Revenge of the Downtrodden: The Hanging Chads Omnibus, Volume 1
by Evan Clouse
REVIEW
Revenge of the Downtrodden by Evan Clouse
Infant Spirits by Janice Tremayne
Flash Paranormal Fiction: 13 Stories by D.P. Roseberry
D. P. Roseberry
Genre: Horror/Paranormal flash
Date of Publication: July 2023
Number of pages: 65
Word Count: approx. 12,000 words
Cover Artist: D. P. Roseberry
Tagline: Don’t worry. Sleep is over-rated …
Book Description:
This collection of flash fiction is strictly paranormal … and creepy.
Flash Paranormal Fiction will send your flesh crawling with ghosts, witches, aliens, cryptids, and creatures of all kinds.
These 13 Flash stories are for those readers (just like us) who love quick and fun ghostly gatherings!
Still … maybe you shouldn’t read it at night…
But don’t worry. Sleep is overrated…
Book Trailer: https://youtu.be/HiMcUPPRyAc
Purchase at RoseberryBooks.com
Excerpt – Zombie Love
It was a beautiful morning, just gorgeous. I was sitting back in my no-gravity lounge chair holding a cup of hot coffee and sipping away the sunrise. The temperature was just right and the plants along the front screen of the porch seemed to reach toward the warm glow of the sun. This was a day that made all the other days’ worth dealing with. It whispered relaxation and creativity.
The only thing I couldn’t get my mind around on this glorious day was the zombie that was trying to open the latch on the screen door. I’d been watching it for a good ten minutes or so, just as it was watching me drink my coffee. My question: Where the hell had this thing come from? And why was it ruining my perfectly quiet morning?
This one I was looking at was none too bright. It could easily punch through the screen, but instead, it fiddled with the sliding lock. I’d heard about these things. A bit short on brains. But then again, who knew? Maybe it thought I was stupid for drinking coffee. I’d thought that one or two times myself.
Just then I heard a voice. “Hey man, what’s that you got there trying to get into your house?”
It was my neighbor, Monroe. We were pretty close on most days. “Gots me a zombie, me thinks,” I replied after a nice long coffee swig.
Monroe, standing back from the door but still close enough to talk through the screen continued. “What’s ya gonna do when it figures out the door?” He yawned.
“Hmmm. Good point,” I said with a nod. “Guess I better go get the gun so I can take care of business if I need to.”
Monroe was nodding as well. “Terrible way to spend this beautiful morning, though. Still, zombies are nothin’ to mess with. So I heard.”
“Maybe wait a little while, though,” I said. “It’s too nice out to make things all blood and guts. We got time.”
“I hear ya,” answered Monroe.
Then suddenly, another voice erupted through the morning. “Outta the way, boys!”
At that point a woman and a teenage girl raised rifles and blew holes in the zombie’s head. The thing fell like a rock.
Both Monroe and I jumped back to keep from getting muck on our clothes. I’d had to roll out of my chair, and I spilled my coffee.
“Dam
women!” I yelled out. “Know just how to ruin a morning!”
Dinah Roseberry, or D. P. Roseberry, has been writing about the imagined world for many years. She dabbles in paranormal romantic intrigue (her most recent paranormal romance is Three Months to Change), sci fi, fantasy, horror, and many kinds of speculative fiction. With a special interest in UFOs, she is the founder of the UFO Management Group.
Dinah is also a practicing certified hypnotist with her practice centering on past-life regression, alien abductions, and other paranormal topics. She reads the Tarot and varied oracles as well and finds that divination brings sharp interpretation to daily living and uses it as a method in her writing. Her latest Tarot decks are First Light Tarot and A Christmas Tarot: Ghosts of Past, Present, and Future.
Writing Paranormal Flash is a guilty pleasure and she finds herself in the middle of these quick and ghosty stories more often than she likes to admit. Flash Paranormal Fiction is her first attempt at putting them from mind to media for you to read. For more information about other works and ongoing projects, visit www.roseberrybooks.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dinah.roseberry
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dinahroseberry
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/DinahRoseberry
Spooning My Chuchunya by Marilyn Barr
Snuggling Under Snowdrifts, Book 2
Monster Romance
Date Published: 8/8/2023
I found the most elusive spot to hide from my parent’s cult but in claiming my cave, I accidentally allowed a snow monster to claim me…
Dr. Sydney Decker
Six months ago, Dr. Vera Thompson disappeared into the wilderness to settle with a mysterious “survivalist colony” without a known location. She may have bought their lies, but I was born into an isolated group of religious fanatics and can’t believe Vera would fall into the same trap. Her weak “find my phone app” signal is the lifeline between us, and I won’t stop searching the frigid tundra for her. My best friend helped me escape but now, it’s my turn to save her.
Sergei
Loneliness threatens my sanity with each rejection at the annual mating chase. Females fear my hot temper and need for control, instead of appreciating that I am the biggest and fiercest male chuchunya. I had lost hope I would discover my dushevnayasvyaz or soulmate, but then she found us. This season I find myself breaking the ancient rules and deliberately damaging the rituals I hold dear…at her request. I meant what I said when I promised to rearrange the world to make my dushevnayasvyaz happy, but when will I be pushed too far?
