Archive for May 6, 2012

Title: The Dark Horde

Author: Brewin’

The Dark Horde

Book Description from Goodreads

Part thriller, part crime-fiction, all supernatural horror, The Dark Horde tells of the return of an ancient evil that is neither stoppable nor comprehensible…

My Review

From the opening page to the horror driven end, this story had me riveted.

Howqua Hills is under siege by something. Monster, demon, alien, or creature from another dimension, who knows? They have been waiting, but no more. Out of the shadows they come, the Dark Horde.  Hungry for flesh, they thrill to feel our terror and revel in our pain. Want a taste?

“The beast had an acute sense of smell, enabling it to smell the raw terror in the sweat of its quarry. The smell of this human was strong, indulging its senses with delectable wafts. Hungry for the kill, it gripped the wooden handle of the trap door and slowly teased it open. The shrieking cry of its hinges rang out, enhancing the fear of the cornered prey…It entered, scraping its clawed feet across each wooden step with calculated intent to terrify… Two down, one to go.”

The action is intense and relentless and the creatures are absolutely terrifying. Want a bit more?

“It glared at them with red, hate-filled eyes the shape of swollen slits as its bloodied snout curled to reveal a chaotic array of sharpened teeth. It grinned.”

Able to manipulate our minds, they invade our dreams with heart-stopping nightmares. I was worried they would invade my dreams. I read this book in one sitting and finished in the wee hours. Maybe it was because I was sleep deprived, but I didn’t remember dreaming. However, there are many more nights to come.

Brewin’ is a master at making you afraid of the dark. I suggest you sleep with a flashlight!

Here is the Unpublished Prologue

I was once an avid believer in many things… I believed in love, in compassion, in hope. I even believed in a God watching lovingly over us and that somewhere within the mystery of it all, there was a special place for us. This inclination towards a blind faith was strong in me, stamped upon my DNA and cultivated through my upbringing. I was sheltered from the brutal reality of this world, hidden from the horrible truths of our existence.

It is your choice to hear these words, but be warned, once you understand what they mean you will never be able to hide in the warm comfort of ignorance again.

Unless you’re prepared for this, it’s best you stop now. Time is short now, I sense them drawing close. Whilst blood flows through these shaking hands, I will tell you of them, in the hope that someone hears these words and know of what is inevitably to come.

I know not how to stop the Dark Horde, or how to stop the events I have set into motion. But I doubt it makes any difference, as mankind is doomed anyway.

It wasn’t always like this. Once I enjoyed a happy life too. Once I had  a life. my early childhood to the outsider seemed like any other. A child full of energy and confidence, and the world around me was of wonder. Then, when I was seven, came the visions. They were infrequent at first, like intermittent thunder before the storm, but by the time I was eight they were coming to me not only every night, but every hour of every waking day. Every child fears the dark, but who’s to believe that a child’s nightmares could possibly be real?

I was trapped alone in a world of nightmares, under constant assault from a force no one could see or believe. With time the cancerous visions only grew stronger and my parents grew ever more frantic in their attempts to find a cure. After numerous doctors and counselors, my parents finally found a psychiatrist to their liking. I was not yet ten when he gave his damning assessment; “Your son is suffering from temporary psychosis of a type that is treatable and not uncommon in boys his age. Nightmares and the fear of the dark occur in most children and have been known to be so intense that it results in delusions and even hallucinations. it is merely a product of the hormonal imbalance of puberty, of an over-active imagination…But he will be cured and in years to come he’ll look back at these days with humor and think how silly he’d been! Fear not, this psychosis will come to pass.”

I was to receive therapy and medication, and for a few mostly happy years, the treatment seemed successful. but always below the surface, dark forces gathered, revealing themselves in occasional “fits of madness”. My doctor was intrigued by this and sought to uncover what was best left alone. He put me under hypnosis, an event that was to forever alter my life. I was only thirteen. The hypnosis swept aside the clouds of consciousness, revealing my past in all its horror. I saw my previous life and the terrible deeds I had done. I realised then that the visions keep returning to haunt me because they are my past. In some archaic time I had brought them into this world, though what they were, I did not know. I only knew that they were alien to this world and meant only to destroy it…And I. in some “fit of madness”, had let them in.

I became resigned to the power of the visions, recognising my place in the scheme of things and realising the futility of it all. With time, I learned to hide the visions effects and ceased to even tell others of their existence. By the age of sixteen, I was deemed cured and ready to join the “real world”…But I had merely learned to wear the mask of sanity. Sometimes, however, the mask slipped…And deeds of darkness came to light.

