Today we meet Betty Rocksteady who writes stories about cat mythos, bizarro, and cosmic sex! What more could you ask for? I'm currently reading her collection of shorts, In Dreams We Rot for a review. Once finished, I'll post that as well, but so far I'm really digging it. It's worth grabbing once it comes out. Now onward to the interview!

1)      Who or what inspired you to become an author?
 
I can't pin it down on one particular author so much as just… books, as an object, as an escape, as my main way of learning about the world as a kid. As an introvert growing up in the 80s, writing and art were always a huge part of my life. Surprise though, I didn't start REALLY writing until I turned 30 and realized, oh heck, it's now or never.
 
2)      Tell us a about your upcoming collection, In Dreams We Rot, and what inspired you to write it.
 
In Dreams We Rot is a collection of my best short stories that have been published over the last few years. The bulk of my writing thus far has been short fiction and I've had a lot of pieces published by cool indie publishers that I'm so excited to share with my readers. In Dreams We Rot bleeds with imagery you'll recognize from your nightmares, inspiring the title. I take a lot of writing inspiration from my dreams, and I really dig weaving surrealist themes and creatures into my work.
 
3)      Your writing is categorized as cosmic sex horror and bizarro. What attracted you to those genres?
 
A reader described my novella, The Writhing Skies as cosmic sex horror and it seemed like the perfect description to me! I don't think about genre a whole lot when I'm writing unless it's for a specific call. I mostly just think of my work as the very general "horror." As for bizarro, it's a really wide genre but the whole cult movie/Eraserhead vibe is definitely something that gets me going.
 
4)      Tell a bit about your writing process. Do you have a special space you like to use, or do you have to be in a certain mindset?
 
I'm still trying to figure this out, but no matter what I do, writing rough drafts is always absolute torture! I much prefer brainstorming, and then the editing process. The first draft is just a skeleton that I try to bang out as quick as possible. Lately I've been using a little laptop to type on, but I think I actually focus better when I'm sitting at the desktop computer, so I guess I'll have to keep fine-tuning there. I do usually listen to music while I write, either movie soundtracks, or trip hop playlists on YouTube, or, very often, Aesop Rock's soundtrack for Bushwick.
 
5)      What’s one of the most surprising things you’ve learned in creating your books?
 
Well, my first novella, Arachnophile is about an arachnophobic guy in a world where giant spiders coexist with human. He accidentally falls in lust… or maybe love with a giant spider. So, not only did I discover how to write sex scenes for the first time in the most bizarre way possible, but I discovered that uh, a surprising amount of people will read those sex scenes and see spiders in a way they never expected, at least according to the reviews it's gotten.
 
6)      What’s your next project?
 
Right now I'm working on a kidnapping book about the depths of female friendships and doppelgangers! It's inspired by John Fowles' The Collector and its shaping up to be the best thing I've ever written.
 
7)      Where can people follow you online to keep up with all your updates?
 
I'm all over twitter and Facebook as Betty Rocksteady, and my website is www.bettyrocksteady.com! People should feel super free to reach out and hang out.
 
If you're interested in checking out my work, I have a disturbing cat mythos story available to read free here: https://theoutwardinn.wordpress.com/2019/05/10/the-backwards-path-to-the-limbus-by-betty-rocksteady/
 
In Dreams We Rot is being released October 17, 2019, and you can preorder it here! http://journalstone.com/bookstore/in-dreams-we-rot

1) Who or what inspired you to become an author?
 
Great question. Great mystery. Really, it’s something I’m still trying to answer for myself, but, here’s what I’ve got so far: I think I have a hard time making sense of the world. Writing scary stories gives me the opportunity to at least pretend that things make sense, or, at least examine why they don’t. I think that’s probably the purpose of any story, really, no matter how horrific; to help us overcome the things that threaten to overcome us.

When I was a kid, I loved stories for that reason. I think I had a lot of hidden anxiety that didn’t make sense to me, something to do with growing up gay in the 90s in a small town, I’m sure. I wrote a lot. Then, I was seduced by film and I pursued that instead. So, most of my formative years were ruled by the likes of George A. Romero, Clive Barker, Dario Argento, John Carpenter, and, of course, Wes Craven. Craven is probably the one whose work inspired me the most. I often thought to myself that I’d love to make a movie that was as smart as Craven, poetic as Barker, fun as Raimi, gorgeous as Argento and politically charged as Romero… Big shoes. After attending film school in Toronto, I figured out just how expensive my ideas would be to make. Thus, I decided to return to writing so that my stories might live somewhere other than just in my own head (where they had begun gnawing).
 
2) Tell us about your book, Worship Me, and what inspired you to write it.
 
So, Worship Me is my first novel. It’s a novel that’s supposed to scare you, challenge you, and maybe make you puke a little, like any good horror does. But, that’s not the only reason why I wrote it; I wrote it because I had to.
 
The story came about as part of my grieving process. Now, this part of my journey with Worship Me gets a little dark, as a warning. 12 years ago, my sister was diagnosed with a brain tumour. 7 years ago, she died from it. Before she died, she suffered quite a lot, as anyone who has had experience with brain tumours would know. It’s harrowing. Slow. Torturous. And something I decided a while ago to speak bluntly about. Watching someone you love go through something like that rips apart everything you think you know about life, death and spirituality. I found that in order to deal with that horror, I needed a place to put it; and that place became the little country church in Worship Me.
 
3) Take our readers through your writing process. Do you have any spaces you always write in or anything special you do to get into the right mindset?
 
