Stephen Gregory (1)Critiques

Begun reading this during quarantine but did not feel like finishing it. Reckon, the theme is just nitrolpost@hotmail.com my cup of tea.

Christmas 1966 and the boys at the remote Foxwood Manor boarding school have all gone home for the holidays – except for one. Alan Scott, whose mother has left him to spend Christmas at the school with the headmaster Dr Kemp and his wife. The quiet and calm is shattered when former pupil Martin Pryce arrives with his girlfriend Sophie, hellbent on revenge and destruction…a cat and mouse game ensues, which culminates in a horrific climax on Christmas Day.

Ohhh, I so wanted to like this book. It had a small cast, one location and a claustrophobic atmosphere, all of which should have made this a winner for me. But although I did finish it, it left me cold. I didn’t like any of the characters, not even really the young boy Alan. The book never makes it clear if Martin’s motivation for his actions was genuine or not – was he telling the truth or making things up? Did he even believe what he himself was saying? This is never resolved (possibly deliberately) and the thread is left hanging. There was a supernatural element which didn’t really work for me either, and I could have done without the completely unnecessary side angle of the bird in the barn.

It’s not often a book makes me feel like this, but it left me feeling on a downer and I was very relieved to finish it and move on. It wasn’t that the writing was bad – it wasn’t – and I have to agree that the setting of Foxwood Manor was suitably creepy for a creepy thriller, but unfortunately I did not enjoy this at all, and only finished it because once I start a book I can never let myself not read the whole thing.½

Oliver Gooch is given a tooth from an old man and with the tooth comes a handwritten note from 1888 that says that the tooth is from the boy Edgar Allan Poe. Oliver displays the tooth in his new bookshop and names the bookshop Poe's Tooth Books. The bookshop is located in an old converted church where Oliver lives with his wife Rosie and daughter Cloe. Cloe hasn't been herself since she was hit by a car 9 month's earlier and it's thanks to the insurance money that they could buy the old church. Cloe hasn't said a word since the day she was hit by the car and Rosie hopes that she will snap out of it, but Oliver, who's neglect of Cloe feels guilty about the accident, likes the new Cloe who is so much easier to handle.

Then one cold night he and Cloe finds a crow, and the crow refuses to leave the old church and slowly its presence in the old church starts to affect the family...



How can you not be drawn into a book that starts with: “Cloe had her tongue stuck on Robin Hood's thigh”. I mean WTF? This book managed to draw me into the story from the first page. This was not a, oh perhaps I will get into the story after a while, and I was immensely grateful for that since the last two fiction books I read was pretty hard to get through.

Stephen Gregory writes fantastically great. You wonder, is the tooth cursed, or is everything that happens just coincidence? Is Oliver drinking too much (well yes) and hallucinating? What the hell is wrong with the crow? Is the tooth really Poe's and is it connected to the crow? Is the crow Poe? Will Cloe get better? What the hell is going on? Perhaps Oliver is going mad...

Towards the end the story lost a bit of speed, I really felt that this is Oliver drinking himself mad and everything is in his head, and I had no idea how the hell Gregory would be able to finish this off well. But he did it, he manages to write an ending that made me question everything I thought during Oliver's drunken nights.

It's a great book and I'm looking forward to reading more from Stephen Gregory!

Disclaimer: The quote I used from the book may not end up in the finished version of the book!

Thank you Netgalley for providing me with a free copy for an honest review!

There is potentially a great short story here, but it gets padded out to novel/novella length and has a couple of other problems. The novel is about possession in its various forms from the supernatural kind we expect to the possessiveness of things, memories, other's lives, the dead, the past, even the future; things we both yearn to possess and those things that possess us.

We scream early on for the protagonist, Christopher Beale, to get out of this madhouse of Chalke House but he is so "possessed" by his nightly drunk and jump nihilism that he barely seems to care what happens except that it makes his summer fun end. We know from his backstory, so reminiscent of Heart of Darkness, that he is one of these people that is trapped by the meaninglessness of it all. Only the admission of his failing father to a nursing home motivates his return to England and his escape from the possession of his daily swirl around the drain of his life as an alcoholic teacher in Borneo, only to end up here in another trap of inaction. He keeps telling us how things are getting back to normal each day in Chalke House only to have them roll out to such bizarre extremes that it's hard to believe he is going to stick around for the sex and alcohol that is keeping him. I guess it's basically Hamlet's dilemma for Beale.

The problem with the whole thing is you are literally bludgeoned by a symbolism that cries out to be more subtle, more metaphoric and not so spelled out. The subtitle is even: A novel of possession. I haven't read anything else by Gregory but here you almost get them impression that he's saying "Look how clever I am with this symbol, It doesn't mean exactly what it seems," where we end up feeling: "well that's exactly what the author means." Because of overuse of the overt symbolic it makes the ending almost inevitable, and the message that we possess almost nothing, seems so obvious, that we really don't care that much about the tragedy that unfolds.

