Author: Sharon

Writer of Dark and Light Fiction. Fact, fiction, poetry, short stories, articles and novels. Cross-genre, slipstream, non-traditional romance, gothic, horror, fantasy and more... Visit this diverse writer's site.

Nov 2022 Reads

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Ghost Story, Peter Straub
I want to love this book, but it wasn’t for me. I fully admire the author’s reputation, and this story is imaginative. But I also found this to have too much exposition, meaning the novel flew by in parts and dragged in others. No creep factor and definitely not scary, so if that’s what you’re looking for, this isn’t it. Neither is it a ghost story. I’d suggest reading a sample and other reviews before deciding to spend time with this one.

Last Days, Adam Nevill
Asked to film a documentary about a defunct cult is a job Kyle will come to regret. A bold idea exceedingly well-written. My only negative isn’t that it’s a long book but that it also felt a little overlong. Would take an experienced editor to know what to cut, though, as there’s a lot to take in, but I feel the length diminished the deliciously creepy suspense some. Not enough to affect my enjoyment, but for me the book loses a star because of it… which isn’t drastic criticism by any means. Had I not read the book, I would have missed a wild ride and much scary imagery. Extremely imaginative and well worth spending time with.

Don’t Look Down, Jennifer Crusie & Bob Mayer
A perfect blend of romance novel and action movie with a kid obsessed with Wonder Woman who’s hard not to love. Very snappy lines and thoroughly entertaining with a great cast. I can’t think of anything not to enjoy. This is the first Crusie book I’ve read where the author writes with Bob Mayer, but I will happily read the others.

The Sandman (Volume Three), Neil Gaiman and cast (audio dramatisation)
Not as riveting as the first two volumes, but I can say the same of the graphic novels from which these stories are taken. Still worth it, and expertly performed. I honestly feel I enjoyed these as much as the television series, though nothing will ever diminish the books. For one who loves all things Sandman, they’re a welcome addition.

Piranesi, Susanna Clarke.
A strange book that made me question what in the world I was reading. It’s certainly memorable. Like it or not, this story may well stay with the reader for a long time, if not forever. All the number of day in the month of the albatross in the number of hall got rather monotonous, which made me feel uncertain at first, but the more I read the more engrossed I became. The best thing about this book is the way the author reveals the mystery, and the way she builds Piranesi’s world in the mind. To my mind, this is no Strange and Norrell epic (the first book for which the author’s so well-known), but it’s still impressive, mostly in its construction. On a minor note, though a small volume, the hardback is a lovely-looking book to have on the shelves.

So, you think it’s cold out…

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Well, yes, that’s because it is, but every time I feel like moaning, I spare a thought for those who are homeless and those who, for whatever reason, don’t have access to central heating, though with rising prices, that includes a great deal more of us this year. Honestly, I feel we’re returning to my grandparents’ time, of how ‘being cold’ was something they not only expected, but put up with without complaint. Not that I’m suggesting anyone should do so now. We’re supposed to move forward, not slip back. Every generation expects the next to see improvements, to have a better life.

The council found my grandparents on my mother’s side alternative housing owing to such supposed improvements (I say supposed because I’ve now have reason to believe they were told lies as to those reasons). I was an infant, but I have vague memories of the old house is the important issue here. The door opened on a long, narrow corridor, with a room to the right. At the end of the house, stairs on the left led up, or further along a corridor led to the right. The stairs were dark and steep, and I remember them distinctly because I once fell down them. They went to a first floor where my grandparents had their living room/kitchen, and their bedroom. Another flight of stairs went to another level, where there were two more bedrooms. There was no bathroom. The only room to have heating was the living room/kitchen, where a fire burned in the stove for heat and for cooking.

The corridor at the bottom of the house led directly into the scullery. I recall the house had some sort of furnace that provided a hot water supply, but the house definitely had no central heating. Few houses did back then. A large tin bath hung on a hook in the scullery, and when people wanted a bath, they would take this bath up to the living room, placed it in front of the fire, and filled with hot water. Owing to the difficulties of having a bath, many people didn’t bother to have a full wash nightly. We knew some families where a bath was a weekly ritual, but I recall my grandmother always made sure I was as clean as could be (I can feel her scrubbing behind my ears to this day), and that she wouldn’t go to bed without using a bowl of water for herself.

