A Review of The Devil Will Come by Justin Gustainis

I received an ARC of this book through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers Program in exchange for an honest review.
 
Back Cover Blurb

Twenty-one stories that will scare you to death. 

You may or may not believe in the old gentleman known variously as Lucifer, the Prince of Darkness, Satan, or simply the devil – but it is impossible to deny the existence of evil in the world. And all those arguments about whether evil originates in the fires of Hades or in the smoldering heart of humankind don’t change the fact that evil has always been with us – and, most likely, always will be.

The stories you are about to read are about evil, in one form or another. Several of them give evil a supernatural origin, but others place it squarely in the lap of ordinary (or maybe not so ordinary) human beings. Some of the people you are about to meet will overcome the evil that confronts them, while others won’t be quite so fortunate. Either way, all of them are going to be changed by the encounter.
These stories are best read late at night, preferably while you’re alone in the house. I recommend leaving only a single light on. Try to use a reading lamp that illuminates the page while throwing the rest of the room into shadows – shadows where anything might be hiding.

Anything.

Later, as you lie in the iron dark, waiting for sleep, perhaps you’ll start to wonder if there really is a Devil, and if this is the night he might choose to come – for you.

I wish you pleasant dreams.

Well, no – not really.

Author Bio

Justin Gustainis has been an Army officer, speechwriter and professional bodyguard. He is currently a college professor living in upstate New York. He is the author of The Hades Project, Black Magic Woman, Evil Ways, Hard Spell and Sympathy for the Devil. He has also published a number of short stories, two of which won the Graverson Award for Horror in consecutive years. He is a graduate of the Odyssey Writing Workshop. 
  
Publisher Info

EDGE-Lite and EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing publish thought-provoking full length novels, collections and anthologies of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror. Featuring works by established authors and emerging new voices, we are pleased to provide quality literary entertainment in both print and pixels.
"Enjoyable in Print and Pixels"
Website: http://www.edgewebsite.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/EDGEfbpage
Twitter: EDGEpublishing

Amazon Buy Link

https://www.amazon.ca/gp/search/ref=x_gr_w_bb?keywords=9781770530904&index=books&linkCode=qs&tag=x_gr_w_bb_ca-20


Review

This is an entertaining collection of short stories that examines the Devil in his various guises. 

The author uses both historical and literary references--Jack the Ripper, Nazi Germany, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Marlowe's Doctor Faustus, and Stephen King's Carrie, to name a few examples--as backdrops to his depictions of evil.

I especially enjoyed the stories in which the author combines the paranormal with crime fiction, as well as those with plot twists.

This collection will appeal to readers of supernatural, paranormal, and horror fiction.

Goodreads Book Giveaway for The Accusers

The Goodreads giveaway is up and running for my new book, The Accusers, and it is now available on Kobo as well as Kindle (and in paperback through Amazon).

Here's a brief excerpt from the book:

. . . Rebecca Anderson, affectionately known as Becca by family and friends, was a pleasant-faced woman, short and a bit plump, with curly grey hair. She was usually quick to smile, but today her expression was one of sadness. She turned on a reading lamp as she sat in her living room. It was February: the shortest, yet longest month of the year. The last rays of the winter sun had already died, and it was only 5 pm. According to the local news channel, there was heavy snow in the forecast.

Becca didn’t understand the depression she’d been experiencing lately. She’d lived in this house on Berwick Street for forty years and had raised three children here with the help of her beloved husband Jack, dead of cancer for five years now. She’d always tried to see the best in people and circumstances. . . .

She headed for the kitchen to begin preparing her supper. Her constant shadow, Mooch the cat, was nowhere to be seen.

He must be sleeping somewhere.
 
Becca pulled the cutting board from the cupboard and started assembling ingredients for a salad. She searched for the knife she always used to cut vegetables, but it wasn’t in the butcher’s block or the dishwasher.

Strange. I’m only sixty-five. I hope I’m not starting to get forgetful and misplacing things.

