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WORK TITLE: Stolen Away
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: http://kristindearborn.com/
CITY: Burlington
STATE: VT
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
https://www.facebook.com/pg/KristinDearbornAuthor/about/?ref=page_internal * https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristin-dearborn-853b666
RESEARCHER NOTES:
Not Listed in the LOC Authorities.
PERSONAL
Female.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Author.
AVOCATIONS:Rock climbing, motorcycling, and travel.
WRITINGS
Also author of short story “Spider Cheese,” Amazon Digital Services, 2015. Contributor to books, including Unspeakable: A New Breed of Terror, Blood Bound Books, 2010; The Zombie Feed, volume 1, Apex Publications, 2011; Hazard Yet Forward, Hazard Yet Forward Project/Evergreen Syndicate, 2012; Horror Library, volume 5, Cutting Block Press, 2013; Fictionvale, episode 1: Enter Fictionvale, Fictionvale Publishing, 2014.Contributor to periodicals, including Midnight Echo, Dark Moon Digest, Wicked Tales: The Journal of the New England Horror Writers, and Grim Corps Magazine: Speculative, Dark Fantasy & Horror.
SIDELIGHTS
Kristin Dearborn specializes in horror fiction that draws on tropes from masters of the genre such as John Carpenter and H.P. Lovecraft. One of her recent works is an open homage to Lovecraft’s work: Whispers: Inspired by H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Whisperer in Darkness.” “Whispers shares the looming, dense forests and paranoid isolation of Lovecraft’s original, while bringing it bang up to date,” wrote Emma Whitehall in Unnerving magazine. Those familiar with Lovecraft’s work—and those who have never read it—“will get a rush out of this thrilling, compelling story.”
In Woman in White, Dearborn takes a modern urban legend—the ghost that haunts roadsides—and gives it a feminist twist by giving the spirit a reason to seek revenge. “Monsters are only as good as the cast they’re supporting. A monster that does nothing but kill and slaughter cardboard characters can be entertaining, but audiences get invested when the creator gives us something to care about,” Dearborn told Andrew Liptak in IO9. “Most of us will never see a monster like the one in Woman in White (unless you spend too much time in Northern Maine, then god help you), but whether we realize it or not, we all know someone who’s experienced domestic violence or emotional abuse. Grounding the horror here, in something depressingly relatable makes the monster pale in comparison.” “From the opening chapter where a woman in white stands in the middle of a snow-covered road, and the unfortunate thing that happens to Dennis, to the cast of characters, each one as real as you and I,” stated Glenn Rolfe in a review on his eponymous Web site, the Glenn Rolfe Home Page, “Dearborn is off and running and bringing the fictional Maine town of Rocky Rhodes and its bizarre troubles to life. … If you enjoyed [John Carpenter’s] The Thing, you cannot miss this read!”
Other critics echoed Rolfe appreciation for Dearborn’s tale. “Woman in White is a thrilling novella that offers the perfect mix of atmospheric tension and gruesome scenes that I think will appeal to a wide variety of horror fans,” declared a Horror Bookshelf reviewer. “I couldn’t put it down until I finished,” enthused a Scary Reviews contributor. “The mystery of who this women is and what she was up to kept me turning pages trying to solve the mystery. The book’s pacing was great and … good action and tense moments … held my attention until the end.” “I was totally caught up in the action from the moment I started reading,” the Horror Bookshelf reviewer concluded, “and I have a feeling Woman in White will make my year-end list in the novella category. While Woman in White works well as a standalone story, I can’t help but hope that Dearborn writes another book featuring the Woman in White in the future!”
Stolen Away takes another horror trope and again introduces a feminist element. The protagonist, a single mother, enlists the help of an ex-boyfriend to rescue her child from her demon father. “The two main characters have a history together,” explained a Scarlet’s Web reviewer, “and we learn throughout the book just how much they have been through as a couple and how that history affects the choices they make during the current storyline.” “Trisha Callahan is a recovering addict,” Dearborn told Nicholas Kaufman in an interview appearing on the interviewer’s Web site Nicholas Kaufman. “She never knew her father and her mother died when she was younger. She’s got two kids from two different guys, but never really got a chance to grow up herself. When a woman becomes a mother–becomes pregnant, even–everyone suddenly feels like they have the ability to weigh in. … In some ways, every woman is Rosemary Woodhouse as the cult grooms her to be a host for their baby.” The novel “does have some vital commentary on the role of women in society,” opined a contributor to Michael Patrick Hicks, “and it’s refreshing to read demonic horror fiction where women aren’t reduced to mere sexpots ripe for exploitation or in need of saving by either the big strong man or religious righteousness.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Publishers Weekly, May 16, 2016, review of Stolen Away, p. 38.
