Book Review: Night Stalker by R.L. Weeks

Cover of this book was taken from Amazon for review purposes under Fair Use Doctrine. 

Spoiler Free Summary: Night Stalker by TR.L. Weeks was my 2017 September Book Cover of the Month. Casey is a young woman who’s husband died. She’s haunted by reoccurring nightmares in which a stranger inflicts great pain upon her. One day, she rediscovers that not only is the man of her nightmares real, but he’s working against her supernaturally resurrected dead husband, who now only seeks pleasure in the suffering of mortals.

Character:  Casey is actually pretty proactive, but that’s what bothers me. She’s too quick to swoon and too quick to accept things for my taste. She also seems incredibly naive, and while that would be okay if that was her character arch in which she grew more discerning, but that’s not the plot. Rather than let the conflict of her clashing worlds drive the story in interesting directions, the character is forced along, which makes her feel hard to believe.

Exposition: I was probably affected by the first person narrative here, but it felt like every conversation in the story was just another info-dump session on the history and world building of this world. This results in getting told a lot, and not much quality seeing.

World building:  I got the feeling this is where the author put the bulk of her energy.  The world is as thought out as I’d ask any world to be. The lore seems deep. The society of the creatures was a bit cliche, but it was well-developed.

Title image for R.L. Weeks taken from her Amazon Page for review puroposes under Fair Use Doctrine.

Dialogue: I touched on this above. I’m of the opinion that every conversation in this story (ok, most of them) consisted of convincing Casey to more or less come to the dark side or explain to Casey this world the author spent ages fleshing out. When the conversation wasn’t about those things, it was the less that subtle Twilightesque love story.

Description: This was well done. I got the imagery I needed without bogging the story down. It had a decent mix of detail and room for imagination.

Overall: First, I have to note that I listened to this book on Audible, and it simply wasn’t well produced. There were lines read multiple times. Some lines were cut off. You could hear the narrator taking breaths. I swear I even once heard a dog barking in the background. The narrator read at this tone that seemed at a constant near-tears whine that got old fast. If I’m being honest, the lack of quality audio engineering probably ruined what fairness I could offer the actual story. I was giving the story a try until I felt like I was reading something that felt too much like Twilight, which I’ve never read, but I hated the movie and don’t particularly want to read a story that feels too much like, “let me love this monster to life.”  When it works, it’s amazing, but this story leaves without much resolved, and the main character’s unrealistic reactions just didn’t work for me. That said, if you like melodramatic love stories (and a great many people do) this story is right up your alley, only I strongly recommend you avoid the Audible version.

I don’t typically give reviews like this. Most stories always have something that I can cling to and study. I don’t ever want to bash, and I hope I stopped before I got to “bashing status.”  This last section is simply me explaining that even this story deserves a chance if you’re in the writers’ audience. Please don’t let my own biases affect your willingness to give a story a try. No, I didn’t enjoy this story much, but yo might, and I’d like to hear why.

Thanks for reading,

Matt

The 2017 M.L.S. Weech Book Cover of the Year Bracket Starts Now!

Hello all and Happy New Year!

I’ve been building to this for quite some time, and I’m so excited to kick things off. This is it! Twelve Book Covers of the Month join four Wild Card Book Covers to comprise a sixteen-book tournament to determine which one will rule them all!

If you like, you can take a look at each book cover’s winning announcement: December, January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, and The Wild Cards.

346 book covers. 43,724 votes. All leading to this tournament! The covers were ranked 1-16 by the number of total votes each received. That means the cover that received the most votes (Loveless) is going up against the Wild Card that received the fewest votes. (The Girl Who Could See), and so on and so forth.

You can vote all the way through the tournament, supporting the covers you like best through each round. I like to make sure people get the credit they deserve, so please show your support. Please vote and share as much as possible to get people a chance to pick their favorite.

As always, I’d appreciate it if you tag the authors and artists if you know them. I try to tag or friend every author I can, but sometimes it’s hard to track someone down. Max participation is a huge deal to me. The more people who vote, the more recognition these authors and artists receive, and I want this to be as legitimate as possible.

