Now, first a bit of an apology. We were late getting this summer issue out because–life. We’re a two-person team and sometimes one of us gets a new job and moves, as James recently did, or one of us breathes in some Canadian wildfire smoke and ends up sick for two weeks, which recently happened to me. So, yeah…life.
But the good news is it’s here, and it’s jam-packed with all kinds of wormy goodies. For one thing, we’re calling this our JUMBO issue because I believe it’s our biggest one yet–at least that’s what I gathered from looking at the printing bill, but I digress. So, what can you look forward to in this fab issue….
Well, the OG of old-school horror, Will Errickson is back–have we mentioned we love his blog! At this point, we’re just going to give him a regular column if he’s down with that because we can always trust his takes on the old paperbacks from hell reading recs, so you don’t want to miss that. We also have some fabulous new fiction and poetry (as always) featuring new-to-us contributors as well as a few former favorites.
Artwork by Charles Radcliffe
And let’s not forget our fun, hand-made artwork, Book Worms fans love! Remember, Book Worms Horror Zine is a print only, limited run, handmade horror zine and once the issues sell out that’s it, so start collecting them now! We may be late sometimes because we’re human, and we’ll definitely be back for another fabulous issue for Spooky Season. Enjoy what’s left of your summer. There’s still a lot of camping left.
After a little hiatus where I did a little more (creatively, that is) than post my daily outfits on TikTok, which was quite fun actually, I’m finally getting back to business and back into writing. Honestly, I needed a break, and now that my creative coffers are full again, I’m thrilled to share this new book that I started maybe three(?) years ago as a serial for the short-lived Kindle Vella. After reworking it a bit, I’m proud to get this baby out there. Black and Blue Ivy is a YA gothic story about a girl who travels from the tough streets of Kensington, Philadelphia, to a home for wayward girls, then eventually lands in Providence House, the sprawling estate of a wealthy family in Philadelphia’s Main Line. If you know anything about gothic novels–especially the V.C. Andrews ones, which were an inspiration for this book–then you’ll know that’s when the trouble for our main character really begins.
There are religious themes in this story, which reflect–and challenge–my own Catholicism. I was thrilled to see the book reach #1 New Release in Teen and Young Adult Christian Social Fiction. I didn’t even know there was such a category, but I’ll take it. Please note, there is nothing preachy or proselytizing about this work, so atheists and other (fill in the blank) are welcome to partake. If there is a religious theme, it has more to do with examining and weeding out hypocrisy than anything else. I strongly believe writers should explore ideas that are important to them. That what makes a voice unique and interesting.
I needed the break, and I’m excited to be creating again. I’m heading over to my studio this morning to record my first YouTube video in about six months. It’s good, no, it’s great to be back!
I finally read one of my Dad’s favorite books, that 70’s pulp classic, The Other Side of Midnight by Sidney Sheldon. It was one of those “dirty” paperbacks I’d find stashed under his bed next to the Qui magazines. Perhaps the “forbidden” nature of my Dad’s reading stash kept me from absconding with it then, but now, reading it decades later, I know exactly why my Dad loved it because I loved it too.
Despite the — ahem — titillating sensuality of which there is plenty, the book spans several continents against the backdrop of World War II. Again, I know why he loved it. My Dad was a decorated war hero who told his children stories about what it was like to fly in bombers and the thrill of partying in London on VJ Day. Despite dropping out of school in 8th grade, he was a self-educated man: an avid reader, not only of cheap paperbacks, but nonfiction books of all kinds, and scores of National Geographics that he’d quiz us on after giving us reading assignments. He knew more about history than my AP History teacher. Sadly, I lost my Dad many decades ago, yet after finishing this book—one of my most enjoyable summer reads—I can’t help but feel close to him.
I got the name, Big Sexy Novel, from Dean Koontz’s Writing Popular Fiction, published in 1972, where he offers advice for aspiring writers who wish to make money from their efforts. Kind of like writing-to-market advice media pre-internet days. Yes, I remember that time well. Was it better because I was young, like really young? Maybe a little bit, but to be honest, it was just better all around–a brief period of American history where freedom really did reign.