Caught between the regimented conditioning of the clan and the willful spirit of his dushevnayasvyaz, Sergei must choose the order which keeps him stable or his chance at fated love. Will they escape punishment for their deeds or face shunning in a desolate place where community means survival? Will Sydney recognize he’s betraying his kin to win her heart or ignore their bond in fear of losing her independence?
About the Author
Marilyn Barr lives in the wilds of Kentucky with her husband, son, and rescue cats. She has nine books with The Wild Rose Press in multiple romance subgenres from sweet, new adult romance to erotic, fantasy romance. She loves to place monstrous characters with hearts of gold in historical romances and her historical, paranormal romances have won the Crowned Heart Award, 2nd place in National Excellence in Story Telling (NEST) Contest, Imadjinn Award for Best Paranormal Romance, and Grand Finalist for the InD’Tale Magazine’s RONE Award. When engaging in the real world, you can find her with the Kentuckiana Romance Writers, volunteering with her son’s Special Olympics teams, or dancing around her kitchen. She is a sucker (haha) for cheesy horror movies, Italian food, punk music, black cats, bad puns, and all things witchy.
Contact Links
Purchase Link
Among Kings: The Amazing Adventures of the Congo’s African American Livingstone and the Courageous People Who Toppled King Leopold II by Joey O’Connor
Whispers from the Dead of Night by Lee Allen
Whispers From the Dead of Night
by: Lee Allen
From the first story, which envelopes you in mystery and suspense, I was captivated by this collection. They are short stories of varied themes and topics, with varying degrees of realism and closure. I love short stories because they appeal to my short attention span, making reading novels lengthy and arduous. But these stories were short in length, but had the volume of a whole novel. What I mean is, the author packed in a lot of action, mystery, and vivid imagery in a short space. The writing itself was especially beautiful, poetic and well-detailed, which also gave the stories a higher quality than most of the short fare that I have read and also enjoyed.
Slasher Witch at the Waterpark by Penny Moonz
Slasher Witch at the Waterpark
by Penny Moonz
Zelda the bog witch wakes up after a long slumber, finding herself in a modern waterpark full of tropical drinks, pools, slides, and families. Her wrath is pretty immediate, paused only briefly to sample a light frozen beverage. But it is pure carnage from start to finish– human eating slides, murderous octopi, snaked and frogs, and sharp claws. Zelda tours the park leaving nothing but chaos and gore in her wake. It was a lot of fun from start to finish because she did not mess around! I also really loved her old-fashioned way of talking, and the various comments of people commenting on how badly she stinks. If you like horror or more specifically splatterpunk, I think that you will have a lot of fun witnessing the page after page of relentless carnage Zelda leaves in her wake as she ruins vacations and scorns family fun with sharp claws.
Real Ghost Stories: Graveyard Hauntings by Eve S. Evans
Real Ghost Stories: Graveyard Hauntings
by Eve S. Evans
This volume just backs up what, for many, is common sense: you don’t play in a graveyard or cemetery. They might be cool, peaceful, interesting places full of history, but they are also places sacred to the dead. Once again, we are given a collection of first-hand accounts from people who have submitted their spooky graveyard stories. We are regaled with tales of ghostly bodies, disembodied voices, orbs, spirits that follow unsuspecting visitors home, and much more. Since they are all submitted by different people, they run the gambit of experience and perspective, and again I am struck by how much I enjoy not just the spooky encounters but the way people handle such a thing. Some people are sure braver than I am! Like most of these, they are great for late-night reading in bed. You know, when you are alone in the dark and vulnerable. It really amps up the spook factor. They were all very good, very interesting. I also liked that they feature graveyards from countries outside of the United States. Fun read for those who love ghost stories and true life hauntings.
Year of the Fledgling by Linda Kage
Year of the Fledgling
Linda Kage
Publication date: July 29th 2023
Genres: Fantasy, Romance, Young Adult
Theron, the Eradicator, has one job: to protect the people of Starcast by killing the deadly creatures that attack them. That’s it.
Being an Eradicator comes with a heavy price, however, for he’s strictly prohibited from having any kind of personal contact with the villagers.
But one night, he sneaks into the town’s harvest festival, anyway, and meets the lovely, young healer’s apprentice.
As Theron grows close to her, it becomes harder to tell what’s more dangerous: risking a fatal injury while battling dark ones or risking fatal punishment by beginning a secret dalliance with a forbidden girl.
In either case, doom seems to be the only outcome, and tension mounts as love and danger blur across the reach of this fantastical, seaside landscape.
—
EXCERPT:
She pounded on the thick door as hard and loudly as she could.
When it began to open and she had her first look at his face again—his features a mask of puzzled bewilderment—the terrible pressure in her chest finally released in a flood, and it all seemed to spill right out of her mouth.
“Wha…?” he started to ask.
But the flood had already hit her.