Image taken from Pixabay.

If you are the author, let’s remember to be good sports! 1) Please feel free to message or contact me at any time. 2) Please feel free to like, share, text, ask for support, and call everyone you know. I absolutely want max participation. However, if you’re going to offer giveaways or prizes, please offer them for voting, not just voting for you.

Also, while your summoning your army of voting soldiers, please make sure you ask them to vote in every match. Part of the idea of this is to get exposure to as many artists and authors as possible. By all means, if you can get 1,000 people to vote for your book, do it. Just please also send some eyeballs to the other matches.

A final note to authors and artists: I currently have links to the books’ Amazon pages. If you’d prefer I switch that link to sign up for your newsletter or like your social media page or whatever, just send me the link and let me know. I want this to help you. I want this to be as helpful as possible, so whatever you need me to do to facilitate that, just let me know.

It’s been fun, but, as I mentioned when I announced the Wild Card Winners, I’d like to end this tournament on a high note. I’m trying to get 10,000 total votes. Please, tell everyone. Get people to vote. I want this trophy to mean something, and it’ll frankly mean more as more people vote.

Also, if you’re wondering where the 2018 December’s Book Cover of the Month bracket is, worry not. That bracket will kick off RIGHT after the BCOTY ends. So this month will be pretty full and by the time we get to Feb. 1, people might be pretty tired of it. I’m not sure what else to do about it, so I’m open to ideas, but this is what I got right now.

I hope you keep having fun. Please, vote, share, and discuss as much as possible.

All you have to do now is head over here to vote!

Thanks for reading,

Matt

Announcing the September Book Cover of the Month

Hello everyone,

The September Book Cover of the Month bracket has just wrapped up. Regrettably, it is officially the record holder for the least voted on month in the bracket’s history. These things happen sometime. I’ll work harder to spread word, but I still want to thank everyone who did get involved. These brackets are special to me, and they grow more legitimate and meaningful each time we keep heading forward.

We had 2,092 votes this month. Here’s hoping this month holds the record for a long time.

We’ll keep moving on, but today is all about celebrating this month’s winner.

The September Book Cover of the Month is…

 

 

 

 

Night Stalker by R.L. Weeks! If you’re curious about how I felt about the book, check out the Facebook post that I posted when this book first landed on the bracket, here.

Let’s look at the stats!

Weeks received 162 total votes. This was honestly a close fight in terms of votes, but Weeks took the lead with about four days to go and didn’t let go.

The Festival of Trial and Ember Forest finished second, which means that’ll have another chance to be the Book Cover of the Month for October.

That said, Weeks is the winner this month, so let’s look at her book.

 

 

Amazon:

(START BLURB)

Casey and George are traveling around Japan’s notorious suicide forest when they see something move in the tree line and Casey can’t shake the feeling that someone has been following them.

Later that night, Casey wakes up to find a woman in their room. After breaking free of the woman’s entrancement, Casey wakes George, who convinces her it was just a dream.
George has been acting off since their visit to Japan. Now they’re home, the worst happens and George is killed in a freak accident.

It’s one year later and she’s about to leave her small hometown, Pleasant Springs – in hopes that her nightmares would end. Since his death, her dreams have been haunted by a mystery guy who is hellbent on causing her pain, but, before she makes it to the airport, Casey is kidnapped and taken to the hotel from her nightmares.

She is plunged into a creepy world filled with the supernatural, underground cities, and sick games.

Her mystery guy tells her he is trying to save her from the others. However, her ex – George could be behind her kidnapping in the most sinister way.
Nothing is as it seems in the dark world of the Stalkers.

(END BLURB)

As always, I’ve purchased the book and added it to my TBR. (For those who are new to the deal, I buy the Book Cover of the Month to read and review in the future. I bought Manning’s cover, Howard’s cover, Deyo’s cover, Jones’s Cover, Hubert’s Cover,  MacNiven’s cover,  Jon del Arroz’s, Rob J. Hayes’s, and Chris Philbrook’s They are also on my TBR. Manning’s review is here.  Howard’s review is here. Deyo’s review is here. I’ve read Jones’s book, and I’ll post a review for it in a few weeks.

