26 May 2017

The Secret of Ventriloquism

Horror

By Jon Padgett

Paperback 200 pages
Publisher Dunhams Manor Press (17th Oct 2016)
ASIN B01N0YB19V 
ISBN-13 978-0692799642







📕My Review

An entertaining collection of very strange short stories unlike anything I've read before. I'm not sure what to make of them except to say that they are incredibly weird. They need to be read in the order they appear in the book due to recurring themes. The writing is faultless and the atmosphere is dark and creepy. This is a book that makes you think about it for a long time afterwards.

My thanks to author Jon Padgett for a providing a copy of this book.

Barnsey's Books Rating ⭐⭐⭐

📗The Blurb

Jon Padgett's The Secret of Ventriloquism, named the Best Fiction Book of 2016 by Rue Morgue Magazine, heralds the arrival of a significant new literary talent. With themes reminiscent of Shirley Jackson, Thomas Ligotti, and Bruno Schulz, but with a strikingly unique vision, Padgett's work explores the mystery of human suffering, the agony of personal existence, and the ghastly means by which someone might achieve salvation from both. A bullied child seeks vengeance within a bed's hollow box spring. A lucid dreamer is haunted by an impossible house. A dummy reveals its own anatomy in 20 simple steps. A stuttering librarian holds the key to a mill town's unspeakable secrets. A commuter's worldview is shattered by two words printed on a cardboard sign. An aspiring ventriloquist spends a little too much time looking at himself in a mirror. And a presence speaks through them all.

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