Book Review: Dead-The Gruesome Tale of Garrett and Kirstin by TW Brown

This was billed as a gruesome horror tale which is what attracted me to it but that is not in truth what we get. Yes the zombies are there but only really feature twice in any important capacity-the beginning where Garrett sees the apocalypse as an opportunity to start his depraved journey and at the end.

This is quite simply a rape novel with zombies in the background who get mentioned occasionally to remind you that they are still there. Garrett rapes the corpse of the girl next door he fancies AFTER she becomes a zombie, he rapes various women he rescues from the streets and then he breaks into a house and starts raping, violating and humiliating a young girl on every second page. That got old and boring very quickly. Garrett rapes her, someone looks out the window to see the zombies are still there, lets have another rape, Garrett goes to eat while his victim cries, hey another rape just for a change! Or maybe a nice violation or something just to change it up a wee bit. *Yawn*

Now I like a gruesome horror and don't mind sexual violence(hell I read Jack Ketchum and Edward Lee!) but this was just rape after rape after rape with no attempt at developing this into a proper horror book. There was no tension or attempted escape to get you rooting for the girl, no imagination in the story development just a rape-athon, no character development, no story flow or complex unfolding plot to keep you interested the way Ketchum and King deliver. There is nothing to get you wondering what might come next(you know it's just going to be another rape anyway). It's just boring.

I wasn't impressed by this book at all. If you are going to do gruesome horror you need to have something more than just rape every second page to keep your readers hooked. I certainly won't be continuing with this series and I don't recommend it. Disappointing because I know the author can produce much better writing than this.

Book Blitz: The Artful by Wilbert Stanton

 

The Artful by Wilbert Stanton
(Shadows of the City #1)
Published by: Curiosity Quills Press
Publication date: May 27th 2014
Genres: Post-Apocalyptic, Young Adult

Synopsis:

New York City, 2025: Everything is changed. The city that never sleeps is now a land of death and decay. A rampant virus has taken over and the survivors have become carriers, quarantined from the rest of the world.

Twist and Dodger grew up in the streets, the sewers and underground tunnels – their playground. They aren’t heroes. They just like attention; and stealing meds from the rich and giving them to the poor is their golden ticket.

On their latest raid, they unknowingly steal a cure that puts them square between the ailing Emperor of Manhattan and the war hungry Governor of Brooklyn and forces them on a quest into the darkest shadows of their putrefying world.

We didn’t speak anymore for a time, just walked in silence. Every other block we stumbled upon some sort of savagery. Bloodstained walls or half-eaten body parts. There was a moment I thought I would get used to it. If I saw enough of it, it wouldn’t bother me. I had to man up, after all. Here I was, acting like a child in the care of his babysitter. This wasn’t how I wanted our trip to go; I was sick of being a sidekick. I had to step up. So I straightened, shoulders out firm and head held high and sped up, trying to match Gia’s pace.

Until we turned a corner and all my resolve was thrown out the window. We ran into two bare-chested men in tattered jeans. One had a shaven head, rings stretched his earlobes, big enough for a finger to fit through, and a number of piercings along his lips, tattoos sloppily etched into his back and arms. The other was a bit smaller. He wore tight jeans and combat boots. His hair was a mess of knots and tangles, a thick beard covered most of his face, and he had a number of tattoos as well. They crouched down low, over the remains of a naked woman. Bits and pieces of flesh were gone from her face and neck. Her stomach was a gaping hole of blood and gore as they used their hands to spoon her insides into their mouths. Even though Gia held up her hand in silence, I puked, unable to help myself. They turned toward us, their carnivorous smiles and filed down teeth reminding me of a shark.

Gia turned toward me, her earlier confidence escaping with the color in her skin. “Oh, crap. Run!” She grabbed my arm and pulled me as I let loose the last of my breakfast.

“We got some fresh meat, boys!” The words seemed to chase us down the street. I ventured a look over my shoulder to see them giving chase, laughing and throwing bits of human meat at us.

“Come and get it!” shouted the other. “Dinner time!”

“We’ll feast on the boy for dinner and have the girl for play!” His voice was dry and frightening.

“Then eat her for breakfast.”

“And play with her some more!” They laughed wildly. This was a game to them. We were sport. They didn’t view us as people, only things to be played with and eaten. We can’t get caught, we can’t get caught. I would have killed Gia and myself before they caught us. We ran down a street and another, turned corner after corner and couldn’t lose them. They remained on our heels like vicious dogs. Before long, I realized we were just going in circles. Gia was panicked and no longer knew where we were going, I had to act before―

A woman stepped out from around a corner. Her face was heavily pierced. Blonde pigtails fell about her slender shoulders. She wore a school girl outfit. Her skirt was stained with blood, and her legs were covered in scabs. Pigtails wobbled as she tilted her head, flashing a sinister smile filled with shark-like teeth. The baseball bat held loosely at her side glistened with semidry blood. She snarled like a feral beast as we skidded to a halt.

