Book can be purchased at the author’s web site at www.leonardbassed.com

Does anyone remember going into a video rental store, running across a slew of low-budget supernatural movies, and getting goose bumps by just looking at the freaky VHS cover arts?

If you're old enough, then you probably know exactly what I'm talking about. Well, I had that same feeling when I first laid eyes on the art cover art for the novella The Witch Port Video Game by writer-singer-actor Lenoard Bassed. Ironically, the author had originally intended to write a movie script instead of a book but eventually he decided to turn his idea into a YA novella.

“I was able to spend more time developing the characters and their world…the whole thing was just such an organic experience and extremely enjoyable, creative for me.” ~ Leonard Bassed

The plot centers around three school friend - Martin, Mackenzie, and Francesca - from a fictional town called Cradle Creek, who get introduced to a new video game called The Witch Port from a new acquaintance, Bianca Morris. At first glance, it looks like a simple sorcery game but they quickly realize it's actually real when the mysterious MacQuoid brothers arrive, as they are identical to characters in the game. Already freaked out enough, the teens start exhibiting supernatural abilities. Now they must literally play "The Witch Port" if they are to survive all this madness.

AMAZON

I was constantly reading Stephen King horror novels back when I was a teenager in the mid 1990s. While I still read his books from time to time, I haven't had the chance to read his last three or four books, though I do own them. However, I did find the time read Mr. King's newest title Elevation, which is a very short novella.

Set in Castle Rock, Maine, Elevation centers around an overweight middle-aged divorcee named Scott Carey, who finds himself in a strange situations. According to his Ozeri scale, he is losing two or three pounds per day, but he hasn't psychically lost any weight. Well, at least to the naked eye he he hasn't.

Scott's bizarre weight problem has baffled his longtime friend Bob Ellis, a retried doctor, who doesn't have any real answers to why he's losing weight.

The more pounds he drops on the scale, the lighter Scott becomes, which isn't a totally bad thing at first. He uses his newfound lightness to enter a 12k run, so he can "fix" the rocky relationship he has had with his new neighbors, Deirdre McComb and her wife Missy Donaldson, who own a local restaurant.

While Scott's lifestyle has improved since he started losing weight, he knows his happiness will be short lived, as his ability to stay grounded to Earth will not last forever.

Final Thoughts

AMAZON

Why do I have a fascination about Lizzie Borden?

Ever since I read a kid-friendly Lizzie Borden biography when I was in elementary school, I've been intrigued with what actually happened inside the Borden household on August 4, 1892. While you can easily conclude that Lizzie was the #1 suspect in the murders of her father and stepmother, there was no concrete proof that she was the murderer.

Over the years, there have been many fictionalized versions of Lizzie Borden, such as the LIFETIME movie Lizzie Borden Takes An Axe and the sequel miniseries The Lizzie Borden Chronicles, and this year's feature film, Lizzie. There have also been several fictionalized novels, such as "Lizzie Borden, Zombie Hunter" by C.A. Verstraete, who gave the Lizzie Borden tale a supernatural twist involving a zombie epidemic in Fall River, Massachusetts. You can read my review for the book here!

A sequel, titled Lizzie Borden, Zombie Hunter 2: The Axe Will Fall, was released earlier this year. It picks up shortly after the ending events of the the first book. After being acquitted of her parent's murders, Lizzie doesn't get a chance to move on with her life, as she must team-up with her self-defense instructor, Pierre, to stop a zombie outbreak from destroying Fall River. In order to permanently put an end to the threat, Lizzie and Pierre must first find the original source to the outbreak, which does have a connection to her later father's business.

However, finding out what started the outbreak might be Lizzie's undoing!

Bethany House; 348 pages; Amazon

Considering the fact I am a big Game of Thrones fan, I have only read a handful of fantasy novels. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against the genre. It's just there aren't too many standalone fantasies and most of them are part of a series, which is just something I just don't have time for these days.

As you can probably guess, I wasn't planning on reading a new fantasy novel, but that's exactly what I've been up to for the last two days - reading the soon-to-be-released "Mark Of The Raven" by Morgan L. Busse.

Mark Of The Raven is the first book in the all-new Ravenwood Saga series. It centers Lady Selene, a young woman who is the heir to the House of Ravenwood. Just like her mother, Lady Ragna, she is a dreamwalker, which is someone who has the ability to enter a person's dream and use their fears & desires to manipulate them. While her mother considers dreamwalking a gift, Selene considers it somewhat of a curse.

In the dreamworld, Selene turns herself into a raven, so her unexpected victims won't recognize her. The more time she spends there, the more she learns about Ravenwood's dark secrets. Secrets that could destroy her family's legacy forever.

After being assigned to assassinate Damien, a man who could possibly bring peace to the nations, Selene must make the decision to stay loyal to her family or rebel against them. 

KNOPF: 275 pages; $27.95; Amazon

The Gothic-horor author Anne Rice didn't hit my radar until I was teenager in the mid-90s after I had watched the edited version of Interview with the Vampire on network television. Shortly later, I bought the film on VHS. Well, my parents bought the movie since I was underage at the time and the movie was rated R. That lead me to seek out Anne Rice's novels, which I believe I got the first three books in the The Vampire Chronicles at Barnes & Noble. To make a long story short, I was obsessed with reading anything written by the author throughout my high school years. While my tastes for books have changed as I have gotten older, I still read every new novel in the series.

The 13th novel in The Vampire Chronicles, titled Blood Communion, was released this month from KNOPF. It's under 300 pages, making it the shortest entry in the series.

Blood Communion takes place after the events Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis, where the Prince is telling his life story to the Blood Communion (aka Vampires). The first few chapters is basically a recap of all the previous books; telling us readers (or vampires) about Prince Lestat's past. Then the novel shifts towards the main plot involving the death of the ancient vampire Maharet by the hands of Rhoshamandes, the Child of the Millennia, a demon spirit who refuses to live by the laws set by Prince Lestat.