Unlock Now Into The Cruel Sea Engineered By Rich Ristow Released Through Publication

the Cruel Sea, written by Rich Ristow and published by Skullvines Press, is a fast paced and sometimes brutal story, It opens with a description of the hours after Wade Thomson murdered his parents and went into the sea chasing a dream of freedom.


From there, the story shifts to offer a harsh account of Beths life with her abusive father and enabling mother.
Beth is alcoholic, but this is not surprising given her crappy home life, But shes also still dealing with the bizarre circumstances of her boyfriends disappearance when suddenly he comes back, Wade isnt human anymore, and even if he wants Beth to come live with him, the terms he sets are more than shes willing to pay.


At home, Beths father keeps ratcheting up his abuse, almost goading her to attack him, Escaping the house to hang out with her girlfriend Jessie, Beth is given constant offers to move away and create a new life without her parents.
At the same time, Wade is also pursuing Beth, and he orders her to kill her old man and move in with him.
The tension very quickly mounts, and a confrontation seems inevitable, When it comes, the outcome is truly surprising,

This is a solidly paced story that makes effective monsters out of both Wade and Beths father, But one thing I noticed was how readers are detached from Beths parents because theyre not referred to on a first name basis.
They were just Mr. and Mrs. Weller, or alternately as her mother and her father, They feel more like roles than people when referred to in this way, So they never registered as people in the way that Beth, Jessie, Tommy or Wade do,

With so much strong character work in all other regards, its a minor complaint that the parents feel hollow because of this naming convention.
Im giving the book four, and Id recommend it to any fan of exceptional horror writing, Novella and novelette length stories are a fastfading art, so it's always exciting to see them show up, Rich Ristow's Into the Cruel Sea is a fast paced tale set on a military base in Bermuda where Beth, a teen girl on the cusp of adulthood, is about to face the imaginable.


Into the Cruel Sea is, in a way, a coming of age story, Beth is commonly and brutally battered by her father while her mother pretends not to see,

or worse blames her for her father's rage.
She's a teenager stuck on a small island, if not physically then certainly mentally, The abuse and constant blame she suffers is pushing her hard into the worst kind of life, Already she's an alcoholic, a smoker, and a pothead, Since she can't do anything right she's stopped trying, drowning her impotent rage in becoming numb, and, like so many others, by jumping into the arms of the first person to give her a bit of positive attention.


But Wade has problems of his own, and one strange day he viciously slaughters his parents before disappearing, literally, into the sea.
But Wade has every intention of coming back, however changed he might be, to reclaim Beth with a shadow of the very abuse she wants to escape from.


Into the Cruel Sea does not make light of abuse or addiction, like some tales, It uses it as a very effective tool, on a back drop of what should be paradise, to push the characters to either their freedom, or their doom.
This is a fantastic book set in Bermuda, What I love most about it is how Rich Ristow's characters and settings feel so real, After finishing it, I really felt like I'd been there and interacted with the story, That's the way all books should be, but so few achieve it, especially in a novella size, Into the Cruel Sea by Rich Ristow, Skullvines Press,pgs, trade ppbk,.,

Beths life sucks, Her dad is abusive, her mom doesnt care and her boyfriend went crazy and murdered his parents, Then he drowned himself.

Or at least everyone thinks he drowned himself,

When I received this little paperback from Skullvines Press I groaned, I had read and reviewed their first fun little collection of grossout Bigfoot stories, Tabloid Terrors: I Was A Sasquatch Sex Slave.
I enjoyed the collection and was tickled pink to have been asked to contribute to their second as yet untitled collection of grossout sea monster stories.


Nevertheless, I was leary about picking this book up, because I have a limit to how much grossout humour I can comfortably indulge in before it becomes a simple kneejerk ohgollyherecomesanothercrotchrotjoke.


So I put off reading this tight little yarn,

More fool me,

When I finally picked this little yarn up it drew me in like a tidal undertow, I was compelled to burn through it twice, Ristow can write. Make no mistake about that, This little book is definitely worth picking up and Ristow is definitely going to be a name to watch out for, He really captures the reality of putupon teenage existence and still manages to tell a compelling story that will catch you by surprise just when you think youve figured it out.


I cant tell you much more about this without yarn without unravelling it, so lets leave it at this,

Pick it up, I recommend it.

Yours in horror,

Steve Vernon
It's not always sunny in Bermuda,

Beth has an abusive father,

She also has a boyfriend, The problem, however, is that her boyfriend went insane and murdered his parents, becoming a monster in a literal and metaphorical sense.


Now, after having disappeared, he has returned, and he wants Beth to join him, So, Beth faces a choice boyfriend or father

Frankly, both choices suck, I read this book last night in one sitting, Atpages, that's not hard, but Rich Ristow deserves kudos for keeping the pace taut throughout thosepages, Rich Ristow also manages to capture well fleshed character development and a complete, intriguing tale in thosepages, Not an easy task to do in such a small tome, There is no lag in this story of gruesome murder and not so lovely sirens from the sea, I also enjoyed the ending, as it wasn't what I expected, It was very refreshing to see an author deviate from the whole romanticized young love 'Romeo and Juliet' trope, and give us a more realistic conclusion.
I'd like to see a novel sequel to this,
Lived in Germany, the UK, Belgium, Bermuda, The Netherlands, West Virginia, North Carolina, and, presently, New Jersey, MFA in Poetry from UNC Wilmington, Won aRhysling Award from the Science Fiction Poetry Association, Into The Cruel Sea Skullvines,is my first bit of horror fiction, .