Secrets-Outcast

by | Sep 5, 2014 | Reviews

Secrets and Outcast are the latest release in the Doubledown Series from Journalstone Publishing that contains two novella’s sharing a theme.  The tie that binds these two novellas is a scene of a young man and young girl trespassing through a cemetery looking for a particular tombstone.  In this release, veteran author John Little has penned the scene and the first story, and he has asked a newer author, Mark Allan Gunnells, to create his own story using the same scene and characters.

Secrets, John Little’s story, is in my opinion the stronger of the two tales.  I thought the premise of the tale quite fresh for a horror story, and I thought his use of a limited numbers of characters to bring his tale to life heightened the tension considerably. In Little’s novella, a young girl named, Karen experiences intermittent time stoppages.  Everyone and everything around her suddenly stops; they become frozen in place but she is free to move around and wander where ever she chooses.  These moments can vary in length but when they are ending, she always feels a calling of sorts to bring her back, and she rushes like hell to return to her original location. She uses these strange moments to visit the neighbors, read peoples journals, and to sit alone at the beach and think. As you could imagine, she discovers some very strange, erotic, and eye opening things during her wandering.  But there are two things that she discovers that will affect her life in powerful ways.  The first is when she visits, Bonnie, a girl that goes to her school.  Karen finds Bonnie frozen in place while masturbating.  The second is when she discovers that there is someone else besides her who experiences these time stoppages.  His name is Bobby, and Bobby does much more to people than just observe them while they are frozen in time.

Secrets had my attention from the first paragraph to the last.  The story is not only compelling but chill inducing; this tale really had me on edge the entire time I was reading it. Little gets right to the point in his narrative, there is not a lot of exposition, needless dialog or filler anywhere to be found. Karen is wonderfully written.  She is a strong young woman with intelligence, and more to the point, she has a moral compass that is convincing and not contrived for the sake of the story.  Readers will have no trouble either bonding with or identifying with, Karen.  And while we don’t see all that much of Bobby, what we do see is unnerving as hell, and in the case of Secrets, keeping Bobby in the background makes him all the more menacing.

Outcast, while very different than Secrets, was also an enjoyable read.  Where Secrets was barebones, atmospheric and pensive, Outcast’s narrative is fleshed out with multiple characters and an involved plot. In Outcast, Karen is a young, plain, college student who has the power to make objects move. Bobby, in this story, is a ghost. Bobby’s mother, Penelope is a witch who recognizes Karen as one also, and Penelope wants to use Karen’s power to bring her son back into the land of the living.

As I mentioned, I thought Outcast was an enjoyable read as it has many things going for it including an involved plot, some interesting characters, and a fairly good insight on the mindset of a young, college-age girl.  But, while Outcast is a horror story with some adults themes such as rape, the story felt a little tame for my taste. I’m not an expert on young adult fiction, but in my opinion, Outcast would be an excellent read for girls in the 16 year old and up age group with its strong emphasis on appearance, relationships, and especially romance. That’s not to say that adults won’t enjoy Outcast, I believe they would; the story offers up enough horror to satisfy all dark fiction fans.

(Journalstone Publishing has recently purchased Horror World.  Secrets-Outcast was received before the purchase and this review was committed to and begun prior to the purchase).

About TT Zuma