Dark Harbors - Review by Janet Miller - Some books are fast reads and you can read them in an afternoon or a couple of evenings. Howard Hopkins' short story anthology, Dark Harbors, isn't like that. In fact I don't recommend reading Dark Harbors all in one sitting; that wouldn't do justice to it. Dark Harbors is like...a box of chocolates. No, that's not a reference to Forest Gump. What I mean is that each story in this anthology is like a chocolate truffle, perfect in its own way and different from all other stories in the book. Like eating a box of chocolates, these stories need to be read and savored individually, one or two at a time. ..
Review by Janet Miller
Dean Koontz, move over. Stephen King, watch it, there's a new guy in town and he's cutting in on your territory. And he's really, really good, too.
In the little Maine town of Dark Harbor, an old evil dwells. Paul Stanford, a man raised there feels compelled to return home. He re-meets Jenny Gazio, a former love. Paul has 'the gift', something the lurking evil needs to unlock the forces of Hell. The evil is not above using Jenny to see to it Paul uses his gift.
Night Demons is an excellent book, pure horror, with a capital H, just as the masters of this field write. It has the same attention to detail, the "nice little things" that make the story flow. There is plenty of well-done humor and characters that feel real, even minor ones whose lifespan is tragically brief. This was an excellent job, Mr. Hopkins. Most excellent. Five Stars.
Lance Howard is the western pseudonym of critically acclaimed author Howard Hopkins, who also writes fear-drenched horror tales under his own name. From the dusty streets of the Western Frontier to the fog-shrouded seaside alleys of the present, Howard weaves tales of spell-binding action, real-life characters and non-stop escape. Hailing from a picturesque coastal Maine town, he has written dozens of articles, short stories,and novels, which have seen print in hardcover and trade paperback, as well as new electronic formats. Return to those thrilling days of yesteryear and relive the drama, the action, the grandeur of the Wild West! Walk the mist-strangled streets of Dark Harbor and experience the chills of the supernatural! Explore the world of the 1930s' pulp heroes with Howard's electronic pulp journal ,GOLDEN PERILS . Welcome to your brief escape from reality!
About Pistolero...
...a Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde kind of tale with hints of the Jack the Ripper story. The writing is excellent, the plot is detailed and full of twists and turns...readers will be swept up into the story, enthralled by the rich characters...The unexpected ending will leave you thinking about this tale.
About Grimm.. The review would have to be book length to give all the kudos this book deserves. It is very well written...the tension doesn't let up. The characters are so alive you hurt, cry, and suffer with them...the sense of place is explicit...so real you can walk the paths, feel the rooms, and plainly see the homes...you won't do better than Howard Hopkins's GRIMM.
Shirley Truax, Tracy's Ebook Reviews
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FOR KIDS!
When October Williams moved to the small seaside town of New Salem, Maine, he hardly expected to be chased by the ghost of the Headless Paperboy. But New Salem is a town gripped by the supernatural where anything can
happen...especially near the old bridge leading to the cemetery!
October soon learns a strange and terrifying tale. Every Halloween three children vanish as the ghost begins searching for his head. Riding a twenty-year-old bicycle and hurling flaming newspapers, the spook needs one more victim before disappearing for another year. If that weren't bad enough, the school bully wants to make sure October doesn't have a chance to escape the pedaling terror!
Together with a band of misfit kids who call themselves the Nightmare Club, a strange girl named Alliecat who wants to shove her way into the group, and a pot-bellied pig named Barnabas, he must find the Paperboy's head and put it back with the body before it's too late and he loses his own!
...a marvelous job bringing to life a favorite storyline. With beautiful descriptions, surprising twists and memorable characters, this is not a novel to be missed...
Sharon McGinty, Mystic Visions Reviews
This book has everything any western, vampire or romance lover needs...
Carol Castellanos, Simegen Reviews
She never saw the fist coming. One minute she peered into his cold gray eyes
with a look of spite and defiance; the next her feet left the dust- and
grime-coated floorboards. She sailed backwards, head over heels, across the
mouse-gnawed, sheetless mattress.
No pain, not really. At least not at the moment of impact. Just a cracking
sound that might have been her jawbone fracturing, though Prilla doubted that to
be the case. She'd been hit harder, by stronger men than Jack Timm.
A bullet plowed into the dust an inch from Jim Hannigan's right foot. Hell of a thing for a man five minutes free of a jail cell.
The thunder of the shot echoed like the herald of bellowing demons come to collect souls.
A rifle, not a handgun, from the sounds of it. Not that it mattered, because either would make a body just as dead.
It should have killed him. Lead should have punched through his chest, and left him flat in the dusty street, no doubt about that. Only a flashing glint of sunlight off a blue-steel barrel, caught at the corner of his eye, saved his rangy hide. Years of trail-forged instinct took over, sent him lunging sideways the moment he spotted the glint. Years of hair-trigger reaction sent his hand sweeping the snub-barreled Peacemaker at his hip.
The gun came level in a blur of motion, his balance adjusting for the anticipated recoil only a split second behind. He expected a second shot immediately on the heels of the first, but none came. Another glint as the rifle barrel jerked back from the corner of a gunshop wall, telling him whoever fired was more interested in flight than in engaging a gunfight.
In the dusty streets of Miller's Pass, a killer stalks women of the night. Hiding in shadows, vanishing in the light of dawn, he butchers with impunity and in a blood frenzy.
Until Jim Hannigan and his lovely partner are called into the case by a woman from the ex-manhunter's past. But this killer is unlike any Hannigan has ever dealt with, a figure who out-maneuvers and taunts the law, leaving a trail bathed in scarlet.
Is he outlaw, ghost or one of the town's bizarre players--the violent saloon owner, the enigmatic physician or Indian animal skinner? With the lives of a lost love and his lovely partner threatened Hannigan races against time before two more victims are added to the tally of history's most notorious murderer--Jack the Ripper!
Marshal Galen Trimble is a hero, a man who single-handedly brought down the notorious Crigger Gang and put an end to their string of robberies and what the newspapers dubbed the "scarecrow murders". But, years later, when the legendary lawman of Hollow Pass becomes the target of an unknown killer resurrecting the Scarecrow method of death, speculation runs rampant a lost Crigger brother has returned to exact revenge.
In the old days, ex-manhunter Jim Hannigan rode with Marshal Galen Trimble, but they parted ways with a strained friendship and unresolved suspicions. Now, the marshal's life threatened, an anonymous plea brings Hannigan and his lovely partner into the investigation against the lawman's wishes. Their mission: find the killer responsible for an innocent woman's vicious murder and unlock a door to the past that once opened will alter their future irrevocably.