The scullery also contained a sink, and it was here that my grandmother would do the family’s laundry. I can still picture her green glass scrubbing board and the old wooden mangle. People didn’t have washing machines and were lucky if there was a local laundromat or could afford to use them regularly if one was available. Washing meant hard graft — soaping up clothes and scrubbing them against the ridges of the glass board, then setting all the washed clothes aside to rinse. Once rinsed, my nan passed the clothes through the mangle, then hung them in the yard to dry. Once dry, she ironed them, not with an electric iron, but a hot plate iron that was set on the fire. There was no temperature control, and one had to be careful not to burn the clothing.

The door from the scullery led out into the small yard — half concrete, half soil, the soil area fenced off and used by my grandfather to grow vegetables. Not because he enjoyed gardening as a hobby, but because they needed to supplement their food supply. He would also grow tomatoes up on the roof, but that’s a whole other story.

My grandfather would play football with me in this yard, which was surrounded by brick walls. There was one other door out in the yard and this led to the outside toilet. I only remember visiting and cannot recall using it, but I do recall stories my grandfather would tell of going out there late at night during winter and having to chip the ice off the seat before he dared to sit down, hoping skin didn’t stick.

This is making me sound as if I’m 90, but this isn’t so long ago. We’re talking late 60s and even into the 70s. I never had central heating until I left home at age 21. My parents never had central heating until two years later.

Did we moan? Yes. Sometimes we did. I can recall going to school in the snow up to my knees and they still expected us to get there. Occasionally, they turned us away at the gate and we had to trudge back home again. There were times we complained about being cold. We washed one limb at a time, quickly covering it. We got dressed under the covers while still in bed in the morning, and we weren’t the only ones doing it. I can talk to my mother-in-law, who had a completely different upbringing in a separate part of the country, and yes, I admit she’s much older than I; still, she can remember similar stories. She never had central heating until the late 1980s. Remembers coping because that’s just what people did. She tells me that people seldom got sick out in the country, although I can’t say the same for people I knew living in London, where some places were ill-looked after and sometimes damp. My parents didn’t even have an actual fire — they had to make do with electric heaters, which were costly.

So whenever I’m snug indoors, I’m reminded it could be much worse. I remember hard times that people didn’t even know were hard, but simply accepted as the way things were. I remember slipping and sliding, trying to walk to school, and I remember it feeling as cold inside as it was out, even while there was snow on the ground. Mostly, though, I recall with a nostalgic smile my grandfather drawing a jagged shape in the ice on his bedroom window, and telling me, “Look, Jack Frost is here.”

The way so many are struggling now doesn’t feel so nostalgic. Only painful and pitiful that the world has moved backwards.

To the Person who left me a Comment

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To the person who left me a comment saying they may look like spam but assuring me otherwise, your site looks like… well, spam. You say you’re not a publisher and yet you’re making money selling free ebooks. This is an oxymoron. If you are selling books, they’re not ‘free’. Second, you say you’re not a writer, so from where are you getting these books? Are you selling other people’s free ebooks? If you’re doing so without their permission, you violate copyright law. If you are buying ebooks and selling them on, you violate copyright law. On both counts, I advise you to read the statement re copyright on this site. If you are doing something else that I don’t understand, my apologies, but no, I will not download your report file from a site that says little. For all I know, it could be a virus. I’d advise everyone else not to do so either. This isn’t personal. I’m just being sensibly cautious. Sorry.

Look, copyright law on ebooks is simple. It prohibits the copy, distribute, resale or loan of an ebook. Saying that, most of us wouldn’t object if we heard readers have made a backup copy purely for personal use. We live in a wonderful age of technology, but technology fails us from time to time. We hear of someone selling our work and we’d like to come down on them like the proverbial tonnage. Writers and publishers are getting better at locating piracy sites and law enforcement are finally taking it seriously.

