Scary Kisses
Edited by: Liz Grzyb
Published by: Ticonderoga Publications
Page Count: 208 pages
ISBN-10: 0980628849
ISBN-13: 978-0-9806288-4-5
Where to buy:, Indie Books Online, The Book Depository, Amazon, and other fine book retailers.Publisher’s comments:
A collection of paranormal romance with bite. On the menu is a tasty selection of heroines and heroes: time travellers, vampires, zombies, ghosts, witches, trapped spirits, dragons, wizards, monsters, even cartoons. From sweet to sexy, these stories will seduce.
Hello Ghouls and Boils,
I’d like to introduce a new addition to our ever growing legion of Minions, Heather Royston. I met her online several years ago and we quickly became friends. Just like me, Heather has had a passion for the macabre that started at a very early age. New to reviewing, she was a bit nervous about her first piece. As you will see, she had nothing to be worried about. We are very happy to have her on staff and I look forward to watching her grow as a writer. Stop at the SNS Staff page to learn more about her! I will now leave things in Heather’s capable hands. Enjoy, my fiends!
Abstrusely,
Sarah L. Covert
I’m going to be completely honest: I do not care for “Supernatural Romance“. I have been exposed to several of the more popular titles of that genre and I hated every moment of it. They read like a bad porno; I kept waiting for the pizza boy to come in and join the action. So when I got my first assignment, my heart sank when I read the title. But I decided to give it a go and see what happened. If nothing else I’d have something interesting to laugh about with the girls at work. However, I found myself pleasantly surprised at first, and then actually excited to keep reading. These stories were good, really good! And there was quite a range of styles within as well. Everything from fantasy to surrealism is covered here.
There were 3 real stand outs though, the first being “Bread and Circuses” by Felicity Dowker. At the end of this one, I shut the book and just said “WOW!” Granted, it contains a pretty graphic sex scene but it wasn’t there to be racy, it was there to show their love and passion for each other and also to emphasize the horror of what came next. It deals with one of the last pockets of humanity in the post zombie apocalypse world. Sound cliche’d? I would have said the same, but the plot of this one was fairly original and played like an arc of The Walking Dead comic.
But that was nothing compared with the “The February Dragon” by Angela Slatter and L.L Hannett. This one took me back to medieval times, castles, magic, dragons the whole deal. The main character, Casco, is truly (and literally) unique but her tale is one that has been told for aeons. Nevertheless I was held captive by the story and couldn’t stop until it was over. I feel like this is one that (only slightly edited for sexual content) I could tell to my kids as a bedtime story.
My favorite story was called “Cursebreaker: The Welsh Widow and the Wandering Wooer.” by Kyla Ward. I won’t go into the plot, but this story kept me laughing and I have crossed my fingers in hopes that this character becomes a series. It’s definitely something I would follow!
As always, there is bad with the good. Not so much in this book however, there was only one story I didn’t enjoy and it wasn’t bad by any means. “Date with a Vampire” by Annette Backshall was exactly what the title offers, typical vampire fare and coming close to being boring. I felt like I’d read that story a thousand times over. The editor, Liz Grzyb, should get an award though for following that with “Pride and Tentacles” by D.C. White, an absolutely awesome tribute to H.P. Lovecraft‘s creations and a perfect ending to this collection. Truly the only real complaint that I have about this book is the drop cap letters at the beginning of each story or section of story. The font used tended to come down over the text in the next lines and made it hard to read on occasion. But really, if that’s my only complaint than I’m looking forward to reviewing the sequel – More Scary Kisses.
Final Thoughts:
With only one story in it that wasn’t fantastic, Scary Kisses is definitely worth picking up. If it can make a convert out of me, then anyone will enjoy this volume. I give it 4 out of 5 tentacles.
Heather Royston, Minion (Reviewer)
There are 1 Comments to "Scary Kisses"
Glad you enjoyed it! For your information, “Cursebreaker: the Jikininki and the Japanese Jurist” is set to appear in The New Hero I (ed. Robin D. Laws, Stone Skin Press) later on this year.