Writer and Editor C.B. Calsing/ G.G. Royale

When I was younger, one of my favorite anime movies was Vampire Hunter D . I loved the atmosphere of it, and as I’ve mentioned in previous reviews, I was sort of obsessed with vampires in middle and high school. I was pretty pleased when I came across the audiobook adaptation of Vampire Hunter D by Hideyuki Kikuchi. The story is the classic one of a half-human/ half-vampire offspring hunting full-blooded vampires. D comes to the rescue of Doris and her brother after Doris is attacked by the local vampire, Count Lee (yes, pretty certain this is a nod to Christopher Lee and his role in early Dracula films). Lee decides to take Doris for his wife, against the wishes of his daughter who believes the human will pollute their noble line. Meanwhile, Doris must also fight off the suitor from town who is in love with her and another set of hunters and their leader, a beautiful fiend named Rei-Ginsei. A lot of people probably think this started out as a manga, but it is in fact a novel. The fi...

Bright Ruined Things by Samantha Cohoe follows the story of Mae over the course of an amazingly tumultuous day. She has spent her life on a magical island, where her father was the caretaker. However, since he died and she is approaching her eighteenth birthday, her future on the Prosper family’s island is in question. She does not want to leave, but how can she stay? The solution: marry one of Lord Prosper’s grandsons. She has had a crush on Miles for years but instead ends up engaged to Ivo, the heir to the Prosper magic. The union with Ivo would cement her position on the island, but she doesn’t love him, and Miles thinks Ivo has been doing something nefarious along with his grandfather. On top of everything else, the spirits that work behind the scenes on the island are appearing near death. All the family secrets are revealed on First Night, the lavish party which celebrates when Lord Prosper first harnessed the magic and spirits of the island. Mae must decide what she really wan...

I received my first short story acceptance yesterday of the year. The story, "Haunted by the Absent," is loosely inspired by a legend from my husband's family, and the idea has been banging around in my head for a long time. However, it went in a different direction than I intended originally. I am very excited to share it, and a little embarrassed by the praise I received from the editor. This is my first story acceptance since "The Asylum Musicale" in 2017. I went through quite a dry spell without completing any writing. I feel fortunate that I seemed to get right back into the process after so long. That validates the decision I made to write full time.

Laurel Hightower's book Below from Ghoulish Books starts with a jump scare and keeps going from there. After nearly running into a stopped van on the road, Addy stops for a break for her road trip at a truck stop. There she meets a trucker who is willing to convoy with her to make sure she doesn't get lost on the snowy roads. When the trucker crashes through the railing of a bridge, though, Addy's world crashes right down with it. She attempts to rescue the driver but instead becomes lost in a cave system, hunted by something that is other than human. This is a super quick read. Want a scary story for an afternoon at the beach or snuggled up on the couch? Pick this book up. It’s not just about jump scares and scary cave predators, though. It has a deeper theme about learning to live independently. By the end, it reads like an allegory. Addy is recently divorced, and for most of the book, the voice in her head telling her what to do is that of her ex-husband. Addy’s growth a...

Hold Back the Tide by Melinda Salisbury starts off as a thriller: Alva lives with her father, and everyone knows her father killed her mother several years before. Alva is trying to survive long enough to save money and move away from him. Every day, she fears she may be his next victim. The story is set in mid-nineteenth century Scotland, and when you get the audiobook, the narrator is Scottish, which goes a long way to making the story very atmospheric and engaging. Eventually, however, we learn that this is not just a thriller about a girl living with her murderous father, but a vampire novel! Now, I have been a fan of vampires in literature since I was in middle school, and a lot of the time, I am sort of bored by new interpretations because I've read a lot of vampire stories and written a few of my own. The last one to get me excited was The Strain,  both as a book and a television series. Hold Back the Tide  got me interested again, the way The Strain  did. I was ex...