ONLINE
Glenn Rolfe, https://glennrolfe.com/ (March 11, 2016), Glenn Rolfe, review of Woman in White.
Horror Bookshelf, https://thehorrorbookshelf.com/ (March 20, 2016), review of Woman in White.
IO9, http://io9.gizmodo.com/ (April 9, 2016), Andrew Liptak, “Kristin Dearborn Explains Why Toxic Relationships Are More Horrifying Than Monsters.”
Kristin Dearborn Home Page, http://kristindearborn.com (March 5, 2017), author profile.
Michael Patrick Hicks, http://michaelpatrickhicks.booklikes.com/ (June 24, 2016), review of Stolen Away.
Nicholas Kaufman, http://www.nicholaskaufmann.com/ (July 12, 2016), Nicholas Kaufman, “The Scariest Part: Kristin Dearborn Talks about Stolen Away.”
Scarlet’s Web, http://scarletaingeal.blogspot.com/ (August 9, 2016), review of Stolen Away.
Scary Reviews, https://thescaryreviews.com/ (March 21, 2016), review of Woman in White.
Unnerving, http://www.unnervingmagazine.com/ (January 18, 2017), Emma Whitehall, review of Whispers: Inspired by H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Whisperer in Darkness.”
About
If it screams, squelches, or bleeds, Kristin Dearborn has probably written about it. She revels in comments like “But you look so normal…how do you come up with that stuff?” A life-long New Englander, she aspires to the footsteps of the local masters, Messrs. King and Lovecraft. When not writing or rotting her brain with cheesy horror flicks (preferably creature features!) she can be found scaling rock cliffs. zipping around Vermont on a motorcycle, or gallivanting around the globe.
Kristin Dearborn Explains Why Toxic Relationships Are More Horrifying Than Monsters
Andrew Liptak
4/09/16 12:00pmFiled to: WEEKEND INTERVIEW
42.8K
25
13
While I was in between books recently, I picked up a short horror novella: Woman in White, by fellow Vermont author Kristin Dearborn. While it’s a terrifying story about otherworldly horrors in small-town Maine, Dearborn explains it’s not just monsters you should be afraid of.
I run a reading series here in the Green Mountain State, and at the last installment, Dearborn had read the opening chapters and piqued my interest.
The story takes place in rural Maine, where men have begun to vanish in horrifying, bloody ways, all while one character, Ang, is coming to terms with aftermath of an abusive relationship. Everything comes together during a massive winter snowstorm, one that will change everything for everyone.
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I had a chance to chat with Dearborn about Woman in White:
You’ve set Woman in White in rural Maine, your home state. What is it about the state that’s so appealing for horror writers?
While I think all of New England is a fertile setting for horror, Maine in particular seems to stand out. Winters are long and dark, and when you have a clear day where the sun sparkles on the snow, or the full moon makes everything glow white, it’s amazing. But grey days where the color of the dirty snow blends flawlessly with the grey of the sky give way to depression and cabin fever. Maine has the ocean, which is mysterious and brooding. The state hosts a blend of new money, tourists, and real old fashioned down-easters, which creates a compelling conflict.
What a lot of folks may not realize is that Maine is big. It’s not Montana, Texas, or Alaska big, of course, but the rest of New England pretty much fits inside it. People call Bangor “northern Maine,” but in truth you can get to Kittery and New Hampshire in less time than it would take to get to Fort Kent and Canada. There’s not a whole lot up there, north of Bangor. Nothing but woods. It’s here that I set Woman in White, in this big, empty green space on the Maine map. In space, no one can hear you scream? They can’t hear you in the north Maine woods, either.
While reading through Woman in White, I was struck at how I how much more terrifying some of the relationships were than the story’s monster, especially because they’re relationships that I know exist. What compelled you to focus on this?
