This Dark Earth
Paperback l Kindle
By John Horner Jacobs
Gallery Books
Release date: July 3, 2012

Once in a great long while, a book that you absolutely cannot put down upon pain of death comes along. All the stars and planets align. The Universe is in agreement that you do, in fact, need to read this book from start to finish. It creates things like a sinus infection to keep you curled up in your Lay-Z-Boy, thunderstorms to keep your 60 pound normally active dog stuck to your chest on said Lay-Z-Boy and better things for your Facebook friends to do. This is precisely how I spent two days with John Hornor Jacobs‘ This Dark Earth.

While there are countless zombie novels on the market (half of which I may have read) you’d be hard pressed to find one that’s utterly unique in its approach to the end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it theme. This Dark Earth is really no different in that respect. The world falls apart; a virus is mysteriously unleashed that turns normal dead people into the shuffling, moaning, hungry undead; survivors are wary of each other but a tentative trust forms desperately out of the sheer mutual will to live. But what makes Jacobs’ book such a worthy read is how sparklingly, refreshingly, goddamned good the writing is.

Jane Slayre
Trade Paperback
By Sherri Browning Erwin
Original Story by Charlotte Bronte
Gallery Books
Release Date: April 13, 2010

Jane Slayre takes the approach of books like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and takes a classic piece of literature and adds a supernatural twist to it. The original story Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte follows the interesting life of Jane Eyre as she grows up and falls in love. Sherri Browning Erwin puts a twist on this story by asking what if Jane had to do this while protecting the world from vampires, voodoo priests, zombies, and werewolves? Well, I say yes please!

The orphan Jane Slayre starts off her life by being raised by her Aunt Reed and living with her three cousins, John, Georgina, and Eliza, all of whom had been turned into vampires. Jane was terrorized by John, which lead to her being able to leave the house to be sent away to school. At this school called Lowood, Jane realizes that the world is filled with these supernatural beings and that her family isn’t the only afflicted ones. As with the classic tale, t first she spends time at the school as a student and then later as a teacher, but eventually she realizes it’s time for her to move on, so she takes a position as Governess at a place called Thornfield. Through her experiences, she founds out what love is and that she feels it for one man. She also discovers that she actually does have a real family that isn’t evil and might even have the same Slayre instincts that she does.