J. Lincoln FennCritiques

Super fun read. Twists and turns galore. The last half of the book is non-stop. If you like your horror with a bit of humor and fun, this might be for you.

When obituary writer Dmitri Petrov lands a gig covering the reportedly haunted Aspinwall Mansion, he finds himself in the middle of a family mystery with maybe a few too many coincidences.

I went into Poe with limited expectations, having read mixed reviews of what some term a novel rife with “sophomoric humor.” Poe feels like a young adult novel in terms of voice, though not with regard to content. The blurb talks about gruesome murders, of which there are a couple scenes that yes, are a little disturbing. Is it horror? I wouldn’t say so, but the other book I’m reading right now is Joe Hill’s NOS4A2, which is. Poe is horror lite at best, sarcastic and more of a supernatural/paranormal novel than anything else.

This is a fun read that doesn’t take itself too seriously. There’s a pretty big cast (lots of minor characters to keep track of), of which Nachiel tripped me up the most (not only because I’m not a fan of any name that close to “nacho” but because I didn’t know where he came from). I think by that point I was in the midst of a serious case of “character soup.” The book goes back and forth through time (dream/wake/now/then), but the storyline flows with only minor hiccups.

Would I recommend it? Sure. Just don’t expect something it’s not (dark horror) and if you’ve read it and enjoyed it, Poe reminds me a lot of Matt Schiariti’s Ghosts of Demons Past. Another book full of sarcastic wit with an antihero lead character, Ghosts touches on a lot of the same themes.

I was really enjoying reading this book until I got to the final 100 pages and the favours for “Scratch” started rolling in. The concept of the protagonist selling her soul to the Devil is a typical theme that I’ve read about quite a bit, but that didn’t detract from the story until the author made it clear that any and all of the favours being called in were of an extremely gruesome and violent nature. Maybe I’m just too attracted to the idea of Satan as a misunderstood anti-hero to accept the simple concept that every single “favour” is going to be extremely negative, but making it this simple gives away the author’s true feelings (and ultimate judgement) about the characters and her acceptance of typical Christian interpretations of the mythos surrounding the fallen angel, and ultimately ended up with me being equally grossed out by the atrocities carried out in the story and annoyed with the author for being so typical.

All in all, I have to say I enjoyed this book and all its tangled threads. But, still, there's something about it that just didn't appeal to me in the end. I think this is definitely a case of YMMV.

(Provided by publisher)

I love a book that can update an old concept and make it feel fresh. Here we have the story of selling your soul to the Devil for a wish. In this take not only do you lose your soul you also owe the Devil a favor. It is not one as simple as a ride to the store or helping a friend move. This is going to be the most heinous one you can imagine. Fiona here makes the choice for invisibility in a moment of weakness and now needs to find a way to renegotiate her deal before the favor is called in. The tension builds until we hit that ending. Wow, I was not expecting that one. A perfect read for October as we head towards Halloween.

I thought this book was going to be a lame slacker book about fooling the devil but wow was I wrong. This story is as serious as a serial killer.

Fiona Quinn is in a bar and in a really bad mood when a guy comes on to her. Buys her some drinks and says his name is Scratch. And by the way, would she like to sell her soul?

Half drunk and thoroughly unhappy Fiona says sure why not and the deal is done. She gets to be invisible and to pass through walls when she wants and he gets an unnamed favor whenever he wants.

Fiona meets her fellow "Dead Souls" in and around Oakland and gathers info, trying to work out a way to beat the Devil.

Watch out what you wish for.

I received a review copy of "Dead Souls" by J. Lincoln Fenn (Gallery) through NetGalley.com.

Fiona Dunn's world is falling apart. In fact, her world has always seemed like it has been falling apart but she has somehow managed to survive ..... until now that is. Convinced her boyfriend has been unfaithful to her, Fiona manages to get herself locked out of her apartment in bare feet and night clothes so wanders off to a bar where she meets a mysterious guy named Scratch. Scratch is....you guessed it..the devil himself and he offers Fiona a deal she cannot resist: her greatest wish in exchange for her soul and a "favor" that he can call in at any time.
I found the book to be witty, thoughtful, and gruesome at times but I absolutely adored it. I especially liked how the author imagines how someone would deal with this kind of situation. I definitely want to read more books by this author.
I received a copy of this book from the publishers in exchange for an honest review.

