Save My Soul by Zoe Winters

From the Amazon.com product description:

"All he’s asking for is her soul.


After buying the antebellum home she’s fantasized about since childhood, Anna Worthington discovers Luc, a dangerously seductive incubus who has been trapped in the house by a fifty-year-old curse. To rid herself of her problem house guest she’ll call on a priest, gypsies, ghost hunters, and the coven of witches from lust bunny hell. All she has to do is resist him long enough to break the spell so they can go their separate ways. If she doesn’t, she could die. And that would be the best case scenario."
 
I had planned to read the first chapter and then finish another book in my to-read pile, but Save My Soul would not go down without a fight. It started as a haunted house mystery, morphed into a steamy paranormal romance, and finished strong with an ending that wrapped up all the plot threads in a nice, neat, sexy bow of snarky and surprising fun.


The plot is engaging. The sex scenes are hot and full of tension. The prose is tight and laugh-out-loud funny in places.

My only regret is that I tore through this book in barely two days and now have to wait for the next book in the Preternaturals series.
 
Physics. What a pain.
 
Forget the stars on this one. Remember that scene in Buffy the Vampire Slayer in which Buffy and Spike have crazy sex so hard that they destroy a fucking building? Yeah you do. That was a great scene. I give Save My Soul five of those.

Choose Your Doom: Zombie Apocalypse by DeAnna Knippling & Dante Savelli - A zombiefied choose your own adventure style spatterfest

Zombie Apocalypse is a throwback to the Choose Your Own Adventure books I grew up with. Instead of simply reading the story, you are given choices at certain intervals that allow you to direct the actions of tough guy slacker hero, Tobe, as he tries to protect his friends and fight off the zombie horde trashing his parents’ restaurant and, apparently, the rest of the city.

The story throws you directly into the action. Within the first few pages, zombies arrive and Tobe has to make multiple life or death decisions. Does he bash in the head of his former classmate turned zombie or does he run and hide? 

Of course I chose to bash away. For me, it was a … NO BRAINER!

HAR!

I crack me up.

Virtually every choice you make leads to either the wet, gooey destruction of zombies or the death of friends and innocent victims. Like it plainly states on the cover, “No happy endings!”

Blood, zombie parts, and evil black ichor fly off of 190 fun and disturbing illustrations that play out the various scenarios presented in the text.

You might lead Tobe to become the champion of a rag tag group of survivors or you might see him infected by the undead, himself. If you’re lucky, you just might survive long enough to find the source of the zombie virus and save the day, but I doubt it. The ending is all up to you.

I highly recommend this fun and creative, yet disturbing trek through the Zombie Apocalypse.

Choose Your Doom: Zombie Apocalypse receives a rating of 5 Bruce Campbells!!

Lonely Werewolf Girl by Martin Millar - Seemingly, the test tube book baby of several of my favorite writers.

If Douglas Adams and Anne Rice had a little werewolf book baby that was later raised by Neil Gaiman, that baby would grow up to be Lonely Werewolf Girl by Martin Millar.

The sheer size of this book intimidated me more than a little. It weighs in at well over five hundred pages, yet I tore through it faster than most three hundred pagers. Why? Because the action and humor never lets up.

Kalix is easily the loneliest and most depressed little werewolf ever. She is also the exiled princess of the royal werewolf clan MacRinnalch of Scotland. Despite her wispy frame and emo exterior, Kalix is among the most powerful werewolves in existence. She wanders the streets of London, drowning her numerous sorrows and avoiding death at the hands of werewolf hunters or family members who seek to shore up their claim to the throne after their father's death.

She is befriended by a pair of human students, Daniel and Moonglow, who are sucked into the world of werewolf political assassinations, high fashion espionage, and rock and roll.

The cast of characters numbers in the dozens. There are treacherous werewolf aristocrats, noble outcasts, would-be rockers, powerful warlords, fashionista fairy queens, seedy supernatural relic dealers, and a cross-dressing werewolf warrior-prince. The vast majority of these players are morally ambiguous. They each experience flashes of good and moments of pure evil that keep the story moving. Their goals may be simple, but their motives, alliances, and actions are anything but.

Though the book is quite lengthy, the text is broken up into chapters of usually two to three pages. This structure is ideal for reading in five or ten minute stretches if you are like me and are forced to resort to guerrilla reading sessions as time permits.

Lonely Werewolf Girl is my new favorite werewolf novel. I’m trying to get away from stars, but if you need one for this review, I give it the Super Mario Brothers invincibility star as follows:

Bizarro soup for the fractured soul: Fungus of the Heart by Jeremy C. Shipp

Fungus of the Heart is a collection of stories by Bram Stoker Award nominee, Jeremy C. Shipp. The tales take place in worlds similar to our own, but offer a twisted reflection of the reality we live in.

