Melody Writes

Vampire Hunters combines several things that I love - found fiction, creepy atmosphere, history, and monstrous vampires. This collection is dark, gripping, and genuinely scary. Beginning in ancient Greece and continuing to the modern day, these twenty-two tales offer a rich variety of vampire lore told through a collection of letters and diary entries compiled over the centuries. Presenting the stories as historical records only adds to the unsettling nature of the work and adds a sense of realism few books possess. Tying all these stories together is a sort of bonus tale. The book is divided into sections and at the front of each one is correspondence from one curator to the next. The main difficulty with found fiction is the question of “why was this recorded”? The individual stories do a good job of this on their own. This framing story really adds to the suspension of disbelief that this is a real curated history. This is an excellent anthology for vampire fans of all types. I do r...

A story of growth, change, and acceptance – The Knave of Graves – is a profound piece of work. It starts as a slow burn but soon evolves into a harrowing exploration of right, wrong, and learning from our mistakes. The story is easy to settle into, but difficult to climb out of. I took my time reading it, but it was still over too soon, leaving me with that post-book “can I have some more, please?” that often comes of good books. Jeppo is a grave digger, but he does not want to be. His true calling is an apotropaist – someone who makes charms/trinkets to ward off evil or for luck. Many take him for a charlatan, but his charms actually work and, despite perceptions, are what saves the little town he lives in from unseen disasters. He protects their cemetery from ghouls, and during the course of the novel, an evil sorcerer who seeks the bones of the saint protected by Jeppo and will stop at nothing to get them. Yet, Jeppo is not a standard hero. Resentful of his position, he often abuses...

Hello! Once again, life has shifted my plans. Some personal stuff has been going on, but also I am deep into Crystal Lake's Author's Journey Novella Writing Course  and am enjoying it immensely. Not only does my novella benefit from the eyes of experienced editors, but we get regular webinars on a variety of writing topics.  My novella is a retelling of the Sisyphus myth (the guy who pushes the rock) and his adventures in the Underworld. It feels good to possibly be able to finish a long form Greek Myth retelling. I'm about halfway to my projected word count and actually have the rest of the story plotted out. More to come as I continue... But, this blog post is about catching up. I have decided to do something new - a reading plan for the month of July. Usually, I read by the seat of my pants. I pull books on whims, start new ones without finishing the old, bounce around, realize an ARC is due... etc. No real plan. But I was watching a fun Youtube channel - Cliff's Dar...

When I was younger, I often felt like stories focusing sibling relationships were hard to find. There was often too much emphasis on romantic relationships or friend groups. I am not sure how much of that is true, or just in my memory. I have a brother who I am close to and because of all of this, I am drawn to stories that centre sibling relationships. I also enjoy stories about characters who experienced something while they were young that returns to haunt them in adulthood (thankfully, that preference is not based on my real life). Children of the Fog hits on both these themes. Lizzy and Dylan went through a traumatic experience together when they were children, and it tore them apart. Lizzy dreams of a "normal life" where she can forget the scars of her past and Dylan refuses to let go. Lizzy has a career and a loving partner, while Dylan is a homeless nomad, existing in the less acceptable parts of society. But the sinister presence that ruined their childhood is ba...

Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash At the start of the year, I set some lofty goals for my writing and this blog. And as it always does, life has intervened. I have decided to adjust some of these goals going forward, at least temporarily. As well, the first quarter of the year is complete, and it's a good time to reevaluate. Here is my quarterly accountability post and some adjustments I am making. 1. Post Every Week Goal: Post every week (Sundays) Result so Far: Met until April 13 (15 weeks), adjusting to every other week I'm temporarily shifting this to every other week. I have signed up for Crystal Lake's Author's Journey course and in order to keep up with those obligations, I need to cut back a bit on other things. I struggled a bit with this goal during Moanaria's Fright Club course that I took earlier this year, and was forced to use old reviews written years ago. I could do that again now, but I would prefer to post better content in alternating ...

