Wither - J. G. Passarella

I just finished reading this book today and I have to say, I thoroughly enjoyed it. It's a new take on an old theme...witchcraft.

It takes place in modern times but with flashbacks to the days of the Salem witch trials, though it doesn't take place in Salem. Like all good witch-stories, this one has an evil witch with her nasty coven of followers, a curse, monsters, persecution... all of the key plot points.

The main character is a college student named Wendy who practices the craft and who is having terrible nightmares, as are another woman and a child who all live in the same town. Her nightmares increase in ferocity and she decides to fight for dreamless nights using the only method she knows, namely, healing herbs, roots and a sky-clad magic circle. Problem is, the dreams get even worse, and in addition, people in town start going missing, being killed in strange ways and there are eyewitness reports of terrible creatures being seen, carrying townies off into the night.

I don't want to say too much because this really is a good one. You should pick it up and give it a look.

My Wicked Vampire - Nina Bangs

So yeah, ok. This is a sleazy, cheesy, paranormal romance featuring a vampire. I'm not proud.

Nina Bangs is such a fun author, though. She's written a whole series of very imaginative books, (this is the latest entry) which take place in a paranormal adult fantasy theme park called the Castle of Dark Dreams. The castle is owned by a character named Sparkle Stardust and her "golden god" of a lover with the also-improbable moniker, Ganymede, who actually spends the vast majority of his time shape-shifted into the form of a chubby, food-loving feline. (Don't ask.)

These two troublemakers have hired all manner of paranormal entities to perform fantasy scenarios for all the unsuspecting human park attendees who just believe that it's all make-believe. The castle also employs some humans, but with the exception of the main character Cinn Airmid, they really don't figure in very prominently. Cinn is hired to be the castle's horticulturist, aka, the plant lady. On the surface, this seems innocuous enough, but it turns out that Cinn has some formidable goddess-given talents when it comes to breeding new plant varieties.

What you have here is a ticked-off goddess who feels like Cinn's meddling with things she has no business messing with, a ticked-off vampire-daddy who's mad 'cause his baby boy won't come when he's called, brothers who haven't seen each other for 200 years, and two cosmic trouble makers who moonlight as matchmakers. It's a mess, but a fun mess. And these vamps are hot!

Flesh - Richard Laymon

I don't know what to say. I love Richard Laymon, and that worries me. Laymon's books are sick. Depraved. Evil. Disgusting. FUN!!!

This particular book is a quaint little story about a slimy, nasty, formless creature that enters a person's body through a roughly quarter-sized hole that it bores into. Upon chewing its way inside, this vile thing wiggles and writhes its way up the spine, causing the skin to bulge and pulse, and it latches onto the brain. Once there, it can send intense pleasure-sensations to its "host" and it uses this method to persuade the victim/host to perform unspeakable acts of murder, cannibalism and general mayhem.

Laymon manages to disgust his readers so thoroughly that they we just can't wait to see what he's going to come up with next. It's always something utterly, delightfully, repulsive. He's not to be missed.

Fragment - Warren Fahy

Wow, what a fun book! I was home sick from work today and absolutely devoured this - start to finish in less than 24 hours.

You might think that this is your typical Jurassic Park-style book but this one is so much more.

A lost island has been found. This particular island broke off of a large landmass eons before Pangaea even existed. All life on this entire island has developed and evolved independently and is radically different from anything that exists anywhere else on the planet. There is NOTHING on the island that resembles anything else, anywhere else. Everything, all the flora, all the fauna, is deadly. The descriptions of the creatures is amazingly imaginative (especially the spigers!) and it makes me, against my better judgement, wish I could see it all for myself.

The Gates - John Connolly

"The Gates of Hell Are About to Open Mind the Gap"

This book is described as young adult fiction , but don't let that designation prevent you from reading it. True enough, the main character is a clever young boy (Samuel Johnson) with a clever little dog (Boswell), but this kid is dealing with some truly adult themes with grace and aplomb as only a clever child could. He is not hampered by adult notions of what "can" and "can't" happen. He only knows what has happened and what must be stopped.

There appears to be (to my definitely-not-a-scientist mind) some hard science going on here, what with the action being forwarded by a mishap at the Large Hadron Collider (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_Hadron_Collider) and scientists eventually catching on to what has happened and joining forces with Samuel & Boswell to stop it.

But what really sold me on this book was the footnotes. Yes, the footnotes. They're hilarious! They have this really entertaining "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" sort of flavor so if you're a Douglas Adams fan, then there's another good reason to give this book a look.