Undead ambassadors lurk just outside the suburbs. A powerful protector will kill anyone he has to kill to see his lost love, or will he? A ghost works as a human whisperer. An anthropomorphic walrus and a dead bear mend the hearts of the world one poacher at a time.

Each of the thirteen tales is unified by the theme of heart.

Fire, water, wind, and earth are thankfully absent.

Maybe the author had a definite meaning for these stories. Maybe he didn’t. It doesn’t matter.

This is the world of Bizarro fiction.

When reading this book, you will see what you want to see: yourself, your neighbor, your dog. Reading the same story twice will produce two distinct experiences and emotions. No one will have the exact same journey as anyone else.

If fiction that follows the conventions of “normal” stories is the only thing you want to read, then stay away from this book. If you read it, you will be confused, challenged, and possibly even entertained.

The author has a website with a link to several of his short stories free online. Go there. Test the waters. If you don’t run away screaming or stamp away in disgust, then you probably want to read more. Fungus of the Heart is a great place to start.

I don’t give stars on my reviews anymore. If I did, I’d give this one a Vega, which is nothing to sneeze at.

Halloween is upon us ...

Halloween season is here! Don’t believe me? Go to your nearest Wal-Mart type superstore or grocery store. To get to the milk you will have to climb at least three mountains of Halloween candy. I love this time of year. Until I can convince the governments of the world to make Halloween a monthly occurrence I will have to be satisfied with our annual trip to monsterville.


This month, I have several things planned for you loyal Werewolf Kibblers. I have plans to review many of my favorite spooky films and books, including Sweeney Todd, Trick r Treat, Dog Soldiers, A Night In The Lonesome October (yes, again), Phantasm, and at least one of Rob Zombie’s Halloween movies. I will release at least two more pieces of chapter art for Werewolf Gunslinger: All Hallows. That story has turned out to be a lot of fun, so I am working to get it completed as quickly as my gnarly little fingers and demented brain will allow.

Also, Chris Kelly has published his first full-length novel. To celebrate that, he is hosting a month long blog tour. Check out the interview here. Then, go buy Matilda Raleigh: Invictus. It’s $2.99. I bet you spent more than that at Starbucks on a mocha. Help a new author out.

Because I am anal and at least mildly deranged, I know that October 13 is the day my character Lucifera from the novel Lucifera’s Pet became a vampire. To celebrate her birth in darkness, I am publishing the entire first chapter of Werewolf Gunslinger: All Hallows for free on my blog on October 13. The chapter features the lovable Miss L doing what evil vampires do best: bad things.

So, stock up on candy. Get your costume in order. Hang the garlic at every door and window. Halloween is on its way!





M.T. Murphy is the author of Lucifera’s Pet, a violent and sexy dark fiction tale of werewolves and vampires. Connect with him below:

Website: http://www.luciferaspet.com/

Blog: http://werewolfkibble.blogspot.com/

Twitter: http://twitter.com/WerewolfMike

MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/luciferaspet

Smashwords (Free eBooks): http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/mtmurphy

Book Review - Twinkle by Dan McGirt

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/10566

Available as a free download above.

Stella and Edmund share a love like no other. Neither an ancient curse nor the painful transition from adolescence to adulthood can quell their passion. Time has finally come for these lovers to cast off the conventions of their respective cultures and be together forever.

Before they can begin their new life of bliss an unwelcome outsider alters their course. In the midst of tragedy an ancient evil stirs, threatening to destroy the quiet town of Twinkle.

Can Stella overcome her fear and become a heroine with the help of a rogue warrior? Will the town of Twinkle crumble or triumph in the face of damnation?

How does that summary grab you?

Is your BS-o-meter going off yet? I hope it is.

Twinkle by Dan McGirt is satire at its best, folks. If you can read through the first three pages without laughing hard enough to cause internal bleeding and/or soil yourself, you should probably stop there. With approximately 16,000 words, it is well worth the small time investment it takes to read through to the end.

McGirt takes on a host of pop culture topics with the kid gloves left in their proper place: on the shelf. The angsty vampire genre receives a ten pound monkey wrench to the gut with hilarious results.

If you have no sense of humor DO NOT READ THIS BOOK.

If you believe politicians truly have our best interests at heart DO NOT READ THIS BOOK.

If you have a weak bladder DO NOT READ THIS BOOK.

If the thought of ridiculously good looking vampire and werewolf kids meeting untimely and unsavory ends bothers you in the least DO NOT READ THIS BOOK.

On the other hand, if you can appreciate a satirical look at the things and people over which we tend to obsess these days, then you might just enjoy Dan McGirt’s foray into the absurd.

Twinkle is easily worth a thousand times the $0 I paid for it.

~M

Note: After I posted this review, Dan has renamed Twinkle to Sara Palin, Vampire Hunter. A lot of the fun for me was discovering that major plot twist as I read, but the book is still a very funny and engaging story.