Horror Books

Good Evening Sunday 17th February 2019

Peter Germany Books, Horror, Writing , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Good evening everyone!

I had an awesome weekend. It started at 5:30am yesterday when I got up and was leaving the house at 6am to drive a couple of hundred miles to visit my friends CL Raven and support them at their signing at their local WH Smiths. In my opinion this is really big, indies getting into a chain like Smiths is awesome.

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CL Raven and their display in WH Smith Cardiff. Cat is on the right and Lynx is on the left. Photo credit: CL Raven

They had a good turn out and sold a decent amount of books ( I finally got my hard copies of Bleeding Empire and Empty Graves).

I spent most of the weekend in Cardiff and hung out with Cat and Lynx. It was somewhat of a flying visit as I had a few bits and pieces to do at home and an early start with work tomorrow morning. I’m looking forward to going back in the future as it seems like an awesome city.

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Myself with CL Raven. Photo Credit CL Raven.

Needless to say I’ve not written this weekend. I have very much so taking a break from writing. Obviously I thought about it and hanging out with Cat and Lynx means we talked writing but I haven’t really thought about it much. Its been quite some time since I had a break from doing anything writing wise. If I’m not writing I’m editing. Even if it’s only a few words its been rare that I’ve gone more than a day without writing a single word. I think the break will have done me a bit of good.

Tomorrow, back at it!

Horror That’s Getting Under My Skin

Peter Germany Audiobooks, Books, Horror, Reading, Writing , , , , , , , , , , ,

Up until recently I’ve rarely seen a horror movie that got under my skin. I say movie because I’ve only started delving into horror novels recently.

Aside from being grossed out by the odd scene here and there I’ve never really felt uncomfortable in a way that I now know horror should do. The first I noticed this was last year when I saw The Ritual. This is a film that was based on the novel by Adam Nevill. When I watched that film in the cinema I remember feeling a long way out of my comfort zone, but I still got through it and really enjoyed the movie (I’m looking forward to reading the book itself soon as well).

This week I’ve started listening to The Silence by Tim Lebbon. Tim Lebbon is a name I keep seeing pop up, and after meeting him at Bristol horror con last year and hearing him on a couple of podcasts (Three Guys With Beards & The Horror Show With Brian Keene) I knew I needed to check out some of his stuff. At the con I brought off him his book After The War, but knowing what a slow reader I was and that The Silence will be released as a movie sometime this year I believe, I wanted to read that one. So I got it on audiobook and although I’m only half way through it, it’s got under my skin. I thought The Ritual had an unsettling affect on me, but The Silence has gone deep. I almost stopped listening to it a quarter of the way through. It is so carefully crafted to trigger the readers own fears, even to the point where it feels like Lebbon’s written it just for me. Some of the elements here feel personal in a way I’ve not felt from a book before. That’s not to say books haven’t had an effect on me, because they have. Hell, a few have had me chocking up while others I’ve been punching them air in triumph and celebration.

As I was listening today I was thinking I’ll be finished it by the time I finished work at 3pm tomorrow, but I had to leave a day between the quarter way point of it and where I got to today, so I might resume it Monday and let the events in it sink in a little.

This book is really getting under my skin, and although it’s making me feel this way that’s what I feel is good horror. For horror to really work it has to make you feel how this is feeling. If I had to give this a rating right now it’ll easily be five stars.

I don’t have any ideas how this book will end, but I’ll be going in headfirst to find out.