Cate Gardner's Blog, page 2

Read 2020 - 58 - Pareidolia edited by James Everington and Dan Howarth

This is the third anthology from James Everington and Dan Howarth, the previous two were The Hyde Hotel and Imposter Syndrome. These anthologies deserve much more recognition and I look forward to their next (pick me, pick me). I was lucky enough to have a story in their first anthology.

Published in July 2019 (and signed by James Everington and Charlotte Bond), the anthology starts with the excellent Into the Wood by Sarah Read. A homeless girl survives by couch-surfing, when she meets a new man she moves in with him and his daughter, Thea. A disturbing story where the house wants to trap you in its walls. Really enjoyed, and my favourite of the anthology.

What can you do about a man like that? by Tim Major. An intelligent and subtle story about sound engineer Molly and the movie star who she once knew. The silence of an empty room speaks volumes.

The Butchery Tree by G.V. Anderson echoes Sarah Read's story. In a time of clans and princes, a butchery tree, where once boys hung, becomes a table. Madness and delusion stem from a terrible act that leads to one as vile. Anderson's words are delicious. That's all he had time for after pulling the boys' innards out, leaving them to swing by their necks, their broken ribs clacking like wind chimes.

The Lens of Dying by Charlotte Bond is a creeping, haunting tale of past sins revisiting. House of Faces by Andrew David Barker is a sad story about the aftermath of an apocalypse. Poignant given current circumstances. He didn't answer. He couldn't, he was made of windows and dirt. A gut punch of an ending.

Although I preferred the previous two anthologies, Pareidolia is still an excellent read.

Read 2020 - 57 - The Migration by Helen Marshall

Just after finishing my read of The Migration by Helen Marshall, I read on social media that the film/TV rights had just sold. Exciting news and I look forward to the finished piece. I picked up this book in Waterstones' just after its release. It's shameful that it took me this long to read it, but, like many of my friends, we have a shit-ton of books on our to-read piles*

A new disease transforming young people, a quest for a new identity, the changes in adolescence, with parallels of previous plagues. Will pass this book onto my niece and nephew.

*I have been working hard on reducing my to-read stack this year and have gotten it down to 63. Now I'm panicking I don't have enough books.

Read 2020 - 56 - Octoberland by Thana Niveau

They live in the places you've just been.

Octoberland is the second collection that I have read by Thana Niveau this year (not ever - I read her mini collection from Black Shuck books a couple of years ago).

Having read From Hell to Eternity  earlier this year, I was excited when Dom, my number generator, picked this collection for me to read.* Released by PS Publishing in 2018, it has a superb introduction by Alison Littlewood, and is signed to my Bestwick. We did have words as to why most books he buys are signed to only him, while books I buy are signed to both of us, which also brought up the incident where I was signing at an anthology release and asked him to go along the line to get it signed for me and most signed it to him. A wee domestic.

The stories (excellent, of course). In Going to the Sun Mountain Lis is obsessed with the sharpness of letters, with numbers, and with never being touched, which can cause her to rub her skin raw. This is a journey of two sisters, of how one controls the other, of a fatality that will eventually consume them. It made a sound like a broken song when it hit the rocks.

In the atmospheric The Face, a face in the rocks behind a frozen waterfall in Wales leads to a tense and disturbing revelation. We have torture porn in Guinea Pig Girl where a man is obsessed with a girl in the 'guinea pig' movies and how they become too much even for him.

But I didn't like the way the palm trees tossed their heads as though they were laughing, or the way the darkened openings of temples seemed to watch us like eyes. Oh my, Xibala, has Mayan Gods, a terrifying journey through an unknown wonderland and insect overlords. Tense, tense, tense. I've only just unclenched my limbs.

Emma is left to babysit a six-year-old who can see things that live in the dark spaces in The Things That Aren't There. A short and brutal tale. As an aside, I looked after four-year old twins and their young brother when I was 9 or 10 (the 70s man) and nearly burnt their house down.

