Special thanks to Tenebrous Press for the ARC copy they provided.
I LOVED everything about this book. Seriously.
Split Scream Volume Four is everything it says it is. A duo of novelettes that you can sit down and read in the space of an hour or two with a bowl of popcorn in your lap and the cicadas calling in the night outside your patio door. A movie in book form, like a double feature. It. Was. Amazing.
When I was younger, I could sit down and read a four hundred page book in a day and still want more. Now that I’m a bit older, and have more life responsibilities… well my concentration has gone off in a few different directions. You wouldn’t happen to have found it, would you???
Ahem!
Point being, reading a long book with multiple plotlines interweaving can be challenging these days. Split Scream Volume Four was a pleasant reprieve from that. I was not only able to read it quickly, practically in one day, but both the novelettes held my attention to the point of obsession. They were both fabulously detailed and marvelously well written. By the time I finished them both, I came away wishing they were longer, instead of being glad for the short read.
Given my concentration problem, this is a deep compliment.
“Nonsense Words” by D. Matthew Urban caught my attention right from the get go and didn’t let go. A deviously creepy, yet subtly beautiful, exploration of the power of the imagination, the novelette gripped me beginning to end. I found it as thrillingly gorgeous as I did sickly gruesome.
“Bone Light” by Holly Lyn Walrath is a completely different experience altogether. Written as log entries by the keeper of Bone Light lighthouse, the tale blends curses, ghosts, witches, and the strength there is in love into a bone chilling (I could not leave out the pun) read, with a touch of warmth tucked in. Not to mention some queer romance. A truly gratifying read.
Now that I’ve read volume four in this series of movie-esque books, I will have to wait for Tenebrous Press to get the first three volumes up for sales. I truly cannot wait to read the rest of the volumes in this collection of double features.