Indie Author M.T. O'Neil - Break Room Anthology: Mystery and Horror Stories

I've discovered a sure-fire way to get a book bumped to the top of my to-be-read list. Send me a hard copy of the book. Oh, and it helps if it is written well, otherwise, I may put it down and forget about it for a while. At any rate, I love getting books in the mail, so much cooler than getting a file emailed to me. When I open the packages, my two year old likes to look at them, flip through the pages, and then "keep them safe" for me.

I got Break Room Anthology: Mystery and Horror Stories Break Room Anthology: Mystery and Horror Stories (link to paperback on amazon) in the mail a few days ago and sat down to begin reading it yesterday. I finished up with the final story today. I'm not sure that I would classify these stories as horror, but my definition of horror may be too narrow. They are more like stories with horrible endings. I don't mean that the author did a bad job with the ending, in fact, I love the way the endings were never over explained. They didn't seem to be under explained either, which in my opinion, is a difficult task. The actions of the characters, or the circumstances of the endings, were just crazy. I was actually horrified at what some of these characters did and got away with. Stories with a twist ending.

My biggest complaint with the book was the author's use of commas. Commas aren't needed before every use of a conjunction. Overused commas, fortunately, don't typically kill a book for me. (Underused commas, however, can kill a book, IMO.)

The first story in the book is written from the point of view of a child. Probably an elementary school aged child. Poor, too. The author does an excellent job capturing the voice of an underprivileged child in about second or third grade. Having worked with kids in this age group, and socioeconomic status, it was frightening. I could picture some of my former students concocting a plan similar to this child's, even if they would never follow through with it.

The author does a good job throughout the twenty five stories with the characters' voices. I never went from one story to another confused; it was so clear that someone else was doing the telling. Each character had his or her own personality, his or her own voice. (Another author who did this well was Monique Mensah in Who is He to You.)

My personal favorite story was about a grieving husband who is a suspect in his wife's death. It is clear to the police that she had been poisoned with cyanide, but no one seems to know where it came from. By the end of the story, the husband is cleared, the death ruled an accident, but the reader is fully aware of who the killer is. I can generally guess where an author is going with their mystery ending before the grande finale, but this one got me. I had no idea, and that pleased me.

I'm looking forward to more of M.T. O'Neil's short stories. Hopefully, we will see some in the coming issues of eFiction Magazine.

Indie Author A.M. Harte - Hungry for You

Zombies. Brain eating Zombies. Well, not all of these zombies are brain eaters. Some are down-right thoughtful and compassionate. Sound strange? Well, it is. Strange in a good way.

A.M. Harte does an excellent job bringing the zombie world to life, that is if zombies can be considered alive. She gives the reader just enough details to want more and force them into reading another tale before bed. There are stories of zombies that feed from human meat, sex, and even some who feed off of animal products so they don't have to kill humans.

This is a collection of short stories is filled with horrifying tales and love stories, sometimes mixed into one truly disturbing tale. One of which is that of a man who doesn't want his wife to know that she is quickly dying and becoming a zombie, but also doesn't want the zombie horde to kill her before her transformation is complete.

The story that inspired the title of the book, “Hungry for You”, was my personal favorite. In this alternate reality, zombies are 'legalized' and some people allow zombies to feed off of them through sex. Without feeding, of course, a zombie will begin to decay more rapidly and die. To protect the zombie population, laws have been put into place simply because 'zoobs' lack any brain function to defend themselves, or even open doors so they are able to find food.

Police officer Retta is a zombie sympathizer who is guilt ridden after her sister and boyfriend became zombies and eventually meet their final death. While on patrol with her unsympathetic partner, Officer Retta sees some suspicious signs and enters a building to find a zombie who has been assaulted and tied to a bed. Retta decides to bring the zombie into the station and try to question him about what happened inside that old building. Eventually, Retta decides that the zombie needs to feed before they can continue their questioning. The problem arises when he refuses to feed off of any of the willing donors, something that has never been observed before. It turns out that this zoob has eyes for only one person, and is willing to die for, or because, of her.

How far would you go to save someone? What would your guilt drive you to do if it meant saving one life? Would you even consider zombies alive? These are the questions I found myself asking as I thought, she needs to save him, and, how romantic, he loves her. Then I got to the thought of, eww, he's a zombie, he isn't even alive. I quickly reminded myself that zombies are, as of right now, only fiction, and I wouldn't be faced with any of these hard decisions any time soon.

This is a great book of zombie tales to read in short bursts, or all at once if zombies are your thing. I have to admit, I'm looking forward to my next A.M. Harte read.