James Newman (1) (1973–)

It is with tears in my eyes that I finish this novella.

As an important church vote looms, Dennis suddenly remembers with clarity an incident from his childhood. All of a sudden, the reader is transported to the Black Mountain Camp for Boys.

During this one week summer camp, an atrocity is committed. One that will haunt Dennis, the other boys, and this reader. I doubt I will ever be able to forget Dennis or his former best friend, Wesley. Maybe I am not meant to. You're not meant to forget it show more either.

"We build walls to keep us separate, and when those walls eventually crumble and fall we blame the other for chipping away at the foundations. We point fingers right up until the moment we are crushed beneath the weight of our own intolerance. Everyone loses. In the end we all bleed red."

Timely quote there, isn't it?

Odd Man Out gets my highest recommendation. You should read it.

You can buy your copy here: Odd Man Out show less

I didn't really know what to expect when I started this book, but something about the summary got my interest. Definitely not the fact that the main character was a former wrestling star, a sport that doesn't mean anything to me, but maybe the bittersweet smell of human tragedy it exuded. With that, I entered a whole new world of writing, where each character was a damaged soul in their own way and for the first time ever I think of the word 'poetic' to describe an author's talent for show more forging words into stories. However, I often use the phrase 'human monsters' and again, I found a story that perfectly fits into that category, where the true monsters are not recognizable by their looks, but have an inner ugliness perfectly hidden from view. But if evil would always be recognizable just by the looks of it, stories could get very boring and many great works just wouldn't exist.

From the first sentence, I was drawn to the story and despite all his past failures, mainly him leaving his family for the sake of commercial fame, I couldn't help but sympathize with Nick. While I surely pitied him for his disfigurement, it marked the turning point of his life and made him a better man, as I'm sure he would not have followed his daughter's call for help had he still been big in business.

The plot was very suspenseful, while at the same time very emotional. His writing seems to flow so effortlessly, while at the same time carrying a depth I have seldom encountered before. Also the characters in the book, even minor appearances, show a dense complexity that give you the feeling of standing right next to them and being part of the story.

Mr Newman is a true master of his art and with this one book he already earned a permanent place on my list of favorite authors.

(Thanks to Librarything, the author, and the publisher for a copy of the book, all opinions are my own) show less

I received a free copy of The Wicked via LibraryThing Early Reviewers.

Well, that was a lot of fun. The Wicked is everything that I loved about the good old fashion trashy horror novels of the 80's. It's a bit of a car crash. It's cheesy, it's gruesome, it's fast paced, it's your stereotypical good vs evil horror, but that's why it's so good. It's a roller-coaster ride that blasts through the doors of every ghost train and haunted house in the park without allowing you to catch your breath in show more between. There's no fancy prose, no heavy wordy detail, no pages and pages of world building or character building. It's straight up horror, no bells or whistles and I had a blast reading it.

Definitely one I would recommend. show less

The horror that exists when those you once said 'hello' to turn on you.

It's even worse when you understand that they don't care why they've turned on you.

Anger, revenge...they turn the nicest people into monsters that are worse than anything our minds can conjure up. For one, they're real.

And that's the scariest thing of all.

Andrew Holland is the protagonist in this unsettling tale, and he's a best selling horror author - a profession his neighbors deem 'unsavory,' though they don't let him show more know this until he finds a dead girl's body in a construction site one morning.

The rest, as they say, is rather uncomfortable history.

Deception, death, and Andrew's own paranoia are pushed to their limits in this 'right-next-door' horror novel.

It's a solid tale of what could happen if humans feel justified in their anger - and decide they can act on it. It's the blindness of rage, of grief, and what it can propel us to if closure is never found.

It's a sad tale, a horrible tale (in the best sense), and it's horror in a terrible-pit-of-your-gut feeling - it's ANIMOSITY. It's by James Newman.

And it's damn good. show less