At a brisk 82 pages (which includes a sample from another of the author's works), Death Do Us Part wastes no time in establishing Catherine as a nasty piece of work, before she is summarily dispatched by someone known to her, but kept hidden from the reader. She then manages to come back as a spirit to terrorise her husbamd, Art, their child, and the woman he had been cheating with, aka Catherine's sister.

The rest of the novella revolves around Art truing to get rid of Catherine before she manages to kill one of them. Pretty much every plot beat you would expect gets hit along the way, so there are very few surprises to be had in Death Do Us Part. In fact, the final twist was one that seemed overly telegraphed to me, even if it opens the way for a relatively satisfying conclusion.

Those who favour the old Tales from The Crypt comics and TV episodes will probably find enough to entertain, but if the angry dead coming back to terrorise their seemingly innocent relatives does little for you as a concept, there's not much here to recommend this one from other versions of the same. In fact, Catherine is never sufficiently frightening that I ever felt overly concerned for the safety of Art and co. All that said, the writing is decent and as mentioned, the pacing is fast.

As such, I'll be back to give Faherty another try in the not too distant future.

3 Marriage Vows Left Unfulfilled for Death Do Us Part.

The preceding review is based on an eARC obtained through Netgalley as provided by Samhain Publishing.

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Anders Bach observes the old ways when it comes to christmas. He has the scars to prove that Krampus and Winterwood exists but his family are tired of his frightening tales. His grandchildren venture outside at night and are kidnapped by the Yule lads and taken to Winterwood for the Soltice feast. It is up to Anders to find them and bring them back before it's too late.

This was quite an enjoyable novella, I really liked the use of Christmas mythology especially as it was a sharp contrast to the usual holiday celebrations. I thought that Anders character was well done and I liked how his own experiences from his childhood started the novella.

Although I enjoyed the mythology I did think it was slightly overdone with too many antagonists which ended up affecting the flow of the story. The middle portion of the read was worse affected by this and I found myself unable to concentrate properly on the story.

A fun tale that would be better released at Christmas instead of May, interesting mythology but too much going on character wise which affected the overall flow.

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Perry has given all his money to his friend for a business venture however his friend has disappeared with his money and he now has to replace his savings before his wife finds out. The only way he can make up the money is to burglarise 3 houses and hope his wife doesn't check their savings before he finishes.

In one of the homes he comes across an ugly Polynesian mask and on an impulse takes it, finding out later that this is a rare artefact and can't be sold without arousing suspicion. He is now stuck with it and strange things start to happen as it makes it's presence known.

 

This started off pretty well and even though Perry is not the most likeable character you do understand that he is only doing this due to his desperate situation. The first half went quickly but the flow of the story started to slow down when the demonic mask was featured more. The ending was quite good but by this time it had lost most of it's momentum and it was harder to care about Perry's outcome.

The writing itself is good and it's really just the pacing and flow of the story that made this an underwhelming read, shame as before it got to the halfway mark it was looking to be a 4* read.

4.5 stars, rounded up.

 

Christmas in May? Yes, please. Winterwood will make you glad that it's almost summer and not anywhere near wintertime. Based on Icelandic folklore, this little tale of Yuletide horror is indeed every child's worst nightmare and may just be yours too. Anders grew up in the Black Forest of Germany with not only all of the old tales of the Holly King, Jólaköttur (the Yule cat), and Winterwood, but with the scars to prove that they exist. Now living in America with his less-than-superstitious daughter Anders is chastised for scaring his grandsons as he did Anna all of her life. Christmas is supposed to be fun and magical, filled with Santa and presents and joy... not with scary tales of Yule Lads snatching bad children and baking them into pies. Anna is adamant that her children not be traumatized. At least until they both disappear and Anna ends up in the midst of all of her father's "superstitions" come to life.

 

Whether you read this now or at Christmas, it will have you looking at the holiday in a whole new light and probably with a diminished desire to sit on Santa's lap. This horrific little bit of folklore is another great story by an author who has yet to disappoint me. I enjoyed this one very much.

 

© 2015 by Andi Rawson of Andreya's Asylum

Disclosure: I purchased the e-book “Winterwood” from Amazon. I don’t know the author personally. This novella is one of four novellas included in an anthology to be released later this year by my publisher. To ensure full disclosure, my own novella is also being included in this anthology.

The comments that follow are my own personal and honest opinion. Neither the author nor the publisher has requested this review. I’m writing this review at my own discretion. I have NOT received compensation of any kind, or from any one. I also have NOT received a free copy from any source, or done a review swap of any kind with the author.

I read this e-book in just over two hours. It kept my interest and given I hate reading e-books – that’s a plus. This story was interesting for the most part. It used Yuletide folklore as the basis for the story. The version of the story I was told years ago was quite different, and didn’t include many of the various elements included by this author. His enhancements made the story far more complicated and gave a richer version of the horror and fear the story was designed to invoke in children, who misbehaved during the Yuletide. The story did not resemble my memories of the tale. The story flowed well. The writer did a good job overall. Pace and descriptions were clear.

On the down side, I found a few issues. The characters were difficult to accept. I have known some very healthy and energetic grandparents, and I could see a grandfather doing whatever it took to save his grandchildren. But the main character’s poor health was emphasized, making that theory difficult to accept. His daughter didn’t believe, but jumped on the band wagon without issue and into another dimension. The tale included weird elements and situations that just didn’t flow well into the plot line or validate the characters in any way.

This book does contain some blood and gore often found in horror novels, but the premise is a stretched Christmas legend with elves, giants, wizards, and man-eating reindeer. This story concentrates on a fearful tale I don’t think any child ever actually believed, but it is suited to the anthology. It may bring back memories of those scary tales told on wintery nights.