.... Very rarely am I at a loss for words but this book made me uncomfortable and I don't even know what to say about it. Like, I need to take a shower and call up Jesus and tell him I'm sorry for reading this. In this book, period blood screams, Jesus is made out of soggy communion wafers, a boy's father commits suicide by cops (the son then saves bits of his torn apart by bullets dad in a ziploc bag for later - yay father flesh!), and .... like there's more but I can't even. This book will make you feel like you just accidentally did crack and rolled around in shit and dirty glass. It's bizarre and not in a good way. It's unique but that don't make it good... ( )

This was the twisted little tale I was expecting and I wasn’t disappointed. Mark Matthews is the editor and a contributor to the addiction horror anthology Garden of Fiends where I first ran into his work and was impressed with the anthology as a whole.

Keagan, a young boy who recently lost his father violently, has some interesting ideas about the power of the Communion wafer. What started off as a simple fascination with the wafer and it’s transmutative properties turns into a rough plan to raise his father from his final rest. If you’re squeamish about dead human flesh, this will make you squirm!

Meanwhile, young Faith has recently come of an age with her first menstrual cycle. She volunteers in the cemetery looking over all the graves of aborted fetuses and such. Seems like a droll task for a young lady, doesn’t it? I think it’s totally logical that she gets stuck on the idea of all these baby fetus angels and that obviously gets carried over to her monthly egg loss. If you’re squeamish about menstruation, then this will make you squirm.

Eventually, Keagan and Faith get together and what they birth upon the world is more than a little terrifying! Cue evil laughter! Throughout this entire tale I kept imagining the smell. Yep. The smell! Keagan as a little bit of rotting human flesh and Faith has her stored period. Ugh! I can’t recall where this story takes place but I hope it was a low humidity place to keep things as dry (and scent-free) as possible.

All told, it’s a fun twisted little story for your commute or lunch break. I will never look at Communion wafers the same again. 5/5 stars.



I received a free copy of this book.

The Narration: Rick Gregory gave a very good performance on this narration. He has a great voice for young Keagan and blossoming Faith. All his character voices were distinct and he did well with the various emotions in this story. There were no recording issues. 5/5 stars. ( )