This is a dark, grueling, unflinching character study and tale of survival in a desolate landscape that will put you through the emotional meat grinder. It was fantastic in all the ways that count.

A group of tourists travel to Africa to experience the wild locale and the exotic animals and instead find themselves caught up in a living nightmare. This book takes its time setting up the story and the unrelenting horror that follows and instead dives deep into the characterization. So when the plot turn happens and the struggle to survive begins you are pretty well invested in some of the characters and have a better understand of the one’s you might not like all that much. These aren’t just bodies doing stuff, these are well rounded people with pasts. I’m nosy and love taking a deep dive into what makes people tick and it’s done very well in PREDATORS.

If you’ve tuned out because you’re an action fan, stick with me because there’s plenty of it in the last half when the plot takes a bloody turn, desperate animals turn on man and it gets gory. Author Collings doesn’t shy away from the gruesome and isn’t afraid to push your face in it. But through it all the terrific characterization remains.

There are some amazingly strong female characters in this book and that includes the main beast herself. Her POV fascinated me. The humans are quite a mix. There’s a blind little girl and her dad, a grandma, a starlet, an abused woman and her rotten husband, a Harvey Weinstein type, a not-too-bright YouTuber who is good for some laughs and the tour guides who love what they do even though they have to cart around idiots, for the most part. Some start out weak and find strength and others appear frail but prove that looks are deceptive. A few are just arrogant, nasty or dumb and are there to get eaten but there’s nothing wrong with that. It was a nice mix of people you love to hate and those you grow to love and one or two somewhere in the middle. It’s also heartbreaking as hell so be warned. Fortunately, there are some much needed humorous bits of dialogue thrown in to stop you just when you’re getting ready to jump into a pit of hopeless despair.

The monsters are not supernatural but the terror is real. If a slower-paced, well-crafted book about doing what it takes to survive is your kind of thing, I think you’re really going to enjoy PREDATORS.

This one is going into the Suspense Category. I need to update my card with this one but I'm out of time right now. 

Bingo Calls:

Classic Horror 9.1

Cryptozoologist 9.3

Cozy Mystery 9.5

New Release 9.7

Southern Gothic 9.9

Terrifying Women 9.11

A Grimm Tale 9.13

Modern Masters of Horror 9.15

Creepy Carnivals 9.17

Relics & Curiosities 9.20 

Murder Most Foul 9.23

Amature Sleuth 9.25

Suspense 9.28

Supernatural

Ghost Stories

Doomsday

Terror In A Small Town

I've Read These (none called):

Murder Most Foul: BIG LITTLE LIES 
Slasher Stories: THE HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY
Spellbound: BABY TEETH

New Release: WE SOLD OUR SOULS

Read & Called!

Terrifying Women: THE GRIP OF IT by Jac Jemc

Suspense: PREDATORS by Michael Brent Collings

Supernatural: IN THE MOUTH OF THE DARK

Doomsday: PATIENT ZERO

Fielding Bliss is an old man telling his story of the summer that changed everything. When you finish reading his story, you’ll completely understand why he’s now one of those nasty “Get off my lawn!” old guys. And you’ll also probably feel like crawling in a deep dark hole and never returning to planet earth. At the very least, you’ll likely give those old cranks a pass the next time they holler at you or your kid.

This story is cruel, it is bleak and it is beautifully descriptive and impossible to put down. You might not want to start it for your own well-being but then you will never know what you are missing.

It is the summer of 1984, a simpler time in many ways and also a just as complicated time. It’s the summer of hair spray and the beginning of AIDS and all the fears and prejudice associated with it. Bananarama’s “Cruel Summer” could be the soundtrack for this one. In a little town called Breathed, Ohio the heat relentlessly blasts thirteen year old Fielding and everyone around him. When his dad, for some reason, decides to send out an invite to the Devil, well, no one is all that surprised when he actually accepts. What better circumstances for the devil to come a-calling than this brutally hellish summer?

