and mystery that Mateguas Island contained. A page turner from the beginning, this is a tale you will not want to walk away from. The story begins years later with, Karen Anderson along with her new husband Dex and her two teenage daughters returning to the island. Karen goes quite reluctantly, but daughters, Sophie and Terri, are on a mission to find out the truth about their father who went missing and subsequently declared dead.

Return to Mateguas Island would fit nicely in the supernatural genre but has enough suspense throughout to lean toward this genre as well. This mixture of the two genres makes the story more complex and holds the reader’s interest throughout.

In this second novel, author Linda Watkins has already established and developed her characters and yet goes deeper into development within these pages. The books do stand alone, but to get a full picture, it is advised to start at the beginning with Mateguas Island to fill in backstory and ascertain each character’s story arch as the tale continues.

This story answers many of the questions from the first book. By the end of Return to Mateguas Island, however, you are left with just as many new questions and just as hungry for a third installment.

Upon their return, Karen and the girls find the island relatively unchanged from the day they had left it behind. A day Karen hoped would have been the last they would see of this mysterious venue. The memories were too painful and too jarring for Karen and this quickly bubbled to the surface. As with the previous book, there is something just beneath the surface of things that happen on the island, subsequently, as readers dig into the second book, they will find themselves in a familiar environment.

The story unfolds rather quickly as Karen once again displays odd behavior as the family returns to their old home. The intense story continues as a well-paced read with many twists and turns. The book holds its own next to the first novel and carries the tale, skillfully and smartly weaving in events that serve to whet readers appetites for the third book.

High suspense and flashes of horror beckon American Gothic readers to Return to Mateguas Island, the second book in Linda Watkins trilogy –a stunning success leaving readers posed in anticipation for the next installment.

April 21, 2017
PASSOVER by Aphrodite Anagnost and Robert P. Arthur – Horror/Psychological Thriller/Ghost Story

This novel is a multi-dimensional excursion into the paranormal. Its twists and turns take the reader on a circuitous route, where the impossible is ordinary, and there is no safe place.

Authors Aphrodite Anagnost and Robert P. Arthur have created a fast-paced, well-written read to challenge even the most hard-core fans of mystery and the supernatural. The writers use a mosaic of imaginative ideas, sensory detail, and historic events to move the reader through a morass of implausible events, to a chilling conclusion.

For the residents of Zebulon, a tiny, historic Virginia town on the Delmarva Peninsula, the world has become surreal. For the last three months, a serial murderer has been at work. On the night of the full moon, moving from house-to-house on Burnt Chestnut Road, this creature has committed atrocious acts.

Inexplicable smells, sights, and quirks of weather impinge upon the police investigation of these, driving most of Zebulon’s residents to flee in fear.

If the killer remains consistent, the next house in line is the home of Dr. Rachel Shelton and her family. One, or all of them, is destined to be the next victim, and tonight is the night. Rachel and her husband, Dave, try to prepare for the onslaught. Little do they know that sharp knives and loaded rifles cannot protect them.

Sheriff Phil Wise revisits the murder sites and struggles to make sense of the mayhem that occur at each, when “…all explanations seemed stranger than the crime scene itself…” Beatricia, Rachel’s mother, senses the truth, and her revelations help keep the reader engaged.

The frequency of multiple motifs, e.g., the unexplained smell of burnt wood, levitation of furniture, dis- and re-appearance of objects, random cold spots, and intermittent cessation of normal sound can work to distract the reader. Inconsistencies within the narrative, such as a kitchen floor that is described as linoleum, then tile, and then linoleum in the span of two pages, a discordant timeline of the murders, and a geographic site for one of the serial murders that contradicts the described pattern, detract from the storyline. However, Passover’s plot has “good bones,” and those who enjoy the genre will devour this work. The well-developed character of Beatricia, Rachel’s mother, goes a long way in helping maintain reader engagement.

Beatricia is not only a learned scholar but also a gifted medium, who views the horrendous events through the lens of spirituality. It is only after she enters the investigation with Lev, a Jewish apostate, that those old truths begin to reveal themselves, and the pieces begin to coalesce. Rachel must acknowledge and utilize her innate psychic abilities if they are to defeat the evil supernatural forces that surround and threaten them.

“Passover” by Aphrodite Anagnost and Robert P. Arthur takes the reader to a universe where the mundane meets the mystical. Here, the power of “animal magnetism” enables the dead to reanimate and materialize, and a charming teen-aged ghost attempts to seduce Rachel’s adolescent son.

In this altered reality, symbolism, echoes of ancient religions and myth, memories of age-old bondage, savage twentieth-century anti-Semitism, and ghosts and apparitions collide with everyday family conflict and strife. “Passover” is a paranormal mystery on steroids!

