SNOW: Stories of Forbidden Love, Wattpad Anthology

I have lately begun to rediscover my love of the short story, whiling my Sunday afternoons away on my back porch, reading the many wonderful anthologies that are beginning to grace the digital shelves at Amazon. Reading short stories allows me to sample an author’s work without investing in a longer book by an author whose work is unknown to me. Also, it allows me to read work written by authors whose work I know and love. This week, I am talking about SNOW, Stories of Forbidden Love, an anthology of tales written by Wattpad Stars. These authors have some of the highest rated works on Wattpad, with millions of fans all over the world.

But first THE BLURB:

One cabin. Sixteen stories of forbidden love.

With an online audience of over ONE MILLION combined followers, and hundreds of millions of reads on their stories, the SNOW ANTHOLOGY showcases talented Wattpad authors from around the globe.

Journey into the woods where you will discover a cabin surrounded by snow, filled with secrets…

The SNOW ANTHOLOGY features sixteen original novellas and novelettes in multiple genres, including Young Adult, New Adult, Contemporary Romance, Historical Romance, Urban Fantasy, Supernatural and Paranormal.

Brought to you by USA TODAY BESTSELLING AUTHOR KELLY ANNE BLOUNT and available for a LIMITED TIME ONLY! Don't wait for the snow to melt before you uncover these stories of love, loss, and self-discovery.

MY REVIEW:

All the stories in this volume are excellent, well-written, and in some cases, deeply thought provoking. At no time did I feel compelled to skip forward. Several stories, however, stood out above the others, in my opinion.

The first that struck a chord in me was Red Snow, by Debra Goelz. This is a true fairy tale, harsh, violent, magical, and mysterious. Children are disappearing in the forest, for reasons both frightening and sinister. I wanted to know more about Daphne, and why she was tied to the forest as she was. Eugene, the man who’d been changed to a snake, was really intriguing also. Goelz presents the situation, doling out information in just the right bits so that when the final denouement comes, it is both in keeping with the tone of the tale and satisfying.

The second story that resonated and left me thinking was Faun, by Gavin Hetherington. Faun is another fairy tale, this one featuring a boy of sixteen, who is on a Christmas vacation in a cabin the woods with his family. Freddie is at odds with them over something that fundamental to him but which deeply offends his father and has been ostracized. After a quarrel at dinner, he runs away into a blizzard, finding his way to a nearby village. What he finds in the village is both moving and heartwarming.  

The third story that I want to talk about is by one of my favorite authors, Shaun Allan. The fact that his work was featured in this anthology was why I purchased it in the first place. Wings is a journey into despair and the need to be loved. Megan has been given a second chance, and opportunity to bring love into people’s lives and change the world. But her own emotional pain is too much, and she begins to find satisfaction in bringing misery to the world. Shaun Allan has a knack for getting deep into the dark corners of the human psyche, which is why this tale resonates with me and why I seek out his work. What begins as a quest for personal revenge soon takes a form Megan is completely unprepared for, threatening the world she knows, and deep inside still loves. Allan illustrates the growing darkness of Megan’s soul and a rising sense of doom with a deft hand, illuminating the darker places in our own souls, the places we would prefer not to look.

I enjoyed this anthology from start to finish and highly recommend it. SNOW, Stories of Forbidden Love, is available from Amazon for your Kindle.

Mr. Composure, Shaun Allan

This is one time when the spin-off story is so far beyond the movie there is no comparison. Indie author Shaun Allan was commissioned to write this original novella as a serial for WattPad, and he really knocked it out of the park. It is short, only 46 pages, but it is a gripping read.

But First--THE BLURB:

"Once upon a time..."

All the best stories begin that way. Once upon a time, Jack climbed a beanstalk. Cinderella did go to the ball.

Once upon a time, his parents died.

When your parents are killed in front of you on the one day of the year when all crime is legal, what do you do?

You prepare for next year. You prepare for payback...

