book reviews

“The first parcel arrived at a little flat in the center of the city. Contrary to the postman’s usual practice, when she didn’t answer his ring on the buzzer, he was compelled to buzz someone else and climbed the stairs to leave it at her…

“'When a treasure chest is made of treasure, what does it contain?'” In this new collection of short stories, Mike Russell continues with his brand of strange, fable-like tales. Unlike his first collection, the stories in this collection…

“These public bathrooms have become a confessional for the deranged/ Speak your sins into the glory hole/ Cross yourselves and eat the wafer given/ What should be our salvation is only destroying us. Author, photographer, and artist Philip…

Lisa LaRoche, a former US Marine who was dishonorably discharged, had found happiness when she met and married Christophe and moved to Paris. Then her husband was murdered by five young Algerian men who served only a brief sentence for…

“Through violence and decadence, I became what I am In blood and sex and viscera I emerged as a man” Extreme horror author Wrath James White has written several novels and short stories but has also dabbled in poetry. If You Died…

John Paul Fay was a dealer of “murderabilia;” memorabilia from serial killers, shrunken heads, and so forth. He developed a business relationship with convicted serial killer Arthur Shawcross, also known as the Genesee River Killer, to sell…

In the distant future, society collapsed due to a rain of frogs all over the world. In the rubble, a restaurant company known as the Buddha Gump Shrimp Company and its evil leader Bushido Budnick took over the world with its chain of…

Viet Thanh Nguyen's The Displaced collects essays by refugee writers about refugee lives. It hosts a collection of diverse perspectives from all across the world, bound together by their shared trauma, though decades and thousands of miles…

Moutainhead is a memoir recounting the time in which the Scottish pseudonymous author lived in the mountains of northern Thailand as an expatriate. He relates his interactions with the local villagers, with the wildlife of the mountain, and…

Disclaimer: S.C. Burke's press, NihilismRevised, has published a story by me in an anthology and will also be publishing a book by me. The stars die. God dies. An arsonist sets fire to the air. A Gunman commits a mass murder, killing his…

There is a saying that goes for writers: the first book you write is going to be the easiest to write, but the hardest to publish, while your second book is going to be the hardest to write, but the easiest to publish. It is with this…

Benjamin is deeply in love with his girlfriend Ynaria. He wants nothing more than to marry her. The only problem is that Ynaria is a living Russian nesting doll, and marriages between humans and nesting dolls are frowned upon. In line with…

Twinkle Mehra is an aspiring filmmaker who is struggling to get any kind of recognition in her high school. With her best friend slowly drifting away from her, Twinkle is desperate to make her mark. When Sahil Roy approaches her about…

A soul who has had many names throughout his various incarnations has reached a relatively high level of enlightenment. High enough that he's chosen to become the Dalai Camel. He's sent back to Earth to live another life and complete his…

After her father dies, Sarah's perception of reality seems to begin to fall apart. During what seems like a psychotic hallucination, she meets a man named Daulton Dickey. At first, it seems like Daulton is nothing but a figment of her…

Jack moved to Los Angeles to pursue his dreams of becoming rich and famous. However, things didn’t work out like he expected. He’s stuck in a dead-end job at a doughnut shop and married to a prostitute named Karen who seems to resent him.…

Like a Champion is a collection of stories mostly revolving around the theme of underdogs and generally put-upon people achieving some form of everyday victories, whether in a moral sense or a more literal one. The protagonists of the…

Fulton, a sleazy British journalist for the equally sleazy tabloid The Prattler, and his young assistant Cheryl are trying to track down reality TV star Bryan Fix for a story. However, when Fix turns up dead with a strap-on dildo shoved…

In 2014, Joshua Shea was arrested on possession of sexually explicit material containing minors and for sexually exploiting a minor. Shea was a the founder of a popular lifestyle magazine, a founder of a large film festival in Maine, and a…

Nicholas Wild is a French children’s book illustrator who finds himself down on his luck and finances, prompting him to take a cartoonist gig in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan. What ensues is a graphic memoir filled with comedy and…