Troy Aaron Ratliff

19 year old Jose decides to drag his friend Harland to the wedding of an acquaintance of his mother. Jose and Harland clearly don't want to be at a wedding for someone they don't know at a hunting cabin in the middle of the woods, but make the best of it by taking advantage of the food and dance floor. However, before the guys can bust out their dance moves, an uninvited guest crashes the party and Harland decides to try out some hero action before all of the guests are put on the menu

The show more Uninvited Guest is a short thriller that has a lot of bite. Told from Harland's point of view, the story begins slow and has a lot of build up as well as a lot of information that seems useless to the reader; however, as it is a 19 year old recounting the story, this somehow makes perfect sense. As the halfway point of the story came and went, I was wondering where the climax of the story would be and then it suddenly hit full force in terrifying and gory detail keeping everything very tense until the end. show less

I liked this story from the very beginning. The story line of Daniel and his family’s economic troubles drew me right in. I felt like this was going to be a very touching story that many Americans today can relate to.

Eventually my assumption was proven false. The outcome of the story was very far from what I had expected, but that’s not to say it was bad. There was a great build up of the characters and their lives. Daniel was recently let off of work and this was the last vacation he show more would be able to provide for his wife and young son, Bernie, for the perceived future. The story takes place on the ride back home from Florida to Ohio. That’s where I thought this story would stay.

Even after seeing this story labeled as “horror” on Amazon, I thought there must have been a mistake. How could an author take such a down to Earth set-up and turn the lives of the characters and the readers upside down. Well, Ratliff found a way. I can’t get into what this change was since I don’t want to give away the surprise twist, but I will say it reminded me of something from a Douglas Adams novel. In a way it could be considered “horrific” to readers if they put themselves in the character’s place. For me though, it was on the border of hilarious and absurd. But as I said, this isn’t a bad thing. I really think that this could have been a historical entry in the Hitchhiker’s Guide To the Galaxy...though much shorter and less caring for those involved (haha).

All in all, read this story. It’s short; it’ll touch your heart at times. Then it’ll either scared the hell out of you or make you crack up a little bit.

Side note to finish this off: I don’t know if the author intended for me to find bits of this comedic or not, but in my reading of this I more found humor in the tragic event in which the main characters were involved, rather than shock and horror. I think this lead to me enjoying the story more in the end. show less

*This review is for an ARC copy I received from the author.

Ratliff comes through with another pleasing read. It seems like the novella is the perfect place for Ratliff to dwell as a writer. I’m not saying that I wouldn’t want to read a full length novel from him….I would very much enjoy that. But his work in this shorter form works wonders for the stories he comes up with.

What I liked most about Just Past The Trees is the element of horror without being a straight up horror story. The show more reader only gets a hint of it. I was left wondering just where the story would go because of it. And while this is happening, the main character and his new friend discuss their life, their craft, and develop a bond many aspiring writers long to find.

This story is as much about a grizzly murder and the mystery of what’s in the forest as it is about finding that one thing in life to keep your passion alive and to pursue your dreams no matter the effort it’ll take to make them happen.

Even though I stated that I feel this was the proper length and format for the story, I still feel that I could use more. I mean this in a good way. I would read a follow-up short story or novella with the main character in it. It’d be interesting to see what panned out after Just Past The Trees. Maybe Ratliff will surprise us one day. Even without that, this novella was complete in itself, enjoyable to read, and has kept me a ran of the author’s work. show less

This is the first of Ratliff's stories that I have read. Now that I'm finished with "The Uninvited Guest" I plan on reading more.

At first though, I wasn't sure what I was getting into. It started out okay. What first irked me was the use of the second person. This is a story mainly told in the first person. I don't mind the first person point of view at all. It's when the word "you" gets thrown around in the mist of the first person that I tend to back away from stories. I don't care much show more for a character telling me things "directly." I like the story to do that for me. The only exception is a children's story. Those stories are commonly known to use second person point of view to help engage a younger reader. Well, this is not a children's story by a long shot. But I'm also about to say something strange for me to say. After the first few uses of the second person, I didn't mind it much. It's true that I think it could easily have been cut from the story all together. It just didn't turn me off completely (it also wasn't running rampant throughout the story, just enough for me to bring up here.)

As for the story, at times the main character,Harlan, jumped onto various tangents for a bit longer than I wished they would go. With a story of this length, it's sometimes best to stick with the story at hand. Harlan runs off on tangents, that while they need to be in the story, seem to be out-of-place in the story. Some of the information revealed in them would be better introduced as a sentence or two earlier in the story.

While those two issues may seem like I didn't care for the story much, don't let that fool you. What it lacked for me in those areas it made up for later on. There was enough foreshadowing for me to guess what was going to happen...to an extent, but I couldn't imagine everything. There was enough surprise and enjoyment from it as anyone should expect.

The climax and conclusion definitely pushed me to enjoy this story more than I thought I was going to. For that it will be a story I'll recommend to anyone looking for a short, but entertaining read; with a small bit of gore thrown it ;) show less