Retrieve The Wicked Conveyed By James Newman Expressed As File
time to fuck shit up, "
In, The Great Fire ravaged the Heller Home for Children in Morganville, North Carolina, It was the worst tragedy in the history of the town, with over sixty lives lost, And it wasn't an accident,
Kate and David Little are married with a sevenyearold daughter and a baby on the way, They have just moved to Morganville from New York City, finally deciding that they wanted to raise their family away from the big city life after the horrific events that took place seven months prior.
Kate was sexually assaulted while walking home one night and hasn't been the same since,
Except Morganville isn't exactly sunshine and rainbows, Something unholy lurks beneath the surface of the town after the fire, It goes by the name Moloch, No, not the White Worm enforcer from Solo: A Star Wars Story! But rather, a scraggly, messed up, oversexed, bearded demon.
I recognized the name immediately from an episode of Supernatural, As you do. I'm not exactly the religious type, . just saying! Moloch was an ancient deity that was known as Chief of Satan's army and the God of Child Sacrifice.
Moloch takes control of emotionally damaged individuals, using them at his will, He wants all the children and he will not stop until they've been sacrificed,
About midway through, shit really hits the fan, More and more people begin disappearing and/or dying, David and his neighbor George Heatherly, an exmarine, start to suspect something more is going on and try to get to the bottom of it.
What they uncover is beyond what they could have ever imagined,
The introduction by Mark Allan Gunnells touches on horror mass markets in the drugstore back in the day, which is such a relatable experience for me, coming from a small town.
The drugstore is where I did the majority of my book shopping! The Wicked would fit right in encompassing the classic horror story, yet still feeling wholly fresh with Newman's own distinct voice.
It's certainly a homage to the horror I grew up on, while expanding upon the experience in so many ways.
The writing is easy to fall into and the pages fly by, It's an incredibly gripping, heavily atmospheric read, One that is full of dread and foreboding, Newman certainly isn't shy about using brutal scenes, Or sexual ones, for that matter, There is masturbation and blow jobs and orgies aplenty!
I started watching the French horror series, Marianne, while I was also reading this and they share a similar quality.
Bizarre, fucked up, entertaining horror, I could see The Wicked being made into a film by someone like Rob Zombie, It just has that demented, mindfuck vibe, I AM HERE FOR THAT SCREEN ADAPTATION!!
The Wicked will tear you the fuck apart with it's bare hands! Sinister, perverse and gory.
It's often shockingly, hilariously violent and will leave a lasting impression, without a doubt!
Big thanks to Apex Book Company for inviting me to be a part of their Back Catalog Book Tour! During September, Apex have been celebrating all of their radical books that they've published over the years with new reviews, author interviews and author guest posts! Such a great idea to promote previously released books this way! Wow! After having a few letdowns in the horror genre recently, this was such a nice change! Overall, I feel that this book got straight to the point and didn't have me wondering when the hell it was going to get to the good scary parts already.
When I pick up a horror book, I want the introduction to grab my interest and then the rest to frighten me, confuse me, and be overall disturbing.
I definitely got this from The Wicked,
Unaware of the past horrors as well as the horrors yet to come, the Little family moves to Morganville, North Carolina after unfortunate events that occurred back in New York City.
David Little and his wife, Kate, are hoping to start fresh with their daughter, Becca, and their unborn child, Sadly, instead of positive changes waiting for them in North Carolina, this move seems to be a pretty terrible mistake.
A demonic force is at work, One that can not and will not let the Littles stand in the way of bringing terror to Morganville, Moloch desires souls. He desires death and suffering, Who will satisfy his hunger Everyone, anybody, especially the children,
This had such wonderful descriptive and freaky writing! The story alone was disturbing, but the great writing added to my interest and made me want to check out more of James Newman! Definitely recommend this! Kudos to James Newman, as this book thoroughly creeped me out! I actually felt frightened a couple of times, and there were parts that made my skin crawl due to the gore and grossout factor.