Monsters are only as good as the cast they’re supporting. A monster that does nothing but kill and slaughter cardboard characters can be entertaining, but audiences get invested when the creator gives us something to care about. Audiences were invested in the crew of the Nostromo before the Alien started to slaughter them all. Author Dan Simmons made us care for the men of the H.M.S. Terror and Erberus before the monster picked them off one by one. It’s why people go back to Walking Dead week after week. Most of us will never see a monster like the one in Woman in White (unless you spend too much time in Northern Maine, then god help you), but whether we realize it or not, we all know someone who’s experienced domestic violence or emotional abuse. Grounding the horror here, in something depressingly relatable makes the monster pale in comparison.
Again, I hearken back to Dan Simmons’ The Terror: The two ships are frozen in the ice searching for the Northwest Passage. It’s agonizingly cold. They’re running out of food. Not only that, but the canned food they brought was soldered with lead, and is hastening the decline of the men’s health. Compared to all that, one almost doesn’t even need a monster. The addition of the supernatural zooms in the focus on how the characters will react, what kinds of men and women they will be.
It seems as though there’s a clash of generations when it comes to how these characters interact: there’s the elderly couple where they seem as though they’ve long established who’s in charge, while the younger couples are a) either trying to hold onto this sense of masculinity (and failing), or b) have escaped that dynamic altogether. I think in a lot of places, rural New England specifically as it’s the only place I’ve spent substantial amounts of time, there is a huge disconnect between the generations in terms of domestic interactions. Aziz Ansari talks a bit about this in his book Modern Romance, and how in the past people paired up based on geographical proximity and made do with what they had.
Now there are more options, and people aren’t staying in relationships as long. There’s a bit of a disconnect, I find, in these rural places where younger folks seem almost trapped between the two models. In Woman in White, Mary Beth and Dennis are both townies, but they exist as their true selves online. Angela and Nate have a different dichotomy because he’s clearly abusive…she can’t get out, and when she does, his sense of masculinity is compromised. This leads him to violence, as happens with many men like Nate. Beau and Eve are part of the old guard…she’s not going to ever leave him, she’s resigned herself to this fate, and he struts around like a rooster because he knows the relationship is safe. It’s his discretion that winds up freeing Eve in the end. I like to imagine a wonderful new life for her in his absence.
There’s certainly a ‘terror from beyond’ situation that you’ve set up in this story: what were some of the works that specifically informed Woman in White?
Around the time I visited the Maine State Crime Lab (I go into more detail on that bit of inspiration here) I read Christopher Golden’s Snowblind. It left me wanting to tackle the winter storm story. I’ve always loved that theme: Ronald Malfi’s Snow, King’s The Shining, the aforementioned Terror by Dan Simmons, and what I think of as the mother of all winter tales, John Carpenter’s 1982 remake of The Thing and the source material novella, John W. Campbell’s Who Goes There. I like to think that I lovingly plucked a bit from each of those stories (all well worth reading and watching, by the way) and smushed them up with something of a feminist treatise. I wanted female protagonists who came from the margins of society: an overweight woman, someone who’s had an abortion, a woman sleeping with a married man.
What are you working on now, and what do you hope to tackle in horror next?
Right now I have a few things up my sleeve. One is a dark, quasi-steampunk tale set in British occupied Egypt retelling the story of gods Apep and Bast. The other is set in the swamps of Florida, in which a veteran tries to discover what happened to some missing college girls, winds up uncovering a suicide cult and some skunk apes with the help of a plucky teenage prostitute.
These are both still in larval forms, though, so who knows when they’ll see the light of day.
Woman in White is now out from DarkFuse publishing.
The Scariest Part: Kristin Dearborn Talks About STOLEN AWAY
Posted on Jul 12, 2016 by Nick
9781935738848-Perfect.indd
I’m thrilled to welcome my friend Kristin Dearborn back to The Scariest Part this week with her new novel, Stolen Away. Here’s the publisher’s description:
Trisha will admit she’s made a few mistakes in her life but that checkered past is behind her. She loves her kids, even if it’s tough being a single mom. But her loyalties are put to the test when her infant son disappears in the middle of the night, and his big sister says a monster took him.
