An Island of Monsters: Where the Tide Leaves its Dead is a horror story of survival and rebellion

 

Where the Tide Leaves its Dead

Bray Mattheson

Next Chapter, 2026

Ebook, 266 ppg.

ISBN-13: 979-8254255765

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Casey Davies lives on a Polynesian island with his Hell-pig, Puaka, but his is not a charmed life. The island is riddled with zombie-like creatures called sea corpses, which seems to be an appropriate name for them because they come from the sea. In this debut novel by Bray Mattheson, Where the Tide Leaves its Dead is a story of what dangers lurk within the ocean. And it’s not just sharks!

 

As Casey and Puaka battle the monsters, Casey tries to find anyone still alive. And once he does, a new journey unfolds for him and Puaka, as his life becomes more about fending for himself on an island.

 

After Casey joins up with some other people determined to fight against the constant onslaught of the sea corpses, he learns more about the culture of the island as well as more information about what created the sea corpses in the first place. Casey is not one of the island natives; he is actually from Texas. He and his twin sister were orphaned after the sea corpses murdered their parents while they were lost at sea after their cruise ship sunk. But he and his sister ended up going separate ways after they settled on the island. As Casey goes through many adventures with his new friend Izzy, one of the Polynesian warriors who I kept picturing as Maui from the film Moana in my head, he begins to want to find his sister and protect her from the sea corpses.

 

As the story unfolds, Casey realizes that it’s not just the sea corpses that he has to worry about. There are other monsters lurking in this island horror novel that will send chills down your spine. Mattheson describes these monsters so well, and he really brings the settings to life, so much so as to make the reader feel like they are actually there.

 

What amazes me about Casey is how he remains humble in spite of the hero worship some people show to him after realizing he has been set free from something he was sure to die in. They are amazed. They have never seen it happen before. It is indeed amazing that Casey survived it, but the way he had survived was very creative and required him to be brave. He has to be VERY brave as more terrors unfold for him, and I liked how he does not let the hero worship go to his head. Not only this, but Casey manages to get a drinking problem he was dealing with at the beginning of the story under control. It is just one of the ways he grows and develops in the story.

 

I was also impressed by the “gladiator fights” that happen towards the end of the story. They are certainly creative battles! The monsters are unique and Mattheson’s descriptions of the characters, as well as their personalities, made it easy for me to stay with the story and not get confused by who was who.

 

And the ending was absolutely epic! I had tears in my eyes at the very end. Everything got wrapped up beautifully and all of the questions I had about this story were answered.

 

Where the Tide Leaves its Dead is a masterful tale of island horror readers are sure to enjoy and appreciate. Filled with a variety of characters and monsters, this story is one of survival, friendship, and family. A novel that truly captures Polynesian culture and legends, this book offers readers a story of people trying to survive against horrors that are not of this world, and of rebuilding their lives in the shadow of terror.

 

 

Five stars  

 

 

Disclaimer: I received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

The Wailing Skin: The Skin Room is a chilling story that will make your skin crawl – or peel

 

The Skin Room

Carl Bluesy 

Independently Published, 2026

Ebook, 275 ppg. 

ISBN-10: 1069380814

ISBN-13: 978-1069380814

Buy link

 

 

You know the expression that if you play with fire you’re going to get burned?

 

That’s exactly what happens to Kenneth in this story, except that he managed to play with fire for a little too long. He enjoyed a comfortable lifestyle of using up women, stealing wives for sexual pleasure just so someone could get a good deal on the luxury cars he sold, and living comfortably in his condo with his wealth. He got away with hurting women for so long, viewing them only as sex objects to conquer, that he lost touch with his own humanity.

 

Well, he gets a good slice of humble pie in this story. The Skin Room by Carl Bluesy is a splatterpunk novel of violence, murder, and tons of gore that will make your very skin crawl. Just be glad you still have it!