April 13, 2017
REAL-LIFE GHOSTBUSTERS Discover What Goes Bump in the Night at Author’s Farmhouse by Sharon Anderson

Anonymous, a riveting story based on a real-life grab-the-seat-of-your-pants thrill-fest by Chanticleer First Place Clue Award-winning author, Christine Benedict, is making news! Her hair-raising novel is based on the real-life incidents that she and her husband experienced when they lived in a haunted 1875 farmhouse.

It all started the day she and her husband moved into the 14-room farmhouse with only a few of the rooms in livable condition. Her husband worked hard and socialized with his brothers while she stayed at home with the baby, trying to discern if she was going insane like her mother, or truly was hearing footsteps on the floor above… when no one else was at home. Benedict puts her character, Debra, into some of the same horrifying situations she lived through, from thinking the house is haunted to thinking she might be inheriting her mother’s insanity, and to receiving explicit and terrifying letters from a stalker.

With a new plot twist around every corner, the author delivers a complex story of obsession and jealousy that will keep the reader turning page after satisfying page. Christine Benedict’s Anonymous hits all the marks for an engrossing, edge-of-your-seat read.

Real Life ghostbusters discover what goes bump in the night at author’s farmhouse!

Welcome to the party Munroe Falls Paranormal Society!

MFPS is based in Munroe Falls, just outside of Akron, Ohio.

Their mission statement is: The Munroe Falls Paranormal Society strives to provide an objective and unbiased approach to the scientific study, investigation, and research of paranormal phenomenon.

They are a well-organized, science-based group of individuals whose passion is to discover if the noises you’re hearing are just normal noises, or actual disembodied voices trying to scare the crap out of you.

The MFPS has taken on investigating Benedict’s house, and what they discover is both shocking and hair-raising. Watch the video of the investigation and everything that happened here.

Christine and The Munroe Falls Paranormal Society invite you to join them at The Berea Branch of The Cuyahoga County Library on November 14, at 7:00 pm to see this incredible documentary. Sponsored by Mysterious Midwest.

Christine Benedict is the 1st Place winner of the 2015 Clue Book Award

Chanticleer Reviews: “With a new plot twist around every corner, the author delivers a complex story of obsession and jealousy that will keep the reader turning page after satisfying page. Christine Benedict’s “Anonymous” hits all the marks for an engrossing, edge-of-your-seat read.”

Watch the Anonymous’ spooky Book Trailer: https://youtu.be/70eys8mECFY

Contributor:

Sharon Anderson is a horror writer with a sense of humor. Her book, Curse of the Seven 70s answers the question,

‘What happens when Vlad Dracula’s younger brother comes back to life bent on revenge, but finds love instead?”

Find out more about this author at http://www.SharonAndersonAuthor.com

November 2, 2016
MATEGUAS ISLAND: A novel of Terror and Suspense (Book 1)- by Linda Watkins

The author, Linda Watkins, brings a magical, edge-of-your-seat horror in the first book of her series, “Mateguas Island.” This is an engrossing tale that will captivate readers from start to its climatic finish with remarkable character development and a thoroughly gripping plot.

The story begins when Bill and Karen Anderson land on Mateguas Island in dire straits. Bill has lost his job due to an indiscretion and as a result, lost the house in California, and the lifestyle Karen enjoyed. If Bill’s aunt hadn’t willed her island home to him, he and Karen would be living on the streets. The night of their arrival, a blustery storm hits the small island and sets the dark stage for the story.

Karen is deeply dismayed by the loss of their high-end home and her comfortable life. She struggles with the close-knit community, the rusty old car she now drives, the non-existent stores, an inferior school system in which she must place their twin daughters, and a husband with whom she struggles to find common ground. In fact, the only that keeps her from leaving is the anguish it would cause their children. If the book were simply about that, you will probably find the story pretty run of the mill. It’s what is operating in the background that makes this tale special.

In essence, Mateguas Island, is a classic suspense-thriller-horror tale. The story ebbs and flows, dropping hints of something not quite right on the island, and in the home. The twin daughters find a locked box in their room with odd carvings etched in the surface. Bill finds aged drawings on the foundation walls in the home’s basement. The school kids tell the girls their inherited home is haunted, the neighbors tell them a horrific tale. The suspense builds slowly but, tantalizing purposefully as the supporting characters reveal the island’s secrets.

The stories of the Native American Indians who once dwelled upon the island feel real and honest. When mysterious events begin occurring around the property, the relationship between the two main characters, Bill and Karen, fairs no better. Watkins subtly introduces the beautiful island school teacher, Maggie, and handsome local fisherman, Dex, who, in their own way, add additional turmoil to Bill and Karen’s already strained marriage.

Linda Watkins is a gifted author who creates believable characters and paints a story with every scene. This book is a must read for fans of American Gothic and suspense novels!

November 1, 2016