The Queen is absolutely horrifying. After the violent death of her partner, Angie becomes one with the bees, transformed by grief. This story sang to and stung my fears, such a hard (but excellent) read. The fantastical Tentacular Spectacular (a title worthy of Harold Zidler in Moulin Rouge) sees Cthuluian (forgive me if I have that wrong) monsters, a stage show and corsets. Terrifyingly wonderful.

I'm sure I'm not mentioning every story, but by jove, I seem to be mentioning most. This truly is as spectacular as From Hell to Eternity. 

First and Last and Always is a fresh take on a love spell story. Bad Faith is a collaboration with the late Joel Lane. Told in the form of letters Vile Earth, to Earth Resign is a story of a blossoming romance during a zombie apocalypse. There is a fatalistic vein running through this story, a feeling of the inevitable. I love stories that are told in letter, diary or report form.

Two Five Seven is a haunting story of a little girl's voice trapped in the radio and a deadly family secret. I recall Thana reading this at World Fantasy Con back in 2013. We have another zombie story with Sweeter than to Wake. More visceral this time. Death Walks En Pointe is Niveu's Black Swan.  A tale of murder and maiming backstage at the ballet. Excellent stuff.

Finally we have the title story Octoberland, a poignant tale of siblings, of memories, of a horror that occurred during their childhood. A wonderful ending for a rollercoaster ride that kept climbing up and up with no dips between.

The cover art is by the wonderful Daniele Serra.

Roll on her next collection.


*I am also grateful when Dom picks a hardback book during lockdown as I know I won't have to tote it about in my bag. I'm more of a paperback girl. 

Read 2020 - 55 - Caught by Harlan Coben

She tried to hold the crazy back.But it was like holding back an ocean with your bare hands. 
I am a big fan of Harlan Coben - I may have said this before. I especially love the Myron Bolitar books and it is apt to mention them here. Windsor Horne Lockwood III appears in Caught three times, and because of my previous association with him (from the Bolitar books), I found his presence a little distracting from the storyline. Also a little convenient.

This is a book about forgiveness. A teenager is missing, a suspected pedophile has escaped justice, and a group of ex-college buddies are being blackmailed. There are many haunting secrets in this twisting and turning story, multiple threads wearing a complicated tapestry.

I enjoyed and never thought I'd say this - it could do with less Win.

Read 2020 - 54 - Vixen by Rosie Garland

I stole this book from my Simon, it is also signed to him. I believe (she says, trusting her memory) that he picked up Vixen by Rosie Garland at an event in Manchester near Heaton Park, where they were both guests. This is circa 2013/2014. I wish I'd read this book before.

Isn't the cover beautiful? Oh, and the words inside are a delight.

In 1347, as the Black Death sweeps England, we find a god-fearing populace, those who look for redemption in saints and relics. A new priest gains the attention of Anne, who is looking to make a match similar to that of her friend Margret (who is the 'wife' of the priest in the neighbouring parish). Life proves harsher than expected and joy is found in unexpected places. Vixen is a fable, a love story between Anne and her Maid in a time of cruel men and devastating disease. It is also very much a tale of modern women.

Highly recommend.

Read 2020 - 53 - Ormeshadow by Priya Sharma

Why didn't you call out to me, son? Why didn't you chase after meand bring me back to safety?
Any book by Priya Sharma is going to be a great book. And, I'm not saying that because she's my best-bestest-best friend (although she is). I'm not saying that because her alter-ego is Priya Poppins even though it is, or because she has a new nickname, one not as kind, Cruella.

This is a gentle (and yet brutal) journey from the richness of Bath to relative poverty in the shadow of the Great Orme, the hill above the welsh town of Llandudno. It is a story of grief, or hardship, of a brutal man and deceitful woman, it is of a boy learning to become a man. This is a fable of discovery, not just of dragons and riches, but that there are more important things in life than wealth, that once those things are gone they cannot be brought back.

Read it.

*
You may note that #52 is missing. That is because I haven't finished reading it. It's a book called The Now Habit and it's a self-help book to stop you procrastinating and guess what..? I'm procrastinating in reading it. This is not being done for comic effect.

