“Everything his parents had taught him. Every single insane rambling from Martha Lange had been true. This, he thought. This is the First Night. This is Blight Harbor.” – Carlos E. Rivera, Blackout (White Harbor: Book 2) “WHAT YOU WHISPER, WHAT YOU HIDE, WHAT YOU FEAR… THE TOWN KNOWS.” Rivera’s Blackout is the second book in his […]
“’Old Man Curling works for the house,’ Royce said. ‘But it’s the house that does the killin’,’ Leroy continued.” – Carlos E. Rivera, The Local Truth: White Harbor: Book 1 THIS IS an impressive debut novel. The Local Truth: White Harbor: Book 1 by Carlos E. Rivera is reminiscent of Stephen King’s and Dean Koontz’s early works; the […]
Talbot Finch: “The queer community has suffered far too many tragic endings in literature and film as it is, and it’s important, I think, to be reminded that misery isn’t our birthright.” I’d like to welcome Talbot Finch to the BLOG. Talbot is a skilled and imaginative queer author and artist residing in the southeastern […]
“But to die as lovers may – to die together, so that they may live together.” ― Sheridan Le Fanu, Carmilla Note: I’ve added images of reference texts that delve into the topics of vampires, sexuality, queerness, and 19th-century literature within their pages. These are but a few, though ones I’ve quite enjoyed. This post […]
“This place is damned.” – Mark Gulino, Upon the Pale Isle of Gloam: A Gothic Horror Novella A DARK, atmospheric, often pensive narrative, Upon The Pale Isle Of Gloam: A Gothic Horror Novella by Mark Gulino, presents a moral tale about choices, accountability, and the possibility for redemption, but at what cost? The author delves into the […]
“And books, they offer one hope that a whole universe might open up from between the covers, and falling into that universe, one is saved.” – Anne Rice AT THE beginning of 2023, I made a New Year’s Resolution to read more. Specifically, I wanted to choose reading over watching TV in my downtime. […]
HONESTLY, I was all in when I read “Think Evil Dead meets Scooby-Doo” in the blurb description for Kyle Stück’s Evil Cast: Volume 1. [Kyle’s image is on the left. I love the shirt!] I’m a sucker for imaginative, striking cover artwork, and this definitely caught my eye. And yes, it totally reminds me of […]
FOR ME, one of Anne Rice’s appeals is that she often wrote from a queer perspective. Her vampire fiction is intellectual, brooding, and deeply thought-provoking while remaining accessible to a broad audience. Her Vampire Chronicles are riddled with homoerotic content and androgynous characters that appear human yet are always otherworldly. Her vampires transcend polarized sexuality, going […]
BRAM STOKER’S Dracula is a late nineteenth-century gothic novel—or horror if it pleases you—that’s intrigued me for decades, or “oceans of time,” as Count Dracula would say. Dracula, the work itself, is akin to the vampire’s esoteric, complex, and polymorphic state. There are numerous ways to deconstruct this book to uncover and interpret multiple meanings and […]
Sons of Darkness: Tales of Men, Blood, and Immortality (1996) takes us down a deliciously homoerotic path of darkness and blood. I DON’T naturally gravitate toward the short story format or erotica, so a literary work has to possess something unique and compelling to get my attention. This anthology came into my life in […]
