Still More Suggested Reads

This is my fourth list of suggested books and authors with which you can while away those lazy summer days, or hunker down and wait out inclement winter weather if you’re south of the equator.

Banana Sandwich by Steve Bargdill

Actually anything by Mr Bargdill is well worth your money and your time. For example, here is a story that is a superb example of show, don’t tell: http://www.tingemagazine.org/left-with-the-moon/

In Banana Sandwich, Carol is mentally ill. After a stint of being off her meds, she decides to start taking them again and get better. And then the world goes crazy on her.

This is a masterful novel. It’s funny. It’s sad. It’s dark. One of the best works of contemporary literary fiction out there.

Don’t miss this one. I own all of Bargdill’s published work. He is one awesome writer. Incredibly awesome.

Hotel Obscure by Lisette Brodey

This book is billed as a collection of short stories. Nix that. I mean they are, technically speaking, short stories. However, Ms Brodey has written the stories around a theme and they are to be read in the order they appear in the book. So to my way of thinking, Hotel Obscure is something of an episodic novel rather than just a short story collection.

Having worked in public assistance, I could easily relate to the characters in this book, because only the down and out go to the Hotel Obscure.

The book, however, lives on a much grander scale. Because it is about people, and living, and dying, and the meaning of life.

Hotel Obscure is a fabulous book. I highly recommend it.

Pierce Mostyn Paranormal Investigations by CW Hawes

Hey! Wait a minute! I know that guy! Okay, maybe I’m cheating, but this is my blog and I want to do a little promo for the Pierce Mostyn series and the new Mostyn adventure that is coming out at the end of this month.

I’ve been very pleased with the good things that have been said about the Pierce Mostyn books.

Here’s an excerpt from a review of Nightmare in Agate Bay:

CW Hawes, author of the fantastic “Rocheport Saga”, has done it again putting together a well-crafted story that slowly builds in tension. Trust me, you won’t want to put it down! Hawes has managed to capture that Lovecraftian atmosphere that so many get wrong, superbly managing to weave a contemporary thread to the shadowed tapestry of the past. Bravo indeed!

Now if comments like that don’t warm an author’s heart, nothing will.

I serialized the working draft of The Medusa Ritual, the fifth book in the Pierce Mostyn Paranormal Investigations series, on this blog and if you read the blog installments, thank you!

If you decided to wait for the book to come out, good for you. Because good things come to those who wait.

I got good feedback on the book and all those improvements will be in the book version. So even if you read the serial — the book will be even better.

Keep your eyes peeled. Watch this blog, my Facebook page, and my Twitter account for the publication announcement.

Or better yet, sign up for my VIP Readers list. You’ll be the first to know, get exclusive offers, and you’ll get “The Feeder” which is a Pierce Mostyn novelette exclusively for my VIP Readers.

Here is another review excerpt, this one for Terror in the Shadows:

Terror in the Shadows, the third book in the adventures of Pierce Mostyn and the Office of Unidentified Phenomena, picks up where Stairway to Hell left off. …to investigate strange sightings and attacks in a rural countryside. The investigation leads Mostyn’s team to an abandoned mansion, where things quickly go from bad to worse as a certain family history turns out to have gone downhill… if not down the gene pool.

Terror returns to territory Hawes traveled with Nightmare in Agate Bay, where he explores HP Lovecraft stories in a more modern setting. In this case, Hawes plays homage to Lovecraft’s “The Lurking Fear” (there’s a brief reference to the title in the first chapter – don’t miss it!). The idea of “regression” is well explored in the storyline, and is well explained in contrast to evolution. The climax of the story is especially exciting, like a strange cross between Lovecraft’s original narrative and the climax of the original Assault on Precinct 13.

If you haven’t read the Pierce Mostyn series, you can check it out on Amazon. But remember: there be monsters here!

Comments are always welcome! And until next time, happy reading!

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