The Turtle Boy

Eleven-year-old Timmy Quinn and Pete Marshall are best friends and when school lets out for the Summer in Delaware, Ohio. While visiting Myers Pond when they encounter a strange kid named Darryl, who claimed to be feeding the turtles. This is the same pond that, legend had it, grew large man-eating turtles.

While Timmy’s father asks him not to go back to the pond for a while, Pete’s father reacts more violently, hitting Pete and grounding him from Timmy.

Events soon get out of hand when Timmy returns to the pond with a new friend, a girl named Kim, and sets off a series of events that brings about a night drenched in rain, death, madness and revenge—for dead are now able to step out from behind the curtain that separates the dead from the living and they intend to claim the revenge they so desperately hunger for.

The Hides

Timmy is seventeen and has lived with ghosts coming out from behind the curtain for several years. The strain takes its toll on Timmy and his parent’s marriage. His father takes him away from ghost filled Delaware to Dungarvan, Ireland. They stay with Timmy’s grandmother Agatha while his father gets a job at the leather factory.

Although angry at being uprooted and taken so far from Kim, Timmy finds his hopes that the ghosts are quiet in Ireland smashed when he sees the Blue Woman climbing out of the sea. As dangerous as she is, there is something stalking the leather factory that is much worse. It is something from behind the curtain that Timmy has never seen before—something that has no human face or reasoning qualities. Something monstrous and angry and implacable . . . and it wants Timmy’s father.

Vessels

Tim is over thirty years old and for many years he has been estranged from his family and Kim to protect them. The years, however, have not been kind and Tim finds his father, now a priest in Los Angeles, to get one last hope of sanctuary—the one place where a murder has never been committed—Blackrock Island, off the coast of Ireland.

Then Tim’s father kills himself.

At first the island seems perfect. The inhabitants keep to themselves and Tim does the same, until he finds an abandoned boat off the coast. He stops in at a nearby tavern to let the locals know that someone’s curragh has gotten loose. What he gets is the unwanted attention of Sergeant O’Dowd.

On his way home, Tim encounters a ghost in an old chapel who calls itself The Scholar. The ghost demands his turn at revenge and makes Tim an offer: release the fetters that bind The Scholar to the chapel and Tim will get to visit with his dead father in the confessional.

Then Kim shows up on Blackrock Island and all unholy hell breaks loose.

Overview

These three books cover the life of Timmy Quinn from the day his power first manifests to the fulfillment of the dead’s prediction on Blackrock Island. In Timmy Quinn, Kealan Patrick Burke has created a wonderful character who grows up before our eyes. Each book in the series details a pivotal point in Timmy’s life, causing him to grow while revealing a little more about the mysterious Curtain and the Stages.

One of the delightfully wicked things about this series is that there is no escape for Timmy. If he is murdered, he may well become one of the angry ghosts seething with rage to break through the Curtain and exact revenge on the living. If he commits suicide, the fate could be similar but worse. No matter how tired, how hurt or how scared he is, Timmy does not dare give up.

Kealan Patrick Burke has scored a major hit with the Timmy Quinn series. The Turtle Boy won the 2004 Bram Stoker Award winner for Superior Achievement in Long Fiction and The Hides was nominated for the 2005 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a First Novel. All three of them were published by small presses specializing in horror novels with limited print runs. At this time two of them are sold out and Vessels could sell out at any time.

However, for a limited time only, you can get all three books as free downloads from Kealan’s website. Click here to find and download all three books in the Timmy Quinn series.

Kealan Patrick Burke has the story arc all planned out. The first three books are done and published and a fourth and final book, tentatively titled Nemesis will conclude the story. However, we have a special treat in that Cemetery Dance is publishing a prequel. The Turtle Boy: Peregrine’s Tale is a 64 page novella introducing you to the hidden nemesis that controls the dead and has been using Timmy Quinn for most of his life—the nemesis called Peregrine. This is his story.

Download and read The Turtle Boy, The Hides and Vessels. Make no mistake, this is some of the best horror reading you’ll do all year and it’s available only for a limited time.

Our Horror Reviews are provided by The Undead Rat. For more information on great horror reads, visit …With Intent to Commit Horror

The Iron Hunt by Marjorie Liu

I’d read a short story of Ms. Liu’s in an anthology and fell in love with her writing. Crisp, striking, with compelling characters, a fascinating plot, and a great finish, I couldn’t wait to read another. (Holidays Are Hell: the best story in the anthology. The rest were something of a disappointment) So I picked up one of her Dirk and Steel series, and was disappointed. It read like formulaic romance novel fare with a paranormal patch. I wasn’t sure what to expect, then, when I picked up The Iron Hunt from Fictionwise. (Also available at Amazon in print and for the Kindle.)

Maxine Kiss, the heroine of The Iron Hunt, is a demon fighter in a long line of demon fighters. She and her mother, and so on through the generations, have been charged with killing the demons that break through the walls of their prison. She is tattooed, and her tattoos come alive after dark. They hunt with her and protect her, and will eat just about anything. Her tattoos were inherited from her mother, just as were her fighting skills and her preturnatural abilities.

It took me some time to accept that this is the first novel in the series. The reader is dropped in headfirst, with a boyfriend who does magic with a flute, demon inhabited dead bodies who are trying to reform, and other creatures she can’t understand. She’s hunted by things–some that look human, and some that could never be mistaken for human, even in a blind dark alley. I don’t want to say more, because part of the joy of this novel, in my opinion, is discovering the unusual ways that Liu approaches her subject.

The Iron Hunt is a very solid novel. I would compare the quality and style to Patricia Briggs’ work (one of my autobuy authors). Maxine Kiss is an intriguing character who stands out in the current glut of paranormal heroines. I enjoyed the unusual way Liu deals with the demons and the preturnatural world. You may find it a little frustrating because it most definitely reads like the second in a series. It’s obvious enough that I thought I was missing things, and was a little annoyed that the first book in the series wasn’t available on Fictionwise so I could start at the beginning, but I assumed I’d pick it up later. Still, by the end you have all the pieces you need, and it all adds up to a unique and entertaining story. I’ll be reading the next one.

Next issue we’ll have more ebook reviews for books available for purchase online, but we’ll also have ebook reviews from books available at your local public library.