My writing process is erratic. I rarely sit down to write; it’s more like the writing sits me down. I can be riding a bus, cooking, sleeping, and my mind just starts rambling. And I’m like, “Okay, that’s nice. Sleepy now.” And it’s like, “Sleep is for the weak. I have words for you.” I have yet to be stricken with writer’s block. That doesn’t seem to be a problem for me. Writer’s laziness, on the other than, I have suffered from that.

I find that music really helps to bring me back to a character if they’ve gotten lost. I will often write different pieces of music for my stories, scoring them like a film. That’s been a great help. You can check out a few of the tracks on my website if you’re interested:
 
https://everythingcraigstewart.com/2017/06/29/featured-content/
 
 
4) Your writing deals with the themes of religion and atheism, care to expand on those topics with regards to your projects?
 
I was raised as a church goin’ boy. It didn’t stick. For me, it was partly due to my sexuality. It’s hard to buy into an organization that doesn’t really want you around. Things are different now; churches seem, at least on the surface, far more accepting. But, that’s just because they’re in their death thralls and are desperate to fill those pews, and collection plates. Do I think that if progressive society didn’t pressure them to open their doors to LGBT people, that they would have opened them on their own? Seems unlikely.
 
But, that was only half of it; the other half concerns what happened to my sister. When someone has a brain tumour, they go through many traumatic changes. These changes are brought on by a small piece of tissue in the brain that shouldn’t be there. In other words, it becomes terrifyingly clear that the whole of a person is contained within their fragile brainpan. Nothing more than that. Nothing less. And if that’s true, if we are altered when our brain is altered, then where does that leave spirituality? Or, God? I didn’t set out to write a book that was aggressively atheistic, but, I did want to explore the issues of flesh vs. faith. And I think the book speaks for itself on that matter.
 
5)  What’s one of the most surprising things you’ve learned in creating your books?
 
Sometimes, characters don’t want to shut up. It’s a wonderful surprise. I was writing a chapter a while back and introduced this character named Zelda. She was a side character, just supposed to serve the plot. In and out. But, she stuck around. She kept talking. Before I knew it, a pivotal scene was hinged on her. How did that happen? Where did she come from? Is there a fine line between split personality and writing?
 
6) What’s your next project?
 
So glad you asked! My new book, Follow Him, which is a sister novel to Worship Me, is being released by Hellbound Books in the fall of this year. It’s about a man who joins a mysterious cult called The Shared Heart, but is kidnapped by his ex-fiancé, who attempts to deprogram him with horrifying consequences. If Worship Me is about religion, then Follow Him is about love. I’m very excited to see how people react to it.
 
7)  Where can people follow you online to keep up with all your updates?

I’m fairly active on twitter. You can check me out @TheCraigStewart. I also have a website, everythingcraigstewart.com. There’s also a little Facebook thing, www.facebook.com/CraigStewartAuthor.

So what's been going on with me lately? Where to begin? First off, I'm getting ready to retire from 20 years of military service. That alone has been eating up a lot of my time and energy. Who knew retiring was a full-time job? So many damn appointments, getting documentation and records in order, all that jazz. I've got so many plans for post-retirement, I'm pretty sure I won't have any extra time at this point. What are those plans you might ask? Well, for starters, I'm super excited to start my life as a stay-at-home dad and help raise my two kids. 

Second, I'll be writing full-time. That's right, full-time. I don't plan on going out to get a job anywhere (although raising kids is a full-time job, but I have the help of family). I will be carving out a portion of my day to dedicate to nothing but putting words on digital paper. At the moment I'm actively working on the third book of the Dark Tyrant Series, my grimdark/post-apocalyptic fantasy serial, the second Terrence book, and a couple of other secret projects. In the queue is a fantasy western serial, a horror short story for an upcoming anthology, a haunted house novella that takes place in three different timelines, a YA/horror series involving a high-school ghost hunting team that always seems to get involved with dark and scary entities (think Ghost Facers from Supernatural meets Scooby Do meets Lovecraftian horrors) and a choose-your-own-adventure style of horror books that involve gruesome deaths.

I finally made some headway with book three of the Dark Tyrant Series. My biggest hold-up was I didn't really know how it was going to end, so a lot my writing speed slowed to almost nothing because I was floundering. Well, I figured out where it's headed, so now we're making headway again. 

Moving on to another aspect of my life that I enjoy--hunting. This year I'll be retired when hunting season starts, which means I can be out in the wilderness longer, which means hopefully a better chance of harvesting something. Over the years, I've come to find being up in the mountains is my zen place. I love it. The sights, the smells, the connection to nature. It's amazing and magical for me. I'm taking my oldest daughter with me elk scouting this year and I can't wait. I'm tempering my expectations of what I'll be able to accomplish as far as distance and area covered since she's still pretty young, but the memories and experience that both she and I will gain will more than make up for it. 

Anyway, what are you up to these days?

“There’s something up there. Something that dates way back. Those woods belong to something else.” Jud Crandall uttered those words to Louis Creed in the book. I remember when I first read Pet Sematary back in the early 2000’s (I know, I was late to the party), the fact that there was something out there roaming through the trees stuck with me. I’m a big fan of the strange, unknowable things that lurk in the darkness. At that point in my life, I was reading all sorts of Lovecraftian tales and just wallowing the cosmic dread.

What I like most about the remake of the movie, is the heavy nod to that thing in the woods. It plays a bigger part than the 1989 version. I won’t spoil it here, but the new version even goes so far as to really delve into the motivations of the characters. Like, why would Jud ever in his right mind lead Louis to that burial ground to bury Ellie’s cat, Church? Deep down in his gut, he knew what would happen. Well, this rendition digs into that sour ground and sheds some light.