Here’s Weeks’s Facebook page. Give it a like if you’re curious about her and her work.

I don’t know who the artist is yet, but I’ll see if Weeks will help with that.

The October bracket is still under development, but it looks good so far. It’ll kick of Nov. 1.

I will continue to identify and select covers for each day from Amazon’s New Release section for fantasy and science fiction. If you follow and like my Facebook page, you can see what covers will make the bracket.

Thanks for reading

Matt

September Book Cover of the Month Midway Update

Greetings all,

With just about seven days left in this month’s bracket, I thought this would be a good chance to update you all on how things have been progressing. Unfortunately, this is a very slow month. How slow? It’s in the running for the least-voted (full month) competition. (December didn’t have a full 32 entries.)

933 votes so far. Now, as few votes as we’ve had, I will say it’s a very close fight.

For a Few Credits More, edited by Chris Kennedy and Mark Wandrey, has had the lead for a few days now.

Most Voted on so far: Scars of the Sand by Frank Dorrian has the most total votes so far with 74.

Least Voted for: Seeds of Blood by C. Chancy. This cover only has a total of seven votes. I think it’s deserving of more than that even if the voters feel it’s not deserving of the championship.

The other good news is that the championships are the closest round. There are essentially three books right in the hunt for the championship. Credits, Sand, and The Festival of Tiral and Ember by Logan Miehl are all within three “finals” votes of each other. This means if either book gets three people to vote them all the way through, they’re right back in the winners’ circle.

A quick reminder of how the tournament works. The easiest way to win is to have the most people vote for you in every round. The trick is you have to have the most people vote you through in each round, all the way to the final.  As an example, 100 people could vote someone through to the finals, but that doesn’t do a cover any good if he doesn’t win the first round. It’s not total votes. It’s not simple championship votes. The winning cover has to have the most votes in each round of the competition.
Since this is such a slow month, ANYONE can win if they can get nine people to vote them all the way through to the championships.

 

This will be the only update for this type of bracket. It’s been an amazing tournament to watch thus far, and I hope readers continue to support their authors by voting, liking, and sharing the bracket with as many people as possible.  You can vote at this address!

I’ll announce the winner is just seven days!

Thanks for reading,

Matt

The September Book Cover of the Month

Happy first everyone! (In my opinion this one took way to long getting here!) If you’re curious or new, check out the Book Covers for December, January, February, March, April, May, June, July, and August.

September’s bracket has 30 new books. Last month’s second and third place, Black Ruins Forest by Karen DuBose and Lucky or Not, Here I come, by Gerry Orz, have a second chance to win the monthly title.

You can vote all the way through the tournament, supporting the covers you like best through each round. I like to make sure people get the credit they deserve, so please show your support. Please vote and share as much as possible to get people a chance to pick their favorite.

As always, I’d appreciate it if you tag the authors and artists if you know them. I try to tag or friend every author I can, but sometimes it’s hard to track someone down. Max participation is a huge deal to me. The more people who vote, the more recognition these authors and artists receive, and I want this to be as legitimate as possible.

Image taken from Pixabay.

If you are the author, let’s remember to be good sports! 1) Please feel free to message or contact me at any time. 2) Please feel free to like, share, text, ask for support, and call everyone you know. I absolutely want max participation. However, if you’re going to offer giveaways or prizes, please offer them for voting, not just voting for you.

Also, while your summoning your army of voting soldiers, please make sure you ask them to vote in every match. Part of the idea of this is to get exposure to as many artists and authors as possible. By all means, if you can get 1,000 people to vote for your book, do it. Just please also send some eyeballs to the other matches.

A final note to authors and artists: I currently have links to the books’ Amazon pages. If you’d prefer I switch that link to sign up for your newsletter or like your social media page or whatever, just send me the link and let me know. I want this to help you. I want this to be as helpful as possible, so whatever you need me to do to facilitate that, just let me know.

I hope you keep having fun. Please, vote, share, and discuss as much as possible.

All you have to do now is head over here to vote!

Thanks for reading,

Matt