Now Trisha has to face the full truth behind the one-night-stand that produced Brayden in all its scaly torridness — Brayden’s father wasn’t human and isn’t interested in sharing custody. However, even though DEMON has pulled this stunt many times before, he made a mistake when he chose Trisha. The one thing she won’t do is give up her son without a fight. Along with her ex-boyfriend, Joel, Trisha is dragged back into the seedy underworld in a desperate fight to reclaim her son, only this time she’s got a lot more to lose.
And now, let’s hear what the scariest part was for Kristin Dearborn:
I am not a mother, so I wonder if I’m even qualified to speak on the topic. I am a woman who lives in a culture where motherhood is valued above all else, and who has observed the cultural experiences of many mothers. For me, the scariest part of Stolen Away is the intersection of motherhood and one’s identity as a woman. And the demons.
Another light, fluffy post from Kristin Dearborn.
Let’s look at some of the premier examples of demon fiction over the past few decades. William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist. Ira Levin’s Rosemary’s Baby. Paul Tremblay’s Head Full of Ghosts. There are going to be spoilers here, so if you haven’t read them, maybe stop now.
How often do demons target men? I feel like there must be some manly demon possession stories, but I can’t think of any off the top of my head. Most often, we read about and watch beautiful women reduced to something monstrous by a demonic invader. The trope relies on women being virginal and innocent (à la Regan in The Exorcist.). Also, lest we forget, women have the whole original sin thing hanging over their heads. Tremblay plays with all of these tropes in Head Full of Ghosts though in his case, there’s no demon there, just a mentally ill girl. His book works because we’re all so conditioned through decades of this trope that the family in the book and the viewers of the show within a book, The Possession. Movies more than books are guilty of this sin, I can name a dozen mediocre horror flicks where teen girls are cursing, over-sexed McGuffins while the manly men fight to bring them back to their virtuous states.
Motherhood in horror is another place where women get the short end of the stick. From evil mommy tropes (think Carrie), to body horror (Cronenberg’s The Brood) mothers have it rough in the genre. The mother in horror is either a demonic entity controlling the players, or someone without identity, existing only to keep her children alive (and sometimes both!). The titular character in Rosemary’s Baby highlights this: she is a brilliantly rendered character who struggles to come to terms with the changes of her body during her pregnancy, with the changes in her relationship with her husband, and the cult of Satan worshippers who have her primed as their vessel.
Trisha Callahan is a recovering addict. She never knew her father and her mother died when she was younger. She’s got two kids from two different guys, but never really got a chance to grow up herself. When a woman becomes a mother — becomes pregnant, even — everyone suddenly feels like they have the ability to weigh in. Wait periods on abortion. Unhelpful counseling. Uninvited touches in the supermarket. Questions. Once the baby is born, there are judgements on breastfeeding and how early they talk and what kind of food they eat (better be organic and growth hormone free) and do you read to them? How much screen time do they get? In some ways, every woman is Rosemary Woodhouse as the cult grooms her to be a host for their baby.
DEMON takes away Trisha’s choice when he drugs her and rapes her. There’s a moment early on in the book where Trisha is terrified the media will make another Casey Anthony out of her when her son goes missing. The scrutiny of women is bad enough without demon possession.
I tip my hat to all the moms out there, especially the ones who’ve had to raise kiddos on their own. Hopefully Trisha’s story rings true to at least some of you, less the demon bits and more the womanhood pieces.
Stolen Away
Publishers Weekly.
263.20 (May 16, 2016): p38.
COPYRIGHT 2016 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Stolen Away
Kristin Dearborn. Raw Dog Screaming, $14.95 trade paper (218p) ISBN 978-1-935738-84-8
Lacking believability and passion, this limp fable evokes boredom rather than awe in a world void of values or empathetic characters. When
single mother Trisha's baby, Brayden, is kidnapped by "a monster" (according to his toddler sister), she enlists wishy-washy ex-boyfriend Joel
Preston to find him--three days after the fact. Lost in self-pity, the decidedly unheroic (and unlikable) heroine Trisha reveals that Brayden's father
is a demon and he wants his son. Incredibly, Joel accepts this without much disbelief. Can Joel and Trisha save Brayden while fighting demons
and fleeing from Barlow and Andretti, two weakly defined gangsters? Can Trisha surmount her selfish, drug-riddled existence to become a loving
mother? Unfortunately, readers have little reason to care. A mocking tongue-in-cheek story, choppy style, and caricatures reacting flippantly to
superhuman threats rob the meandering narrative of immediacy and suspense. Dearborn's prosaic language further weakens this stagnant
recycling of genre cliches, and a pedestrian plot demands but doesn't support an immediate acceptance of supernatural events. (July)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Stolen Away." Publishers Weekly, 16 May 2016, p. 38. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA453506778&it=r&asid=0ebc909350c15c5be2b7b46cab1fc470. Accessed 5 Feb.
