13 Ghastly Tales Book Review
I started off hating B.D. Prince’s 13 Ghastly Tales. Then I liked them. It oddly started around Jaadu. I’m a sucker-punched softie for carnival and railroad stories, seems he is too. Then I noticed his approach with each story, heated a little with campfire scares, then spun a lot from 1950s comic book horror conciseness, and glazed with a simple but jolting ending. His characters start lean and gristled around the chops, then take on meaty weight as they hustle to whatever horror digests them. Short and sour best sums it all up. There is flash fiction here too that also bites.
So, about that Jaadu. Prince mentions Cole Bros. Circus briefly but it immediately hooks me—all ready and gutted to be pan-fried—because I have a nostalgic connection to Cole Bros. as they were a long-running tented circus here on Long Island. But Emma Wilson and her husband are not visiting Cole Bros., just a smaller circus outside of town. A midway barker grabs their attention while they munch their popcorn and they are quickly swept into the oddities tent. Emma is particularly caught up with all the stifling strangeness and that bizarre bovine with two heads and five legs. Poor Emma. She just so badly wants to have a baby. A common element in each of these stories is a longing, a desire, a need. Amazing how much horror can come from those three simple things. …