Review copy

The latest novella from Tim Waggoner and Darkfuse is drenched in sex and ultra violent.

"In the end, young, old, beautiful, ugly, it didn't matter. Skin as skin and it all came off the same."

Fifteen-year-old Lonny, seventeen-year-old Delia, and their father, Nathaniel, make for one demented clan, a family that puts the fun back in dysfunctional. Incestual both with father and daughter, as well as brother and sister. But when dad finds out what Lonny and Delia are up to, things turn ugly fast.

As an adult, Lonny has been trying to bring his prescious sister back to life by attempting to transfer the lifeforce of his victims to his sister. He's about to give up when circumstance provides him with a potential new victim.

A Kiss of Thorns is one helluva horror novella and is available in e-book format from Darkfuse.

If you enjoy sexually charged bloodbaths, grab a copy of A Kiss of Thorns, now.

Tim Waggoner’s first novel came out in 2001, and he’s published over thirty novels and three collections of short stories since. He writes original fantasy and horror, as well as media tie-ins. He’s been a finalist for the Shirley Jackson Award and the Scribe Award, and his fiction has received numerous Honorable Mentions in volumes of Best Horror of the Year. In 2016, the Horror Writers Association honored him with the Mentor of the Year Award. In addition to writing, Tim is also a full-time tenured professor who teaches creative writing and composition at Sinclair College. ( )

Julie and Ken a young couple trying to save their marriage copulate in the forest, under the watchful eye of Lonny. Lonny lives in a log cabin alone with some unusual and familiar company in his cellar. His childhood was a sad picture of incest and abuse living with his sister Delia, who he loved, and a tyrannical and abusive father Nathaniel..."a big man tall, broad-shouldered, thick -limbed who looks like a brute at the best of times." With Delia dead Lonny believes in his own twisted and disturbed mind that by sacrificing lives he can bring Delia back to life.

This is quite a clever little story part 80's horror incorporated with the flavour of a well known nursery rhyme concerning a young girl along in the forest and a big bad wolf...."The cold fluttering that she'd felt in the woods started up again. After all, she was alone, in the middle of the forest-at night no less- in the cabin of a strange man who from the look of things lived like a monk." Indeed the author invokes the image of Icarus in the final pages who forgot his father's warnings and dared to fly too close to the sun on wings of feathers and wax."

So if you appreciate biblical legends, remember with fondness early European fairy tales, crave the company of Freddy Krueger, and enjoy singing along to Dueling Banjos then quite possibly you will love A Kiss of Thorns but beware...if you go down to the woods today! ( )