Ok. I enjoyed this book! It just wasn't my favorite.
The main reason why this isn’t a 4 or 5 star book: I feel the ending was rushed and answers weren't given which makes me feel as if this was going to have a sequel. If I had known it would be a sequel; I probably wouldn’t have started to read this, as it is hard for me to commit to any sort of a series.
I enjoyed Dimitri has a character, he was awesome, although a bit immature and adolescent, I thought he was adorable. Honestly, I wasn't too fond of Lisa, in fact- she annoyed me a bit and wouldn't have minded if she got killed off.
Other then that, I enjoyed the book. It was an interesting concept and I liked the use of demonology, although it didn’t go too deep into the history which I may have enjoyed a bit more if a little research was done on the back history of this specific demon.

This was a book that had it all ghosts,haunting and a good murder mystery. This was the authors first book and could be confusing in spots. The title is a little misleading since this book has nothing to do with Edgar Allan Poe. I think it could have used some fine tuning, but I'm sure as this author writes more she will improve.
***I received this book in exchange for an honest review****

Dmitri wants to be a real writer but, so far, all he’s done is write obituaries for a local rag. When he’s given the assignment to cover a séance in an abandoned and supposedly haunted house, he jumps at the chance. However, things don’t go quite as planned and Dmitri ends up dead. Fortunately, he wakes up in the morgue several hours later and before he is embalmed. Unfortunately, things just keep getting weirder for him. He is haunted by an entity he calls Poe, he is being stalked by a serial killer who may really be a demon, he may be related to Rasputin, and he is falling in love with a strange girl he met at the séance. As the bodies begin to pile up, Dmitri must solve the mystery if he is to save not only himself but his new girlfriend and maybe the human race.

Poe was a fun horror tale. It wasn’t perfect. It was at times very convoluted and the story didn’t always run smoothly. However, the sense of humour that runs through the tale goes along way in mitigating these sins. Not to say there weren’t plenty of scary and/or creepy bits and lots of twists and turns but I can’t say that Poe gave me chills or kept me up at night reading. It did, however, keep my interest throughout and it made me laugh out loud more than once and that was plenty good enough for me.

I expected Edgar Allen Poe to be an influence in this book but to my surprise it was Rasputin. The writing was stronger in the beginning than the end of the book . The plot was interesting but at times the connection between the elements was confusing.

I won this book from Goodreads First reads giveaways in exchange for an honest review.

This novel won the 2013 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award for Sci-fi, fantasy, horror so, with that in mind, I am expecting the horror story of all horror stories. Well with this novel, you get horror-lite.

It wasn't a bad novel. This novel contains demons, arch-angels & ghosts (classic elements of horror stories) however, their true potential is never lived up to. The writing sounded a bit sophomoric and at times I thought I was reading a young adult book (although Dimitri is in his early 20's, I don't think this is young adult).

I liked Dimitri our protagonist. He is portrayed as a young nerdy type who is very aware of his limitations. Is his richly drawn? No, and neither are many of the other characters. They all have a rather mundane attitude towards the fact that ghosts and demons are in their lives, like this is an every day occurrence.

The book falls flat because of the author's inability to capitalize on the theme and the lack of depth and detail. Questions are left unanswered and more historical background is needed on many of the characters. I'm still not sure I understand how Dimitri came up with the name of Poe for his ghost.

Some good creepy moments but nothing to keep me up at night. And yes, I believe there will most probably be a sequel.

Even though the “back of the book” summary gives a fairly detailed overview, I still found myself a little surprised at what I got upon reading Poe. As mentioned in the synopsis, the book is centered around a twenty-something aspiring author named Dimitri. He works at a small town newspaper writing obituaries while hoping to eventually finish writing his epic novel (about how Rasputin was really a zombie). The book starts on Halloween one year after his parents’ mysterious/tragic deaths. Dimitri is given an odd last minute assignment to cover a midnight seance in a run down haunted house. He meets (and falls for) punk rocker Lisa as they wait for the seance to begin. The seance turns out to have a real touch with the supernatural and the next thing we know, Dimitri is dead…or presumed dead. He wakes up much later in the city morgue just before being presumably embalmed. From there things just go from bad to worse and life gets more and more strange for Dimitri. Bodies start turning up around town as a serial killer starts to strike. Dimitri finds himself haunted by a strange spirit he nicknames “Poe” (as in Edgar Allan). Lisa’s brother is revealed to be a crazed escapee from an insane asylum and just happens to practice dark magic and demon summoning. And on, and on.

