Alan Baxter (1) (1970–)

Tricia is still grieving the loss of her son Toby. She tries to hold out hope that he is alive and will be found someday but he's been missing for a year and it's just not looking good. Her marriage has also taken a hit since her husband's drinking has spiraled out of control ever since their son disappeared. Now two young girls have gone missing and Tricia wants to help with the search. Some of the locals suspect the carny folk while others are suspicious of Caleb, the school janitor who show more can never look anyone in the eye for long. Tricia and Caleb team up in the search but what they discover goes far beyond their wildest fears.

The girls are found alive, but only Caleb realizes that something is horribly wrong. They were searching for two girls so why have they come back with three? Who or what is this stranger? And why does the entire town think they've known her all her life?

The three girls are now inseparable, and unnatural deaths seem to follow everywhere they go.


I loved this book so much! There is an old superstitious saying when you get a weird unexplained chill, that it's because a goose just walked over your grave. This book gave me chills so many times that the entire gaggle of geese must have walked over mine.

Sallow Bend was a pleasantly creepy surprise for me. It has pretty much everything my heart desires in a horror novel. There's a small town with a dark past, lots of secrets, the carnival rolling in at the perfect moment to get blamed for some disappearances, and a whole lot of supernatural goings-on.


My thanks to Cemetery Dance Publications for the digital copy. show less

A fun romp of a horror book, this is a meeting of everything I love about JAWS, but in a violent meeting with Tarantino style. If you pick up this book about a killer kangaroo in the Outback, seeing that cover and looking for horror, you're bound to get exactly what you're looking for, and it's kind of fantastic. Short and fast-moving, this is absolutely something you can read in one sitting, and it has so many characters that it's probably better if you do. If this sounds interesting to show more you, pick it up--you won't regret it.

Recommended. show less

I hate it when I see a book on GR that's virtually 4 and 5 stars across the board, so I go off to Amazon and buy it, and then I can't even get through the damn thing. That really burns my ass.

I truly don't understand the glowing reviews for this one. I made it just a hair over a third of the way through this muck before giving up. Why did I give up?

Well, supposedly, the protagonist, Eli Carver—who's completely unlikeable—keeps suffering from psychotic breaks. So, we'll be treated to him show more waking up and basically wringing his hands over stuff he doesn't know happened. Then Carly (whom I'll get to in a bit), will mention something, and we're treated to two things...

1-First we get an "oh yeah! Now I remember!" bit where a name pops out of the ether, and Carver goes on a long, incredibly detailed trip down memory lane about this character. Typically someone he's killed. Then...

2-That dead person then shows up as a ghost or phantom or memory or whatever the hell, in the back seat of his car, and they talk to him. Hell, there's even a point where he's got so many of these memory-ghosts, that two of them tussle in the back seat.

And that's about 80% of the story up to the point where I dropped it in disgust.

And then there's the only other main character, the aforementioned Carly. What we find out very quickly about her is, she's on the run with Eli, not necessarily of her own choosing. He's locked her in the trunk for two days at one point. When he's on his breaks, he apparently beats her. And yet, just about when I tossed the book down, we find out that, during one of his breaks, he robbed a place of several thousand dollars, then drove to a car dealership, threw the money at her and, without him saying a word, she divined that he wanted her to buy a car.

So, she's been abused to shit by the guy, but when he hands her a bunch of money and a way out, she buys a car and willingly gets back in with him. Instead of, you know, in the words of Steve Miller, whoa-oh take the money and run, woo-hoo-hoo!

I gave up when I was treated to the by now creaky, far-too-overused trope of creepy stepdad having his way with his far-too-underage daughter.

This entire story stretches the suspension of disbelief way too far. To the point where I began to feel insulted.

I will say, however, after having just read [b:Galveston|8262337|Galveston|Nic Pizzolatto|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1411926722l/8262337._SX50_.jpg|7904929] by [a:Nic Pizzolatto|603698|Nic Pizzolatto|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1392138501p2/603698.jpg] (a much more capable author), which is a book with a similar feel—a bad guy on the run from his mob boss with a much younger woman in tow—that this book doesn't just pale in comparison, it essentially disappears in a puff of embarrassed smoke.

Needless to say, I won't be reading the second book in the Eli Carver chronicles.

And today's lesson kids? Don't believe all the glowing reviews. Hell, don't believe mine. It's all just personal opinion. show less

Real Rating: 3.5* of five

Good, violent fun from an Aussie horrorista with a Twitter cadre of loyalists who all have excellent credentials as writers. I hadn't considered one of Author Baxter's tales for my own entertainment before chancing on a well-loved writer's tweet encouraging all and sundry to do so. I did; I'm glad.

Quite a ride! Curses, death wishes, and a lot of rage. Gore galore and the weirdest monster yet. But all in all, a sad take on the prevalence of hatred in the world. Roots show more go deep, cures don't. Author Baxter wrote a touching Afterword, one that says more in fewer words than any sermon ever could.

The cover of this story is just about the coolest thing on my Kindle. Elderlemon Design (aka horror biggie Kealan Patrick Burke, who appears in the text as a publican) made it; what I love about that is the origin story that Author Baxter tells us...a joke, a cover, a story, and now a fictional exploration of the ungovernability of hate let loose.

Plenty of gore, lots of rage, and throughout the proceedings, a steady heartbeat of caring, kindness, and acceptance. Not what I expected, in the best possible way. show less