It was definitely a nod to 's horror, but not cheesy like so many of the massmarket paperbacks that were churned out during that decade.
I felt like I was watching a great horror film in my mind as I read, and I had a difficult time putting this book down once I started!
"People in this town aren't themselves anymore.
I mean, they look the same, But they're different. Something's inside them Something from hell. "
A well done love letter tos horror, The Littles leave the violence of New York City to live their suburban dream in North Carolina, What could possibly moloch go Moloch wrong MOLOCH!!
Sit back, put on yourD glasses, and enjoy the blossoming ofovertop evil in a small town.
And can we take a minute to give the book itself a shout out: the oil painted faux distressed cover, the size, the cheeky ad insert, the imposition ALL of it said someone gave a damn about getting it right.
The Wicked is one of the nicest paperbacks you will ever buy,
This book was part of the Nocturnal Readers Book Box SeptemberMonster Madness Box,
Far beyond a retro retread, this novel is a respectful homage to 's horror, while transcending that decade's cliches with a fresh eye and distinctive voice.
Recommended for fans of horror's heyday and new fans alike, So without going into the plot too much, I will say that Newman took a classic horror trope, "Dreamy, beautiful, small town on the surfacenew family moves inall demonic hell breaks loose" and he wrote a damn good book.
The characters were fully fleshed out, nobody was introduced that I didn't care about on some level, Our main family, Kate amp David felt very real to me, which made things super risky, I grew protective of this family, The neighbor, George Heatherly, loved him, Joel and Michael. The sheriff, trulyNewman writes characters that you relate to and invest in,
And then there's the evil, The threat. The bearded one. Moloch. SO TERRIFYING! I got the heebiejebbie creep outs several times!
This book has short, vignette style chapters that have our family/protagonist narrative as well as narratives that feel like secret showings between author and readerthings we get to see that the characters do not and that was so SCARY! I can't even tell you how compelling that style of narrative is! The pace is perfect.
It's unputdownable.
Often times I found myself speaking out to the book, "NO! No! Pleeeeeeasse! Not THAT!!"
Then on Friday night, I had the house to myself and I was able to binge read overpages while I ate my dinner and listened to the rain outside and it was just perfect!
I loved the build and all the gross, creepy, sexual stuff that happened leading up to Partand beyond.
To be honest: I wasn't sure I even wanted to read Part, I was that scared, I felt like really bad stuff was going to happen but this is where the book takes off running, I loved the ending and the epilogue and the authors notes and the bonus story, I loved it all. This is my second favorite horror book that I read this season, I highly, highly recommend it but just know: It's gory and pulls no punches, Trigger warnings galore and for the serious horror enthusiast in my opinion READ IT!,rounded up toand justifiably so, because the bonus story "The Boaracle" was the perfect way to end it, The ads in the back were a nice touch as well,
I enjoyed this welltold tale quite a bit, and did my best to read it in the spirit intended: as a cheesy's horror paperback, my favorite kind.
As such, it delivered the goods,
Recommended for those looking for a fun, flowing, oldschool horror read, Remember when you couldn't walk into a secondhand bookshop without tripping over a pile of dodgylooking horror novels Usually yellow of page, cracked of spine and garish of cover James Newman certainly does, and with The Wicked he returns the reader to that preinternet time of pulpy reads that stained fingers with their cheap ink, even as they managed to cause unintentional laughs about as often as they elicited
true shivers of terror.
Thankfully, however, Newman understands what makes those novels work and recreates the magic with this story of a family relocating to smalltown America as an ancient evil stirs and threatens the lives of all who come into contact with it.
That's about all the plot synopsis that is required, but not because there are any great narrative twists.
No, this is a straightforward horror novel that has a very simple story to tell, The trick is that Newman keeps it serious even while the reader knows he's aiming to recreate the magic of those secondhand horror novels from the 's and writes it well.
Newman's prose is the vanilla of icecream flavours rich, creamy and reliable, There were incredibly few sentences that caused my eye to pause over the page, and it was only his occasional tendency to shift POVs back and forth within a section that stopped me from saying he writes like vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce over the top.
