August 30

Camp Death – Jim Ody

The place had a gruesome past that nobody wanted to talk about…

Camp Deathe is now a great place to spend the summer. Ritchie soon finds a group of outsiders like himself. Teenagers who ignore the organised activities, and bunk off in the old abandoned cabins deep in the woods. The cabins that have a history.

The campfire monster stories were meant to just scare them. Nobody expected them to come true. Then one of the teenagers disappears in the middle of the night.

Something is watching them. It hides in the woods and hunts at night.

Ritchie will have to uncover the secrets of the camp, and understand his own problems in order to survive.

 

I recieved a copy from the publishers, Question Mark Horror, in order to participate in the blog tour

 

The first Question Mark Horror title (though I did review Ouija at the start of the two books one tour campaign). Both Camp Death and Ouija are YA horror titles which fit nicely into the Point Horror space in the reading lists. I have long been a fan of horror fiction but I was just a bit too old to have enjoyed Point Horror as I was growing up; jumping straight into King, Herbert, Laymon and Hutson and catching Peter James in his pre-crime days.

If I had grown up reading the YA fiction then I know I would have inhaled the Point Horror titles and would absolutely be all over the Question Mark Horror books too, they are nicely pitched creepy titles which don’t take the scare too far but still leave readers unsettled – particularly if their imagination fills in the extra details.

Camp Death, actually Camp Deathe, is a summer resort deep in the woods where families can spend some quality time away from the hustle and the bustle and where parents can fill their children’s days with activities so they get a break from parenting. Sounds ideal. However, the camp which Ritchie and his family arrive at has a dark history and the kids in the know will try to terrify the new arrivals with tales of death and a strange beast which is said to roam the woods around the cabins.

As is the case when any group of kids are thrown together there are dominant characters and they have their hangers-on. The other children scrabble for attention and try to raise their position in the pecking order and rivalries and jealousy are such good triggers for incidents. The other inevitable when you have a group of boys and girls is that attractions will form and for young teenagers this is an awkward period of self awareness and the early discoveries of future freedoms. In short – Ritchie meets a girl he likes but there is a bigger boy also trying to catch her eye.

Realising Ritchie is a potential rival sees a concerted effort to undermine Ritchie in the eyes of the group. This begins as snide asides but soon escalates to a dangerous attempt to leave him alone, bound and at the mercy of the mysterious “beast”. Though for readers the existence of the beast isn’t rumour and campfire stories, we have been witness to the damage it can do.

This is classic horror fare and Jim Ody does a great job of keeping the tension and suspicion going through the story and I confess I did not see that ending coming! The story deals with bullying, self awareness, family stress and one other two (spoilerish) themes – all areas which I felt my younger self would have benefitted from reading more of when I was in my formative years.

Both Camp Death and Ouija herald strong starts for the Question Mark Horror series and I look forward to seeing what they may bring for us next. If you enjoy a chilling tale then this has death, monsters and rivalry where the good guy getting the girl is not guaranteed.

 

Camp Death is available in paperback and digital format and you can order a copy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0999JVT1F/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0

 

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May 8

Blackwater – GJ Moffat

BlackwaterDeputy Sheriff Early Simms of the Blackwater County Sheriff’s Department knows about the violence that incubates within the souls of men – and that sometimes it needs a release.  As a high school football player he relished inflicting pain, until he made a tackle that left a promising young athlete dead from a broken neck.  Early did not play another game and his dreams of leaving the small town that he grew up in never materialised.  Instead, he followed his father into the town’s police force.

Now older, Early is outwardly content with the life he has made for himself in Blackwater.  But that life is about to be turned upside down.  Kate Foley, his high school girlfriend, arrives in town on the run from an abusive husband and it stirs feelings that Early thought he had forgotten.

Jimmy and Marshall Cain are brothers – men with the capacity for the kind of violence that Early Simms knows all too well.  A botched home invasion by the brothers goes horribly wrong, leaving a man and woman dead and their teenage daughter kidnapped.
Events spiral further out of control, with the brothers embarking on a killing spree that leads them to a confrontation with Early Simms and an FBI task force.  At the same time, Kate Foley’s husband is armed and on the hunt for his wife.

Early is about to find himself in a fight not just for the life he has known, but for the future he has glimpsed in stolen moments with Kate. And to defeat the maelstrom hurtling towards him, he must once again confront the violence in his own soul.

 

My thanks to Chris at Fahrenheit Press for letting me have a very early chance to read Blackwater

If a story is going to grip me then one of the best ways to do it is to have a lead character that I want to read about. Blackwater has Early Simms – he is a Deputy in the Blackwater Sheriff’s Department and he is exactly the kind of character that I want to read about. Early can outsmart the bad guys, take down the brawlers and he is comfortable and respected in his hometown of Blackwater. He is the character you hope will appear in many more books.

As I got to read Blackwater very early I didn’t know what to expect before I started reading.  I had reached the half way point (and just come up for air for the first time) when I noticed GJ Moffat had tweeted a response to a blogger question “What is the book about?”  His reply:  A good man. Some very bad men. A love story. A crime story. Basically, it rocks.

He nailed it.  Especially “it rocks”.

The good man is Early. A tragic incident which occurred while he was at school changed his life forever and he now seems to be trying to ensure that the overwhelming perception that others will have of him is that he is a good man.

The “very bad men” are truly bad people. Two brothers will lose control of a situation that will spiral into a manhunt which draws in the police and FBI. They are without compassion and their crimes were shocking (but they made for compelling reading).  It should be noted that the brothers may not be the only bad men. If there *were* to be others then I couldn’t possibly discuss them in a review as that would be creeping into SPOILERS territory. I don’t do that. But I would suggest that reading Blackwater would let you find out for yourself about the other bad people that I cannot discuss!

Next up “the love story”. Yes indeed and here is where I can laud the author for brilliant characters and great story pacing. This is an action packed thriller but GJ Moffat still manages to give his cast a proper backstory and lets them develop and grow while the action is unfolding around them.

The “crime story”…well I refer to the brothers again and also to those unmentionable spoilers.  There is a lot going on in Blackwater but the different story threads are woven together will real skill by the author. I read with increasing anticipation as events started to build towards their climax and I was wholly unprepared for the unexpected twists.

Blackwater is a book which will suck you in and is a richly rewarding read. I absolutely loved it and has left me with that dreaded book hangover feeling…where you know the next book you pick up will not be as good as the one you have just finished. Highly, highly recommended – Mr Moffat can tell a great story. 5 stars all the way.

 

Blackwater is published by Fahrenheit Press and is due to release week commencing 8th May.

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