She selected another knife and began to slice the lettuce and tomatoes, trying to pinpoint when exactly this depressed feeling had started. . . .

Her thoughts were interrupted by a loud thump outside on the porch. Becca wiped her hands on a dish towel and hurried to the door. When she opened it, she found a note pinned there with her missing knife.Her hands shaking, she removed the knife and read the note.

You have been marked.

She spotted Mooch under the living room couch. The cat was hissing violently in fright, but there was no one to be seen on the street nor were there footprints in the crusted snow. . . .

The Accusers: A New Novel by Lynn L. Clark

I'm very pleased to announce that my third novel, The Accusers, is now available on Amazon  in paperback and Kindle format. The e-version for Kobo will be published shortly.

I enjoyed writing this story and, as usual, did background research so that I could blend history and fiction, as in my previous two books, The Home Child and Fire Whisperer and Circle of Souls: Two Novellas of the Supernatural.

What's it about? It's the story of three women and a young boy who stand together against an evil that threatens to consume them, their families, and their neighbours. It's also a tale of how unmitigated hatred and the urge for revenge can destroy ordinary lives. I think this is probably the most suspenseful of the books I've written to date.

This is the back cover blurb:

At first glance, Berwick Street is a quiet cul-de-sac: a safe place to raise a family and enjoy retirement. But in the dead of winter when most Berwick Street residents have already headed south to escape the bitter cold, something evil lurks in the coming snowstorm. A group of followers with specially-honed powers of destruction seeks final retribution for events that occurred more than four hundred years ago!
 
Aided by a teenager with precognitive abilities, an unlikely trio of women--Cassie, an introvert in her twenties; Rebecca, a sixty-five-year-old grandmother; and Mabel, an ailing octogenarian who has outlived her husband and sons--must face the coming onslaught. WHO WILL PREVAIL?


There will be a Goodreads giveaway in April, and the novel will also be available through the Early Reviewers program on LibraryThing.  More about this in my next post.

Fire Whisperer & Circle of Souls: Two Novellas of the Supernatural

The Plaid Raccoon Press is pleased to announce the publication of Fire Whisperer & Circle of Souls: Two Novellas of the Supernatural  by Lynn L. Clark. It is now in paperback and can be ordered from Amazon.com, and will be available in electronic format very shortly. Like The Home Child, the new book is set in eastern Ontario and is supernatural fiction interwoven with historical details.

Here are brief synopses of the two novellas:

"Fire Whisperer" - Injured in a hotel fire, Keva Tait experiences auditory and visual hallucinations and is diagnosed with schizophrenia. But is this illness really at the root of her constant encounters with a young, dark-haired woman and an elder who materializes at night on her bed? With the tenth anniversary of the fire looming, Keva wants to take back her life by confronting what really happened when she was seventeen years old.

"Circle of Souls" - A young woman doing research at a small museum in Ottawa is almost pushed down a set of stairs. Her sister-in-law, who restores fossils at a museum of natural history, is touched by an unseen presence. A videographer glimpses unsettling images in his work. A paranormal team leader encounters the inexplicable as he investigates an old mill. A student working part time at an old jail experiences the despair of its former inmates. All of these locations are said to be haunted, but who exactly is the ghost? Or are there many ghosts seeking human intervention?


Fire Whisperer & Circle of Souls: Two Novellas of the Supernatural is currently a Goodreads Giveaway and is also listed in the Early Reviewers Program of LibraryThing.

If you are a reviewer of supernatural fiction and would like an electronic copy of the book for review purposes, please send an e-mail request to llclark136@hotmail.com.

Stay tuned for additional updates!

The Home Child: A New Release from The Plaid Raccoon Press

The Plaid Raccoon Press is pleased to announce the publication of The Home Child by Lynn L. Clark. The novel tells the story of Jake Hall, a transplanted city dweller who is trying to adjust to the realities of country life. Jake knows it isn't going to be an easy transition, and he's prepared for major renovations to the old farm house he's purchased. But what he hasn't counted on is finding a former resident still inhabiting the house in spirit form!