Fair warning, while this post avoids any major spoilers, it does get into what I consider perhaps minor spoilers if you aren't familiar with the story. Read at your own risk.

The remake does a lot of things very well, but it also falls flat in a number of places. Let me break them down. First and foremost, I think the 2019 version did a great job setting the atmosphere for the story. The first act is very well done, and we learn about all the characters. We get to see the Creeds try and adapt to a rural lifestyle. The road by their house and the trucks are almost a character, a villain lying in the background. This movie knows you have read the book or seen the older film, as it plays off those expectations, at times with a sly grin and wink, and at other times with a devilish smile and crazy eye. I loved those moments in the new film. Secondly, it doesn’t rely on too many jump scares, instead tries to build dread and eeriness.
​
Second, let’s talk about Jud. I love Jud as a character and while I missed the accent from the 1989 film, John Lithgow does a fine job portraying him. He’s a likable character that you fall in love with right from the get-go. However, that love starts to turn stonier as the movie moves on, making you question his real motives, or what really happened to his wife. 

So we all know (or you should get from the trailer) that if you bury something in the old burial ground, it comes back…but as the saying implies, sometimes dead is better. It starts off with the Creed’s cat, Church. I felt as if the motivation to bring this version of Church back from the dead isn’t as fully developed as the book or the older movie and this is a problem with the movie, as it kind of rushes through the second act. I think an extra 15-20 minutes added to the film would have lent itself well and given us the few extra scenes or moments needed to fully realize some of the backstory. One thing the film does to redeem itself, is the ramping up the creep factor when they bring the child back from the dead (again, not really a spoiler). Some of the creepiest stuff isn’t the crazy serial killer version of the undead kid, it’s the just-got-back-from-the-woods-what’s-wrong-dad version of the kid.
​
Another great point in this film is the expansion of Rachel and her fear of her late sister, Zelda. The original scenes of Zelda in the 1989 version of the film scared the living shit out of me as a kid (yeah, I saw the movie as a young child, probably explains my penchant for horror and scary shit). I think the directors realized that Zelda was scary for a lot of folks and ramped that up to a 10 in this film. 

The ending is different than both book and the 1989 version of the film, and I’m not really a fan of what they did. I read an article where the directors explain their idea behind it all, but I think the film could have been a lot better if they had stuck closer to the source material. I won’t spoil the ending here, but I rolled my eyes more than once.

Overall, was the movie great? No. It wasn’t. It did an excellent job setting things up, then went too fast through the rest of it. It does delve into some material from the book that I found to be great, and as mentioned before, Lithgow does a fine job playing Jud. Overall, I give it maybe 6.5 dead cats out of 10. I enjoyed it and was happy to see it. 

​I recently had the opportunity to watch Jordan Peele's newest horror flick, Us. This movie is a trip! It's creepy, weird, and bizarre. There's a lot to unpack here, but first things first, I'll give a general overview and my thoughts on the film. Then we'll get into the dastardly spoiler territory. 
 
The movie is about a about a woman named Adelaide (played by the awesome Lupita Nyong'o) vacationing at their summer home near Santa Cruz with her family. When Adelaide was younger, she was at the Santa Cruz boardwalk with her parents, wandered off to a mirrored fun-house, and encountered her doppelganger (or a copy of herself). The event traumatized Adelaide as a child and even as an adult she has trouble around big crowds and especially the beach. Lo and behold, the family decides to go to the Santa Cruz beach to meet with some friends. Fast-forward a bit and the family comes face-to-face with twisted copies of themselves later that night and craziness ensues as the doppelganger family invades the home and tries to subdue Adelaide and her family. We find out later that these copies, or Tethered as they are later named, came from underground complexes. This is important. 
 
This movie starts off with some text talking about thousands of miles of subterranean tunnels underneath the continental United States and how many of them have no known use. I'm still trying to wrap my head around the purpose of this statement. Obviously, it means something, but the movie could have pressed forward without it and nothing would have really suffered without it. However, the very next scene we see dozens of rabbits in cages and then a shot of an old television set with a couple of VHS tapes. Playing on the screen is an advertisement for the old Hands Across America charity (this is important and we'll get to it later on). The VHS tapes that stood out to me are C.H.U.D. (Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers) and Nightmare on Elm Street, obviously nods to the 80's horror scene. In fact, throughout the movie, there are other nods to horror movies like Jaws, Wolfman (given the mask that the son is wearing throughout the film), and even a nod to Michael Jackson's Thriller. 
 
There is a common theme among these movies for the most part, and that's terror from within, or from the deep/underground. The Tethered lived underground and spilled forth upon the surface during their attack and take the nation by surprise.  

​You will want to familiarize yourself with the bible verse, Jeremiah 11:11.  Early on Adelaide walks by a man on the boardwalk holding a sigh with Jeremiah 11:11 listed and throughout the whole film I was wondering what it said and how it connected. It pops up again a few times in the movie driving home the point that it's important. For those of you curious, here is what it says: Therefore thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will bring evil upon them, which they shall not be able to escape; and though they shall cry unto me, I will not hearken unto them. I have my own thoughts as to what it means in relation to the movie and I believe it's referencing the Tethered coming out from the darkness to destroy the surface dwellers.
 
This movie is layered and I bet there is a lot I missed during this viewing. However, what stuck with me, was the great acting. I loved the dad's sense of humor (played by Winston Duke), plus as I mentioned before, Lupita Nyong'o  nails it. The actors in the movie also play the part of their Tethered, and for the most part, they do a great job at this. 
 
Word of warning, if you are the type who likes to know the whole story and have all the questions answered, then you may be disappointed with the way this movie ends. It doesn't answer everything, and there was a lot of why this or why that still left on the plate. However, I'm the type who likes to fill in my own blanks and come up with my own ideas, so I quite enjoyed it. 