Read 2020 - 51 - The Big-Headed People by D.F. Lewis

My copy of D.F. Lewis's chapbook, The Big-Headed People, is dated 19.1.18 and signed by Des. I imagine I bought it shortly after or around this date. It contains the title story, and four other shorter tales.

These are dream-like stories of a place where it is a crime to slim-down your head, where things may or may not be real, of night time picnics and circuses, of hauntings. It is a superb little collection by one of the genre's finest.

Read 2020 - 50 - The Storm King by Brendan Duffy

I have no idea where I picked up The Storm King by Brendan Duffy. It's a hardback (I'm not overly fond of them) and it's a North American copy. Perhaps it was in a bag at a convention or on a freebie table or it suddenly materialised one day on my to read shelf and figured it would be a good, dusty place to live. Whatever its origins it somersaulted from the dust and landed in my lap as my next read.

Nate McHale returns to his home town, he is a surgeon, a family man, but all these things go by the wayside when he returns to the small town and becomes reacquainted with old friends. It is almost as if he is another person. He is in town for the funeral of his ex-girlfriend, who went missing 14 years before. Secrets are beginning to unbury and sometimes you can't even trust yourself.

An enjoyable read, a good setting and decent mix of characters, three stars from me.

Read 2020 - 49 - Sanctuary by Robert Edric

Everywhere I went the engines sat at their rest like giant creatures,hissing and leaking steam and pouring smoke.   Sanctuary by Robert Edric is the story of Branwell Bronte's last year, of his fall into debt and into depression. It is very much a tale of a wasted life in respect to the success his sisters were to achieve, which is lightly touched upon. This is a story of a man who no longer fits easily within his family and who is testing the patience of friends. Sanctuary is the second book by Edric that I have read this year (the previous being The London Satyr) and I thoroughly enjoyed every word, fair raced through it. After loving the previous book so much, the Bestwick bought this for me in January. He's a love.

Read 2020 - 48 - New Music for Old Rituals by Tracy Fahey

I bought New Music for Old Rituals at Sledge Lit in 2018 (don't kick me if I've got the date wrong - it was definitely a Derby gig)* and it is signed by the fair lady herself. Tracy did an excellent reading at the launch, who couldn't listen to that fantastic Irish lilt all day. Onto the book, because unless she's reading it to you personally, that reading isn't going to matter to you.

These are fairy tales rooted in the everyday, folklore hidden within your mother's washing or in the outside loo. I just made those analogies up, Tracy's are far more interesting. The collection begins with Under the Whitethorn, a quiet tale of grief, fairy wishes and the often catastrophic result of both. In The Crow War we have an ancient Irish goddess, a festival with crow masks and liquorice in candy floss (if I read that right and if I did - how disgusting!). There is a sinister truth beneath the pageantry.

The Changeling brings us a mix of emotions. For one brief moment, we have humourous revenge and then Fahey offers a devastating gut punch. My favourite story in the collection is Dark It Was Inside. A retelling of Little Red Cap travelling from Ireland to Germany. I'd like to see this story really examined as a novella.

In the heart of Dublin, a flourishing metropolis, there is a b&b just to the left of normality, where all new employees of the company stay. What Lies Beneath is both claustrophobic and a swathe of emptiness - a quiet, unnerving horror. There is a gentleness to many of these stories, followed by a tearing of the throat.

In the beautiful The Graveyard of the Lost an American writing a thesis on graveyards/cemeteries in Ireland comes upon a story of a mermaid's last resting place. Then in the excellently titled The World's More Full of Weeping, we have actual fairies, and a warning that they are quick to anger.

The Witch That Was Hurt with its curio of shops and curious shopkeepers reminded me a little of Effie & Brenda and the cast of characters in Paul Marr's Never the Bride. It's a story of the harm we can do to others.

An excellent second collection.

*wish I was in Derby now and in the fabulous Quad. I love that the conventions are held in the same place so there's no hunting for rooms (okay, sometimes a little hunting) and everything is familiar. I'm a creature of habit.