....Of Tortured Faustian Slumbers and the Rivers of Grue

Okay boys and girls....I know what you're thinking and yeah...I was thinking it too, how fucking cool a heavy metal band name is Rivers of Grue? Well, it would be if it was a heavy metal band name, but even cooler, it represents a group of "grue"some story tellers I've recently had the pleasure and good fortune to meet. This post is a little different today...I'm not speaking of my great love of music but of another great love and fascination - the macabre!

I've always had a fascination with horror and in my earliest writings it showed. In grade 11 we were required to write a poem for English....mine was titled "My Nightmare" and was vivid with fire and pain (oh by the way, I don't mind spiders and snakes but fire scares the fucking shit out of me). I got an A.

In grade 12 we had the option of taking English electives, where for 3 terms (every 2.5 months - the 4th term was basic English that you were required to take) you had your choice of 4 different electives. Is it any wonder I took "Evil" (no shit, we read Stephen King's Salem's Lot for fucking school credit!), Crime and Punishment (I swear I didn't fucking know it was Dostoyevski's Crime and Punishment....fuck that was a hard fucking book to get through) and creative writing?  In class during the "Evil" elective, we were required to write a short story...come to think of it, I'm pretty sure we were required to write short stories in all the electives...I can't even remember what mine was about but I do remember not holding back - the elective was "Evil" after all. I also remember the teacher (I'm sorry, I don't remember his name), after reading mine asking me - the new girl, the shy, cute blonde who sat in the back of the room - if people knew this about me...I just smiled. Yeah, got an A on that one too.

Although I took a very long break from writing anything, my love for horror has never faded.  I won't say I've kept horror in my life as a daily thing but I did, and still do, love to read and watch it every chance I get. Well,  I'm not sure whether it was fate or just good luck that caused C William Giles to follow me on twitter and send me a link to a review of his book, .....of Tortured Faustian Slumbers - riversofgrue.com - but whatever it was as soon as I read the review I was intrigued enough to buy the book.  Okay...perhaps it didn't hurt that C William Giles looks like this...

 

How fucking heavy metal is he!!  Anyway...ordered the book along with a couple of others.  To my later dismay, I left ....Of Tortured Faustian Slumbers to sit at the end of my reading list.  When I did pick it up a couple of months later, I couldn't put it down!  I fucking LOVED how this guy wrote!  His descriptions vivid, his characters, even the most sinister, were believable.  I ate up every word greedily like the twisted little horror junkie I am.  

I will be absolutely honest with you, as I neared the last 30 pages of the book I started to worry.  I really didn't know how it was going to end but knew it must....the final pages were in sight....and I was so afraid that after keeping me captive throughout the whole book, the ending was going to be fucking lame and ruin the whole experience for me.  But not one to be of a weak constitution, I faced my fears and read all the way to the end.  One word..... Bravo!!!  I fucking LOVED the ending!! Brilliant!!

I immediately found Craig (C William Giles) on twitter to gush about how much I had loved his creation and how sorry I was that it had to end!  He happily fed me more by sharing more of his writing through his blog, In Darkness & Fire > cwgimmortal.wordpress.com.  In particular a series he had collaborated with the Keeper of the Crimson Quill (the reviewer whose review had convinced me to give ....Of Tortured Faustian Slumbers a try in the first place) which featured one of the more evil, twisted characters in his book, Severin Frost.

I, being the witches familiar that I am, the cat that prowls the night, ever watchful and sly managed to slink between the bars of the gate that hold back the fires of hell to discover that Craig was a part of a creative group, led by Keeper and his blog, The Rivers of Grue > riversofgrue.com < it is here where you will find offerings from all.  Since my discovery I've been moving from one to the other, rubbing up against these dark angels, feeding from the morsels that drop from their fingers through their keyboards.

Yes, I am a happy Cat (in the darkest of senses) with this incredibly talented group of writers and I confess, I do have a favorite.  I have an adulation for Keeper that outshines all others (even my love for the King of macabre, Stephen King).  Keeper, through his writing has made me laugh, he's seduced me and has scared the fucking shit out of me.  Oh yes, he is THE master and nothing would make me happier than to one day settle in his lap, to rub against him and purr as he strokes my hair, hehehehehe...... ; )