2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A453506778
Kristin Dearborn “Woman In White” Review
Posted: March 20, 2016 in Reviews, Uncategorized
Tags: DarkFuse, horror, Kristin Dearborn, review, Woman In White, Woman In White Blog Tour 0
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BOOK INFO
Length: 139 Pages
Publisher: DarkFuse
Release Date: February 28, 2016
Review copy provided in exchange for an honest review as part of the Woman In White Blog Tour
Woman In White is my first experience reading Kristin Dearborn’s work and I was hooked as soon as I read the synopsis. I couldn’t help but think it had all the hallmarks of my favorite type of horror story – A fierce storm stranding inhabitants in a small town cut off from civilization, a bizarre mystery, and elements of the supernatural. After reading Woman In White, I can safely say it lived up to my expectations and I am so glad I signed up for the novella’s blog tour!
Woman In White opens with Dennis, a man traveling to his lovers house in the middle of a pretty vicious winter snowstorm in Maine. He is jolted when he sees a woman unexpectedly standing in the middle of his lane and almost loses control of his car when he attempts to avoid hitting her. He can’t believe his eyes. The woman was wearing a thin white dress and no shoes, which was odd considering the harsh weather. Dennis struggles with the decision to help the woman, having had a few drinks at the bar and plans to meet Mary Beth Stanton. He is unnerved when thoughts of a horror story pop into his mind and contemplates high tailing it out of there but ultimately decides to help. His attempts at communicating with the woman fail and he ultimately wraps her up and escorts her to the warmth of his car. Despite the creepy aurora that surrounds the woman (not leaving footprints, a catatonic trance, etc), Dennis heads towards town to help the woman.
The next morning, Angela Warren is working her shift at the diner and overhears some regulars talking about how his car was found in the middle of River Road, abandoned aside from a massive quantity of blood that coated every inch of the vehicle. Dennis wasn’t the only person to go missing. Despite the blood evidence left in the car, the cops were unable to say with confidence the blood belonged to Dennis. There were issues with the samples preventing them from matching it to Dennis.
State Trooper Vince Staghorn and forensic chemist LeeAnne Dudley are tasked with taking a trip from Portland to Rocky Rhodes to look into the latest disappearance. They think this will be a quick open and shut case and a chance to get away together and spend time where no one will discover their secret affair. However, it doesn’t take long after their arrival in Rocky Rhodes that they get a call about another crime scene. This latest report marks the fourth missing person in the last few weeks and as they begin combing over the scenes for evidence, LeeAnne makes a startling discovery about the blood that others have overlooked. There is usually a lot blood found at the crime scenes, but something had broken down the DNA. Usually this means someone attempted to destroy the evidence, but LeeAnne was unable to find any proof of that happening. The other thing that connected all of the cases was that all of the victims reported missing were men. It soon becomes clear that something sinister is going on as more and more men are going missing around Rocky Rhodes.
As the worst snow storm in ten years brings Rocky Rhodes to a halt, LeeAnne, Angela and Mary Beth are plunged into a search for answers that will bring them face to face with unimaginable horror as they learn the shocking truth about the Woman In White.
What intrigued me the most was Dearborn’s original take on the Woman in White/White Lady urban legend. I don’t want to spoil Dearborn’s reveal in any way because the twist about what is really going on is one of the things that makes this novella so enjoyable. I thought for sure that Woman In White was going to be a traditional ghost story or maybe a vampire story, but I was totally surprised by what Dearborn unleashes on readers with her Woman in White figure in the second half of the story. While I thought her take on this figure was awesome and pretty damn frightening, I would have liked some more background about the character. There are a few scenes from the Woman In White’s perspective, but it never really gives a concrete picture of its motives or how it chooses its victims.
