Review of "Perfect Anastasia" by Jack Binding

In Jack Binding's latest horror story, Perfect Anastasia, twenty-something Andy Moretti asks himself a question that a million other men are currently asking themselves. "Why can't I find a nice woman to spend my time with?" Well, be careful what you ask for!

As if Andy's questions have been miraculously answered by a benevolent Genie, he meets the perfect woman at a party. She's funny, she's beautiful, and she's actually interested in talking to him. That should be a good sign, right?

Author Binding uses the need for companionship as a crutch in short story. The need, the hope, the sweet nectar of promise and desire. Binding's written words are straightforward and to the point, leaving the reader with little doubt as to where the story is headed, but the outcome, while not necessarily anticipated, is every young person's nightmare and much more.

The writing reminds me a bit of clive Barker as he starts a story you think you know is unfolding, and then it spills out, unvarnished and splintery against your skin and senses.

Available on Kindle, this just released (February 14, 2017) work is 99-cents if you act quickly. Jack Binding has several other short stories at Amazon and a full-length novel slated for later in the year.

Thanks for reading - Al W Moe

Comments

Review of "The Deeper Dark" by Michael Allen

Michael Allen's The Deeper Dark is a military-political thriller with a haunting forecast of what could happen when our political system controls just a tiny bit more of our lives than it already does. Our story starts with a pilot's worst nightmare: being forced down over enemy lines. Then, like John McCain and other real-life wartime pilots, his nightmare comes into even scarier focus as he is met immediately by the opposition forces who are armed and most certainly dangerous. In Deeper , pilot Haven Kayd is taken to a dank and soon to be dark cell that has housed many other prisoners. The fact that he's the only one there is less than comforting. For months Kayd fights away the psychological fears his captors impose on him and manages to escape, only to find that his nightmare continues when he returns home to find his wife and daughter shocked to see him. They've been told he's dead. The message finally dawns on him: Fear the Deep State. Kayd asks questions a...

John Grisham's "The Guardians"

If you've been waiting for John Grisham to deliver another solid book, the 2019 issuance of The Guardians is probably your best bet. Grisham, of course, has made a habit of taking small-time or at least small-town lawyer story's to breakneck-speed endings while spinning a vast (if not luxurious) web of possible plots across a reader's mind. I'm a fan, but there have been a few stumbles in my opinion, such as The Whistler , and Camino Winds , that move slowly and lack the thrill of the chase I found in earlier books. Fortunately, Grisham's on the ball with this book, and I was happy to get trapped for hours inside the covers of my bed and the book itself. In this "wrongful conviction" story, lawyer Cullen Post takes a series of cases as far as he can, saying "I have five cases...., I've watched one of my clients die. I still think he was innocent. I just couldn't prove it in time." Such is the pressure and turmoil of a pro-bono lawyer a...

Review of "The Career Killer" by Ali Gunn

Author Ali Gunn brings us the first in her DCI Mabey series, with The Career Killer , a smart detective-mystery novel. Set in London, the main character works at London Yard, where her father wrote many of the training manuals. She may be her father's daughter, but her fellow detective would have preferred her father's son to be the heir apparent to his legacy. Newly-minted Detective Chief Inspector Elsie Maybe takes her new promotion in stride until she inherits a wonky tribe of underlings and a murder at an old church. She's not fast to gather clues, not because she's moving at half-speed due to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, but because the nature of the new string of murders has some ring of normalcy or familiarity to her, starting with a young woman in a wedding dress found in the ruins of an ancient London church. She doesn't move like Columbo or Hercule Poirot, asking questions and sifting the carnage over in her mind. Instead, she seems to plot the next...

Kindle Book Reviews

Search This Blog