I would wake alone in a dark forest, shivering. Then I’d realize…I dreamt this. Somehow I had sleepwalked into the forest at night, the black shapes of swaying trees crowded around me and the wind taunted in strange voices. Then I’d notice the candle-lit inscriptions in the dirt before me…If what I just dreamt was real, then I knew we were in great danger. Screaming, I’d run through moonless undergrowth until I found a road I could follow home, or someone found me, bruised and feverish, the next day.

My fate was inevitable. I was doomed to repeat history.

Neither drugs nor therapy would stop my sleepwalking and before long I was sleeping in restraints. At seventeen I left school and moved with my parents from Howqua Hills to far away Melbourne. With the move, my sleepwalking tendencies ended and I was able to begin a new life among strangers who did not know my past, nor care. They teased me for my country background, but accepted me as normal, as someone who was dependable. But never did the visions relent on my tortured mind, ever reminding me of who I was and who I was destined to be.

It is now five years later and things are no different. destiny is cruel when you are its slave. There is no privilege in this, no fortune in being chosen, there is only eternal damnation. but I cannot be held responsible for something that started and was predetermined before i was even born. And if I wasn’t their channel, it inevitably would have been another, if it wasn’t my past life, it inevitably would have been someone elses.

it is utterly useless to try to stop them. Their age is limitless, as is their knowledge and power. We are to them as ants on the Earth. An organized society that adapts and multiplies, but does not know of the world around it. We are not the most advanced creature in the universe, even on our own planet. Nor are we blessed in any way. Just as many other species of life succumbed to our dominance, so shall we succumb to others.

And now as I sit here making this recording of my final words; i know that i can restrain them no longer. Consciousness is fading, the lights grow dim and my voice faint. they are close now.

Calling…Calling…Calling…

“…..Come Dark Horde, remember, and once more be!

We are as one, as many are we,

Become one, once more be.

We are as one, as many are we,

Become one, once more be…”

After many hours of semiconscious chanting, I was startled awake by a sharp crack in front of me. Before me stretched a black void with depths beyond comprehension. A nauseating stench fell over me and I saw that within the nebulous darkness was a pair of eyes: red convex slits. They were a short distance away and staring directly at me, my mind naked before their gaze…

My God, what had I done?

About Brewin’

Brewin’ knew he wanted to be a writer when he was only seven and that has shaped his life. A gift from his brothers of a Role Playing Game Book was a pivotal moment in his life. Game books(along with role-playing games) made him the writer he is today. The last third of his first published novel, Evermore: An Introduction, is a choose-your-own-adventure and his second novel, The Dark Horde, has one of the characters from Evermore in it. For more about Brewin’ and his work visit:

http://www.thebrewin.com

Title: A Demon Made Me Do It

Demonblood Series #1

Author: Penelope King

 

My review
When an Amazea demon curses Lucky her soul is split in half. During the day she lives as Liora, a 17 years old human and by night she lives as Lucky, an Aequitas demon whose duty is to dole out justice and torment those that deserve it. While they share one body, each one lives in their own realm with totally different lives. Not particularly caring for each other, they have developed an uneasy truce.

Enter Kieron, a demon that moves through both worlds.When Liora meets him she begins to hope that she has a chance at a normal relationship and happiness. The s*#t hits the fan when Lucky finds out that they have been hanging out together. She doesn’t trust Kieron and feels that he is a threat to both of them.

The author makes you feel a strong connection to all of the characters, which I find new and refreshing. She tells the story from Liora’s and Lucky’s points of view and writes it so well that you have no trouble following along. Actually, you can’t help but keep reading as you are drawn deeper into the story and discover a world of incubi and demons of all kinds.

The ending is exciting and satisfying with plenty of room for more. I am anxious to read Fire with Fire, Book 2, which is out now.

Also available: Witchy, Witchy (Spellbound Trilogy #1)

4 STARS

This book is appropriate for mid-teens to adults. I would recommend it to anyone that loves YA/ paranormal romance and fantasy.

About the author

Penelope King is a native Californian who now lives in beautiful South Carolina. She says “ya’ll” more often than she’d like to admit, eats more fried food than is probably healthy, and still hasn’t gotten used to the scary thunderstorms that seem to appear out of nowhere.

She stays up way too late and does the bulk of her writing in the witching hours. She rarely misses a sunrise, and needs to include a special “thank you” to Starbucks caramel frappuccinos.

When she’s not writing, she’s reading any and all YA out there, swimming, kayaking at the river, doing Zumba and kickboxing, or watching a trashy reality show. She can BBQ better than most men, and if she had to marry a food it would probably be pizza, but she’d cheat on it with sushi.

You can find her at:

http://authorpenelopeking.blogspot.com