Vertigo Horror/Romance Anthology
August 21, 2012
34
Rancho Tehama seems like an ideal suburb community until things take a dark and disturbing turn for two friends. Anya teams up with a powerful witch to free herself from the nightmare that Ethan created. Thea embraces her newly discovered talents but soon finds herself in a dangerous position.
Reviewed by: Linda Tonis
Member of the Paranormal Romance Review Team
This book is a collection of short stories. There are three stories in all.
Disturbia is the first story and it is about two friends, Daniel and Lucky. Both live in a small California town known as Rancho Tehama and go to the local community college. The town has been plagued by a serial killer, a killer that stabs young women to death. But a serial killer is the least of their problems when they find out that they live in a fictional town and are all characters in a book. They are part of Jayden Kinlan’s “The Mad World Series” but somehow they came to life and are doing things of their own free will. How is that possible? Is the killer real or not? A very unique story.
Gaslight is the second story and concerns two individuals, Anya James and Ethan. Ethan has used spells to establish a mind bond with Anya keeping her a virtual prisoner. He dictates what she should do and is constantly talking to her in her mind. At one point she was hospitalized but now that she is out, she has enlisted the help of a Wiccan, Catarina to turn the tables on Ethan. Can the two women finally free Anya’s mind of Ethan? How can they make him let her go? If you remember Gaslight was a movie where a husband tried to make his wife believe she was crazy, is this the plan?
As Dead As They Come is an interesting story of a man who returns from Hell to visit is ex-wife. Thea’s ex-husband Brian committed suicide and found himself in Hell but he escaped by coming through Thea’s bedroom mirror. He just wants to see her and apologize for leaving her and his family when he took his own life. But Thea feels that there is more to his reappearance then meets the eye. How did he escape? Why has he really returned? Thea has to find the real reason Brian is back and if it is to do her harm then she needs to be ready to fight back.
This was a short book with three very short stories, but each one was unique.