Snowball

Horror
⭐A 2020 Top Rated Read⭐

By Gregory Bastianelli

Print Length 256 pages

Publisher Flame Tree Press (30th Jan 2020)

📕My Review

I'm so pleased I was given the opportunity to read this book. It was unusual, quirky and weirdly addictive!

A group of motorists making their way home for the Christmas festivities are stranded on a deserted highway by a fierce blizzard. As the storm rages on and the snow deepens, it becomes obvious they wont be rescued any time soon. Taking refuge in an old couple's RV with access to food and drink, they plan on sitting tight and waiting it out. To pass the time they recount stories of their worst winter memories and realise they may not have ended up stranded by chance — they all have a connection in common.

Seeing a light glowing in the distance from the window of the RV, they decide they must attempt to reach it if they're to stand any chance of survival. But what they find isn't what they expected and their situation just got a whole lot worse!

This book is my first Top Rated Read of 2020. The story is highly original with well-developed characters. It has an eeriness about it that keeps the reader engaged and voraciously devouring pages. Tension builds as hopelessness sets in. It's wonderfully creepy and atmospheric; a story of survival in the most bizarre set of circumstances.           

Book Source: Review copy from the publisher

Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

📗The Blurb

A group of motorists become stranded on a lonely stretch of highway during a Christmas Eve blizzard and fight for survival against an unnatural force in the storm. The gathered survivors realize a tenuous connection among them means it may not be a coincidence that they all ended up on this highway. An attempt to seek help leads a few of the travelers to a house in the woods where a twisted toymaker with a mystical snow globe is hell bent on playing deadly games with a group of people just trying to get home for the holidays.

📘The Author

Gregory Bastianelli is the author of the novels, "Loonies" and "Jokers Club." His stories have appeared in the magazines Black Ink Horror, Sinister Tales and Beyond Centauri; the anthologies "Night Terrors II", "Cover of Darkness" and "Encounters"; and the online magazines "Absent Willow Review" and "Down in the Cellar". Gregory's novella "The Lair of the Mole People" appeared in the pulp anthology "Men & Women of Mystery Vol. II".

He graduated from the University of New Hampshire where he studied writing under instructors Mark Smith, Thomas Williams and Theodore Weesner. Gregory worked for nearly two decades at a small daily newspaper, where the highlights of his career were interviewing shock rocker Alice Cooper and B-Movie icon Bruce Campbell.

He became enchanted with the stories of Ray Bradbury as a young child, and his love of horror grew with the likes of Richard Matheson, Robert Bloch, Stephen King and Ramsey Campbell.

Gregory lives in Dover, NH, in a Colonial home built in the 1700s. He enjoys kayaking, hiking and bicycling in the summer and snowshoeing and racquetball in the winter. Along with spending time with family, he enjoys traveling ... especially to Italy, where he has visited his ancestral home and relatives residing there, also hiking the Path of the Gods on the Amalfi Coast and to the top of Mount Vesuvius.

Gregory Bastianelli is a member of the Horror Writers Association and the New England Horror Writers.

Gregory Bastianelli's website