Off the Cuff / My Other Journal

Sherri Gibson's Book

Since I can't post a review for E-Books in Product Reviews of Writing.com, I am going to post my E-Book Reviews in my blog.
I won Sherri's book Surrender to Fear in a raffle, Lucky, Lucky, Lucky!
And Congrats, Sherri!
Here's the review I sent to a few article sites.
You have to read the book to find out what happens at the end of the three stories.
i just offered a taste from their beginnings.
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Surrender to Fear is a compilation of three stories meaning to inflict fear in the reader and succeeding well. The tension and suspense keep up throughout with the reader not wanting to put the book down. The first two stories have demons as the evil forces while the last one employs a deranged man. All three stories use a somewhat gullible character as a catalyst to start the action.

The first story, Demon Lovers, is told in a straightforward style in clear, crisp language. It is an incubus and succubus story. The descriptions of changing scenery are beautiful and poetic, but not overly done to give the impression of a travel pamphlet. For this, kudos goes to the writer.

In the story, Landon who has just graduated from high school goes on a trip to White Mountains in a group of six for rafting and trekking. What Landon doesn't tell anyone are the strange, recurring dreams he's been having. Sherridan, Landon's sister who is in the group, has also been having similar dreams. On the road, without any reason even conceivable by himself, Landon feels like taking the SUV he's driving with his sister and their friends to Death Valley. Will they be able to fight the strange forces that will bother them and their friends? The answer to this question is inside the story.

In the second story, Does Mother Know Best, the action scenes are brilliant. This writer knows how to use the right words at the right time and how to elevate the tension.

This story starts with the first person point of view of Aubrey who is going to give birth to twins but for some unknown reason she feels terrified that her children will be evil. After some time the boys Brad and Brent are born, Aubrey and her husband Kevin notice Brent's strange, violent behavior. By the time he is nine years old, Brent's obnoxious ways make the parents to seek professional help but to no avail. In the following years, Aubrey is certain that Brad is terrified of Brent for some frightful reason neither twin is disclosing. What happens to this family when the final struggle takes place between the two brothers when good fights evil brings the story to its end. As to the characters, I found that the change in Kevin, the husband and father, needed foreshadowing a bit earlier. This, however, can be explained by the fact that the earlier part of the story was told in first person by the mother who was easily deceived by her husband.

The third story, Mr. Lamina, is so imaginative that I felt a good movie could come out of it, if the reasons for the deranged man's behavior could be explained further and with a stronger backstory. In Mr Lamina, Scott Winters of Lynchville, who studies animals in college and works part-time in a zoo, has planned a trip with his friends to Bear Mountain at the end of the school year, after their graduation. Scott's mentor is their teacher Mr. Arthur Lamina, the animal expert whose comes from the area near Bear Mountain. Scott's friends do not like Mr. Lamina, sensing the evil lurking in him.

Mr. Lamina invites Scott and his friends to his estate after their trip to Bear Mountain. After graduation, while Scott drives in the Winnebago with his girlfriend Bethany and other eleven classmates, Bethany has a premonition that, somehow, Scott will be taken from her. They stay on Bear Mountain for three weeks, then heading for Mr.Lamina's lavish estate. Will the individuals in the group be able to survive in his animal preserve will be told in the rest of the story.

Sherri L. Gibson, the author of this collection who writes in various genres, has four novels to her name: A Doorway To Hearts, Chasing Dreams, Two Worlds Apart, and Two Worlds Apart:The Saga Continues.

Whether the readers enjoy horror stories or not, they won't be able to put this book down since the author's mastery of suspense and her crisp, clear language won't let them.