See it could have been great, but for the lack of subtlety.

Things get weird in Wales
it's not just the creepy bird
justice for Archie.

Merry Christmas, kid
the crows got all the presents
they'll eat well tonight.

Many thanks to Solaris Books for the ARC via NetGalley.

The premise and the setting of this novel are ideal and bursting with potential. The writing, while occasionally bordering on the pretentious (for indeed such is our narrator) shows a keen sense of space and atmosphere, with descriptions that assail the senses and transport the reader directly in the midst of the action by sheer visceral force.
There are many nods and parallels to Poe - a real field day for fans - but in my humble opinion the author made a rather forced effort to point them out. A good direction the book could have taken for better effect would have been a series of subtle references to one or more of Poe's tales, deliberately expecting and assuming the reader's prior knowledge. This would not only increase the sense of impending doom, but also make the book more complex and layered and strengthen the unreliability of the narrator.
A deeply unsettling read on many levels - the mounting tension is admirably paced, and produces an unassailable dread combined with the constant feeling that something is "off" with Oliver.
There are several scenes that could benefit from a rewrite to ensure maximum terror and minimum confusion. While letting the reader wonder if what they witnessed was real or just a dream, a hallucination, an illusion is a good strategy in works of this nature, it is not meant to be overused and actually clarifying certain points and tying up some loose ends could do no harm. (Example: What became of the white worms nestled in Rosie's festering wound? Even if they turned out not to be real, it would have been nice to mention them again later by way of closure. You know, Chekhov's gun and all that - why mention something unless you plan to use it to its fullest potential?)
By all means, however, a rewarding read, as it certainly delivers thrills and chills one way or another.

I'm going to go ahead and award this one the full five stars. That's right. It rocked!

Picked up yesterday afternoon around 4 pm, finished today around 4pm, this story left me with visions of this bird,(and its streaming jets of shit), bouncing around in my head. The other reviews go into the set up so I will leave that off and just tell you how this story made me feel.

At times, it seemed ridiculous...I mean, really- it's just a big black-ish/greenish/blue-ish bird-what's the big deal, right? But... but what about when in the dead of night your toddler is frozen at the window staring out at the (it's just a)bird in its pen? And the bird, standing with wings spread, totally still,is staring back? Is it a big deal then? That's not even anywhere close to a few other scenes which turned my bones to ice and my skin to goosebumps.

This book rocketed by because I wanted to give it every spare minute. I highly recommend it to fans of quiet 80's horror. Also recommended to fans of scenes that chill to the bone, and images that sear into the brain. Bravo!

*A free copy of this book was provided by Valancourt Books in exchange for an honest review. This is it.*

4.5 stars!

Yesterday the fourth and final stave of Plague of Gulls was released. Unfortunately, I was so tired I didn't get to read it until today. I finished the book just now, and I'm a little stunned. So much happened in the last two staves of this book, it was crazy! I never saw any of it coming and I love when that happens. Now, I can add this book to my list of favorites, which already includes a couple of Mr. Gregory's books.

This reading experiment by The Pigeonhole was a big success as far as I'm concerned. Delayed gratification is sometimes difficult and it was hard to wait for each stave to be released. If I had my druthers, I would have sat my butt down and read this story all in one sitting. I will admit though, that the waiting increased my anticipation and whetted my appetite.

As I mentioned in previous posts, certain parts of the website become available as staves are released. This time it was a story from a young woman that was attacked by a gull trying to get her pasties. (Apparently, this is a food from across the pond that looks like a Hot Pocket, not the items that women wear, as it means here.) I've also previously mentioned that there is a discussion board there. This past week, Mr. Gregory himself showed up and I thought that was super cool.

All that's left in this experiment is to see how The Pigeonhole charges for the book. (It was very inexpensive, at only .85 USD for each stave, and there is no charge until you've received all 4 staves. However, you do have to give a credit card number to subscribe.) I can't see anything going wrong with that-it's all very straightforward .

I'm looking forward to doing this again in the future, depending on the books and/or authors available. It was a lot of fun, made even more pleasurable by the fact that the book was superb. Thanks to The Pigeonhole and to Mr. Gregory for the opportunity to experience something new in the world of reading.

4.5/5 stars!

Stephen Gregory knocked me off my feet with his novel, [b:The Cormorant|810050|The Cormorant|Stephen Gregory|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1516837936l/810050._SY75_.jpg|906121]. Since that time I've tried to read everything he's written. Valancourt Books has been the sole reason I discovered this author. For that, and many other reasons, I am grateful to them.

These stories have one thing in common and that is winged creatures. Be they cormorants, (the seed for that novel is a short story in this volume), moths, sparrows or crows, they're all here. Not all of these stories are horror or dark fiction either. Some of these tales are light hearted, some just quick literary vignettes and others, like THE BOY WHO WOULDN'T WAKE UP are beautifully written and almost brutally poignant, (it was my favorite story in this collection)

THE PROGRESS OF JOHN ARTHUR CRABBE, THE DREAMING PIG, THE DROWNING OF COLIN HENDERSON, and THE BLACKBIRD'S SONG were my other favorites, but to be honest, all of the stories were good.

