The Taste of Tiny Bones
Released in July of this year, The Taste of Tiny Bones is the first horror novel from author Vincent Heselwood. It’s a classic boogyman story with a modern twist.
The story
Our story begins with a little boy named Alfie. His father has decided that he’s old enough at six to sleep without a nightlight on. And so the boy is trying to tough it out in the darkness of his room. He soon realizes, to his horror, that he is not alone. And before his parents can intervene, Alfie is painfully devoured by a monster.
The story then turns to our main character, Evie. She’s been brought into the local police station after a series of horrific child murders. Just why she was brought in takes some time to get to. The police have to show her bloody footage of a dead child first. Eventually, they do get to the point. Evie, it seems, has written extensively on the concept of the Boogyman in many countries and walks of life. She has written so much about him, in fact, that the police think she might have something to do with these murders.
And they might be right. Because Evie might have written so much about the Boogyman that she’s given him power. Power to walk free. To stalk. To claim victim after young, innocent victim.
What worked
I want to start by saying that this story does have a clever premise. A monster that grows in power when people pay attention to it makes a lot of sense. In the same way, a real-life problem seems bigger if we focus too much on it, and so does this Tat o’ Rag Man. That makes perfect sense.
I enjoyed many of the stories from the points of view of parents and victims. These were well-written, eerie, and often sad. I especially appreciated the tale of Maria Warner, a mother young enough to see the boogyman still herself. I appreciated that little extra twist. It’s an idea that I believe warrants further exploration.
What didn’t work
If Taste of Tiny Bones was just a collection of boogyman stories, that would have been great. Unfortunately, we also have a main character named Evie or ‘Creepy’ Morenson. And this is where the story starts to lose its appeal.
And its momentum.
While Evie’s story is integral to the plot, her story is boring. Especially when compared to the interesting boogyman tales. So much of this portion is either repetitive, slow, or flat-out unnecessary. Any plot point must be reached by strapping on waders and sloshing through pages of fluff. It feels very much like these parts were inflated for word count, rather than to enrich the story.
Even the confusion with Evie’s name was frustrating. Sometimes she’s called Evie, and sometimes she’s Creepy. That’s fine and all. One will often see characters who are called different things by their friends and relations. But as a general rule, the narrator should stick with one name throughout the book. And if that third-person speech is going to switch it up, there should be a definable reason. It shouldn’t just hop between names on the same page. It is this point that, more than anything else, marks the book as one that may need a few more rounds of editing before being introduced to the world at large.
In the end, The Taste of Tiny Bones is a fair story. If you find the main character to be more endearing than I did, you might well enjoy it a lot more. I’ll be the first to say that art is subjective. But as for me, I don’t think I’ll need a nightlight after reading it.
(3 / 5)
If you have been searching high and low for a book in which a devil named Rick, who is the spitting-image of Billy Zane, impregnates a male porn star so that his spawn can finally get into heaven for once, then I’ve found the book for you. From the opening pages, The Devil’s Gunt, by Gerald Dean Rice, launches action sequences, body parts, blood, guts, cum, and vomit at the reader faster than they can dodge, and Dean’s constant clever innuendos (“temptation reared its mushroom-shaped head”) had me laughing out loud at multiple points throughout the book.
What Exactly is The Devil’s Gunt it About?
The Devil’s Gunt follows Median, a current-day porn star, after he finds out he was impregnated with the devil’s spawn. With the help of his roommate Joe, his estranged wife Mary, and a disembodied head in a box, they investigate out how and why the pregnancy occurred while dodging Rick and his demons at every turn. Interspersed throughout this story, we follow Alfred and Milo, from their origins as two supernaturally-gifted boys enslaved on a plantation, to their mysterious involvement in the current day devil-baby debacle.
This horror-comedy-sex-thriller explores almost every subcategory of horror: body, supernatural, family trauma, historical, medical, action, and more. For example, when we first meet Rick the devil (there’s many devils in hell, apparently), he’s impersonating a pony-tail-wearing abortion doctor with a cache of menacing medical tools. Or, after this initial run-in, the trio must flee from demon-shadows that atomize any person they come in contact with. There’s even an interlude in which Alfred and Milo disguise a violent encounter within a mob stampede after the 1929 stock crash.
The only place where The Devil’s Gunt seems to hold back is in the details of the cursed pregnancy itself. How, exactly, is there a baby in there? Where does it come out? How did it get there in the first place? Perhaps in the vein of Frankenstein, Rice leaves the most scientifically confounding, humanly gruesome aspects of the situation up to our imagination.
The Devil’s Gunt is chock-full of subversions of ideas about angels, devils, possession, heaven, and hell. So if you are curious about concepts such as robot-devils or “Scooby-doo Court”, you’ll have to read it for yourself.
(4 / 5)
“It is a northern country; they have cold weather, they have cold hearts.
‘The Werewolf.’
Published way back in 1979, Angela Carter’s short story anthology The Bloody Chamber is now considered a classic by many people. It is also thought of as one of Carter’s more, if not most, controversial fictional works. It is common knowledge that fairy and folk tales of old are a lot darker than the cartoon versions we are familiar with. Carter takes this darkness to a new level. These stories contain common themes of sexual desire, violence and love. Many of these stories depict explicit sexual descriptions. If you are a person who takes note of trigger warnings be aware. These stories contain scenes that discuss and depict abuse, bestiality, rape, incest and paedophilia.
The Stories.