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22019704-the-artful?ac=1

Purchase: 

--Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Artful-Shadows-City-Wilbert-Stanton-ebook/dp/B00KLC7NZC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1401987978&sr=8-1&keywords=The+Artful+by+Wilbert+Stanton

--B&N: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-artful-wilbert-stanton/1119608337?ean=2940149210978

AUTHOR BIO

Wilbert Stanton was born and raised in New York City. From an early age, Wilbert decided he would either write books or take over the world; everything else was just a precursor to his end game.

Along the way, he has studied Psychology, English, and Computer Science. He’s held jobs in a wide range of fields and met people from all walks of life. Wilbert is constantly learning and growing as a person, in order to solidify his dreams.

In the end world domination was a bit tedious, so he decided to focus on writing books.

Author links: 

https://www.facebook.com/authorwilbertstanton

https://twitter.com/Wilbert_stanton

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7857459.Wilbert_Stanton

 

 

Stacking the Shelves #38

Stacking the Shelves is a meme hosted by Tynga’s Reviews

Stacking The Shelves is all about sharing the books you are adding to your shelves, may it be physical or virtual. This means you can include books you buy in physical store or online, books you borrow from friends or the library, review books, gifts and of course ebooks!

            

As some of you might have noticed, there was no STS post from me last week. This was because of a family crisis which meant I was not online for days or buying or reading anything. This is a link to the post about what happened.

http://chucklesbookcave.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/my-latest-musings-8-my-worst-ever-week.html

So I still haven't managed to pick up a book because we are now getting work done in the house and preparing for my mum coming out of hospital. Honestly, it has been 6 months of upheaval and a break from it would be great! *sigh* Maybe next month!!!

FREE DOWNLOADS:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12884919-run

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18274011-even-zombie-killers-get-the-blues

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/445703

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22391899-rot

BOUGHT DOWNLOADS:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21760281-zombie-attack-rise-of-the-horde

BOUGHT PAPERBACKS:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20551638-true-fire

FOLLOW ME:

https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/3426724-chucklesthescot 

http://chucklesbookcave.blogspot.co.uk/ 
http://www.bloglovin.com/blog/9910183/chuckles-book-cave 

https://twitter.com/chucklesthescot 

https://plus.google.com/107869792450677466935/posts 

http://www.pinterest.com/chucklesthescot/

https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/114319-my-big-fat-indie-book-gang  

https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/48169-my-big-fat-booky-challenge-athon

Book Review: At Grave's End by Jeaniene Frost

It should be the best time of half-vampire Cat Crawfield’s life. With her undead lover Bones at her side, she’s successfully protected mortals from the rogue undead. But though Cat’s worn disguise after disguise to keep her true identity a secret from the brazen bloodsuckers, her cover’s finally been blown, placing her in terrible danger.

As if that wasn’t enough, a woman from Bones’s past is determined to bury him once and for all. Caught in the crosshairs of a vengeful vamp, yet determined to help Bones stop a lethal magic from being unleashed, Cat’s about to learn the true meaning of bad blood. And the tricks she’s learned as a special agent won’t help her. She will need to fully embrace her vampire instincts in order to save herself—and Bones—from a fate worse than the grave.

My Review: 
Cat and Bones are back together and planning a wedding but of course things never run smoothly. Vampires from their past seem determined to kill Cat at any cost and Bones has to round up a list of allies to fight to save her.

I loved this book as much as the first two in the series and in some ways it is the best one so far. I had to flick back through it to refresh my memory before I wrote my review just to make sure I got my facts straight as I don't have time for re-reads at the moment!

Firstly the plot. Cat's psycho 'father' is back, betraying Ian for a new mistress who is happy for him to attack and kill whoever he likes. Max is also determined to inflict more terror on Justina and his character is just so evil that you want Bones to get a hold of him real bad! The new mistress remains unknown through most of the book but she has links to Bones, Ian and Mencheres, and because of a prophecy about a half breed's partner murdering her, she soon targets Cat and Bones for herself. It is time for the other vampires to start choosing a side, bringing old enemies and allies together to fight. Meanwhile, Don asks Bones to start changing his team into vampires as promised and Justina finds love again.