It is impossible to read Meg Elison's Number One Fan without comparing it to Stephen King's Misery. Both feature a famous novelist kidnapped by an unhinged fan who grows increasingly terrifying over the course of the novel. Both books speak to toxicity in fandom and the entitlement some fans develop towards creators. I cannot recommend Misery enough - it is a fantastic book - but I'm going to focus on Elison's book here. It is more than just a "gender-flipped" Misery. Note: My discussion will include some spoilers, but I will do my best to avoid the major ones. Eli Grey is on her way to a speaking engagement when she gets kidnapped by Leonard, a man who she thinks is a stranger, but knows her all too well. For years, Leonard has been circling at the edge of Eli's life, and he has finally decided to make his move. What follows was one of the most harrowing, uncomfortable reads of my life. The level of entitlement and intimacy that Leonard expects of Eli is ...

Maybe I’m a sick person. Maybe there is something wrong with me. Because when I read the book’s tagline, “Twelve six-year-olds and their three adult chaperones head into the woods on a camping trip. None of them make it out alive,” it skyrocketed to the top of my to-read pile. When I read the rest of the blurb that promised a child on a murderous rampage, I got even more excited to read it. “Part fairy tale, part horror story” – it seemed perfect for me.   Unfortunately, what I got instead was a bit of a mess. The book does deliver on its promises – everyone dies, it has a fairy-tale flavour, it’s definitely horror – but the way the deaths play out felt forced and even at times, ridiculous. The balance of the tale shifted widely. Some of the deaths were almost slapstick in their delivery, while others were quite gruesome. There is one death right near the end that is particularly disgusting and drawn out far too long. I think even hardened fans of gore may struggle with this one, a...

This one made me nostalgic for my university days! Studying in the library, chatting with my friends about ancient history, hoping to uncover something shocking and cool! I admit the nostalgia may have coloured my enjoyment of the book, but even without that, it's a good story. Ayef dreams of being a Curator, historians who edit the past and present their version to society, but after a bit of a shake-up, her dream shifts to becoming a Historian. Curators obscure the past, while Historians reveal it. But first, Ayef must study under a Curator to learn what exactly it is that they are obscuring. This is the source of the main conflict of the plot and the mystery/reveal about the ancient secrets is interesting and complicated. The quote "history is written by the victors" is often tossed around (and it is mostly true). McMahon's story touches on this idea, and others, while exploring the complicated ideas around who should have access to what information. Considering t...

When I first went to Trent University, there was an introductory week where you could attend sample lectures to test out classes. I said to myself, "how smart would I sound if I knew Latin?" so I went to the Latin lecture. Out came this funny man with a bag of sidewalk chalk. His enthusiasm and charm immediately won me over and learning Latin became about more than just "sounding smart". That man was one of my professors, David Page. Each year I was at Trent, I made sure I had classes with David (as he preferred to be called). He taught me Latin and Roman history. He made each class interesting using that sidewalk chalk "to make it colourful" and explaining concepts so we could all understand. I struggled a lot with the languages and the nuances of translation, but his patience never ran out - or if it did, he hid it well! But because of him, I stuck with Latin. To this day, I can still chant Latin conjugations like he taught me. One year, I was not set to...

I grew up a country music fan. Born in the early eighties, a teen in the 90s, while everyone else was wild over Spice Girls, Backstreet Boys, and Britney, I was listening to Paul Brandt, Reba McEntire, George Strait, Alan Jackson. I got used to being the odd one out when it came to music. People would tell me how my music was “too whiny” and crack endless “dead dog” jokes. Some even made crosses with their fingers and hissed at me like I was a vampire for loving my country music.   What did I do? I doubled down. I held my head high and dared them to name me all these “dead dog” songs (never could), proudly listed happy country songs when they asked for examples, and quietly gloated when I caught them cranking up King of the Road or singing along to Johnny Cash. Later on, I started studying Tae Kwon Do, and everything was familiar. People who had never trained a day enjoyed telling me how “useless” my martial art was. How no one in UFC ever used Tae Kwon Do moves, so clearly it was ...