​Now on to some of the bads with the movie. First off, it feels like it's a little long for the story it's giving us. The movie is about two hours in length and I think they could have easily cut 20 minutes of it and still had a great show. In fact, I think they could have cut the entire scene with the friends of the family near the end and it wouldn't have suffered. The only thing that entire sequence showed us, was that the Tethered were violent/homicidal. We get that with other scenes and images from the movie. In fact, that sequence in particular just raises more questions than anything...but we'll get to that in the spoiler section because I can't raise the questions without spoiling things. 
 
There were a number of other questions that came up, but I really can't get into those here. So we'll just end this general review and get into the spoilers and an in-depth analysis of the film. To recap, this is a great movie that I think can appeal to casual moviegoers and those looking for deeper meanings alike. There are some genuinely creepy moments and it really taps into that fear of the unknown. I definitely recommend it.
 
Now, on to the spoilers...if you don't want to know, turn away now! Don't go into the fun house! Run towards the light!

​I warned you!
 
Still here? Your fault now. 
 
Okay, let's dig into this. Spoilers abound. So mentioned above I talked about the Tethered and how they were living underground. That's all fine and dandy. We see that they are copies of people up on the surface and they kind of mimic what's going on up there in a weird, off-kilter way that is disturbing. We find out later from Red (Adelaide's doppelganger) that they exist in part due to a government experiment that was trying to figure out a way to control people. At some point, the government abandoned the experiment and just left these Tethered down there. Red mentions it had something to do with being able to clone the body but not the soul. 
 
Okay, that's all fine and good and I don't really need to know much more than that. The movie isn't about that anyway. The movie, based on my own interpretation, is about this duality. We have the "normal" world living their life above ground, enjoying their freedoms and luxuries, while the Tethered are forced to dwell beneath the surface, living a twisted and mocking version of their counterparts above. Their only source of food is the rabbits, which why we see them in cages at the beginning. I also think the rabbits represent the Tethered in a way, representing experimentation and imprisonment, because when the Tethered finally make their way to the surface, we see that the rabbits are all out of their cages now. 
 
Here's a major spoiler about the ending...we find out that Adelaide is really the Tethered from the underground complex. Basically, she subdued the real Adelaide and dragged her down underground and "tethered" her to one of the beds, then she went back up to the surface and assumed Adelaide's life. Okay, it's a twist, right? Well, it's one that was somewhat apparent as the movie went on, and when it was actually revealed, it just raised more questions. For example, why didn't she just run away from the complex and back to the surface at the first moment she could? Was there something about being down there that kept her under control? She's the only one that can kind of talk (the rest of the Tethered just make odd grunts and animal noises to communicate), but why is it so hard for her to talk? I mean, she looked like she was seven or eight when she was taken. I'm guessing has to do with that control aspect that she mentions later in the movie. Because otherwise, why would she stay down there and basically do the same things that the fake Adelaide (or the real one...not sure at this point) was doing on the surface (i.e. having a family). Nyong'o does a great job playing both roles and does amazing at starting to show little ticks that point to her being originally a Tethered. For example, when she's fighting other Tethered, she starts to get a little more primal, and her mannerisms and noises she makes begin to mirror her attackers.
 
Second, we find out later that the Tethered's goal was to come up, kill their copies, and then form this human chain in the same fashion as the Hands Across America (which is why they are all wearing red jumpsuits). The next question is why? Was it to bring attention to their existence, like the original Hands Across America was supposed to bring attention to homelessness? I don't really need an explanation about that part really, it kind of just adds to the creepiness of it all. However, the only reason I ask is in relation to the part where we see the destruction of the family friends in typical slasher fashion. Because it seems like the goal was to get up there, take out folks, then form the chain. However, the Tethered version of the friends go up there, take out their clones then apparently just kind of mess around for no reason, getting all dressed up in the clothing and make-up of their dead surface dweller versions. This was another reason why I think we could have done without that whole beat. It just muddled everything. We get the fact that the Tethered are killing folks when Adelaide and her family start driving around and see that the whole town is basically turning into an apocalyptic war zone littered with dead bodies. 
 
Those criticisms aside, the movie really is worth seeing. Jordan Peele is doing amazing things with horror, especially weird horror. I can't wait to see what he does with Twilight Zone. 
 
 

I recently finished the book, Unbury Carol by Josh Malerman. If you recognize the name, it’s probably because he is the author of Bird Box which recently was made into a film by Netflix and has gained a lot of attention. I picked up Unbury Carol back in the day because I enjoyed reading Bird Box and Carol is a western horror which is right up my alley.

The book is about a woman named Carol who has a disease that puts her in a coma-like state. She can appear dead to the untrained eye as all her vitals slow down. In the book, there are only a few people who know about her condition: her husband, Dwight, her close friend, John Bowie, and her ex-fling, James Moxie. Moxie is an infamous outlaw, made famous from a gun-duel he won years ago where it seemed like he never drew his weapon, yet his opponent died of a gunshot wound. Everyone believed he won through the use of magic and his name went down in history. Carol’s close friend John Bowie dies, taking Carol’s secret to his grave. Once he dies, Dwight enacts a plan to basically bury Carol once she slips into another one of her episodes and inherit her money.

Carol decides she wants another person to confide in and begins to tell one of her staff members but falls into a coma-like sleep before she can get the word out. However, before succumbing to the disease, she told her staff/friend that she used to be involved with James Moxie and for whatever reason, the help sends word to Mr. Moxie.