Things are changing in this book with the arrival of Annette, a former lover of Bones who wants him back. Her bitchy fights with Cat are funny and I enjoyed the inclusion of her character. Humour is also there in the form of Justina's hatred of the filth that plans to marry her daughter and her surprising choice of new boyfriend! Vlad, the real life Dracula and old nemesis of Bones also joins the alliance and he has humour, wit and danger making him a character that I quickly loved. In book two Ian was the enemy but having his slimy, funny, perverted vampire ass in this book as a friend and ally was an unexpected but welcome twist. I really grew to love Ian in this book and I REALLY want an Ian spin off book or series!!! Spade and Rodney are back along with Denise and Randy, as well as Don and his team. The one character that really got on my nerves in the book was Tate. His declarations of love for Cat and trying to persuade her to love him instead of Bones really got under my skin and made me yell at the book! She'll never love you, muppet head!!! Stop being a complete asshat!!! I've never really liked him and I don't get why Cat lets him get away with acting like that. I'd be saying we can't even be friends if you don't grow up.

Didn't believe the big shocker mid-book but then again I don't think the reader was supposed to believe it. It did let us see the depth in quite a few characters like Annette and Ian and gave us an insight into Vlad's history which was nice.

Great mixture of humour, emotion and action. This series keeps on delivering!

Favourite scenes? Cat and Bones making children cry at a burger bar by attacking the mascot who is actually a vampire. Funny! The scene where Cat and Bones find out who Justina is sleeping with is priceless! The big attack on the house where the allies all fight to survive was a great action sequence complete with death and betrayal. 

Throwback Thursday #24

This Meme is hosted by Melissa at My World in Words and Pages. Go to her blog and join us!

I blog about great looking new releases, new books sent to me for read and review, book reviews of what I've read and features about exciting new authors to try.

But what about all the books that are already on my TBR, waiting for me to read them? Don't they deserve a mention and a chance to be highlighted? Yes they do!

Welcome to Throwback Thursday, where I will take the time to tell you about some of the books that have been on my shelves for a while and maybe a few of you will add them to your wishlists/tbrs. If you have read them, why not leave a comment to tell me what you thought of it-but no spoilers please! 

Yes this is a day late this week due to the chaos that has surrounded me recently but better late than never eh? This week I am spotlighting three more books from my tbr list that I want to read.

Celia Wird and her three sisters are just like other twenty-something girls—with one tiny exception: They're the products of a curse that backfired and gave each of them unique powers that make them, well, a little weird…

The Wird sisters are content to avoid the local vampires, werebeasts, and witches of the Lake Tahoe region—until one of them blows up a vampire in self-defense. Everyone knows vampires aren't aggressive, and killing one is punishable by death. But soon more bloodlust-fueled attacks occur, and the community wonders if the vampires of Tahoe are plague-ridden.

Celia reluctantly agrees to help Misha, the handsome leader of an infected vampire family. But Aric, the head of the werewolf pack determined to destroy Misha's family to keep the area safe, warns Celia to stay out of the fight. Caught between two hot alphas, Celia must find a way to please everyone, save everyone, and—oh, yeah—not lose her heart to the wrong guy or die a miserable death. Because now that the evil behind the plague knows who Celia is, he's coming for her and her sisters. This Wird girl has never had it so tough.
  
Night Owls book store is the one spot on campus open late enough to help out even the most practiced slacker. The employees’ penchant for fighting the evil creatures of the night is just a perk…

Valerie McTeague’s business model is simple: provide the students of Edgewood College with a late-night study haven and stay as far away from the underworld conflicts of her vampire brethren as possible. She’s lived that life, and the price she paid was far too high to ever want to return.

Elly Garrett hasn’t known any life except that of fighting the supernatural werewolf-like beings known as Creeps or Jackals. But she always had her mentor and foster father by her side—until he gave his life protecting a book that the Creeps desperately want to get their hands on.

When the book gets stashed at Night Owls for safe keeping, those Val holds nearest and dearest are put in mortal peril. Now Val and Elly will have to team up, along with a mismatched crew of humans, vampires, and lesbian succubi, to stop the Jackals from getting their claws on the book and unleashing unnamed horrors…

The Northern California town of Big Beaver has become a haven for Bigfoot, alien sightings and is home to The Phantom Bigfoot Bather. One particularly weird Beaverite, Duane, has kept the Bigfoot a secret, but to his utter dismay, a female Bigfoot abducts a teenager. Duane must use all his guile to stop his secret from getting out, especially now that MB, his close friend and crypto-zoologist, is on the trail, along with Sheriff Lou and the FBI. Can Duane keep his Bigfoot friends a secret? And what does MB discover deep in the forest?