And the books were better too. Imagine reading a new book today that you literally can’t put down, even as the paperback is literally falling apart in your hands–I broke down and purchased the ebook–you don’t want to stop reading it. Eating, sleeping, working, showering–all tasks to be rushed through until you can return to the story. And what a story it is!
Imagine a beautiful—I mean beautiful—young French woman so bent on gaining revenge against the lover who jilted her that she aborts their child in the most painful way possible (for the baby) just to get even with him. And that’s only the beginning. That her lover is an impossibly handsome psychopath with a long-suffering, sweet wife willing to follow him to the ends of the Earth (and her own doom) only adds to the dramatic possibilities. Throw in an Onassis-style billionaire, private yachts and planes, Greek islands, and a nail-biting courtroom drama, and one can see why today’s potboilers can’t compare.
Oh, and did I mention the twists? There are many, each one more jaw-dropping than the last–right down to the very last page!
As the Garbaugust reading challenge is right around the corner, I’m filling my Kindle with more Sidney Sheldon novels, rereading Jackie Susann’s tomes, cracking the spine of The Carpet Baggers, and watching a Tyler Perry series, the closest modern thing I’ve found to the Big Sexy Novel. Tacky? Yes, but oh, so entertaining.
Tyson Parks, a washed-up horror writer huffing the last fumes of his former successes, endures a humiliating meeting with his editor. His new novel is crap, unacceptable. Why can’t he produce the hits like he used to? Tyson promises a rewrite but knows he doesn’t have it in him. Worse, he’s already spent the advance. Pushing sixty, bordering on alcoholism and debt, how long can Tyson hang on to the comfortable life his fading talent secured for him? Desperate men are dangerous in fiction. So are long-suffering women who only want to help.
Enter his live-in girlfriend Sarah, a woman of taste with money of her own, whom Tyson worries will any day now see him for the fraud he is. But Sarah hasn’t given up on Tyson. In fact, she surprises him with a gift for his 59th birthday: a valuable antique to replace his worn-out writing desk. This piece of Gothic artwork, an 18th-century occult altarpiece, may give him the inspiration he needs. Of course it does, but as in all good horror fiction, there is a heavy price to pay. Flush with his second-act success, Tyson becomes a willing vehicle for an ancient, unspeakable evil.
Fracassi’s Gothic is awash in familiar horror tropes: the Faustian bargain, the cursed object with a dark history. I was instantly reminded‑gleefully so‑of In the Mouth of Madness, Trilogy of Terror, and Rosemary’s Baby. Even the setting feels like something out of an Ira Levin story, evoking the simple pleasures of a bygone New York: jaunts through the Strand bookstore and Met museum, martini-fueled power lunches, sparkling cocktail parties at tony townhouses. The novel’s historical section, brief but effective, references M.G. Lewis and Horace Walpole with its damp subterranean crypts, dripping vaulted ceilings, and creaking iron gates. The altar, black basalt stone with unusual carvings, is the creation of a powerful magician who has an equally powerful adversary. Back in the present, a mysterious woman is desperate to retrieve her family’s lost artifact before its evil can be released into the world. Words have power, we are reminded, and destruction can be communicated through the latest bestseller—that is, if the public even reads anymore. We can only hope.
Horror fans will appreciate the homages to King and Poe, among others, but the winks and elbow nudges never eclipse the spine-tingling suspense or moments of glorious gross-out gore. Built on a solid structure, Gothic holds up the weight of its more giggling-inducing moments with aplomb. I laughed at the climax, but in a good way—the laughter at the final bend in the roller coaster. I know a book is good when I want to start the ride all over again. Minor characters are skillfully drawn, padding out a believable world in which I was happy to lose myself for a few days. I can easily see Gothic made into a blockbuster movie, bolstering my faith that classic horror can always be revived. Five enthusiastic stars!
R. Saint Claire 