“I am beyond vexed with you,” she seethed, flinging off her hood so he could see the full extent of her rage before she pushed past him to enter the watchtower.
Theron glanced out into the darkening evening as if to make sure she didn’t have anyone else with her, then he shut the door and turned, lifting his eyebrows sternly. “Please tell me you did not walk up here by yourself.”
Ignoring his question, she demanded, “Honestly, how could you do this to me?”
“Are you absolutely mad?” he challenged right back, just as upset as she, and stormed forward. “What were you thinking? If someone had seen you—”
“They would’ve shrugged me off as you! But no one saw me. And I was thinking about how mad I am,” she railed, lifting her chin to meet his swirling, livid gaze.
Theron scoffed. “Yes, I can tell you’re unhappy, but that gives you no right to put your very livelihood at stake to come up here and tell me thus.”
“It’s my livelihood to worry about, and my right to risk it as I please.”
“And you are one of two people left in this entire, bleeding world that I’m allowed to still talk to. So I refuse to let you be so frivolous with your—”
“Argh!” she shrieked, lifting her hands and curling her fingers as if to display her claws at him. “You are so maddening.”
One of his eyebrows arched, then he burst out grinning. “But am I maddening enough for you to want to kiss me senseless again? Please say yes.”
She snorted. “Hardly. You’re certainly maddening enough to make me want to wring your fool neck as hard as I can, though.”
Lifting his chin to put his neck on full display, Theron countered, “Well, take your best shot, little healer-in-training. But first, would you at least tell me what I did wrong this time that made you so mad? A fellow appreciates at least knowing why he’s being strangled.”
Xia sucked in an irate breath. Then her chin trembled. And finally, the tears that she’d been holding back all the way from Norbin’s pig pen came gushing down her cheeks.
“You made me care for you!” she accused, weeping so soundly that her entire body shuddered and she had to cover her mouth with both hands to contain it.
Author Bio:
Linda writes romance fiction from YA to adult, contemporary to fantasy. Most Kage stories lean more toward the lighter, sillier side with a couple meaningful moments thrown in. Focuses more on entertainment value and emotional impact.
Published since 2010. Went through a 2-year writing correspondence class in children’s literature from The Institute of Children’s Literature. Then graduated with a Bachelors in Arts, English with an emphasis in creative fiction writing from Pittsburg State University.Now she lives with hubby, two daughters, cat Holly, and nine cuckoo clocks in southeast Kansas, USA. Farm girl. Parents were dairy farmers. Was youngest of eight. Big family. Day job as a cataloging library assistant.
Harry Potter House Gryffindor, Patronus White Stallion, character match Hagrid. Supernatural Team Dean. Game of Thrones Team Jon Snow and Tyrion Lannister. The Walking Dead Team Daryl. Outlander Team Jamie Fraser. Teen Wolf Team Stiles. Avenger Team Thor…or Hulk (can’t decide). Justice League Team Flash. Arrow Team Stephen Amell. Stranger Things obsessed. Heard Laurel, not Yanny.
Started out reading with the Baby-Sitters Club. Then moved to Sandra Brown, Linda Howard, Julie Garwood, and LaVyrle Spencer in high school. Now all over the place with her romance reading tastes.
Website / Goodreads / Facebook Page / Facebook Group / Instagram / Twitter
GIVEAWAY!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
https://widget-prime.rafflecopter.com/launch.js
—
The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward
The Last House on Needless Street
by Catriona Ward
I’ve seen this one come across my FYP on BookTok quite a few times, and it seems that most agreed that this is a must-read. I was drawn to the descriptions of it being surreal, strange, a real mind bender that’ll leave you in enraptured confusion until the ending comes and at last makes a nice tidy bundle of everything, a much-awaited conclusion wherein at last everything makes sense. The book introduces us to Ted who is… not well. He lives alone with just his cat, Olivia, and the occasional presence of his volatile daughter Lauren. He eats strange things and thinks a lot about his mother, a cold woman with strange ideas, concerning habits, and a clear taste for suffering. When the book begins, it’s the anniversary of a missing girl who vanished years and years before, an unsolved case in which Ted was at once a suspect in. Immediately, his strange behavior set off warning bells. I really enjoyed the chapters with the cat Olivia as she was a bit pretentious, maybe a lesbian, and very sweet. Lauren was a really interesting character too because her dangerous behavior was so bizarre. I knew that beneath her character was something awful, but I would have to wait out the plot to find out what her true story was. Then there is Dee, the sister of the missing girl who doesn’t think that Ted is so very innocent and is determined to prove his guilt. As many other reviewers warned, this book isn’t going to make the ending come easily. I was so, so confused quite a bit, but I was comforted by the fact that I was supposed to be. So, I went along for the ride and went on the surreal journey of Ted and his cast of characters. The end was a real mind-bender and I thought the way it was broken down was very creative and vivid. When Ted’s true story unfolded in slow, agonizing layers, I was just… stunned. It was a great read and I stayed up almost all night to finish it.
thebookcountess.wordpress.com 