Poisoned Roots

Apple, Massachusetts is rotten to the core.

Every fall, when the orchards ripen and the leaves begin to die, there are murders. We know it, and we accept it. It's the price we pay for living in Apple. Families mourn, but no one is ever caught. Now, there's a body in the woods, and the cycle is starting again. People bruise easily in Apple.

Finding a murdered and mutilated girl plunges Jackson Gill into the middle of a decades-old horror. For Jackson, the newest murders become personal. His mentally ill sister knows far more about the murders than anyone restrained in a basement room should know.

When one by one, her sick, cryptic predictions prove true, Jackson will have to believe the unthinkable and stop what no one has been able to stop in sixty years.

He has no choice. He lives in Bloody Bloody Apple.

BLOODY BLOODY APPLE by Howard Odentz is far darker than I could have imagined. Told through the POV of teenager Jackson, the savage history of Apple is revealed, as well as the twisted secrets each family hides behind closed doors. With the level of dysfunction among so many households, it's no wonder the annual murders are accepted as normal.

This year, the victims are all people connected to Jackson in some way, and his sister seems to know something about the killings, despite being chained up in their basement. However, the crime scenes pale in comparison to his personal life. This novel is a horror story within a mystery-thriller, and Jackson is the only one who might be able to piece the puzzle together, if his family secrets don't break him first.

I recommend this story to anyone who enjoys psychological horror, but I have to warn readers: there are a LOT of triggers in this book. This story gave me plenty of nightmares.

As always,
AstraDaemon

Supernatural Mystery-Thriller

BOTTLE TOSS by Howard Odentz is a very strange tale about a 17 year old boy who lives with a foster family. Denny notices sinister events unfolding around his town, after his sister's boyfriend tosses a bottle at a passing car.

I honestly thought I was reading a story about a group of pedophile werewolves who worship a goat-demon, for the longest time. Poor Denny is surrounded by so much weird activity, as well as several dysfunctional characters, I couldn't imagine what else would explain all the missing and dead people.

Odentz doesn't reveal anything, until Denny finally confesses the secret he has been keeping, at the very end. While I love this novel, I'm not particularly happy with the way some characters are dealt with. Some didn't deserve their fates, and others should have been made to suffer even more.

I also recommend WHAT WE KILL by Howard Odentz.

As always,
AstraDaemon

Bloody Stumps

WHAT WE KILL by Howard Odentz is a mystery-thriller centered on four friends who can't remember the night before:

One has a triangle burned into his forearm.
One has lost her pants.
One is missing his glass eye.
The last is covered in blood.

As images of big, black eyes and the cries of sheep haunt their addled brains, the town fire alarm and police sirens can be heard in the distance.

What is happening to them? What is happening to their pristine town?
What's more, why can't they remember any of it?
What . . . what did they do?

Even though the story moves at a steady pace, alternating bits and pieces of memory with backstories of their adolescent lives is quite maddening. I read the book in one sitting because I had to know what in the hell happened to them. The ending is completely worth the effort. I think this story would make a great movie.

At first, I couldn't stand the narrator's constant need to explain their family situations and relationships with one another, but when a huge secret is revealed towards the end, I understood why the author laid out every detail of their personal issues.

Odentz has a special gift for mixing young people and family drama into horrifying stories, in the most surprising ways. Not only do I recommend this novel, I also suggest reading his stories, SNOW and BONES.

As always,
AstraDaemon

Devil's Dining Room

His mother is filling her days with vodka and orange juice, and his psychotic little sister keeps cutting the heads off her dolls. His delusional grandfather won't stop staring at non-existent cows in the pasture, and their farm dog is acting meaner than usual.

Everyone blames Cooper for the tragic accident which took his girlfriend’s life. Now a group of slackers from Mount Tom Regional High School are gathering deep in a forest clearing—at the Devil’s Dining Room—eager for the rising of her ghost on Devil’s Night, the eve before Halloween.

Bones by Howard Odentz is nothing like what I expected. I thought it would be the story of a troubled young man haunted by a ghost. Instead, Odentz has created a family drama with a supernatural twist. While I suspected there was a hidden layer, the depth of Cooper's pain is a horrifying surprise.

Odentz weaves one hell of a ghost story with the darkest of details.

As always,
AstraDaemon

Saturday Short: Snow

An epic and sudden blizzard is blanketing Mount Tom Regional High School . . . in October. A dangerous man is stalking the hallways, and three teens harbor a secret that may get everyone killed if they don't figure out how to stop the snow and the rampage.

Snow by Howard Odentz is a brilliant mix of horror and folklore...one of the best short stories I've read in a long time. I love the mix of characters: an updated version of the Breakfast Club, complete with all the current social issues high school students have to deal with.

However, the threat they have to deal with is one of the oldest existing legends in the history of mankind. Odentz portrayal of this historical figure is the most original version I've ever come across. The details of the library attack scene are the perfect touch. I found every part of this story enthralling.

This is the kind of fiction I can recommend to everyone I know.

As always,
AstraDaemon