Dearborn does an excellent job of crafting tension by setting her tale in Rocky Rhodes, a small town located in the Maine wilderness. It is isolated and cell phone service is virtually nonexistent, which makes it the perfect location for the horrors Dearborn unleashes on the town and its residents. I am a big fan of horror stories that are set in the winter. The idea of being stranded in the wilderness due to the elements and the inability to call for help makes for a creepy setting and only amplifies the terror felt by the characters. Ever notice how when you go outside during a major snowstorm and everything seems to be quiet and still? Normally this would be a peaceful and beautiful experience, but with the strange disappearances swirling around Rocky Rhodes, it creates a suffocating atmosphere of fear. Dearborn’s vivid descriptions of the storm and the town is one of the things that really helped me lose myself in Woman In White.
Dearborn builds an impressive cast of characters and despite the relatively short length of Woman In White, she brings them all to life, from the main characters down to random residents of Rocky Rhodes. Angela struggles with the small town nature of Rocky Rhodes and the rumors surrounding her personal life, biding her time until she can leave behind her abusive ex-boyfriend for a new start in the city at college. Her ex Nate tries to maker her life a living hell, but Angela still finds herself torn between him and her feelings for Jason, the owner of the diner who had been in the military. Mary Beth mourns the death of her lover Dennis. She was always careful not to refer to him as her boyfriend, but it is clear that his disappearance weighs heavily on her life. Woman In White offers up plenty of supernatural thrills, but there is also elements of real-life evil sprinkled throughout the story. Angela’s ex Nate is every bit as creepy as the titular Woman In White. He is a total slimeball and throughout the course of this novella, his increasing displays of evil and brutality is responsible for some truly hair-raising moments.
Woman In White is a thrilling novella that offers the perfect mix of atmospheric tension and gruesome scenes that I think will appeal to a wide variety of horror fans. I was totally caught up in the action from the moment I started reading and I have a feeling Woman In White will make my year-end list in the novella category. While Woman In White works well as a standalone story, I can’t help but hope that Dearborn writes another book featuring the Woman In White in the future!
Rating: 4.5/5
LINKS
Kristin Dearborn’s Official Website
DarkFuse’s Official Website
Purchase Woman In White: Amazon, DarkFuse, or your favorite bookstore
Woman In White tour graphic
Use these hashtags to help spread the word about Woman In White! – #WomaninWhite #DarkFuse #IcyHorror
Woman In White Synopsis
Rocky Rhodes, Maine.
As a fierce snowstorm descends upon the sleepy little town, a Good Samaritan stops to help a catatonic woman sitting in the middle of the icy road, and is never seen or heard from again. When the police find his car, it is splattered in more blood than the human body can hold.
While the storm rages on, the wave of disappearances continue, the victims sharing only one commonality: they are all male. Now it’s up to three young women to figure out who or what is responsible: a forensic chemist, a waitress struggling with an abusive boyfriend, and a gamer coping with the loss of her lover.
Their search will lead them on a journey filled with unspeakable horrors that are all connected to a mysterious Woman in White.
Kristin Dearborn – Woman in White Review
March 21, 2016 David Spell Horror, ThrillerKristin Dearborn, Woman in White
Review copy provided as part of the Woman in White blog tour.
It’s a snowy night in Rocky Rhodes Maine and Dennis is on his way to see his girlfriend Mary Beth. Drinks, video games and a fun filled evening are waiting for Dennis. But before he can get to her house he almost runs in to a women standing in the middle of the road. Dennis stops and wonders why a women is out in a snow storm and with no shoes. He decides he has to help this women and get her somewhere warm. He knows Mary Beth will be upset if he is late but he is strangely driven to help the women anyway. This is the last time anyone sees Dennis and the next day while Angela is working at the diner she overhears two customers talking about all the blood in Dennis’ car. She can’t believe what happened to her friend, a car full of blood and no sign of Dennis.
Mary Beth goes out for a girl’s night and desperately needs a distraction from what has happened but finds everything reminds her of Dennis and how much she misses him. The video games they played have lost their appeal and so has the local drinking hole. Mary Beth tries to drink it all away with her friends. Her incredibly empty home gives her no peace and the bed has too many memories, the loss Mary Beth feels is palpable. Kristin does a fantastic job with Mary Beth’s emotional state and her struggle to deal with the death and disappearance of Dennis.