The story had enough twists, turns and surprises to continue being compelling in spite of being very convoluted and confusing at times. The author inundates the reader with a ton of details one right after another. Initially many of these details feel unrelated and irrelevant but then later turn out to be coincidentally tied into either the central plot or some new side plot. Like an intricate weaving, we are presented thread after thread in such a way that what starts out as a messy tangle of threads and colors eventually becomes a detailed tapestry. At times I did feel the constant circling and twisting of details to be tedious but I was still intrigued by the overall story and so I persevered even through the dry and obtuse moments.

I also enjoyed the multiple different stories being laid out simultaneously. Over the days/weeks/months that Dimitri works through the mystery right in front of him, he does some investigative research in the newspaper archives and elsewhere. As he does, he discovers some interesting history about the haunted house and the community. Eventually he starts having dream visions triggered by his ghost hostess Poe in which he relives a variety of the historical moments. As time goes on we also start to learn some of the historical stories of Dimitri’s own past…his interaction with his parents and even some of their history. These additional stories were interesting to explore and I enjoyed the way they were worked into the overall plot.

While I couldn’t totally relate to them personally, I felt like Dimitri and Lisa were well defined characters that were able to jump from the page into imagination and just run with the story. The vivid nature of our central characters also helped carry me through points that might have otherwise stalled me.

Among the aspects that stalled my reading or made me want to put the book down, the biggest was the vulgarity. This seems to be a common theme in genre fiction, particularly “thriller” fiction like this. I must hang out in different crowds because it seems shocking to me that real people would curse as much as these characters do just in normal conversation. I can see the author wanting to emphasize the intensity of the situation with a sudden outburst of profanity but to have the F-bomb dropped so casually in so many unexpected moments was just jarring.

I was also taken back by the amazing number of crazy coincidences throughout the story. I won’t go into spoilers for the book but just be warned that nearly every chance encounter or mundane interaction actually has some coincidental tie-in to the plot at some later point. By the end of the book I found the number of outrageous coincidences to be laughable. Perhaps that is part of the reason for the reference to “Poe” in naming the ghost…the heavy handed coincidences and way of letting things fall into place felt very much like 18th or 19th century mystery writing rather than the more intricate and subtle mysteries that the genre has grown into. With that regard, the book felt a little unpolished and less than stellar.

Speaking of the name of the ghost/book (“Poe”), it still felt like a very odd choice at least in terms of the story and of the main character. I can see why an author or publisher would want to do it…alluding to Poe when marketing a horror novel is an obvious win. But it seems a little thin for Dimitri to randomly pull the nickname out of the hat just because he happened to make an off the cuff reference to Poe during the Halloween seance. I’ll grant that he’s an English lit student and an aspiring author but it still just seemed very strange and truly had no real bearing on the story.

Generally speaking this was a fun read. The overall mystery was interesting. While there were a lot of coincidental elements that became difficult to swallow, the story itself was intriguing and enjoyable. I was not a fan of the level of vulgarity in the book and would have much preferred toned down dialog between the characters. The ending of the book provided adequate closure but definitely left open the possibility of turning this into a series centered around Dimitri working out other similar problems in the future. While they might be fun at first, I’d be worried that they would fall a little flat now that some of the biggest mysteries (Dimitri’s history and the history of what happened in the haunted house) have now been revealed. Give it a try if you’re looking for some grim supernatural intrigue. Just beware the swearing (especially if handing this to younger readers).

***
3 out of 5 stars

This book had me at the prologue! From the time Dmitri wakes up in a morgue I was hooked.

Dmitri lives in an aging, small town and writes obituaries for a small newspaper. His parents are dead, he dropped out of college, is trying to write a novel that is nearing 1000 pages and his only contact with someone of the opposite sex that's his age is over the phone. Lisa is his contact at the local nursing home who gives Dmitri the scoop on residents who might be kicking the bucket soon. Dmitri's life changes when he is sent on a Halloween assignment when he is sent to cover a physic reading at a haunted house.

