Freakin Fridays!
Freakin Fridays is my own little meme. I’ll be posting about books, movies, and all things scary.
Feel free to join in and do your own Freakin Fridays posts!
Tune in every Friday. Get your scare on!
Let’s have some fun!
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With the new year here, I’m ready to implement my new plans for my blog.
While I’ll still be doing my memes and posting for book tours and giveaways, I’m going to be doing a lot more reviewing.
Last week I asked you to help me with this. Below are the 5 books I’ll be reviewing for the 5 Fridays in January. You’ve let me know which one you want me to review first. The book with the most votes for my first 2014 Freakin Fridays review is The Little Mermaid of Death!
Enjoy my review and leave me a comment about which of the books below I should review next week!.
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The Little Mermaid of Death
by Kevin Richey
Tired of her life with the other swamp hags, Ariel strikes a bargain to obtain a mask so realistic she could pass for human. But can she trick anyone into marrying her before the mask deteriorates—and all without saying a word?
**
I won this book from a giveaway at I Smell Sheep.
Thanks so much Sharon and thanks Kevin!
My Review
Ariel isn’t like the other swamp hags. Sure, she still lines up for her share of flesh from an unfortunate victim, but she likes pretty things. She collects trinkets and squirrels them away under a rock in her nest beneath the stagnant bog waters.
One day, while setting a trap, she spies a beautiful man. Her world changes. She wishes she could be pretty, be human, and have love in her life.
When she has a chance, she takes it, hoping to get someone to fall in love with her before the power of the mask wears off, revealing the hag beneath.
Kevin Richey has written many of these Zombie Fairy Tales. This is the first one I’ve read and I’m so hooked now. I’m going to have to read them all.
I’m a fast reader and finished this in about 40 minutes with only one break to answer the phone.
Not for the sensitive stomach, this is gritty zombie fiction.
I liked Ariel. I liked that she had a wish for something different, for a human life. The author put a good twist on this one. While the mask made her look human, she had to get someone to fall in love with her without speaking a word.
I had high hopes for Ariel. I wanted her to succeed, but it was always in the back of my mind that this was a zombie fairy tale. I didn’t know if they had happy endings.
I had a lot of fun finding out.
If you like fairy tales and zombies, you’ll like this new spin on the little mermaid.
4 Stars
**
About Kevin Richey
Kevin Richey lives and writes in Portland, Oregon. He is the author of Zombie Fairy Tales, a series of short stories set in a dark fairy tale universe plagued by zombies, and the forthcoming Unloved Ones series, a YA urban fantasy series about seven vampire siblings who have one year to reduce their family to a single member, by whatever means necessary.
You can also now get the complete tales in one omnibus with a 13th tale exclusive to the set.
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Here are the books to choose from for next week. Let me know which one I should review next!
#1
The Monster Man of Horror House
by Danny King
Local oddball, John Coal is the town oddball. Old, crotchety, pungent and solitary, he lives in a scary old house that is almost as rundown as he and sees out his days shuffling around the streets harvesting his neighbours’ skips for scrap.
The local kids take great delight in plaguing him morning, noon and night but they’ve chosen the wrong old coot to mess with because John Coal is no ordinary man. He knows where the bodies are buried. He’s been to the outer limits. He is a keeper of dark secrets. Murder, monsters, demons and bi-polar vampires, he has seen them all and lived to tell the tale.
Now, if he is to rid himself of his woes he must dig into the deepest recesses of his past and use these terrible experiences to convince his tormentors he’s not just an old man to be pushed around.
He is John Coal – the Monster Man of Horror House.
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#2
Spooky Short Stories
by Kathryn Meyer Griffith
Four contemporary spooky short stories:
Ghost Brother… So what happens after you die? Do you go to heaven, or hell? Or do you go to a special place fashioned just for you based on the life you’d lived in the real world? Based on how you treated people? What you did to them? And do ghosts exist? Do they roam the earth and plague the living, persuade them to do things they shouldn’t do? Two brothers and their tale follow; their journey through life and death. Do you believe in ghosts? Some do.
Running with the Train… Sarah has always been lonely. Searching for a love she’s begun to believe will never come. Her family and friends depend, need her…but they can’t give her what she wants. True, eternal love. Like the wolves have. So she goes on an adventure of a lifetime to the Grand Canyon; rides the train from Williams to the South Rim and sees these huge wolves running alongside in the evening twilight; scurrying unbelievably below on the Canyon’s ledges among the trees. She’s told there are no wolves but she hears their haunting cries. No one else sees or hears them. Just her. Has her loneliness made her crazy?
The Banshee and the Witch… What would you do to live forever, stay young forever? To find true love again? And if you were a white witch with the magical powers to make it happen…and the secret of how to do it, would you? So when the banshee comes calling for you one rainy dark night you’ll do what you have to do to get what you desire the most. More time.
Too Close to the Edge… Artist Penelope had been looking forward to going with her husband, sister and brother-in-law to see the Grand Canyon…even though she was terrified of heights and, when she got there, couldn’t bear to get too close to the edge. She watched people balancing on one foot, acting foolish, taking photos, oblivious of the death waiting below them. It scared her. Especially when a woman relates a story of a small child that fell into the Canyon the day before. Over the edge. Then she sees a young girl go over the rim and no one will believe her. For there was no child that had died–that day anyway. Was she seeing things that weren’t there, or was there another explanation?
**
#3
Cold Blood
by Donna Ansari
As the winter holiday season descends on New York City, vampire Emma Hammond is anticipating celebrating with Tammy and David, her witch and werewolf roommates. But when an odd Christmas ornament unleashes waves of the undead from her neighborhood graveyard, Emma finds herself as an unwilling shield between ravenous zombies and an unsuspecting city. Even worse, despite having everyday dealing with supernatural creatures, Emma finds that she has an unnatural aversion to the shambling dead, and must get to their source and stop the invasion before she’s forced to cancel her holiday party!
**
#4
Days with the Undead
by Julianne Snow
It’s a journal of survival.
Five people set out to escape the Undead who have risen too close to home. Join the emotional and physical struggle as they began on the third day after the awakening of Brooks VanReit, as they are recorded from the point of view of Julie, a former pathologist and part-time survivalist.
Each entry is geared toward helping those who want to help themselves and maybe give a few that don’t a swift kick in the ass.
Join our group of survivors on their journey through these Days with the Undead.
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So tell me. Which one should I review next?