-

Specially commissioned by NBC Universal for the release of the film The Purge: Anarchy, Mr. Composure is "simply superb" and ranked #1!

MY REVIEW:

From the first paragraph, this tale is gripping. The protagonist is never named, and in many ways we actually know more about the killer, whom our protagonist dubs Mr. Composure, and who has a first name: Tom, than we do our protagonist, despite the fact our protagonist is speaking to us all along.

His desire to get the man who killed his family becomes his reason for existence, and he spends the next year laying plans just for that opportunity. Society has completely collapsed, and starving, facing a life of thievery, he is taken in by a stranger and his wife.

The ending is--wow.

I give this tale 5 stars. 

SIN, by Shaun Allan, Audio Book narrated by R. D. Watson

Today I am discussing the most recent of my audio-book purchases, Sin. I have in the past referred to the written version of this book by indie author Shaun Allan as  "One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest meets Finnegan’s Wake." Beautiful plays on sarcastic, witty words formed into lyrical, wonderful prose. I thought the written book was wonderful, but I am here to tell you, the Audio Book as read by R.D. Watson is nothing short of AWESOME!

THE BLURB:

Dead, dead, dead. Say it enough times and it becomes just another word. What would you do? Could you kill a killer? Does the death of one appease the deaths of a hundred? What about that hundred against a thousand? What if you had no choice? Meet Sin. No, not that sort of sin, but Sin, crazy as a loon (you ask Sister Moon), and proud of it. Sin locks himself away in an asylum and, every so often, gets violent. That's only so they'll give him those nice drugs, though. The ones that help him forget. It's a pity they don't work.

MY REVIEW:

Sin is a dark, urban fantasy, written with a large dose of sardonic humor. We hear the tale from the man who was given the name 'Sin Mathews' at birth, but who goes by the name of Sin only, as the last name doesn't matter; only the name which is the sum of his parts matters. R.D. Watson's reading of Allan's shining, witty, prose is moving and brilliant in every aspect. He gets into Sin's head, and you are completely spellbound.

Sin finds a coin, a two pence coin, or perhaps the coin finds him. Either way, this is the catalyst for Sin's curse. He finds himself flipping the coin compulsively -flip, catch - and it arcs through the air he sees images of disaster and death, which is then reported on the news. Eventually he realizes every time he flips the coin, someone dies; sometimes a lot of people die in what he believes are 'unnatural disasters' timed perfectly to the flip of the coin.  Though he tries to avoid flipping the coin, he finds himself doing it anyway.

No matter how he tries, he can't throw it away, or lose it. The coin always comes back to him when he buys something and gets his change; or even just appearing in his pocket.

Sin receives a letter from his sister Joy, telling him she had found a coin, and when she flipped it she made lives. She wrote that the responsibility for making the world happy was too much for her. She was alone in a world of happiness she couldn't be a part of, and she killed herself.  Sin apparently had found his coin right after her death.  He decides to check himself into an insane asylum in order to get the sort of psychotropic drugs which will render him incapable of seeing the visions, and flipping the coin.

Sin's conversations with Dr. Connors in the opening chapter are adversarial, and illuminating. For the most part, he enjoys his stay in the asylum, but, being sane, he sees the sordid truth in the callous treatment and chronic over-medication of the patients.

Although posing as a mentally ill patient works for a while, the medications soon cease to be effective and he decides that since the coin always comes back to him as if by magic, maybe he has the power to teleport.  He resolves to commit suicide by teleporting himself into the heart of a furnace, hoping for instant incineration.  Unfortunately, he finds himself on a beach, instead of in Hell where he had hoped to be.

Sin has an encounter with Joy who tells him death is not what it is cracked up to be. She warns him "a storm is coming".  He continues his inadvertent journey, trying to get his bearings. After a chance meeting which reveals more of his powers, he finds himself in Grimsby, the home of his childhood.