A common question is “If I can resell or loan a printed book, why can’t I, as a reader, resell or loan ebooks?” To be honest, even the reselling or lending of some printed books is a grey area. However, it tends to be overlooked because of several reasons:

  1. Most people hate the idea of printed books being destroyed. If you’re finished with them and cannot pass them on in some way, they are only good for recycling.
  2. When a printed book is passed on, someone may find an author they like and start buying new books by that author regularly. It’s sort of free advertising and yes, perhaps this would apply to ebooks but a major difference and reason exists why this doesn’t work so read on.
  3. Many second-hand books are sold for charitable purposes.
  4. The reader gives up the physical edition of the book and will no longer own it.

Point 4 is the major one. When you give, sell, or loan a printed book, you give away the item you purchased. Even when lending it, you risk not getting it back. You are not making a ‘physical copy’ of that book to pass it on.

When you pass on an ebook (and some people do this in innocence, not piracy, but they are still in the wrong) the reader tends to keep their version and simply send the file on, making a ‘copy’. This is as illegal in both electronic and printed works.

Imagine taking one of Stephen King’s novels, dissecting it, scanning it in, printing it up either by POD, or via the printer at home, and trying to give it away, sell it, or hand to a friend. Should SK find out, do you think he wouldn’t sue? Do you think he’d be flattered?

The point is no one may make a ‘copy’ of any written work, be it printed or electronic. You may (usually) print off an electronic book to read it in that form should you not wish to read on screen, but that printed form has the same laws. You may not sell it or pass it on. If you wish to pass on an ebook, the best way is to buy an extra copy, and what’s so wrong with that? We all have people to buy presents for.

Oh… and to those who think they can file share their ebook library, has nothing I’ve stated sunk in? An individual’s collection is NOT a library and even if it could be, there is such a thing as the ‘public lending right’. This means an author can, if they wish, claim a small payment every time a library lends one of their books.

  • You are not a publisher, and the author has not signed a contract with you. You do not have the right to sell.
  • You are not an official state library. You do not have the right to loan (and let’s be honest — a loan in electronic format means copy and give away).
  • You are not friends with thousands of strangers online that you simply ‘must’ lend your books to (and we’ve already established that you are not lending but copying) and authors and publishers will not turn their back on you giving their work away.

I’m not speaking to those who are deliberately committing an act of piracy. They know they are breaking the law, damaging authors and the publishing industry, and they don’t care. The most we can do is assure them that while there will always be crooks, there will always be those willing to fight criminal activity. I’m speaking mainly to those that do this in innocence, not understanding they do anything wrong. Readers claim to love writers. They claim to love our work. We do work — hard — at this. Most of us have day jobs, families, lives just like everyone. We have to find time to write on top of all that. We often forsake sleep. Many don’t make as much money as people think and even if we did, haven’t we earned it? Readers say they love our characters, our worlds, our stories. They claim to love our work and even to love us. Why do something harmful to someone or something you love?

Update Oct 2022

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Hi Everyone!

AT HOME:
Made some headway exploring some National Trust parkland. It’s so easy to only visit the houses and listed highlights, but many properties have extensive parklands we’d be stupid not to take advantage of. A strange thing about living in the countryside is city dwellers often exclaim over how nice it must be to live somewhere surrounded by all those fields. What they forget is that doesn’t always make for a walker’s paradise. Those fields are owned by farmers. You can only cross them on a public right of way, and even then that means brambles, and stinging nettles, and cow pats in your path, not to mention the occasional bull if you’re not careful. At least plenty of mud. Living in the countryside doesn’t always mean a ready amount of available and ready walks. It’s necessary also to remember that as far as you walk in one direction, you need to retrace your steps back to the car, or be fully aware of the landmarks of a circular trail.

WRITING:
I’m working on a personal project not for publication except possibly for a few friends, which sounds mysterious, but like I say, it’s personal. I will produce more work next year and all writing is good practice. The amount of work I’ve produced is poor this year, but that’s how it goes sometimes when living with chronic pain.

Stay happy and healthy!
Sharon x

Oct 2022 Recommendations

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FILM/TV:
We watched The Woman in the House Across the Street From the Girl in the Window on Netflix and while it’s a good parody of many female detective films, it’s blighted by huge plot holes and people doing entirely nonsensical things — because it’s a spoof… yes, I realise that, but I didn’t find it funny enough to fit the category. Fun entertainment as long as you’re not looking for anything special.

