Horror and Wholesome
My son loved books. If the only thing the kid ever got as a gift was books, he’d have been the happiest person on earth. No idea where he got it from; his dad and I could barely bother skimming short news articles, much less intentionally sit down to slog through a book. Cole, though.... Continue Reading →
Out off the old county road, there’s a path that runs through the woods. It cuts across to what passes for a downtown around here. The trail itself isn’t much to write home about, just some wooden planks laid down to mark its edges and the occasional sign nailed to trees warning people not to... Continue Reading →
Shannon Felton's The Prisoners of Stewartville is a glimpse into a depressing town overshadowed by the prison complex sitting in the middle of it. The horrors found in the tired, littered streets are subtle and creeping, and only sometimes coming from where you expect. I really enjoyed this book. The story itself was engaging, the... Continue Reading →
I wouldn’t say I was a lonely guy. I had people in my life, I got out of my house, I stayed relatively fit and healthy. I just didn’t have much luck in love. I know a lot of people want someone to blame in that kind of situation. The women who reject them. The... Continue Reading →
I think about death a lot. Not my own, not really, anyway, but my family’s. My parents, cousins, pets. I see them die over and over again, each time more gruesome and detailed than the last. And I’m just so tired. I was seven when Grandma died. It was my first brush with death, and... Continue Reading →
Stephanie Ellis' Bottled tells the story of Tyler, a divorced alcoholic and father to a son he rarely sees. His childhood was one marred by abuse, neglect, and the unexplained disappearance of his father, most of which occurred within the walls of his grandfather's large home. The only solace he had came from tiny, living... Continue Reading →
A lot of people don’t remember that Christmas is rooted in fear. It’s been wrapped up in pretty packaging, given the face of a jolly bearded man, made to sound like jingling bells and the hoofbeats of eight tiny reindeer. But in my small Pennsylvania town, we remembered. We called the weeks leading up to... Continue Reading →
My friend followed me everywhere. She didn’t have a name, so I called her Kitten. She didn’t have a voice, so I spoke for her. She didn’t have a body, so I let her use mine. I found her under the old stone bridge on my way home from school. I don’t know how. One... Continue Reading →
Chris Sorenson’s “The Nightmare Room” is a tale about hardship, heartache, and haunted pasts. Audiobook narrator Peter Larson and his wife, Hannah, return to Peter’s childhood town after their family is struck with tragedy. Upon their arrival, they discover that Peter’s ailing father, affectionately nicknamed Big Bear, had owned a house that they weren’t aware... Continue Reading →
It’s no secret that my favorite subgenre of horror is ghost stories, so when Silver Shamrock Publishing offered a copy of Midnight In The Graveyard for honest review, I jumped at it. Before we get into the stories themselves, can we just take a moment to appreciate that cover? It evokes exactly the kind of... Continue Reading →
Stories By S.H. Cooper 