 

After Kenneth loses everything and is forced to survive on the streets, he joins the homeless community and, in the process, learns to dispel with his prejudices against the homeless. He keeps thinking “I’m not one of you!” or “I’m not like you!” and carries around this fantasy that if he goes to the police enough times, they will straighten everything out just like that and he’ll be back to sipping cocktails in his condo. It takes some time for Kenneth to adjust to life as a homeless person, and he is fortunate to befriend a couple of people who are kind enough to show him the ropes.

 

Meanwhile, there is a killer on the loose, a killer known as the “Panhandle Peeler,” a serial killer preying on the homeless and skinning his victims. Kenneth tries to remain vigilant to avoid being the Peeler’s next victim, but that lasts only for so long.

 

The title of this book has to do with the type of room that Kenneth is imprisoned in after he is kidnapped by the Panhandle Peeler. What does the Panhandle Peeler do with all that skin? Well, in one case, he creates a whole room covered with it. Literally a room made of skin. There’s quite a bit of blood still on the skins, blood which sometimes pools on the floor of the room, and it is mind-blowing that the skin continues to grow, even over the door to the room.

 

There were many times I stopped reading this book, not because of the graphic scenes of victims being peeled of their skins but because I kept thinking, No way! This is too unreal! The cruelties the Peeler inflicted upon his victims are unthinkable. Only a madman would believe every single thing he does to his victims serves a bigger cause. Make no mistake, a madman is certainly what the Peeler is. And the big reveal near the end of the story is just as shocking and disturbing.

 

But it was my curiosity about Kenneth’s fate that always drove me to pick up this book again to read. Does Kenneth survive? Does he escape? What about the Peeler; will he finally be brought to justice?

 

And actually, what does happen to the Peeler at the end is just as twisted as the rest of this story. Even so, it’s a story I recommend to fans of horror and especially fans of splatterpunk novels. This story is written so well and it’s full of surprises. Where else can you find a novel that describes the removal of a person’s skin in gory detail? Or the best way to remove an eyeball? Plus, there is fruit that isn’t really fruit at all – and filled with a different kind of “juice” to drink. (That pineapple!) Readers will be treated to such passages in this book. Perhaps they will exclaim “Wow!” at the end, as I did.

 

That ending, though. It blew me away.

 

Check out The Skin Room by Carl Bluesy for the most extreme survival story of them all. What would you do to survive? How far would you go? Within the pages of this book, readers will see just what it takes for one man to survive the streets and survive imprisonment by a delusional monster.

 

 

Five stars

 

 

 

 

Disclaimer: I received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Talking Plants and Lethal Eagles: Semiosis is a profound science fiction novel of adaptation and survival

 

 

Semiosis

Sue Burke

Tor Books, 2019

Ebook, 333 ppg.

ISBN-10: ‎0765391368

ISBN-13: ‎978-0765391360

Buy link

 

If there was another planet for people of Earth to escape to when our own planet is no longer habitable, would we choose to go there? Some people chose to in Semiosis, a science fiction novel by Sue Burke, and while they do manage to survive on this other planet, which they name Pax, they face new world problems, such as trying to grow food in soil that is not so compatible with their seeds and living alongside animals they name “fippokats” that take getting used to. There are also creatures on this planet which they call “eagles” but they do not sound like Earth eagles by the way they are described. Plus, they eat people, making these creatures their mortal enemies.

 

I picked up this book to read after I learned that it was about a group of colonizers from Earth living on a planet alongside aliens, because that’s the kind of book I was looking for to read at that time. However, the aliens in this story do not reveal themselves until Part Three, and they are certainly not what you would expect. They are not your typical aliens. It was very interesting to read a story where the aliens were this type of life form! Also, there’s another kind of alien living on this planet, but they do not enter the story until much later.

 

Up until then, though, readers are only offered vague clues on who, or what, the aliens could be.

 

In the original city that the colonizers live in, life is really tough. Not only do they struggle to have food but there are also frequent hurricanes. Then one of their children, Sylvia, discovers another city and wants them to move there. She faces ardent refusal from the elder colonizers, and discovers that they had kept so many secrets and information from her generation. At some point, though, she does lead a group to live in the newly-discovered city, which they name Rainbow City.

