Elderwood Manor - Christopher Fulbright and Angeline Hawkes

The set-up of ELDERWOOD MANOR, the new novella by Christopher Fulbright and Angeline Hawkes, is a classic one in horror fiction: protagonist returns to his creepy, tragedy-haunted childhood home, where things get even creepier and more dangerous.

Fulbright and Hawkes bring this tale to life with some fine writing, a brooding sense of overpowering doom, a nice pace, and the addition of the protagonist's four-year-old son to the mix, a character who rings absolutely true. The setting, the Ozark Mountains in the dead of winter, is a welcome change from some of the more traditional locales for stories like this. I also like the fact that the protagonist doesn't make a lot of dumb decisions just to keep the plot moving along. Some of his choices may be a little questionable, but they're also believable given the circumstances.

I've become a fan of this writing duo over the past few years. Writing both together and alone, they turn out a consistently entertaining mix of horror and adventure fiction, and everything I've read by them has been different from what I've read before. ELDERWOOD MANOR is another fine addition to their body of work.

Red Chalice - Christopher Fulbright

Any book with the phrase "jungle-shrouded island" in its description on Amazon is bound to be pretty good. I think we can take that as a given. Christopher Fulbright's novella RED CHALICE certainly doesn't disappoint in that respect. It's a pulp-inspired horror/adventure yarn that's rip-roaring fun.

Ex-con Layne Drover hires out for dirty jobs, and his current one fits the bill. Even though the setting is contemporary, RED CHALICE's set-up is very much like something out of a Weird Menace pulp. Layne is hired to accompany a beautiful, mysterious woman to that jungle-shrouded island I mentioned above, where the crumbling mansion of the woman's late uncle is located. She's inherited something very valuable from him, and she has to journey to the island to retrieve it.

No sooner do they get there, though, than a hurricane roars in, the boat captain they hired double-crosses them, ruthless gunmen show up, and things get even weirder, bloodier, and more dangerous as Layne and his client are trapped in a labyrinth of caverns under the old mansion.

The action hardly ever slows down, and when it does that's only because Fulbright has another nasty plot twist to spring on the reader. He packs a lot into this relatively short tale, and that's just the way I like 'em. I had a great time reading RED CHALICE, and you should check it out.

The Devil Behind Me - Christopher Fulbright and Angeline Hawkes

THE DEVIL BEHIND ME is a new horror novella from Christopher Fulbright and Angeline Hawkes, and it's a good, gory yarn. In an opening scene set in Germany that reminded me a little of Robert E. Howard's "The Black Stone", young Alex Brandt and three of his friends spy on Alex's older sister, who is bent on some secretive mission in the woods. When Ilona Brandt winds up in a clearing complete with sinister alter and robed, chanting acolytes of the demon Krampus (the German anti-Santa who punishes bad boys and girls on Christmas Eve), you just know something terrible is going to happen, and boy, does it.

From there the story jumps forward to when Alex is grown and living in Dallas, far from Germany but still haunted by what happened there on that night so long ago. He decides he has to go back to his hometown and put all those old memories to rest, and his girlfriend comes with him so they can make a vacation of it. I don't think it'll come as a surprise to anyone that the trip doesn't quite go the way Alex intended.

Fulbright and Hawkes add murder to the mix, along with an old witch, some kinky sex, and ultimately a dramatic confrontation with evil itself. THE DEVIL BEHIND ME races along at a very satisfying pace, and it's creepy enough to satisfy any fan of horror fiction. I enjoyed it and think it's well worth reading.

The Bone Tree - Christopher Fulbright

I've known Christopher Fulbright for several years because he's a Robert E. Howard fan and fellow author. We've spent a considerable amount of time talking at Howard Days in Cross Plains and I've always enjoyed our conversations. His novella THE BONE TREE is the first thing I've read by him, but it certainly won't be the last.

THE BONE TREE falls into the rural horror category, if there is such a thing. It also features a couple of adolescents as its protagonists and it's set in the past, the late 1970s in this case, and in those respects, along with its rural setting, it reminds me of some of the work of Stephen King. Fulbright has his own voice, though, and it's an assured, engaging one.

The narrator Kevin and his best friend Bobby both live in the country between Waxahachie (been there) and Maypearl (haven't been there, but I know right where it is). Having grown up in north central Texas myself, I can say that Fulbright paints an absolutely accurate picture of life there for a couple of adolescent boys. I'm about twenty years older than Fulbright, but things hadn't changed that much from the late Fifties to the late Seventies.

Kevin is white and Bobby is black, a fact that plays into the plot to a certain extent but isn't really that important to them. They're much more concerned about the evil spectre that's stalking a younger friend of theirs. When that situation takes a tragic turn, they know they have to do something about it, even if it means venturing into danger themselves, because they don't want the same fate to befall their own families. But in true kid fashion, fighting cosmic evil has to wait its turn in a life of playing video games, reading comic books, and eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

Fulbright spins an excellent yarn that really rings true. It's fast-paced, genuinely creepy when it needs to be, and punctuated by moments of humor. THE BONE TREE is a fine blend of horror and mainstream fiction, and it gets a high recommendation from me.