ON DARK WINGS is an elegant, exquisitely written collection of tales. There is something about Gregory's descriptive talents that pulls me in, each and every time I read his work. A wide range of tales, not all horror, and some not dark at all, but all involving the wings of...something. Here it's Gregory's writing that soars. At this point, I would read his grocery list.

My highest recommendation!

Get your copy here: https://amzn.to/34d9NaY

*Thanks to Valancourt Books for the e-ARC of this collection in exchange for my honest feedback. This is it.*

Stephen Gregory strikes gold again with this creepy, literary, psychological story. That's the best description I can come up with for this horrific tale. I hesitate to put a horror label on this story because it's SO MUCH MORE than that.
 
Mr. Gregory's prose is sublime, as always, and often chilling. I had goose flesh quite a few times while reading this story full of madness, confusion, ghosts?, psychopaths?, alcohol and a mother's love. 
 
The synopsis goes into the plot of this story, so I will not. Instead, I want to talk about my impressions. The subtitle of this book is "A dark novel of possession". I've been thinking about what that means. There were no Exorcist moments here. No heads turning 'round or pea soup spouting out. (What were there were quiet moments, punctuated with scenes of extreme violence and chilling madness.) Perhaps the possession mentioned in the subtitle is referring to the fact that we can't hold on to things in this life. Not people, not things, sometimes not even our memories. Perhaps this novel is about what happens when we cannot let these possessions, or people, go? That's how I choose to see it, anyway. Future or other readers, I would be happy to talk to you about what you thought in the comments below.
 
To mention the prose once again, it's beautiful and mostly simple, yet effective. (Though I had to break out my Kindle dictionary a couple of times.) I've tried to analyze it and that's the best I can come up with. Check out this quote below. 
 

I went up to the tower. I thought I might find the woman and the boy there, in bed together. Or the boy and his father, enjoying some quality time, a dead man and a mad boy chuckling and joshing and exchanging their stories of being dead and being mad.

There you have it. No big words, nothing pretentious, just a few chilling sentences, made all the more chilling by the almost careless way they're related. Mr. Gregory is a MASTER at this and he has never failed at pulling it off.
 
Overall, this story was awesome! I don't know any other way to put it. If this book sounds even a little bit interesting to you, I recommend you grab it, read it and come back. We'll talk. :)
 
My highest recommendation!

Stephen Gregory is a genius! Let me tell you why.

First, here is the set up for this story:

"Oliver took the money from his small daughter Chloe's accident insurance and bought a converted church to live in with his altered child and wife. Rosie hopes Chloe will came back to herself but Oliver is secretly relieved to have this new easy-to-manage child, and holds at bay the guilt that the accident was a result of his negligence. On a freezing night he and Chloe come across the crow, a raggedy skeletal wretch of a bird, and it refuses to leave. It infiltrates their lives, it alters Oliver's relationship with Rosie, it changes Chloe. It's a dangerous presence in the firelit, shadowy old vestry, in Poe's Tooth Books.
Inexorably the family, the tooth, the crow, the church and their story will draw to a terrifying climax."

This tale is a lot more complicated than the synopsis makes it out to be. There is a sense of creeping, building dread that, at times, becomes intense. You know something is coming but you can't get a handle on what it will be.

There are several-I'll just call them "uncomfortable moments" sprinkled throughout this book. The reader ends up off balance, questioning, confused. Wait, is that normal? What's he doing? Is that a European thing? I would love to say more about this, but I can't without spoilers. Suffice it to say this book has a lot of WTF moments, and my opinion is that the author masterfully placed them there just to mess with us.( So yeah,genius ! )

This story also seems to be an homage to Edgar Allan Poe himself, so much so that...well I can't say. It all becomes mixed up: Poe, the tooth, the crow, heavy drinking and guilt. What's real? What's not? You're going to have to read it to find out.

I am now a full fledged Stephen Gregory fan. The Cormorant blew me away and this novel is right up there on that same level. Mr. Gregory produces beautifully written, literary, atmospheric stories that resonate with the reader. I will be thinking about Poe's Tooth Bookshop and that crow for a long, long time.

Highly recommended for not only fans of horror, but also for fans of literary fiction and psychological tales. This book is not easily categorized, but it's worth reading, if only to watch a genius at work.

I received this eARC from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review and this is it.

a good little thriller, read it in an evening.½

The Blood Of Angels by Stephen Gregory is the strangest book I have ever read. It starts off extremely slow. However, if you can get past the first 120 pages you will not want to stop reading it until the end.
I won't tell you what happens in it in case you decide to read it. But it just begins as the rather normal man's obsession with a woman. From there it gets weird, & then just more & more strange until the end of the book. By then you are thinking "What the [beep]???"

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