#Storyeachnight: Blood Fruit, edited by James EM Rasmussen
My friend Nicole Cushing does #storyeachnight on Twitter where she reads and reviews one tale from her vast collection of anthologies before bed every night. A few of us Horror Belles have joined in. I think it’s a neat way to read & review and I finished my first book tonight. Here’s the collected version:
Jan. 1- “The Lure of Dangerous Women” by Shanna Germain from Queered Press’s BloodFruit. Ocean-creature paranormal tales are very rare. This one was rich, well times, but a touch too short. I liked it, but I think expanded more it could have been amazing rather than just striking.
Jan 2- “A Different Kind of Monster” by TA Moore, also from BloodFruit from Queered Press. It’s a sexy, wicked tale that succeeds where a lot of horror/romance mixes as of late often fail. It reminded me a lot of Poppy Z. Brite.
Jan 3- ″Just Past Winter″ by Nathan Sims (Bloodfruit, Queered Press). Oooh! A Werewolf story! Interesting tale with a side that almost gets lost in some viciousness and m/m shape shifting sex scene. Not for everyone, but I liked it.
Jan 4- ″Hemophobia″ by Trent Roman (Bloodfruit, Queered Press). A hemophobic vampire tale this story tries to play with all kinds of stereotypes (sexuality & horror) but in the end it doesn’t escape the cliche. It’s not bad, but not standout.
Jan 5- ″The Diarist″ by Mark Silcox (Bloodfruit, Queered Press) is a queer ghost story with a classic-horror feel. In the end it seems like more time was spent on the setting and the characters and something’s missing in the pace/flow of the story itself.
Jan 6- ″After All″ by Laramie Dean (Bloodfruit, Queered Press) is one of the sweetest tales so far. Bitter sweet, but that’s how I like my ghost/zombie stories.
Jan 7- ″Happy Anniversary″ by Stephen Osborne (Bloodfruit, Queered Press), another ghost tale with a brief mention of facing the ghosts of the past. It has a real horror movie feel, which combined with its brevity makes it seem a little rushed.
Jan 8- ″Tombstone″ by Raymond Yeo (Bloodfruit, Queered Press), a neat little story about a superhero who is really a witch and his lover. This one is different from the others so far in how it handles the paranormal and GLBTQ theme. While I enjoy stories that use horror and the paranormal as metaphor for GLBTQ issues it’s nice to see a pulpy paranormal story that just happens to star a gay guy.
Jan 9- ″Captive Magic″ by Garry Mclaughlin (Bloodfruit, Queered Press). I also enjoyed this one, with its pseudo-Lovecraft feel and clever lead. It could have been a hard hitting moody piece, but the author went for satisfying and amusing instead. It works.
Jan 10- ″Hollow″ by Jamie Freeman (Bloodfruit, Queered Press). This is a real dark, real hard story to read because it puts reads directly into the mind of a sadistic rapist. Too disturbing for me to really like.
Jan 11- ″For Her Eyes″ by Quinn Smythwood (Bloodfruit, Queered Press). This one has a creepy gaslighting feel sure to put readers on edge without a single vampire, killer, werething or ghost to be had.