The main set of characters are reasonably wellrounded, even if the main husband and wife seem to have very little in common and grate at one another about most everything.
Husband David also comes across as somewhat wishywashy, never being able to make up his mind whether the threat he has ample evidence supporting actually exists.
My favourite though was neighbour George who was given just the right amount of depth and was a badass to boot.
Then there are the various side characters who mainly exist as cannonfodder, so Newman wisely does not waste too much time in building them up more than necessary.
In the end, things all get wrapped up reasonably conveniently, but not before the usual foreboding building of tension, disappearance of people, growing number of deaths, and the final battle to save us all or at least everyone in the town.
As I said, it's predictable, but nevertheless great fun, Basically, The Wicked is a great oldschool horror throwback,
Recommended to anyone who read that last sentence and didn't roll their eyes,
UberLong Beards for The Wicked, .Stars
I completely underestimated this creepy little novel, Originally, I judged this book by its fantastic cover that was designed to resemble the mass market horror books of thes.
I looked forward to a fun horror read, but I honestly didnt expect a lot of substance, Sure, I thought I would like this novel, but I didnt know I would love it so much,
At the heart of this story is a family attempting to make a fresh start after tragedy, The resulting narrative was filled with emotional depth, The themes of love, loss and family are classic and, yet, also so relatable,
But don't let your guard down when reading this one, This is still a horror novel, While the primary horror element is the supernatural presence haunting the town, there are also undertones of psychological horror woven into the story.
Parents will likely find this one most terrifying since so much of the danger involves potential harm to children, I particularly loved the creepy scenes involving a mall santa,
Needless to say, I really enjoyed this one and would highly recommend it to fellow horror readers,
I requested a digital review copy from the publisher, This is officially my new favourite title from Apex Books, There's not one single thing about this book that I didn't love! From front to back cover and everything contained in between, it was all bloody fabulous! It is the perfect homage tos horror and had me sucked in from the moment I laid my eyes on the cover.
My favourite part of this book was the characters, There was something about each of them that made me fall in love with them, They were all so well fleshed out and developed, you can't help but become attached to them, My favourite though would have to be George Weatherly, I just adored him!
Despite being thoroughly disturbed more than once by them, I loved the gore and the terror that was present throughout.
More than a couple times I found myself having to put the book down and compose myself because I was horrified.
And I loved every second of it!
I'd recommend this to any horror fan, it truly is a masterpiece! Beware though, this book has a lot of triggers and is not for the easily disturbed or the faint of heart.
.stars!
Note: I originally read this a few weeks back and had written a short review, Since then I have been thinking a bit about this book and I decided that it deserved more than that.
This story is an homage to the great horror boom of the'sincluding the deliberately aged looking cover.
I still have paperbacks from that time period on my shelves and they look exactly like this one, Now let's face it, some of the's horror was flat out terrible, At the same time one could also say that some of the best horror EVER came out during that decade.
If this story had come out back then, I would have included it in the best ever category,
I'm not going to go into the plot much, The Little family, having some trouble coping after an horrific event which took place in New York city, decide to leave the big city and set themselves up in a small town in North Carolina to be close to the wife's brother.
Then, in typical's fashion, people begin to die,
Enter in a school for children which mysteriously burned to the ground, killing many of the kids, Enter in an ancient demon named Moloch, Enter in mysterious persons walking around naked in the middle of the night, Enter in churches that have always been open that are now locked, Enter in mysterious flying stinging things with heads that look like, . . The setting has been clearly drawn and the atmosphere is positively dripping with creepiness,
I know all of this sounds kind of cheesy, and I admit it, it is just a little bit cheesy.
But Mr. Newman takes the cheesiness of the's, wraps it up in a little bit ofawesomeness, sprinkles in some writing chops and cooks it up with some crazy imagination skills and.
. . voila! You have the excellent result of The Wicked in your hands, Don't let it get away! Highly recommended!
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