Kevin Lucia's Devourer of Souls will be published by Ragnarok Publications in June 2014.
Information about Kevin Lucia:
Kevin Lucia is a Submissions Reader for Cemetery Dance Magazine and his podcast "Horror 101" is featured monthly on Tales to Terrify. His short fiction has appeared in several anthologies.
He's currently finishing his Creative Writing Masters Degree at Binghamton University, he teaches high school English and lives in Castle Creek, New York with his wife and children.
He is the author of Hiram Grange & The Chosen One, Book Four of The Hiram Grange Chronicles. His first short story collection, Things Slip Through was published November 2013. He's currently working on his first novel.
Click here to visit his official website.
Information about Devourer of Souls:
Welcome to Clifton Heights, an average Adirondack town. It's nice enough, really. Except after dark. Or on cold winter days when you're all alone...
Sophan.
An ancient game of chance and Fate. One boy's smoldering hate, another boy's need to make things right, and a father's ghosts of Vietnam past. These are the key players in this latest tale of revenge and reparation performed on the stage of the strange Adirondack town of Clifton Heights, NY.
The Man in Yellow.
Tahawus is a small, isolated Adirondack town just north of Clifton Heights. A quiet place filled with simple people of an ardent faith, nothing much ever happens there... until the man in yellow comes calling. He knows your worst nightmares, and he can offer your fondest wish. All you need is faith... and a mouth from which to scream.
A REVIEW OF KEVIN LUCIA'S DEVOURER OF SOULS
Kevin Lucia's Devourer of Souls was a positive surprise for me. I was eager to read it, because I had heard good things about his short story collection (Things Slip Through). When I began to read Devourer of Souls, I was almost instantly impressed by the author's writing style and ability to build suspense, and found myself being mesmerized by the novel's contents.
Devourer of Souls has a bit different kind of structure than other horror novels. It's a novel that consists of two novellas and three shorter pieces that link the novellas together. The two novellas are: Sophan and The Man in Yellow. The happenings in them take place in Clifton Heights.
Here's a bit of information about the two novellas:
Sophan: A story about Nate and Jake. Jake's is Nate's friend and has had a difficult childhood. Nate notices that there's something going on between Jake and Mr. Trung that feels weird to him. Mr. Trung has a strange game called Sophan. Soon things become weirder as the happenings begin to unfold...
The Man in Yellow: A story about a man, Stuart Michael, who comes to Father Ward and asks for forgiveness. The man begins to tell his story: He was the son of the town's pastor. He has cerebral palsy (CP) that has affected him. The man tells about the man in yellow, Reverend McIlvian, who offered people what they desired most - health...
Sophan is a wonderfully creepy horror story with a few weird fiction elements and The Man in Yellow is a powerful horror story that grows into a fascinating weird fiction story as the events begin to unfold. These stories are both memorable and scary. They're the kind of horror stories that will stick to your mind because of their weird atmosphere and gradually growing sense of unease and weirdness.
In Sophan the author writes fluently about adolescence, fear and odd behaviour. I have to mention that the also author writes fluently about what happened in Vietnam and how it affected men. The conversation between Nate and his father is simply excellent. There's even a Lovecraftian element in this story.
It was great that Kevin Lucia dared to address domestic violence in Sophan. The relationship between Jake and his father is difficult and Jake gets beaten up. This kind of violence adds realism and a disturbing atmosphere to the storyline that's difficult to forget.
The Man in Yellow has wonderful Lovecraftian elements that will be of interest to all readers who enjoy reading Lovecraft's stories and cosmic horror. This novella is one of the most intriguing modern weird fiction novellas I've read to date, because the author combines adolescent fears and strange happenings in an unsettling way. The author writes well about faith and the consequences of believing in something.
Everybody who knows me knows that I love weird fiction, because it's often head and shoulders above normal kind of horror and dark fantasy in terms of style, creepiness and originality. Because I love weird fiction and these stories represent good weird fiction, I liked them very much. It's easy to see that Kevin Lucia is interested in H. P. Lovecraft's stories, Cthulhu mythology and good old-fashioned horror and weird fiction.
One of the best things about Devourer of Souls is that the author writes about small town life, innocence and adolescence in a convincing and realistic way. His descriptions of the places, happenings and characters are excellent, because he creates a vivid image of a community that's being haunted by something supernatural.
It's also worth mentioning that Sophan and The Man in Yellow are complex stories, because they have depth and layers in them. Everybody who reads these stories will be impressed by the author's storytelling and his ability to create an unsettling atmosphere.
The character development in these stories is very good. I enjoyed reading about the characters, because they felt realistic and had their own traits. The author wrote surprisingly well and harrowingly about the characters' lives, feelings, strengths and weaknesses.
These stories reminded me slightly of Stephen King's old stories (the Night Shift era stories) and other similar horror stories. Kevin Lucia shows signs of the same kind of inventiveness and creativity as King did in his Night Shift collection. I'm not sure if Stephen King's old stories have been a source of inspiration to the author, but I wouldn't be surprised if they've inspired him to write this novel.
In my opinion Kevin Lucia is a talented horror author and deserves more recognition among horror readers. He's able to combine modern horror and weird fiction elements in a fluent way, which is something that only a handful of authors are capable of doing. If Kevin Lucia continues to write this kind of horror fiction and keeps on polishing his writing skills, he'll have a very bright future ahead of him as a horror author.
Devourer of Souls offers excellent entertainment for horror and dark fantasy readers. I can recommend Devourer of Souls to everybody who enjoyes reading entertaining and well written horror stories, because it contains two excellent novellas that will chill your heart. If you're looking for a horror novel that will unsettle you and awake feelings of fear in you, Devourer of Souls is the novel you've been looking for.
Excellent horror fiction!