Once he gets word of what happened, he drops everything and hits the Trail (yes, it’s personified in the book as a character) and heads towards Carol to save her from being buried alive. Dwight hears of this and hires a notorious hitman to track down and kill Moxie before he can arrive, a man who has a penchant for lighting fires.
Let’s get into the good with this book. First off, the setting and the characters were intriguing. I love westerns, and really love weird westerns or western horror stories. I think the setting is ripe for those crossovers. What was fun about this book, is that Malerman puts in small bits of the supernatural. For example, whenever Carol slips into one of her episodes, she goes to a shadowy realm she’s dubbed, Howltown. While there, there is an entity known as Rot that pesters her, angry that she keeps ‘dying’ but doesn’t decay like a good corpse should. Rot manifests in other ways throughout the book to harass Moxie and stop his journey back to Carol.

Moxie himself is an interesting character, living off the results of that legendary duel so many years ago. As a reader you begin to wonder if it actually happened, or if it was blown out of proportion. I’ll get into a bit a later in the spoiler section.

The story is cinematic in scope, as I could see this playing out in the big screen and being entertaining. However, the story drags in parts, which leads me to the bads of Unbury Carol.

There were a lot of times we’d get chapters dealing with minor characters in the story, such as the grave-diggers, the staff, or some random guy in some random town. Quite frankly, these sections probably could have been removed without much ill effect to the overall narrative. I was only interested in Moxie, his pursuer, Carol, Dwight, and somewhat with the sheriff. I will be honest that I didn’t’ read this book fast. I read it over the period of a few months, picking it up and putting it back down. It was interesting enough that I wanted to finish it, but not gripping enough that I HAD to finish it immediately.

Second, Carol herself was kind of a non-player through the story. Her scenes in the book didn’t have much impact overall until the end. I wanted her to have more of a part, and I suppose in a way that same frustration was felt by her as she wanted to have more of a part. I’ll be honest though, that my want for her to have more of part clashes with my feelings for the ending and I don’t know what to make of it.

Third, in reality, Dwight could have ended this by smothering her in her one of her comas and then the whole book wouldn’t have happened. I couldn’t forget that point as I read the story and whenever Dwight would show up in a scene all agitated with Moxie coming and the sheriff putting the pressure on his investigation, it was hard to wonder why Dwight never did such a thing to begin with. I mean, if he’s willing to bury her alive, why wouldn’t he be just as willing to cover her face with a pillow?

Before I get to my main issue with the book, I want to give my overall opinion. Because my main issue will get into spoilers. Overall, it’s a good read. If you like westerns, and you like horror, give it a read. I give the story maybe 6/10 overall. Now, on to the last point and spoilers.

Still here? That means you’re cool with spoilers. Last chance to veer off if you don’t want to know. My main problem with the book is the ending. In my opinion, this whole story was about James Moxie riding to save Carol from an untimely death and coming to terms with the decision he made many years ago to leave her in the first place. It’s a redemption arc for him. When he finally gets through all the obstacles and is about to dig up Carol from the ground, we find that she escaped last minute because she came to and used some crazy mechanical casket contraption that her mother built for Carol before she died and had delivered with instructions that her daughter be buried in it.

One, this casket was never really mentioned before. Which I get it, it would have given away the ending and suspense. But come on! This whole story is about Moxie coming for her. Then in one fell swoop, his entire journey is invalidated. I felt like I was cheated. And don’t get me wrong, I am super happy that Carol was able to take care of herself, but with all the lead up to what was supposed to happen, it didn’t feel right.

Next, let’s talk about Moxie’s power to fire his gun with magic. That was a fun little mystery…until the end once again. For starters, we never know if he can do it through some supernatural ability or not. He never talks about what happened during that duel, and there is a scene when he’s detained by a sheriff in a town along the Trail and the deputies are messing with his gun. When he finally decides that they aren’t going to let him out, the gun goes off by itself, seemingly by Moxie’s will. At that point, my mouth was open and I was like, holy shit, he can do magic. Then, at the end he kills Carol’s husband, Dwight, by rigging up multiple pistols with string to fire, possibly implying that he was using strings the whole time to pull off his magical shooting pistol trick. However, the whole thing just doesn’t sit well with me or explain much.
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Anyway, it was a cool story overall, but the ending fell short for me and left me with a taste of Rot in my mouth.

If you haven’t read, Bad Man, by Dathan Auerbach then you’re missing out. I was first introduced to Auerbach with his debut novel, Penpal which is an excellent read as well. With his latest novel we’re thrown into a world of tension and weirdness when Ben loses his little brother, Eric (who is three years old at the time) at a supermarket. One moment the boy is there, the next, he’s gone. Fast-forward five years and we get to see the emotional and psychological toll of such an event on both Ben and his parents.

Eric was never found and Ben is convinced that the police didn’t do a good enough job. He is also convinced that Eric is still alive. He suspects multiple folks and as we go through the novel, we start to see that Ben’s point-of-view is skewed. To say that strange things start happening once Ben starts working the night shift at the very grocery store that the event occurred, would be an understatement. Auerbach has a way with words that get under your skin, and the imagery he can paint it quite vivid. On top of that, his characters are top notch. They’ve all got their secrets and those little hooks kept me reading going. The way Auerbach weaved the narrative together is masterful. Many times I had to go on to the next chapter because of a bombshell chapter-end. Thanks for the late nights.

Auerbach’s characters are full of depths and secrets. As the story evolves, you’re left wondering who’s hiding what, and how it could be connected. The tone and atmosphere that Auerbach builds is rich and tense, and the dark imagery that he shows us is creepy as hell.

I highly recommend this book. It’s been quite a while since I read such a creepy and disturbing read. 

