Notable Works Reviews

Welcome to Derry, Maine ... It’s a small city, a place as hauntingly familiar as your own hometown. Only in Derry the haunting is real ... They were seven pre-teens when they first stumbled upon the horror. Now they are grownups who have gone out into the big world to gain success and happiness. But none of them can withstand the force that has drawn them back to Derry to face the nightmare without an end, and the evil without a name.

Daniel Kraus’ novel, WHALEFALL, was reviewed by the HWA’s Mental Health Initiative Notable Works readers. On its surface, WHALEFALL is a story of Jay Gardiner, a young man swallowed by a sperm whale. His determination to escape the whale is charted on one timeline, while the backstory of significant life events is traced on another. Jay is Jonah, his old self annihilated in the belly of the beast, and his biblical journey becomes something deeply personal. The dive is not just into the ocean, but into the unexplored depths of Jay’s depression, grief, survivor guilt, abuse, and most importantly, reaction to…

RIPTIDE by DAN RABARTS Short story review by Lee Murray A multiple winner of the Australian Shadows and Sir Julius Vogel Awards, Kiwi Dan Rabarts (Ngāti Porou) is well known in Antipodean horror circles, his body of work comprising novels, novellas, short fiction, screenplays, and poetry. Of these, his short story, “Riptide”, which appears in Simon Dewar’s anthology Suspended in Dusk II (2018, Grey Matter Press), is arguably his most powerful work and my personal favourite. Perhaps the story appeals to me because it is set on a nameless beach in Aotearoa, somewhere that I might have walked myself, or…

SERPENT’S WAKE by L.E. DANIELS Novel review by Dave Jeffery After twelve years trapped in the throat of a serpent, a girl escapes. She returns to her village naked with a monstrous snakeskin trailing behind her. One decision at a time, she reclaims her life. Each character she encounters by land and sea—brute, healer, orphan, mystic, lover—reflects an unhealed aspect of herself and plots her recovery through symbolic milestones. Serpent’s Wake is intended for adults and young adults exploring how, once fractured, we may mend. As a reader there comes a time when you become so mesmerised in a story,…