Each of Carter’s ten stories in The Bloody Chamber collection are based on fairy or folk tales. In several of these stories this is obvious. For example, the collections eponymous story, ‘The Bloody Chamber’, is undoubtedly based on the tale of Bluebeard and Carter’s Puss-in-Boots keeps its original name. We see Beauty and the Beast represented obviously in both ‘The Courtship of Mr Lyon’ and ‘The Tiger’s Bride’.
There are other stories here that only pull at the loose threads of existing fairy or folk tales; taking a single thought or idea and running with it in another direction completely. There are actually several that seem to mashup a combination of stories in one. For example, in ‘The Lady of the House of Love’, the plot as a whole feels like a take on Sleeping Beauty, but there is an obvious reference to Jack and the Beanstalk. The Countess reciting the ‘fee, fi, fo, fum’ rhyme of that story to her victim.
Highlights.
I am a sucker for both fairy and folk tales and as such the highlight here for me was seeing characters and parts of plots that are somewhat familiar in a different light. This sort of ‘re-telling’ (for want of a better word) invites the reader to ask ‘what if’ and I think that that is a very powerful thing to do.
There was a certain dark, wintery aesthetic to all of the stories in this collection that was also big highlight for me. The rain, the wind, the snow, I could feel the chill rising off the pages. The repeated images of birds and birdcages, mirrors and roses created ominous feel and really ticked all of the gothic horror boxes.
Drawbacks.
There were two issues that I had with reading this anthology that really made me struggle to get through to the final pages.
The first was the style of Carter’s writing. Yes, I understand that these are adult fairy tales and there is a level of flowery, descriptive writing that is expected to encounter as a result. But I just felt like I was drowning in dense description in several of these stories. So much so that my brain zoned out several times and I had to stop and rewind, turning back to reread several pages at a time.
My second issue was that it often felt like the violence was skimmed over due to the length of some of the stories, one being only two pages long. The reader barely has time to process what has happened before the story had ended and a new one begun. It often felt like getting punched in the face. For some this point might land in the highlights section, but for me it was a big drawback.
Final Take.
The stories in The Bloody Chamber anthology are divisive. Some love every single one of them, others have a strong aversion. For me, I liked a few. My attention was held by ‘The Erl-King’ and the story of ‘The Bloody Chamber’ itself was an enjoyable read.
Overall though, I think this one missed the mark for me. It might only be because the prose was so heavy with description that I had trouble concentrating on the stories themselves. Despite this, The Bloody Chamber is one of those books that everyone should read at least once in their life.
(2.5 / 5)
“The problem with family is that they know where all the levers are that make you move. They’re usually the ones who installed the levers in the first place.”
Published in March 2023, T. Kingfisher’s cozy southern gothic horror novel, A House With Good Bones has won many awards, including the 2024 Lucus award for horror and the 2023 Dragon award for horror. The story pulls a quirky and likeable main character back into family drama that she believed was long dead. It asks the reader consider questions about family history, the uselessness of polite society and in a roundabout way, the ethics of science.
The Story.
When Sam Montgomery, an archaeoentomologist (yes, apparently a real job!), finds herself without a roof over her head when her latest dig is put on hold, she returns to her childhood home to stay with her mother in rural North Carolina. It’s a home of unhappy memories. Sam’s grandmother is twenty years dead, although those twenty years are not long enough for Sam. Grama Mae was a tough-love grandmother who was overbearing, often menacing and in possession of an acid tongue. She frequently threatened her grandchildren with the terrifying ‘underground children’ when they misbehaved.
Arriving at the house Sam notices her mother is ‘not quite right’, she begins to worry about early onset dementia. But as the layers begin peeling back we realise that all is not what it seems. Sam’s family holds dark secrets at its roots.
Highlights.
There was so much to love about this book. The story serves up everything a reader expects from a southern gothic horror; perfect southern hospitality, creepy house vibes, family secrets and bizarre flora and fauna.
What I enjoyed most about this book was the way that it turns that overused idea of the rose being a symbol of love and beauty on its head; these are not your mother’s roses. In the acknowledgements T. Kingfisher reveals that she got the idea for the books while tending to her rose bushes, of which she has a love hate relationship.
Also worth mentioning as a highlight is the insect and bird life. From the first scene there are vultures watching the Montgomery home. Also, and unexpectedly very creepy, are swarming ladybugs, who knew lady bugs swarmed?
Another highlight in this story is the main character. Sam is the first to inform readers that she has never fit in in her hometown, and throughout the novel reflects on past incidents to prove her case. However, all of her self-proclaimed faults make her all the more endearing and only prove to be assets as the novel draws to an end.
Drawbacks.
T. Kingfisher’s horror books tend to lean toward the cozy horror genre, and with this comes frequent doses of wry humor and sarcasm. In A House with Good Bones this comedy is mostly delivered via the internal monologue of our main character Sam. Unfortunately, I feel that this more often than not missed its mark, creating moments that were cringy and uncomfortable (and not in a good ‘horror-ey’ way).
Another issue with this story is the attempt at a romance subplot between Sam and her mum’s handyman Phil. There was an attempt at a ‘meet-cute’ at the start of the novel and then repeated misunderstandings between the two that just miss the mark. It just felt too intentional and forced, as if T Kingfisher was set on including some sort of romance whether the plot needed it or not.
Final Take.
Despite having several drawbacks, I really did enjoy A House with Good Bones and actually read it in one sitting. The writing flows easily and the characters are relatable. Anyone who enjoyed T. Kingfisher’s, The Twisted Ones, will love this as well. Readers who make it to the gruesome end may be tickled to find is dedicated to T. Kingfisher’s grandmother “who was actually pretty awesome”.
This one is an easy 4 out of 5
(4 / 5)