 Synopsis

Set in eastern Ontario, Canada, against the backdrop of a rural town in transition, the novel combines historical detail and the supernatural in the poignant story of a Scottish home child who wants simply to be reunited with the family he lost so many years ago.

Historical Context
 
Starting in 1869 and continuing to the mid-twentieth century, approximately 100,000 children were sent to Canada from the United Kingdom. Although the majority of the children were from England, approximately 7,000 children came from the Quarrier orphan homes in Scotland. Organized as a mission of mercy, this child migration was supposed to allow poverty-stricken children to have a better life abroad. But only two per cent of the home children were in fact orphans. Separated from their parents and siblings, many of these children were abused and exploited as a source of cheap labour when they came to Canada.

 

 Author Biography

Lynn L. Clark was born in Woodstock, New Brunswick. She received her B.A. and M.A. from Acadia University in Wolfville, Nova Scotia. Prior to her retirement in 2011, she worked for the federal government in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. She lives in a small town in eastern Ontario with her husband, crime fiction writer Michael J. McCann. Lynn is currently working on her second supernatural novel. 

  
Excerpt and Buy Links

To read an excerpt from The Home Child, please click here.

The paperback version is available from Amazon.com or Amazon.ca. 
The e-book version for your Amazon Kindle is available at http://www.amazon.com/Home-Child-supernatural-novel-ebook/dp/B00QEBQNPK/. 
 For all other e-readers and devices, please click here: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/497674. 

To enter a Goodreads giveaway for this book, please click here.

 
A Final Note

Now that Lynn has published her first novel of the supernatural, she has agreed to assume full editorial control of Behind the Walls of Nightmare, which will continue to focus on the horror genre, including topics related to my supernatural thriller, The Ghost Man. Meanwhile, I'll be managing The Overnight Bestseller blog on crime fiction, writing, and other adventures.

Lynn also has a new Goodreads blog, Writing in Retirement, which is available at https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/10057406.Lynn_L_Clark/blog. 

I'm Back!

Thanks, everyone, for sticking with me while I took the summer off to write. I'm pleased to say that I have finished the first of my new crime fiction series set in Canada. It was quite a learning curve for me because there are so many differences between U.S. and Canadian criminal investigation procedures. At the same time, I enjoyed developing two new characters, Kevin Walker and Ellie March of the Ontario Provincial Police. The draft of the novel is with an OPP subject matter expert who so kindly agreed to allow me to pick his brain for this new series. Stay tuned for more information on the new novel, and rest assured that you also haven't seen the last of Donaghue and Stainer.

Now that Behind the Walls of Nightmare is up and running again, I will be talking about the latest supernatural and horror news. If you have a particular topic that you'd like to see covered in the blog, please be sure to let me know.

A Recent Book-Signing

Photo from the Kemptville Advance

I had the pleasure last weekend of doing a book-signing at Brewed Awakenings in Kemptville, one of the local-area shops carrying my books. I enjoy these events because I have a chance to chat with people and to offer advice to aspiring writers, such as the young man pictured in this photo, who wants to write supernatural fiction. It's always a pleasure to meet someone who is interested in writing, and I hope I can provide them with some encouragement.

The novel I am signing in the photo is The Ghost Man, a supernatural thriller set in Ontario, Canada. It tells the story of Simon Guthrie, recently widowed and trying to come to terms with his new life after spending months in a hospital recuperating from a head injury. I did a lot of research when writing The Ghost Man, and it has elements of the classic ghost story, while also examining other subjects, including near-death experiences and passive mediums.

If you'd like to read an excerpt from the novel, please click here. The novel is available electronically as a Kindle Direct Publishing selection and in trade paperback format. For the relevant purchasing information, please visit http://www.mjmccann.com/buytheghostman.htm or click on the buy link to the right of your screen to order the KDP Select version.

For those of you who are also interested in reading about crime fiction, please see my blog The Overnight Bestseller  and my Goodreads blog Open Investigations.