 

Life in Rainbow City is supposed to be better, and for the most part, it is. But the people living there, the descendants of the original colonizers of Pax, face the same troubles, such as eagles that could attack and kill them, sickness and disease, as well as death. Alas, no one can ever escape death, even from disease. And after a character in part three dies from an illness that they do not yet understand, the father spends some time bemoaning how she could have been saved with Earth technology that they don’t have. The other character that he is telling this to, Sylvia, agrees, and notes that they could have saved her by “the Earth way.” But then she notes that they will have to learn how to survive “the Pax way.”

 

“The Pax way,” she repeated. “The parents didn’t even tell us everything about the Earth way. Religion. Ideologies. Economics. War. Just words to us! They didn’t trust us with those things. They’re dead and gone, and they still decide how we live and how much we can know, because they thought they knew better than us, and they left us impaired, and worst of all we know we’re impaired. All those books we copied from the computers before they failed, that’s a tiny fraction of what there is to know, a very tiny fraction. I once saw a mention of a library on Earth with a million books.”

 

I tried to keep track of who everyone was as I read each chapter, but by the time I got to the chapter with Nye, I was lost. In a previous chapter, Nye is recognized as “a baker” but there’s no information about who he is the son of, not even in the chapter told from his point-of-view. Neither in the following chapters, with the other characters. So I just stopped trying to keep track of them all.

 

The thing that I find really interesting about this story is the fact that the plants on Pax are sentient. They’re not walking about the planet doing things, but they are intelligent and can communicate with each other and the largest of them all, named Stevland, communicates with the humans. I say Stevland is “large” but not in a sense that it towers over everyone. Stevland is large in that it is able to have roots in different locations, “seeing” things in its own way as well as hearing and feeling things. As one character says, “There are lots of Stevland.” The main Stevland, though, is in the greenhouse. This is where many of the people normally go to communicate with it (another place is called the Meeting House). Stevland is VERY intelligent, even for a sentient plant, and also has an air of arrogance towards others. In fact, it considers the tulips to be stupid, and at one point, it tells a human, “Don’t be a tulip.” Stevland may be a plant but it acts like a human. In fact, at one point it tells a human, “You cannot tell me what to do.” I thought that was kind of an interesting statement coming from a plant.

 

So when I first heard about this book, someone said, “It’s about humans living alongside aliens.” And I thought the aliens were the plants. Seriously, I did! I mean, they’re sentient plants. They can think and talk. They have a desire to stay alive. They feel pain! But, no, the aliens, apparently, are the Glassmakers. And for a while, yes, the humans live alongside the Glassmakers, but it goes wrong. So wrong. I guess that saying that “this book is about humans living alongside aliens” is not the correct way to summarize this book. I would say that Semiosis is about a colony of humans trying to survive on a planet that includes hostile aliens.

 

But, ultimately, it’s a story about survival. The humans were forced to leave Earth because Earth was no longer habitable, but in living on another planet, they faced dangers that threatened their lives there as well. They adapt, though, and they adjust. They develop laws and rules. They decide on a system that works for them. At one point, they even develop a greeting to give to others when they meet (“water and sunshine”).

 

This novel is also a study in what humans can expect to endure should they need to live on another planet. Hopefully, that won’t happen for several thousands of years from now, even though the decline of Earth is gradually increasing and we are faced with worsening climate change issues.

 

Semiosis is an engrossing, unforgettable novel about adapting to unusual living conditions on another planet. While it is a long novel, the stories readers are treated to in the many years in which this story takes place are all entertaining, educational, captivating and profound. There are many moments of betrayal, loss, and struggle, but there are also moments of love, compassion, and a plea for cohabitation. Could this novel serve as a guide to the humans of today who ponder living on other planets? Certainly not, but it is a good starting point, and it gives readers a lot to think about and prepare for should that goal ever become a reality.

 

 

Five stars

 

 

Disclaimer: I purchased a digital edition of this book online. This review is entirely voluntary and I receive nothing in exchange for posting this review.