The Croning

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I’ve hit both Laird Barron’s collections, of course — if you’re going to play in the horror fields, his bloody square of grass goes for an acre or two — and, in the way of disclosure, he was kind enough to pen the intro for my first horror collection, and I know and respect him as a quality human besides, so of course I was going to hit The Croning, first chance I got. As for that first chance, though, it got lost in the void, evidently; not even a month before the book hit, one of my other publishers finally forwarded a longago request from Nightshade, to look at The Croning early. At which point it was already printed, ready to ship. So there was all that instant regret, the raging at the gods, I could have hit it then, wouldn’t have had to wait, but, still and all, that wait, it was so worth it. And, as a gauge: the book I read immediately before The Croning was the first in George RR Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series. Which, Charles McCarry’s Paul Christopher series aside — and maybe not aside — is looking to be my favorite series ever in the history of anything, also counting the future. Reading Martin, I don’t want to do anything else. Like eat, or move. Just Kindle me another, please, and it better get here in thirty seconds or less or I’m buying it again, and again. So, yeah, book 2 of that, it’s  . . . → → →