Review by Margaret Marr, NightsAndWeekends.com
Twisted Tails is a delicious, diverse collection of weird and wonderful short stories. You’ll find yourself dipping into this collaboration just to get away from it all between mundane tasks, like cleaning your house and doing mindless work for your boss at the office. Heck, you don’t even need a reason to dip in because you’ll be eager to read another one and another one and another until they’re all gone, leaving you wanting more like the proverbial bag of chips.
Mr. Jacobs promises a sweet, sour, bitter, tangy, titillating, tantalizing, torturous, terrifying, humorous, and horrifying blend of tales to satisfy every taste, and I assure you he keeps that promise.
Things aren’t always as they seem in these stories, yet you find yourself surprised by the ending every time. The tales keep you engrossed, each having originality I’ve seldom encountered in any compilation of its kind.
In “Eye for an Eye” by Peter Prellwitz, a special forces-trained waitress is out for revenge, and you’ll feel it’s justified. But wait…there’s more to it than what is on the surface—so keep reading.
J. Richard Jacobs brings us a legend in “Things.” Stories get passed down from generation to generation, often distorted, until no one knows what’s truth and what’s fiction. Two battle-weary warriors find out the truth when they decide to take a shorter route to safety through the Black Wood where things dwell.
Marilyn Peake takes us to Roswell, New Mexico and asks, What if all the stories were true? Layla, a young woman obsessed with all things Egyptian, takes a tour of the museum at Area 51, hoping to be shown the captured alien. Afterwards, strange things begin to happen—things that Layla may not have control over.
In “Dead Wrong,” Steve Lazarowitz shows us that the world can get a heck of a lot crazier when people choose early retirement—and that doesn’t mean sipping cold drinks on a hot beach while thinking about how much you enjoy not having to work anymore.
That’s just a peek at the wonderfully uncanny stories that await you in Twisted Tails. You’ll want to take this collection with you wherever you go—because you never know when you’ll be stuck in traffic, or waiting somewhere for something, in need of a distraction to keep you entertained. The thirty-one short stories in Twisted Tails will keep boredom at bay—I promise!
Ed. Note: To find out more about Twisted Tails, visit Double Dragon Publishing.
From Beverly J. Rowe, MyShelf.com
Here is a collection of tales that may leave your mind twisted. Twisted Tails is an anthology as warped as any I have ever read.
***
Frightening, funny, and just plain weird, this sampler gave me a teasing preview of the great talent of these many writers. I will certainly be looking for some of the longer works by many of my favorites.
To read the entire review, visit: MyShelf.com
Review by TCM Reviews
Twisted Tails is an anthology as warped as the devil himself. J. Richard Jacobs rounds a motley cast of suspects, including several time Eppie finalist, Peter Prellwitz. Together, they weave a spell of spicy tales alluring as a tepid river that implores you plunge deeper, cajoles you swim further out, again deeper… At that moment, when your trust is bottomless, your valiance unwavering, pitiless waves swallow and spit you whole, lifeless, onto a bed of suppurating weed and murky froth.
The assortment opens with the sharpness of K. L. Nappier’s Veil, the tale of a hideous troll so fetid, so scarred, it leaves more than the terror of death; Steve Lazarowitz picks the race with Dead Wrong, a tech noir filled with much suspense, much tension; J. Richard Jacobs grabs the baton with Things (best said with a Southern drawl), and curves a leg most gruesome in its bend. And though you shudder, you can’t help but read on. Marilyn Peake casts aside children’s tales to emerge with Tiger in the Plum Blossoms, an engaging story, oriental in set; D.L. White & Peter Prellwitz join forces in Cassiopeia’s tears to make a sprint double; Jamie A. Hughes transmits the 72914 female; Biff Mitchell hacks into a termite colossal. Pause. Shuffle back to Steve Lazarowitz’s A Matter of Grave Importance, read it with increasing astonishment…
And that is just a sample.
With J. Richard Jacobs’ more than a smidgen of pepper, a clove of Terence West, a gloop of Jeremy Davies, a measure of Margaret Whitley’s sweep endings and what else, oh what a treat! Best read how you please, fried to your own arrangement. Whichever way one delves, back to front, front to back, apiece, apiece – the crystal’s sparkle is not lost, the diamond still glitters and a grassy burst of ruby wine endlessly toys on the back of your tongue. Pleasure, pleasure, pleasure, especially when it is filled with dread.
Copyright (c) 2008 Marilyn Peake