The atmosphere throughout is surrealistic, but it is well-balanced. I adore Allan's lyrical, intimate style of prose, as in this series of images describing Sin's disorientation, “History doesn’t relate whether Jonah, Gepetto, and Pinocchio sat around a table eating pizza, sharing stories of prophecy and puppetry while in the belly of the whale, but I thought that I could relate to being swallowed whole.”

Throughout the novel, Sin's ruminations are self-mocking, and world-weary, yet naive and innocent.  He bears the guilt of the world, and suffers the unbearable pain of being the cause of so many deaths, but still he finds ironic humor in every situation. Joy is grounded and guides him to the truth, but is not allowed to tell him anything.

 Nothing is what it seems in this tale, and right up to the end, you are not sure which reality is real.

The facts come out, or do they?  This book is a roller-coaster ride from the start to the finish, and I give it 5 stars for originality, and if I could I would give this audio-book version ten!

Sin is available as an audiobook at Amazon.  Buy it here!
If you are in the UK - you can buy it HERE!


OR you can go to these fine vendors:

The link for Sin ebook is Http://getbook.at/SinEbook

The iTunes audiobook is:
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/audiobook/sin-unabridged/id829162177?l

Audible.com is: http://bit.ly/SinAudibleUS

Audible.co.uk is: http://bit.ly/SinAudibleUK

Cherry Hill cd is: http://bit.ly/SinAudio

And Cherry Hill MP3 is: http://bit.ly/SinMP3

Dark Places, by Shaun Allan

Shaun Allan is one of my favorite, go-to authors when I am in the mood for an off-beat, darkly-humorous book that makes me wish I was an author! (insert lol here.) His most recent book, Dark Places is one of those secret pleasures that I hide away with, and savor every paragraph.

The Blurb:

I am Death. I know who you are...

There is darkness and madness in each of us. We must do battle with our own demons.

But...

What if those demons opened the door in the back of your mind and stepped out. What if they became real? If the night, the shadows, the reflections and Death himself walked among us? And what if they were watching you? Waiting? Thirsting...?

Dark Places. Thirteen stories. Thirteen poems.

Thirteen doorways.

My Review:

Shaun Allan's obsession with all things dark bears strange and frequently hilarious fruit in this compilation of stories interspersed with poems. 

The book opens with the poem "Mmmm," a commentary on life by a man who wishes that he could 'DO' instead of just 'going with the flow' but lethargy owns him--he's unable to make the effort.

The first short tale is  "I am Death".  It details a day in the life of the Grim Reaper. The Grim Reaper has been at his job for quite a while now, and is becoming rather bored with with it. Death writes bad poetry--"To live is to die, To smile is to cry"--and knows in his heart he should stick to his day job and leave poetry to those with, well, a soul.

This book is full of little snippets and jewels of dark prose and self-mocking humor. "This Night", a poem that sheds a little light into the authors own psyche, showing us the anxiety that lurks just below the surface of our precarious modern lives. "This night is safe. This night..."

"Dark Places", a longer tale, details the mental state of a man who finds himself. Literally.

"The Last Dance" is one of the shorter pieces, but is incredibly moving.

"Patient Solitude" details love, loss, two men and living with the memories of one woman's last moments.

All through this book, interspersed with the horror, is the shockingly honest humor that Shaun Allan is famous for, shedding light on our own fears and frailties.

But my FAVORITE tale is the creepy, "House on the Moor." Let's just say it brings a new level to the dangers of dipping into the real estate market.

I was privileged to be an editor on this book, so this review is a bit of nepotism on my part, but I've been a fan of Allan's since I first read his monster-piece, "Sin", a deep, dark novel of one man's madness. It was such a pleasure, to be allowed to work with an author of this caliber. Allan's prose is beautiful and harsh, opening doors into our own psyche we may wish we'd never entered. All in all, this is an excellent book for a cold winter's day, safe by your fire with a cup of cocoa.