Dmitri's character was spot on and I was intrigued every little bit of the way throughout the novel. The paranormal aspects of the story were done very smoothly and in a believable way. There were many twists and turns that kept me wanting to keep reading and reading, especially at the end!

A great read Halloween-time read!

This book was provided for free as an advanced reading copy through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I was one of the lucky Viners that got to judge an early round for Amazon's Breakthrough Novel Award but I have never read any of the winners. I don't read much horror or fantasy but this sounded good. And for some of it, it was pretty good. Dimitri Petrov is the obituary writer in a small town (New Goshen sounds so fake), in upstate NY. On Halloween he is supposed to write about a seance at a historical and haunted site. He also ends up meeting Lisa, who works at a nursing home and is a woman Dimitri has spoken to over the phone many times but has been to shy to ask her out. So Dimitri, Lisa, a weird medium, and Nate, the boss's son are at Aspinwall Mansion when strange things begin to happen. Next thing, Dimitri is waking up in the morgue as he had been declared dead. Now he has a ghost with him, whom he names Poe. Poe is trying to tell Dimitri something, Lisa doesn't want Dimitri to look into the strange happenings as her brother had done that and ended up trying to kill her.
Dimitri is likeable enough and the story is engaging at times but can also be convoluted. The ending is bizarre. The writing also struck me as amateurish and this seemed more of a YA novel to me. I finished it but I doubt I will want to read the sequel that is sure to come.

I've been curious for a while about the Amazon Break-Through Novel Awards, and so with Halloween on the horizon and a driving urge to read more horror (i.e. scary stuff but not too gruesome) I picked out Poe by J. Lincoln Fenn when I saw it offered by the publisher for review. For the most part, I got exactly what I was looking for. Ghosts, spirits, bloody, scary bits, bad guys getting what was coming to them and sometimes the good guys too. I was interested in the overarching theme of the novel, but there were quite a few detours that had to be explored first before getting to the ending I desired.

Read the rest of this review at The Lost Entwife on Nov. 9, 2013.

Book Info: Genre: Dark Urban Fantasy
Reading Level: Adult
Recommended for: fans of dark urban fantasy/horror
Book Available: Oct. 22, 2013 in paperback, Audiobook and e-book formats
Trigger Warnings: violence, murder

My Thoughts: While this book is essentially horror, or dark fantasy, it is also very funny. Dimitri has a wonderfully sarcastic and snarky way of looking at the world, and the way he messes with Nate and Bob is a beautiful thing to see. The prologue pulls you right into the mystery of the story, and then the story pops back a day to give the events leading up to there, which include a lot of very funny situations and statements, at least through the first half of the book or so. After that things become more serious.

The only major gripe I had was when his father was talking to Grigoriy and calls him by his last name. This is just not done in Russia. The father would have called him by his first name and patronymic, or by a pet name. I think the author was just trying to make sure we caught who he was talking about, but it was kind of annoying.

But that was a small thing, really, and the book was otherwise quite good. If you like dark urban fantasy and/or horror you should enjoy this book quite a lot.

Disclosure: I received an ARC from Amazon Vine in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Synopsis: It’s Halloween, and life is grim for 23-year-old Dimitri Petrov. It’s the one-year anniversary of his parents’ deaths, he’s stuck on page one thousand of his Rasputin zombie novel, and he makes his living writing obituaries.

But things turn from bleak to terrifying when Dimitri gets a last-minute assignment to cover a séance at the reputedly haunted Aspinwall Mansion.

There, Dimitri meets Lisa, a punk-rock drummer he falls hard for. But just as he’s about to ask her out, he unwittingly unleashes malevolent forces, throwing him into a deadly mystery. When Dimitri wakes up, he is in the morgue—icy cold and haunted by a cryptic warning given by a tantalizing female spirit.

As town residents begin to turn up gruesomely murdered, Dimitri must play detective in his own story and unravel the connections among his family, the Aspinwall Mansion, the female spirit, and the secrets held in a pair of crumbling antiquarian books. If he doesn’t, it’s quite possible Lisa will be the next victim.

Would you ever make a deal with the devil? What do you really have to lose?