Supernatural Thrillers Available for Kindle
Vampires, beasties, zombies, and ghouls… NIGHT MONSTERS presents four stories to read with the lights on.
Wyatt is looking for a no-strings fling in “Savoir-Faire.” When he meets the beautiful and sexually voracious Natalie, all his fantasies come true… until he discovers that unseen strings are more entangling than he bargained for.
In “The Worst Thing,” Petie’s first sleepover seemed like a good idea in the daylight. But after dark at Nate’s house, he can’t fall asleep. Braving the terrors of the night to make it home, he finds he must face the worst thing that could happen—and sacrifice what he treasures most to save his parents from a horrible fate.
“Keeping Cool”: After a late night at work helping hospitals handle the strange flu sweeping Pittsburgh, Terry finds he’s run out of options to get himself home. Searching for a working phone to call his wife, he encounters a deserted diner—and another way to stem the tide of disease. Chilling!
Justin wants to be cool like Drew, so he tags along to throw corn at cars on Halloween night. When a 1970 GTO Judge stops on the country road and its ghastly occupants pursue them, he wishes he’d gone trick-or-treating instead. Pray the “GTO Judge” passes you by.
If you love things that go bump in the night, download NIGHT MONSTERS—before the sun goes down!
Get NIGHT MONSTERS from Amazon now!
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4.8/5.0 stars
You are Danny, one of five children born to poor Southern parents in the late 1950s. You move from one ramshackle house to another, most in ill repair and without adequate heat. When your Papa loses his arm in a farming accident, hard times grow harder.
Your saintly Mama puts up with a lot of abuse from Papa, whose moods swing deeper and darker and dangerously more violent with every imagined offense. You young’uns do your best to steer clear of trouble.
How do you feel reading the previous two paragraphs?

Jim Grimsley’s Winter Birds (Simon & Schuster, 1984) is part of my self-study plan for second person point of view. The initial effect of second person is an unsettled feeling, then a distancing: “That’s not me—I’m not ‘you.’”
But the more you read of it, the more it draws you in, creating identification with the narrator/protagonist. Ultimately, it forces you to participate in the story events against your will—probably one reason why Grimsley chose this POV.
Being held in an uncomfortable POV underscores the plight of an impoverished mother and five children trapped in a house with nowhere to escape abuse. All you have are your thoughts and each other, waiting for Papa to come home.
Grimsley ratchets up the tension with the dangers that Danny’s hemophilia pose: a misstep on a glass shard or Papa’s drunken backhand could mean a week in the hospital until the bleeding stops. Like Danny, as a reader, you continue to bleed until the final page.
Winter Birds is one of the most beautiful and excruciating stories I’ve ever read. At times it’s so intense that I had to put it down, and I’m no literary sissy.
Turning away is the prerogative of the reader; never the writer. Grimsley doesn’t flinch. American publishers rejected this semi-autobiographical work for a decade because it was “too dark.” When the book was finally published in English, it won the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters as well as being cited for a PEN/Hemingway Award. Well deserved.
The narration, the dialog, the POV, the description all blend into a cohesive package that delivers a poignant, dark dream of childhood. Occasionally, second person comes off as incredulous when the narrator describes things he couldn’t be privy to. But the floating, fantastical elements interspersed through a child’s imagination allow you to accept the tale as told.
If you’re studying narrative or second person POV, you must read Winter Birds. If you read it for any reason at all, I daresay you’ll be moved.
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New Supernatural Thriller Now Available at Amazon.com!
In this duo of supernatural thrillers, Calvin Bricker deals with desperate spirits right in his own neighborhood.
In “The Vacant Lot,” a supernatural presence beckons from the empty neighborhood lot. Calvin’s curiosity leads him to an aged portrait painter with a terrible secret about a dead undertaker and his missing wife, who seeks eternal release.
In “How I Was Cured of Naïveté,” a seemingly innocent spirit appears in the foyer of Calvin’s home. When he discovers her fate, he sets her free—only to find that little girls aren’t always made of sugar and spice. Snick, snick!
If you like crime and mystery with a supernatural bent, succumb to the call of DESPERATE SPIRITS!
Get DESPERATE SPIRITS from Amazon now!
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January 17, 2012
“STRAY”
Gay Erotic Horror Short Available for Kindle
Tad has a problem: he ran away from home only to find he has no place to stay in the big city. After selling his abusive father’s comics collection, the sixteen-year-old twink hasn’t near enough money for a bus ticket home. Two days without food and two nights in an alley force him to do what he swore he wouldn’t: trick for cash. But trick he must—just this once—to get back home, lest he end up living on the streets of Pittsburgh.
At Lucky’s Lounge, the thirty-something with the reptilian tattoos seems to be his ticket home. Bruce is a kind man, a generous man, a spiritual man who takes in strays of all kinds. But Bruce has needs—dark needs—of his own, and only Tad can satisfy them.
What will Tad forfeit for a bus ticket home? To find out, download STRAY, bone-chilling gay erotic horror from Lee Allen Howard.
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I’m seeking beta readers for my current work in progress—DEATH PERCEPTION—a supernatural crime story infected with horror yet preserved by a sprinkling of black humor:
Nineteen-year-old Kennet Singleton lives with his invalid mother in a personal care home, but he wants out. He operates the crematory at the local funeral home, where he discovers he has a gift for discerning the cause of death of those he cremates—by toasting marshmallows over their ashes.
He thinks his ability is no big deal since his customers are already dead. However, when what he discerns differs from what’s on the death certificate, he finds himself in the midst of murderers. To save the residents and avenge the dead, he must bring the killers to justice.
Take a peek at chapter 1 of DEATH PERCEPTION in PDF. If you’re interested in reading and providing comments on the entire manuscript (70K words), send me an email. Feel free to share this page! Thanks.
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