I was impressed with The Midnight Club (also Netflix) based on a book by Christopher Pike in which a group of terminally ill youngsters form a storytelling club which meets at midnight in the library at the hospice they all live in. Left enough questions for a second series, if that’s their intention — if not, they can be viewed as plot holes — and I don’t know how relatable the series is to the book, but it dealt well with the subject of death, especially for the young, in a thought-provoking way.

READING:
This being October, I set myself a pile of horror related books to read once I’d finished the last book I had started in September. Didn’t get through as many as I’d hoped and I’m currently reading Ghost Story, which I’ll review next time.

Dark Dawn Over Steep House, M.R.C.Kasasian
A sad book in multiple ways yet fitting for the tone of this series. It’s difficult to say more without giving too much away. The story revolves around many types of loss and deceit. It’s one of the best books in the series. Alas, I have to mark it down slightly as this could have done with a more eagle-eyed editor, one who could pick up on awkward sentences and added a few more dialogue tags to let us know who is saying what to whom, which appears to be a habit with the author. A minor irritation that doesn’t stop me from loving this series.

The Vessel, Adam L.G.Nevill
All the way through this book, I kept thinking this book should be a film, which makes perfect sense once I got to the end and read the author’s notes. The old woman struck me as the harbinger of evil, and there didn’t have to be anything supernatural about her to make me shudder. But this is horror, so nothing is straightforward. Present tense omnipresent isn’t really a style I love, but for this book, it’s perfect. We see the action from a wide camera lens, which does a good job rocketing up tension. I wasn’t terrified, but found this satisfying creepy with a conclusion I adored. A short but entertaining read that’s a perfect example of dark fiction, which I feel has a broader connotation than horror.

The Hideaway, Dean Koontz
A re-read for me. A man resuscitated long after death awakens with a strange connection to a killer. People often criticise Koontz for too often having religious themes in his books and this is certainly one of those, though an earlier and better example. If one is to read a supernatural thriller regardless of faith, then there must be some leeway for this, although any author can use a recurring theme too often at the risk of work sounding stale. Despite rolling my eyes a time or two, especially once toward the end, I’m giving this book a high mark for its tension, and excellently conceived and solid plot. I felt the book was a little overlong, but not to the point of frustration.

A Short Stay in Hell, Steven L.Peck
How does one even describe this novella of only 100 pages? At first I found it somewhat tedious, but that only seems right considering the events in the story. Slowly, I found I couldn’t put it down. As a lover of books, I thought eternity in a library doesn’t sound like such a bad thing… until I learned the truth of those books. Then the truth of love found and lost, which seemed even greater punishment. A truer horror was the inevitability of some human natures. Though a simple idea, here, the author proves hell doesn’t have to contain hellfire to be torturous. A horror novel? No. And certainly not horrific. But insidiously horrifying.

Mexican Gothic, Silvia Moreno-Garcia
An excellent book, surprising because most books I hear a buzz about don’t enthral me as well as this one did. Reviews on the cover include a recommendation to fans of books like Rebecca and that’s accurate. This is definitely gothic rather than visceral horror, though the situation Noemi Taboada finds herself in is horrible and even horrific. One particular kiss in the book will have everyone gagging. There’s an element of women coming under abuse, sexual and otherwise, but such is the truth in fact and fiction and is perfectly authentic to the plot, of which the author perfectly laid the stepping stones. I didn’t guess the family secret because it’s such an unusual dark mystery. I liked Noemi’s rebellious and tenacity; any weaknesses she shows fits in perfectly with the setting. Well-written and atmospheric, I enjoyed this book far more than I expected to. This is the first time I’ve heard of this author, though I see she has more books published, which I may well check out.

