Mark Scioneaux

It took me two years to get through this horror anthology of short stories that was published back in 2022, but that doesn’t make it any less worth your while. So let me justify the length of time.
I don’t give anthologies and short stories, in general, near the love that they deserve, but they serve an essential purpose in my quest to keep reading — even if it’s only a little bit in a day. The short story anthology is the perfect book to leave on your nightstand when you know you have fifteen or twenty minutes, but you also know that you have to get up in the g*ddamned morning, and investing that time in a full length novel with its potential cliffhangers to push you past your designated lights out time is infeasible. Also, good for that quick dose of reading you might sneak in on a lunch break at work.

So, give the short story anthology some love, world! I was drawn to this horror collection for two reasons: Neil Gaiman, and a charitable cause. Gaiman's contribution, We Can Get Them For You Wholesale, does not disappoint. But there are other horror authors to enjoy here too. I really enjoyed Jeff Strand's First Date, because horror with a healthy dose of humor often gets me. Kristopher Triana's Pictures of a Princess is creepy and disturbing as it tackles obsession, and Mona Kabbani's Cursed Objects hits a nerve with the desire to get even when you've been labeled as an outcast. Patrick Freivald's A Better Hate serves up some poignant Indigenous holiday horror, and The End of Time on Rosewyld Lane, by Jay Wilborn is heartbreakingly excellent.

This short story collection has a number of snippets that you might love, or even hate, but it’s a solid collection of horror, and the proceeds go to a good cause—a literacy program called Read Better, Be Better, out of Arizona.

So, check this anthology from Blood Bound Books out! It encourages reading for everyone, whether it’s in support of reading programs in general or whether it’s just you or me trying to get a little bit of reading in on a daily basis.… (más)

I liked this book. I've never read any zombies books before and when I saw this one come my way, I decided to give it a chance. I've seen lately World War Z movie which I liked and figured maybe I'll give Zombie books a chance.

This was a easy read and I thought the creation of the zombies was good. I liked the build up to it and I thought it was a good way for people to turn into Zombies. I loved the characters, I thought the authors did a great job of building believable characters. The flow of the story moved great and overall I enjoyed it.

I don't know how zombie books usually end, but it sounds like this book can be continued. I would like to see that.

I won this on a giveaway for an honest review.… (más)

Botte Louisiana is just a little fly spec on the map. The weather is almost always hot and life is pretty laid back in this small town. Things are changing quickly though, the military has its eyes on Botte and they want to do some experiments on prisoners at the local prison which is referred to as Paradis (French for Paradise). The hope was to create an army of super soldiers but not surprisingly, things don’t work out.

Sheriff Mason Guillot is used to work being easy in his town but now he is in the middle of a zombie outbreak and forced to confront his dark past. Eight years ago he was a soldier and his superior officer Jonathan Hart led him into a trap that caused two people to die. Hart is in charge of the experiments at the prison and Mason must face the man he never wanted to see again. Mason must defeat his personal demons and let go of the past in order to help the people in his town survive the zombie uprising.

Insurgent Z by Mark C. Scioneaux and Dane Hatchell starts off as a military thriller and then turns into a horror novel. The beginning of this book led me to believe it was going to be a very different kind of novel. It starts in the middle east and gives us some background on two of the main characters before it gets into the zombie story line. The opening of this book was fantastic and I loved the dialogue between the soldiers who are being held prisoner in an enemy camp and their torturer, a man they call scarface. This book starts off with a dose of real life horror and then you see how this real life horror shaped Mason before the zombie outbreak 8 years later.

Mason is a man who has gone through hell and you root for him because he still tries to do the right thing even after he has suffered. I liked how this book gets deep into what makes all the characters tick. Even the supporting characters are given back stories, two people in the book, a young couple named Ryn and Deb have had a rough life. They are married and nothing turned out how they planned. Ryn became a drug dealer and Deb works with hospice patients. You see that their relationship is strained but as zombies stumble on to their property, you see them work together to survive. I loved their story and it was one of the scariest parts of the book when they have to fight to survive.

Insurgent Z is everything you would expect in a zombie book. You have interesting characters, flesh-eating monsters, science experiments gone wrong, old school zombies(read it, if you know about the history of zombies you’ll know what I mean.) and lots of action. The characters are what really makes this book worth reading though. Even people who aren’t in the story very long get a back story and the authors make you care about them. This is what makes this book horrifying, you care about the people and you want them to get a happy ending. Insurgent Z is a simple story with complex characters and is a good example of how zombie fiction never gets old.… (más)