​Check it out here.

This year’s archery elk hunt has been one of the most exciting and frustrating hunts for some time. I came up scouting with the wife in July. We’d picked out a place to go check out that looked awesome on the map. However, driving up to where we would start out hike turned out to be a big pain in the ass due to rough roads. Then hiking up there was even crazier, only to find out that the spot we had picked seemed to be a bastion for fishermen and day hikers, with little to no sign of elk.
​
Fast forward to late August. I came up for an early season hunt with my dad and we went up into this area that was full of ponds, wallows, and lush grass. I’d seen elk sign there before and had set up my trail cams in the area. We checked the cams and had cow elk and deer hitting both spots, one even showed a visitation from that morning! So I set my dad up on the pond where my camera had been hoping the elk would come back, and I started my timber stalk. Every now and then I would hit my cow call hoping to get something’s attention, and to hopefully make them think I was a cow elk lumbering through the woods. After about two hours, I get an answer. Another cow elk lets out a mew in response to my call. I see her slinking through the tree line across this meadow I had set up on. We talk back and forth for a moment, and I noticed that she continued to come through the tree line. I guesstimate whereabouts she may cross in front of me and range it out at 20 yards. Couldn’t ask for a more perfect shot. As she goes behind some trees and I draw my bow and wait, and low and behold, she crossed where I thought…well, almost where I thought. She was further back. I couldn’t range again because I was at full draw and I didn’t want to spook her, so I made a quick guess and put my 40-yard pin on her. I let loose and woosh! My arrow sails right over her back. I guessed wrong. She leaves barking up a storm letting everything else area know I’m there. After A LOT of searching (combined two hours over the course of three days) I found my arrow lodged in a tree. I’ve kicked myself in the ass ever since missing that shot because everything was set up perfect. Ah well, live and learn.

The rest of that hunt was uneventful. Fast-forward a couple weeks, and my dad and I are back at it. We set the trail cams up in a couple different spots, both of which show elk coming in, but over a week prior. We begin our hunt. In the mornings and evenings, we hunt certain spots without success. In the afternoons I decide not to take any time off and go scouting new areas. I think over the course of three days I logged over 25 miles hiking around, timber stalking, and scouting. Most of the outings were a bust, finding out that there was very little sign or whatnot, and covering some really rough terrain. However, a couple of the afternoon adventures proved to have results, even if I wasn’t ready.
​
In one outing, I went scouting down these canyons and had to crawl back up a mountain. By the time I got to the top, it was about 2 pm and I was dead-dog tired. I found an old road and started walking down that because I figured it would take me back to the vehicle. At one point I look up and lock eyes with a spike elk with a messed-up antler. As soon as we see each other he took off. I don’t know if I even had my bow in timber-stalk mode (arrow nocked, and release hooked) if I would have been able to get a shot off. But, I saw an elk and a bull at that. 

The next day, I decided to hike from one of my usual haunts over the country to the next one. It turns out to be about 3.6 miles total over deadfall city. Early on, I hear a bugle in the distance. So, I bugled back. In the back of my mind, I thought it was probably another hunter because it was late morning (around 1000) and up until this point the elk had been in stealth mode, not a peep. But, I had to see it through on the off chance that it was real. I moved in closer each time it called out and answered with my own bugle a few times. I finally got to where it sounded like it was maybe 500 yards away down this ridge. So I set up my ambush. It bugled, and I would bugle back trying every trick I could to piss it off. It kept coming in closer, and I was starting to think this was really going to go down. However, after about 30 minutes, some movement catches my eye and I spy another hunter. We’d both been duped! I moved out of my spot and waved, and we went on about our day. It’s nice to know that my bugles and cow calls sound authentic enough to fool hunters and a cow.
​
During rest of my trek, the only thing I learned, is that all the fresh sign is closer to each of my usual spots and not up in the shit where you would expect it to be. However, one the way back, I spook an elk up from its bed, and when I get back to the place where I’ve seen elk in the trees before, I go back into timber stalking mode, and I hunt, moving very slowly down the mountain. If I had been hunting doe, I could have had a shot at two of them. Anyway, I get to the point where I’m almost back to camp and I put my arrow away and stop my stalk. You see, I’d never seen any sign or anything on that last stretch of trail. Lo and behold, that’s when they came out. I hadn’t traveled 100 yards before six elk come bounding from the timber, three cow and three calves. The lead cow even stops in the trail in front of me for a couple seconds, not 10 yards away. Had I been in timber stalk mode with my bow loaded up and ready to go, I could have made the shot. Just goes to show you, never let your guard down no matter how close to camp you are. It would have been an awesome pack out. Live and learn.

I’m fairly new to elk hunting, as I’ve only been at it for about seven years or so and it’s all self-taught. Lots of Googling, listening to podcasts, talking to other hunters, and reading books. In all this time, I’ve only killed one elk, and that was the second year out. However, I’ve seen more elk this time around than I have all the other trips combined. I was able to get my first shot off with the bow on one, although it was a miss. Sometimes I feel like I have no clue what I’m doing and that I’m doing it all wrong. Other times, things work out just how they should (not counting actually harvesting the elk). I don’t know. I’m sure, like all other hunters out there, the desire for a successful harvest stems from a place of just wanting to show that you are capable of coming out into the wilderness, and out-smarting the timber ghosts. Every year that goes by unsuccessful, that desire grows, as does the frustration. However, it spurs me on to work harder than the year before. Plus, it always comes down to my differing levels of success. The first level is just getting out there. The second level of success is actually seeing the animal you’re after. The third level is getting a shot at it. The final level, of course, is harvesting the animal and filling the freezer with meat. This year, as far as archery elk goes, I hit the third level. We’ll see how my upcoming hunts for pronghorn, deer, and coming back at the elk for rifle go. In the meantime, get out there and do what you love!

