Haunting Blue by RJ Sullivan

Fiona (“Blue”)–against her wishes–moves with her mother to a small Indiana town. At first, it seems that all Blue has to look forward to is the day she’ll become a legal adult and can move back out, but then she is drawn into an exploration of a dark incident in the town’s past–and attracts the attention of a restless spirit with unfinished business.

RJ Sullivan takes the time to develop his characters, investing them with depth, secrets, and real emotion. Third-person scenes within the overall first-person narrative develop the driving incident from the past, and what seems to be a straightforward path toward the intersection of the two takes several surprising twists into dark and dangerous territory. Solid storytelling, clear and evocative prose, and compelling characters make this a memorable read, one I very much enjoyed.

***Gary W. Olson is the author of the dark fantasy novel Brutal Light and several previously published and forthcoming short stories. He can be found via his website, his blog A Taste of Strange, as @gwox on Twitter, and in many other far-flung places on the Intertubes. He lives under your bed.

Galaxy Games: The Challengers by Greg R. Fishbone

The opening book of the Galaxy Games trilogy finds 11-year-old Tyler Sato at the center of a crisis neither he nor the world expected: a star named after him has turned out not to be a star but an object heading for Earth. The object proves to be a starship bearing some startling news: Earth has declared a challenge against an alien world, one that can only be resolved through a game. Tyler is drafted to lead an international group of young athletes in a contest where he has to learn the rules as he goes along, and hope somehow he doesn’t ruin Earth’s first contact with the stars.

Greg Fishbone has long displayed a gift for blending likeable characters, just-this-side-of-ludicrous situations, fast-paced action, and humor that both kids and adults will enjoy. (Hey, I was grinning and sometimes laughing out loud, and there wasn’t a middle schooler anywhere around.) I was reminded of both the fun adventure feel of the Lucky Starr books I enjoyed as a kid and the character-driven humor of the Discworld books, though the story itself is derivative of neither. I’m definitely looking forward to the next volume.

Princess Nonomi by Micheal Grin

No one can accuse Princess Nonomi of being down on herself. On the contrary, she sees herself as ‘twenty-first century royalty,’ and pursues her cruel, violent, and sexual desires with fiery disregard to the consequences, both for herself and others. As the narrative flashes between past and present–and between reality and fantasy–the pitch black driving force behind her drives and her snarling view of the world becomes starkly clear.

Micheal Grin’s first novel took me some getting used to–the whipsawing between past and present and real and unreal lost me a few times–but as the book progressed I realized how well it was suited for putting me behind Nonomi’s eyes, and as more of her twisted, scarred psyche was laid bare, the more I was drawn in. I was hooked well before the end, and recommend it to horror lovers with both strong stomachs and willingness to take a perverse, haunting, tragic, and unhinged ride through some very dark mental country.

The Evil Gazebo by Bernie Mojzes (with illustrations by Linda Saboe)

On a particularly dismal Thursday, two evil girls in an evil house by an evil lake are waiting for something–anything–to happen. Since nothing ever does happen in this evil environment, they are quite surprised when something does: a new thing arrives. It claims to be a boy, and it claims to be lost, but are they just to take it’s word for it?

Bernie Mojzes’s story could be called short–it’s less than 50 pages, including the illustrations–but I would call it exactly as long as it needs to be. There is a delicate balancing act going on, writing a fairy tale-type story dark enough to appeal to older fans of the macabre without being so dark as to lose the younger ones. The sly humor that leavens the story helps in this, without detracting from the subtly menacing atmosphere. Linda Saboe’s illustrations throughout the book add to this mix, blending strangeness and a touch of dark humor. I enjoyed my visit to this strange, dismal, evil land very much.

Wild (The Vargulf Trilogy, Book 1) by Naomi Clark

Lizzie, the protagonist of Naomi Clark’s Wild, is not unlikeable, but starts in a place where she seems that way. Addicted to hard drugs, trying to maintain in an abusive relationship on the verge of bottoming out, living for the next party–she inspires sympathy, and pity, but did not strike me as someone I’d want to get to know. But there are sides to Lizzie that have, it turns out, not seen air in a long time, and after a werewolf attack changes her body and her life, they come out. Along the way, she meets weres who encourage her baser instincts, and others who encourage her finer ones.

Naomi Clark presents this struggle with an unflinching realism that makes effective use of the fantasic elements of dark urban fantasy and werewolf lore without losing focus and wandering off into those elements. I ended up liking Lizzie more and more as the book progressed, and will be looking forward to see where she goes in the next book, and how she fares in facing the consequences of her decisions in this one.

Armageddon Bound (Book 1 of the Demon Squad series) by Tim Marquitz

Dark urban fantasy is a subgenre I’ve grown a taste for in recent years. Life in a packed city environment seems tailor made for stories mixing dark urges, tension, suspense, action, and the right amount of humor. Simon R. Green and Jim Butcher have both successfully mined this territory in their respective series (The Nightside series and the Dresden Files). Now Tim Marquitz has done the same, unleashing a fast, furious, and compelling story in the opening volume of his Demon Squad series.

I enjoyed the worldbuilding on display throughout, positing a world in which God and the Devil have both abandoned the Earth, leaving angels and demons and humanity to get on as best they can. Naturally, this results in scheming and plotting that brings the world to the brink of armageddon (hey, there’s a reason the book isn’t called “Puppies and Ice Cream Bound”…). It falls to Frank Trigg and his occult-wise, heavily-armed allies to somehow figure out how to derail it.

There is a lot of action in this book, and Marquitz does a very good job at keeping it clear and focused without lots of ‘telling.’ I also enjoyed the personality of Frank Trigg, who, while hardly an angel (part-demon, actually, and at times all-libido), has his limits, and knows when it’s time to take a stand against impossible odds. I expect I’ll very much enjoy the following books in the series.