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AND THE WINNER IS: Laura Harris! Please email mkdupre@gmail.com to collect your book! Not long ago, I wrote a review of a book called Wolves and Men .Well, now I am very excited to announce that I have been given permission to give away a copy of this super cool novel to one lucky winner! Here is a brief summary of what the book is about: The wickedness of men knows no bounds. It does not stop to consider the lives it destroys; does not feel the pain it inflicts; nor hesitates where it devours. Its appetite is destruction, and its darkness infects wherever it wounds. It prowls through night and day, seeking the weak, the innocent, and the pure. Where it finds beauty, it mars; where it sees life, it poisons; and where there is light, darkness will fall. Charlotte Benson is no stranger to the evils of men. Plagued by terrible dreams of her past, she seeks respite in the Ouachita Mountains, at a peaceful wildlife refuge called Willow's Bend in far eastern Oklaho...

Is anyone else looking for something not-quite-horror to read this fall? Because I have a little something for you. Natasha Wittman's Wolves and Men delivers sufficient creepiness, action, and nature scenery (which for some reason I always associate with fall) to keep you feeling frisky and leave you with a satisfying read. One of my very favorite things about reading books is seeing characters that like books as much as I do. For me, it just adds a whole new level of intimacy with the main character and I have also discovered a lot of new reading material by seeking out books that my favorite protagonists had read. This might be why I ultimately enjoyed Natasha Wittman's work. In Wolves and Men , the protagonist is a brainy, highly troubled poetry major who not only uses the wilderness to sort out her problems, but frames her experiences amid the myriad books she has read and loved over the years. This is a novel that is rich in literary allusion, and no slouch when i...

This is Stephen King, laughing at your terror. I have only recently started delving into the works of one Mr. Stephen King, and I am discovering that I wholeheartedly regret all those pretentious years of college when I was immersed in being an English major and considered myself above genre fiction. So when I went looking for the perfect starting place in King’s positively enormous canon, I knew there was only one person who could give me direction: my father. He is an absolute Stephen King expert. He has read all of King’s books, viewed (and critiqued) many film adaptations, and loves horror/sci-fi fiction with fervor. He has always advised me wisely, and has consented to share his top five recommendations for newcomers to the land of King as a special Halloween themed post. So take a gander and take your pick from Steve Knapp’s Stephen King library: Since Halloween is fast approaching, many readers, avid and otherwise, look to find some good scary stories. Of course, ...

Contemporary Americans live in a fascinating time. A time when audiences are notoriously hard to trick, surprise, or frighten. Authors everywhere are enduring a constant struggle to keep readers on their toes and shock them with a twist ending they never expected. This struggle is nicely battled in Becca J. Campbell’s novel, Foreign Identity , where suspense and horror are balanced with genuine human emotion and an overwhelming sense of mystery. The novel is, in short, steeped in the unexplainable, bringing to mind some of the most entertaining episodes of The X-Files and psychological suspense movies like Shutter Island . In Foreign Identity , the two heroes (a man and a woman) are thrown unceremoniously into a horrific maze of vaguely familiar circumstances, which they must work together to put in context.   The characters are very real entities, with real, human problems that are eked out in front of the backdrop of an eerily perfect landscape. This setting throws the...