Frontpage La Floridiana Movie Review Mike's Rant Patty's website PCR Archives 2002 2001 2000 Crazed Fanboy homepage PCR 2002 Home --------------------------- It's Halloween. It's Halloween. It's Halloween. Halloween is the time of year when all good horror and supernatural authors come out. Well, not literally, but we do find ourselves much busier in the month of October. If you live in Florida, you are blessed with not one, but two bookish Halloween events that you won't want to miss. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 19TH: Join Patty G. Henderson, Jeff Strand, Richard Lee Byers, Garrett Peck and others at Barnes and Noble Booksellers at Carrollwood on North Dale Mabry Highway, Tampa, Florida for the first annual Halloween Horror Authors Event. There will be booksignings, discussions, costumes and fun for all who come. And don't be frightened by some of the authors, they won't bite. They will be fed well before the festivities begin. Activities begin at 7:30 PM. For more info, contact me at my email addy. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 26th: For the second year, the Winter Park Borders Books and Music will present the Halloween Horror Extravaganza. Big name horror authors such as Owl Goingback, Hugh B. Cave, Richard Lee Byers, John Urbancik, Jeff Strand, Garrett Peck, Patty G. Henderson and at least twenty others including Christine Gentry, will be there to autograph their latest books as well as readings, costumes, ghost tours, dinner, and much more. Other guests include artists and media celebrities. There will be door prizes to give away as well, including books and gifts. Again, if you want more info, just email me. WHEN SPIRITS WALK, the classic supernatural mystery by Christine Gentry, is now available. Below is the cover for the book.

The Woo Woo Express was derailed last month. Okay, we missed an edition, but we're back with two great reviews for woo woo mystery lovers. One of our favorite reviewers, Teri Davis, is back this month with reviews of James Blaylock's NIGHT RELICS and Barbara Rogan's SUSPICION.

Also, the new reprint edition of Christine Gentry's woo woo classic, WHEN SPIRITS WALK, is now available from the MWA imprint of iUniverse. You can order yourself a copy at the big dot com online bookstores or if you're in Florida, come to the Winter Park Borders in Orlando on Saturday, October 26th, meet Christine and have her autograph a copy for you. You can also meet me and twenty-plus other authors for a big Halloween Horror Author Extravaganza.

See the Haunting News and Briefs in this issue for the cover of Christine's book and info on several Halloween book fests coming up in Florida.

Until next month,
Patty G. Henderson

NIGHT RELICS by James Blaylock Ace Books The Berkley Publishing Group New York, 1994 Does a disastrous situation affect the future in how people think and feel even if the situation happened many years ago? Can a disintegrating divorced relationship cause people to lose touch with reality? Definitely. Peter is learning to accept his relationship with his ex-wife and son as she plans to take her son to Hawaii with her. However while feeling lonely, Peter goes to their house and finds out that his wife and son never left for Hawaii. He continually remembers the family playing Crazy Eights and having snacks of Oreos with Kool-Aid at the kitchen table. "As if those things were magical amulets that carried the broken-off pieces of his soul. He had never come to terms with losing them." Logically, he does contact the police and is concerned about whether he would be considered a suspect but you can't have a suspect unless a crime has been committed. Coincidentally, a woman and her son have been out roaming the hills and the woman bears a close resemblance to Peter's ex-wife. While searching the hills for the two, other plots and characters enter this story in a struggle of good vs. evil. All of the characters are wonderfully developed with both their physical and emotional traits. With a sense of humor and of caring this continued even with the minor characters throughout the story. In describing one of the characters the author wrote, "A man who could laugh at his own broken-down truck lived an enviable life." The development of the plot was unusual in that I envisioned it as a spiral. The author stepped back a little in each chapter and then continued the story development along the lines of rotating characters. This allowed the reader to see the different aspects of the plot from the characters. Is there supernatural or are the characters losing their minds? I'll leave that up to you to decide. With the absolutely delightful writing style and word choices that could be compared to poetry, this is a must read for everyone human who sometimes question reality. Reviewed by Teri Davis for Murder on the Woo Woo Express, 2002

SUSPICION by Barbara Rogan Simon & Schuster Hardcover, 1999.

I fell in love with the setting. How could anyone resist a house that has a spiral staircase leading up to the library in a tower? The sides of the corridor along the ascending staircase have cabinet handles and drawer pulls for storage of books. Who cares if the upper room might be haunted and has blood stains under the carpet when you could have a library like that! Reluctantly, I need to go back to the reality of the book. (Sigh.) This books takes place in an old Victorian mansion overlooking the Long Island Sound with an octagonal tower library in the house. (Sigh). The plot involved the new owners of this wonderful house with the previous dead owners of the house. The main character, Emma Roth, is a novelist that is coincidentally writing a ghost story with the previous owner being an English teacher that enjoys correcting the story with a purple pencil while being a ghost. Emma is carrying quite a bit of emotional baggage with her which provides the reader with questions and suspense throughout the book. Many times Emma wonders if her problem involves her emotional instability, her stress, her readjustment to a new situation, her dreams, or if the house really possesses a ghost.

The characters are believable and Ms. Roth has described each of them so well that I found myself predicting their thought and actions. Each character possessed a strong personal voice with the development of the plot. The relationship between the characters I found to be very realistic especially between Emma and her husband who worked as a physicist. I found the sense of humor between the two and the acceptance of each others faults to be refreshing with their sense of commitment to each other. One of my favorite passages regarded their "elastic minute" meaning the flexibility of time perception with each person. The analogies and comparisons throughout the book allowed me to constantly visualize the characters and the incidents.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. My biggest criticism of it would be that the mystery was very apparent to me from the beginning who the culprit was, but I enjoyed reading about the relationship and the constant questioning of the existence of the ghost.

Reviewed by Teri Davis for Murder on the Woo Woo Express

Email: Patty G. Henderson