Just saw this amazing review of EVE HALLOWS AND THE BOOK OF SHRIEKS from
The Horror Fiction Review and I had to share:
EVE HALLOWS AND THE BOOK OF SHRIEKS by Robert Gray (2011 CreateSpace / 252 pp / tp & eBook)
Not only is this one of THE best-looking self-published books I’ve ever had the pleasure of seeing – excellent cover, excellent layout, clean and crisp appearance, professional; I had a hard time believing it WAS a self-pub, had to check and re-check to make sure I wasn’t just missing the company logo somehow – it’s also one of THE most enjoyable reads of what’s been an enjoyable-reads month!
In a very, very different way, of course … in a TBR pile of hardcore horror, gore, and porn, suddenly I’m reading a delightful and quirky YA/kid’s book! One that is as fun, engaging, spooky-charming and all-around awesome as can be.
Eve Hallows is an ordinary fourteen-year-old girl, or, as ordinary as a fourteen-year-old girl can be when you’re the only human in Gravesville, the dark monster-world where horrible means wonderful, and adorable means awful beyond belief. With a shapeshifter dad, a vampire grandma and werewolf grandpa, a snake-haired Gorgon for a mom and a ghoul for a little brother, and a creepy haunted castle to call home. Sure, Eve often feels disappointed and left out by being so un-monster-y, but she’s happy with her horrible, horrible life.
Then it all goes wrong. The inhabitants of Gravesville are in danger, threatened by a mysterious organization known as The Source. Someone needs to go undercover and try to find out what’s going on, and Eve’s dad is the monster for the job.
Any teenager could tell you how much they hate having to move, to leave their friends, and start over at a new school with a bunch of strangers … but Eve and her family are relocating to the human world! It’s a definite fate worse than death, undeath, or anything else. They’ll have a normal human house, interact daily (DAILY, as in, when there’s SUNSHINE) with normal humans, operate a normal human pizza parlor, and Eve will have to go to normal human high school!
Of course, that’s just the beginning of Eve’s troubles. Not only does she have mocking mean girls and a cute boy crush to deal with, not only is the principal a Halloween-hating grump, she soon finds herself caught in the middle of The Source’s plot. It could be up to Eve and her handful of misfit friends to save the day for humans and monsters alike!
So, move over, Neil Gaiman’s CORALINE and THE GRAVEYARD BOOK … make room, Lemony Snicket’s A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS … you’ve got company and competition for shelf space!
-Christine Morgan