Scarlet Widow, Graham Masterton
Not at all what I expect from this author and a story majorly spoilt by a gratuitously graphic scene. For most of the book, this read much like Young Adult owing to the non-graphic nature of the murders — we see only the aftermath, not the murders while they occur. This could have been a good title to introduce a teen to the horror or historical thriller genre, but owing to content towards the end, it’s entirely unsuitable, yet it’s not what I’d class as true horror fiction for adults either. I enjoyed this story, though it’s a bit of a slow burn showing us Beatrice’s life from childhood to a grown woman, her background important. However, I felt let down by this intelligent and often capable woman doing little to protect herself when she should have realised how much danger she was in. I would still have given this 3 out of 5, if not for that unnecessarily abusive sexual scene, which made me want to toss the book across the room. Why, in a book that’s shows no graphic occurrences, are readers confronted with a description of an assault upon a woman? I only carried on because I was close to the end and had invested so much time reading. The assault might not have been entirely irrelevant if the intention was to turn the desire for justice to one of revenge, but I felt she had suffered enough to want vengeance by then without the need to pile on additional sorrow — it’s a fact people can feel more vengeful over what’s happened to loved ones than oneself. A simple fade to black would have been sufficient, and a woman burning for revenge would not have come up with so simple a solution. She would have been out to inflict physical pain and therefore I was expecting a more clever and vengeful conclusion.

A House at the Bottom of a Lake, Josh Malerman
Some books defy definition, and this is one. Some will love this; others loathe it. I honestly don’t know what I just read. I know I enjoyed it, but was it good, or was it bad? There are some creepy moments, in part (I feel) owing to the strange setting. The underlying sense of threat in being able to drown down in the dark is present like a character all its own, but drown in what? In water? In horror? In the hope and hopelessness of love? The book reads like an allegory of love. There is menace here, but those expecting a true horror novel may be disappointed. Those approaching the story with an open mind may be better rewarded.

Happy Halloween

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When discussing all things unnerving, it occurred to me there are many things ‘scary’ about writing. One of those is the fear there will come a day when someone devours all the plot bunnies. Often the writer struggles to kick the furry little blighters back because they’re rampaging and demanding attention as much as any zombie on the march for brains. I’m sure my bunnies have nasty sharp teeth and claws — they sure enjoy nipping at my ankles — but many ask: where do they come from? So let’s concentrate on the scary ‘how’ and ‘howl’ of plots. How does one make the magic happen?

I doubt there’s a writer in existence who won’t one day be asked, “Where do you get your ideas?” There is no spell book. No magic shop one can go to. Authors wish there were, but in some ways we conjure ideas up out of thin air. A writer is someone who can connect two or more seemingly dissociated events, can play the ‘what if’ game, and perhaps add an extra twist.

Here is a brief example. I wove my short story Bitter and Intoxicating for the anthology Red Velvet and Absinthe (editor Mitzi Szereto; foreword by Kelley Armstrong) in answer to a submission call for gothic erotic romance. Although the call provided a list of example work, I had nothing written that fitted, and worse, I had no ideas. I went online and began running searches for red, velvet, and for absinthe.

Although the stories didn’t need to have anything to do with these items, I needed a place from which to start. I certainly didn’t expect to write anything on those topics. I was just searching for a spark.
I came across a painting by Albert Maignan, La Muse Verte, which seemed a good portrayal of what the effects of absinthe supposedly had on the artistic mind. Inspiration! What if a distraught painter came across a seductive woman in a bar, one with flaming red hair clad in a diaphanous green gown, and she was to take him home to try absinthe, promising that it would be the answer to all his woes?

The resulting story is part BDSM, part gothic horror, part sensuous seduction ‘painted’ with words — something fitting to read on a dark October night in front of the fire with the wind blowing outside.

From Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository

Autumn

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Though famous as a time of harvest, turning, and falling leaves, a drop in temperature, and arguments over when it begins (equinox on 22nd or 23rd September, meteorological on the 1st, or traditionally known to occur on the 21st), the season no longer seems to offer the chill but crisp and sunny walks among crisp leaves it once did. I’m tired of hearing ‘it’s typical autumnal weather’ on the news reports when the weather forecasters speak of a recent deluge. Still, I cannot help but love the colours of autumn, in clothes and in nature, and the fun of Halloween. The weather doesn’t always obey the dictations of my heart, but still for me, autumn shall always remain the best time of the year. For me, ‘Tis the season’.