L. H. Maynard

It's not just a ghost story...it's a wickedly evil ghost story that seems to spread roots into every page. The story introduces us to Department 18, a special unit of the British government dealing with paranormal activities, and those that embrace it. We enter their doors as they are working to solve the strange disappearances that have taken place on Kulsay, an island off the Scottish coast. A group of employees from Waincraft Software have gone missing while on a weeklong team building show more course on the island and now the pilot and helicopter sent to rescue them has also mysteriously disappeared. No wreckage has been found. A private company with a secret interest in the outcome pays for the investigation. Of course it's no ordinary team. It's led by Jane Talbot, a woman whose marriage and personal life have come unglued, four sensitives with special skills... one of the members of that team is, the brilliant but troubled Robert Carver...a man Jane has had romantic ties with. Carver is a strange one and we find out that his assistant had also disappeared on his last investigation, and he believes that the two cases are linked. The team sets up their workspace in the ancient manse on the island, and it didn't take long for "strange psychic phenomenon" to begin. The morning found the situation deteriorated into violent manifestations that leaves one team member dead and Talbot missing. There is now no contact with the outside world and those remaining are left on their own to confront whatever the horror is that awaits them. I loved this weird, scary, creepy, story. The "evil things" were so well done that their presences were almost tangible, although we recognized that it was a play on the eternal struggle between good and evil, and this was an ancient evil that has risen to unleash devastation upon anyone and anything that dared to stand in its way. Did you like Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House? How about Anne Rivers Siddon's The House Next Door? If your answer is "yes"...then you will devour Black Cathedral ...just watch out that it doesn't devour you first.

NOTE: I don't know if such a department as "Department 18" actually exists in the British Government...Perhaps some of our British friends can enlighten us. I just hope that it's not a situation that if they tell us they have to kill us:) show less

I honestly don’t know how or where I acquired this limited edition book. I must have been suckered in by the “modern take on the traditional ghost story” shill. Anyway, the stories run the gamut from okay to awful. Most are of the make-it-up-as-you-go variety. The quality is about what you would expect from a campfire make up a scary story on the spot game. A typical example of this is an attempt to set one story in the United States at Halloween where the New Englanders quaintly refer show more to their car trunk as a “boot,” the garbage can as a “rubbish bin,” and the breakfast dishes as “crockery.” Verisimilitude suffers as a consequence, or as we say in the South, “that dog won’t hunt.” It’s general sloppiness like this that makes the stories seem slap dash and uninspired, like you’re just checking off that trope.

It’s now available as an ebook and paperback but even that is a waste of paper and electricity. show less

Black Cathedral, although a great title, doesn't offer much in the way of substance. Some hastily dispatched characters open the book with a grand supernatural entity. That boded well. However, sloppy dialogue, lack of suspense, tension or character development ensure this short book never takes off. The finale is also lacklustre, taking up some ten pages, including a villain's monologue which you find under the dictionary definition of cliché. A lack of real closure is a poor substitute to show more ensure readers pick up the next volume. Substandard. show less

This is October and it's time for Horror reading. Maynard and Sims do a pretty good horror store. It was enjoyable until the very end... when it seemed to flounder and fall apart. It was almost like the authors realized that the had to stop writing at some point and simply said 'ok, THIS will take care of it all.'

It didn't.

Still, I did get a good deal of enjoyment out of the story of an island full of unspeakable evil and the psychics who go there to investigate.