The devil arrives in the form of a young black boy the Bliss family name Sal. Being kind folks, they take him in. Dad did invite him, after all. Sal is an old soul and makes fast friends with Fielding but soon a series of very unfortunate events occur around Sal. Prejudice, fear and heat induced madness start to take over the residents of Breathed as more terrible things occur over the tragic summer. And that’s all I’m going to say about the plot.

The descriptions in this book are a thing of pure beauty. It was truly an experience, this book. It brought me back to that time in the 80’s when I could spend all summer under a weeping willow tree reading while Corey Hart and Madonna serenaded me from an oversized boom box. The summer just before tragedy struck my family, altering it forever. This book hit a nerve in me and reading it was a bit cathartic. As painful a read as it was, I will never regret reading it.

This is one of those books that will break your heart even if you think you don’t have one and could easily leave you in a funk, so do yourself a favor and find yourself a nice, sunny spot outside and get to reading it.

GR Cleanup Read April 2011

It is a rare thing for me to come across a book that I don’t want to end. I’m usually in a big hurry for things to finish up so I can move on to the next one, especially when the book is over 300 or so pages. Not so here. I could’ve read another 1000 pages and still wanted more! And it wasn’t because things weren’t wrapped up (because they were) but because the bond between the main characters was so warm and real that I felt sad leaving them. I was as if my cuddly warm blanket had just been ripped forever from my cold, shivering body. Sniff. I’m going to miss these people and will have to buy and read the sequels when I finish writing this (unless I already have them in my shamefully large pile of TBR’s).

Carrick (Crick) Francis fell in love with Deacon Winters the moment he set eyes on him. Crick was just a lonely child living with an abusive stepdad and emotionally absent mother and caring for his many younger sisters when he first spied gloriously beautiful Deacon sitting calmly and confidently astride a horse. It was then he knew he would do anything to get the attention of that godlike older boy. Deacon is drawn to Crick as well and takes him under his wing, little brother-like and teaches him all about horses. Being around Deacon and his kind, loving dad change Crick and though he is impulsive and makes dumbass choices, they bring out the best in him. As the boys’ grow, so does their bond and their undeniable feelings of love for each other. Deacon, reserved and responsible, keeps his desire for Crick to himself for years, waiting for him to grow up and wanting him to live a full life. A life that doesn’t chain him to the ranch. Deacon’s life is the ranch and he has no desire to go off to college or have exciting adventures. Good lord, I loved Deacon. He is a guy who wants to make everyone happy, even if it means denying himself what he wants most in this world. Ouch, my eyes are watering again.

Promise Rock is an angst-a-thon. Deacon and Crick can’t catch a break. The author piles one traumatic event atop another and until the oh-so-sweet and hard earned conclusion. There is a huge misunderstanding that keeps them apart for two years which takes up a good chunk of the book. Normally a separation of this length would put me off a romance but it works here. Damn, does it ever work here. Their love grows stronger, they talk via letters and later by tweets and both characters grow and change as they are forced to deal with loneliness and a grief so strong it’ll bring you to your knees. And of course the never-ending trauma and setbacks that befall them and those they love. This book ripped my heart into little, itty bitty, raw pieces and healed them all with its beautiful storytelling, characterization and satisfying conclusion.

I could go on for days about this sexy, lovely, pain-filled romance and its incredibly well drawn cast of characters but I’m going to stop here because my mascara is starting to run and that's never pretty and this is a book that should be experienced and not spoiled by my big mouth.

GR Cleanup Read April 2011

I cannot believe the dark places this graphic novel delves. No one, and I mean no one, is safe in this ongoing saga. It takes place after the dead have risen and destroyed everything and follows a handful of often rotating survivors as they try to get by in a frightening new world. It starts out a little slow as everything is set up but once it gets going I didn't want to put it down.

It is less focused on the zombies than its core of characters and their interaction and relationships but there is plenty of gore to go around. It's horrible, sad and unputtdownable. This volume collects issues 1 - 48 of the long running series and man is this sucker heavy!