Time for a little cross-promotion! I know a few of these authors and they are super talented. So if you like paranormal romance, you're going to want to check out this upcoming anthology. Here's a little bit about the anthology, and an excerpt from Traci Douglass's story, "Blood Strong!"

BORN TO LOVE WILD
A Paranormal Romance Short Story Anthology
Stars and Stone Books
 
Featuring: USA Today Bestselling Author Traci Douglass, Cara McKinnon, Sheri Queen, Pepper McGraw, M.T. DeSantis, Read Gallo, J. Bigelow, and Andie Biagini.
 
Pre-Order Now:
 
Kindle | iBooks | Kobo | Google Play
 
Traci Douglass – “Blood Strong: A Blood Ravagers Novella”
One guardian demon in love. One witch with a secret crush. One evil threatening their newfound connection.
 
Cara McKinnon - “A Change of Heart”
She’s a hybrid shifter who’s not supposed to exist. He’s a wolf who was born to protect her. But her secrets force him to choose: his mate, or his pack loyalty?
 
Sheri Queen - “The Robinson Agency”
Some are born with the gift to see into the future. Others create their own destiny.
 
Pepper McGraw – “Full Moon Shenanigans”
The full moon’s coming and it’s time to embrace the wildness within.
 
M.T. DeSantis - “Forever Love”
To find a chance… A chance to find…
 
Read Gallo – “The Flying Saltines”
When a river falls in love with an ordinary person will New York City survive?
 
J. Bigelow – “Focal Point”
Sometimes a wizard from Sweden needs help from a medium from Michigan.
 
Andie Biagini – “Water Temperature”
An engineering student and a cryptozoologist. One of them can talk to sea monsters, but it’s not who you think.
 
 
CLICK HERE TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT OUR AUTHORS
 
STARS AND STONE BOOKS: http://starsandstonebooks.com/
GOODREADS: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40582115-born-to-love-wild
FACEBOOK RELEASE PARTY: https://www.facebook.com/events/230760974194159/
TWITTER: https://twitter.com/starsstonebooks
ANTHOLOGY WEBSITE: http://starsandstonebooks.com/born-to-love-wild
 
Excerpt from Traci Douglass’s Blood Strong: A Blood Ravager’s Novella
 
Emma Bradstreet checked her watch again. She hadn’t even finished parallel parking her car outside Seven yet when one of the Frost twins rushed over to her door. Thank God for the rainbow streaks in Liz’s hair, otherwise she’d never be able to tell her and Anna apart. Her frantic expression had Emma hurrying to cut the engine and exit the vehicle. “What’s wrong?”

“Oh, I’m so glad you’re here,” she gushed. “Anna said you would be the only one who could help.”

She grabbed Emma hand and yanked her toward the club, barely giving her time to grab her purse from the front seat. Liz dragged her inside and over to the bar where her husband, a wolf shifter named Dex, stood. The guy was tall, blonde, and far too intense for Emma’s comfort. Still his violet eyes were kind and he smiled at her warmly when she approached. Beside him stood Anna, Dante’s wife and Liz’s identical twin. Both girls were powerful psychics and together they formed the gang’s Oracle—a powerful conduit for psychic energy used to protect and bind the Blood Ravager members together. Dante, the gang’s leader, stood behind his wife with his arms around Anna’s waist, holding her possessively.

Emma stumbled forward through the crowded space, knocking into several scary looking guys and one turquoise alien who acted as the gang’s official healer.

She managed to stop short of taking a header over the bar and pulled free from Liz’s insistent grip. “What do you need from me?”

“We need you to break a tie,” Anna said. “Which of these colors suits my sister better? I said it was the blue, but she insists on the purple.”

Two swatches were held in front of Emma’s face. Honestly, she couldn’t see much difference in either of the pastel shades, but she leaned slightly to peer at Liz then looked back at the fabric just the same. “The purple, I guess.”

“Perfect!” Liz jumped forward and wrapped her arms around Emma, sticking her tongue out at her sister. “See? I told you so, Anna. Thanks so much, Em.”

“No problem.” Still confused as to why the color choice was important, Emma slowly backed away from the group, only to run smack up against a massive, muscled chest. A chest covered in a soft black T-shirt that smelled absolutely fabulous—like lavender and musk and clean warm male.

“Oh,” she said, raising her eyes to see Spud’s smiling face. “I’m so sorry.”

“No harm done, Emma,” he said, his voice deep and tinged with amusement. “No need to run away either.”

For a moment, she stood transfixed by his handsome, chiseled face and sexy smile. Emma blinked several times to break herself out of her embarrassing daze, swallowing hard against the tingles racing over her skin from his touch.

“I’m early,” she blurted out.

 Seriously? That’s the best you can do?

“That’s okay,” Spud said with a shrug. “We can go ahead and meet now, if you want.”

 “Uh, sure.” She fumbled after him toward the stairs, wishing the earth would just split open and devour her whole. Her cheeks felt so hot she was surprised the fire alarms didn’t go off. “Yeah, that’s great…thanks.”

“Sure.” He grabbed two bottles of water from the bartender then cocked his head toward the back door. “Actually, why don’t we start out back in the courtyard.”

Her breath hitched. In truth, she’d had a crush on Spud from the first moment she’d set foot in Salvation and he’d rescued her after she’d been stung by a bee. Luckily, she wasn’t allergic, but it had still hurt like hell. Her parents couldn’t have cared less, and to her sisters she was like a surrogate mom, so therefore indestructible. But Spud had treated the sting with gentle hands and given Emma a cool towel for her head and a cold drink to wash down the pain meds. He’d even dried her silly tears when she’d cried for one insane moment. In her fantasies, he’d see past her prim, proper exterior and notice her as a woman. In reality, that seemed like a tall order. Especially since he was giving her a slow, head-to-toe appraisal.

Goddess bless it, why didn’t I wear something cuter?

Another gang member pulled Spud aside, whispering and pointing toward a heated argument at the pool table near the front of the bar. Spud handed Emma the waters then raised a finger for her to wait before he took off to break up the fight before it could start.

Guardian demons got a bad reputation because of their formidable size and gruff exteriors. But she’d found Spud to be nothing but kind and generous and loyal to a fault. It still amazed her that he wasn’t mated yet. It also made her secretly happy, because if Spud was still available, Emma might have a chance.
The kerfuffle was broken up in less than ten minutes and Spud slowly made his way back to Emma, his easy swagger highlighting his broad torso and trim waist. His shoulder length brown hair caught the overhead lights and her fingertips itched to run through the silky strands. Through the curls, near his forehead, peeked two tiny horns. Even that she found that insanely attractive.  The only thing about she questioned was his name. She’d have to ask him about that.

Maybe once they got to know each other better.

Once he reached her, Spud flashed that sexy little smile, his warm gray eyes sparkling. “Sorry about that. You play pool?”

 Emma took a deep breath to quiet the zing of awareness through her bones. “Nah. Not really my thing.”

“Not mine either.”

They stood near the back exit in silence for several moments, watching the crowd while Emma tried to figure out what to say next.  The air around them pulsed with electricity and she couldn’t seem to stop fidgeting. She should say something intelligent and thoughtful and cute. Except words escaped her whenever Spud was around. So, instead, she leaned back against the wall beside the jukebox and stared out at the paranormal circus of creatures in front of them.

“Ready to go to the courtyard?” Spud pointed toward the exit with a water bottle.

“Yes!” she said, too quickly. “Please.”

“This way.” He grinned, pressing his palm against her lower back, ushering her through the door and down a short hall into the twilight. The whole time she kept repeating her mantra in her head to combat the buzz of being close to him. 

It’s just work. It’s just work.

Emma kept reminding herself not to go overboard, not to fall for a guy who was so out of her league it wasn’t even funny. With each step, however, she couldn’t seem to shake the feeling they were crossing a threshold, entering a new realm where she would get to see the real Spud, not the tough guy badass he portrayed to the world.

And deep inside, her witch instincts told Emma she wouldn’t be disappointed.
 
© 2018 Traci Douglass
 
 

 

​Went out for the first bit of elk scouting a couple weekends ago. I was able to go with my lovely wife which was great because I love spending time with her, plus this I the first year she’ll be able to actually have a chance at harvesting an animal. She finished up her Hunter’s Safety earlier in the year and we just picked her up a general season elk tag for rifle.
 
When we first got up there, it was raining and the temperature had dropped significantly, especially compared to the basin. Down in Vernal, it was almost 100 degrees, but up top with the storm going on, it was a chill 55 degrees. We had to wait for a break in the storm to put up camp, plus we had to fight the mosquitos. I don’t know if it was due to the rain or what, but they were everywhere, and they’d swarm you as soon as you stopped moving. I imagine that is what Alaska is like this time of year.
 
We got the camp set up, collected and processed some wood for the night’s fire (and the wood burning stove), then headed off to go get some scouting in before it got too dark. On the way up it looked like the Forest Service, or some mysterious Good Samaritan had finally cleaned up the trail. A lot of the fallen trees had been cut away and the path had been cleared. So that was nice.
 
We didn’t see much sign headed up that way, but I followed a game trail and found a big open meadow that I had no idea was there. It would be a good spot perhaps for rifle season.

​The next day we went up to a new spot I had found on the map. It looked promising. It was a small lake nestled in the horseshoe of some high cliffs at about 11,000 feet. We hit the road and started driving up there, and oh my god, the road was shite! Took about 45 min to crawl up a few miles to park at the spot that looked like a straight shot up to the lake. We started hiking and for whatever reason, I kept veering uphill and to the left, which eventually took us to a trail I didn’t know was there. At first, I thought the trail was a really crappy ATV road. About halfway there we crossed paths with about half a dozen folks hiking back down, carrying backpacks and fishing poles. I stopped and chatted with one dude and showed him where I was going and he told me they had just come down from there.
 
#sonofabitch
 
Up to that point, I hadn’t really seen much sign of elk at all. However, my wife and I decided to push on and see what the lake looked like anyway. I knew if I didn’t go up there, I’d always be wondering what was up that way. We pressed on and found more sign of people than we did of animals. It was okay though because we came across some beautiful scenery. However, there was one casualty from that jaunt—my wife’s boots. The soles of her boots completely disintegrated during that hike. She’d only wore those boots for about six months while she was deployed overseas and they couldn’t last four hours in the Uintah Mountains. That goes to show you what happens when you go with the lowest bidder for government contracts. 

Later that evening we hit another spot (after my wife changed her shoes of course). It was a spot I hunted the year prior and showed some promise. It wasn’t very far from the road, but we started seeing more elk sign than we had all trip. After a little ways in, I found a few piles of fresh(ish) scat nearby a water source, as well as an area that had about seven tree rubs all within ten yards of each other.
​
I don’t know if the hunt will pan out, but at least I have a better idea of what it’s looking like at the moment, and I can create my game plan. Hopefully, some of the sweat equity pays off and I can harvest an elk this year because let me tell you this, my freezer is looking sparse.