LeeAnne, a forensic chemist, and officer Staghorn are sent to Rocky Rhodes to help investigate Dennis’ death. Before Lee and Vince begin looking in to the case of Dennis they find out more people have disappeared. This small town has had more than a few strange occurrences. After examining the blood Lee finds it has no DNA which is impossible and leaves her with more questions than answers. Is the blood from the victims, if so can they still be alive, if not where did it come from. Why is the blood stripped of all of its DNA and where did all this blood come from. Who is this women in white and what is she up too.
Kristin leaves the reader with many questions and few answers about the happenings in Rocky Rhodes. I really enjoy all the female characters, Lee and Mary Beth especially. It was great to read a book with the main characters who are strong women and to have so many women characters in one story. The Woman in White is a really enjoyably book that I read in one sitting. I couldn’t put it down until I finished, the mystery of who this women is and what she was up to kept me turning pages trying to solve the mysters. The books pacing was great and there was good action and tense moments that held my attention until the end.
Rating 4/5
Book Info
Length: 139 Pages
Publisher: Dark Fuse
Release date: February 28, 2016
To Purchase Woman in White Click Here
Rocky Rhodes, Maine.
As a fierce snowstorm descends upon the sleepy little town, a Good Samaritan stops to help a catatonic woman sitting in the middle of the icy road, and is never seen or heard from again. When the police find his car, it is splattered in more blood than the human body can hold.
While the storm rages on, the wave of disappearances continue, the victims sharing only one commonality: they are all male. Now it’s up to three young women to figure out who or what is responsible: a forensic chemist, a waitress struggling with an abusive boyfriend, and a gamer coping with the loss of her lover.
Their search will lead them on a journey filled with unspeakable horrors that are all connected to a mysterious Woman in White.
Review
Review of Whispers by Kristin Dearborn
January 18, 2017
|
Emma Whitehall
Because this novella is inspired by one of the most popular stories by one of the most popular horror writers of all time, it would be impossible to talk about Kristin Dearborn’s Whispers without comparing it to The Whisperer in Darkness.
Whispers shares the looming, dense forests and paranoid isolation of Lovecraft’s original, while bringing it bang up to date. Gone is the arcane, dramatic language of the original text - and, let’s face it, a lot of stories that tackle the Mythos - in favour of very naturalistic dialogue and a snappy, tense pace. Dearborn’s characters - thrown together after a chance encounter - are fleshed out, complicated and fascinating. It’s interesting to note that both our protagonists are women, something sets them apart from Lovecraft’s own narrators. Going even further, the character of Sarah is a well-built, ruddy woman who totes a shotgun and wrestles with her longing for and need to push away intimacy - very different from willowy, cerebral author-inserts.
But just talking about this story in comparison to The Whisperer in Darkness would be doing it a disservice. As I said, these characters are fascinating to follow. Both Sarah and Neveah are flawed, complicated women, with histories that influence their behaviour and their relationship with each other. It’s never totally clear exactly how much one values the other from one chapter to the next. The beginning to middle of the story, consisting of these two women, alone in the mountains except for something out in the woods, watching them, is brilliantly written. Dearborn ramps up the tension, letting it explode and unravel in the final act.
If I was to offer a negative about this story, it would be that the last chapter ends very abruptly - I was left gasping after I finished it, with so many questions! But I thoroughly enjoyed this novella, both as a fan of Lovecraft and as a lover of horror in general, and I think that readers - both veterans and newcomers to the Mythos - will get a rush out of this thrilling, compelling story.
Review: Stolen Away by Kristin Dearborn
3:35 pm 24 June 2016
Stolen Away - Kristin Dearborn
Kristin Dearborn first came to my attention earlier this year with the DarkFuse release, Woman In White. I liked that one well enough, but noted in my review that, "I could have gone for some deeper character explorations...and I could have used way more of the supernatural aspect." Apparently, Stolen Away was the Dearborn title I was looking for!
Trisha is a recovering addict and single-mother to Kourtney. Her and the ex, a tattoo artist named Joel, aren't on the best of terms, but after her son is kidnapped, the two find themselves reunited to protect their daughter and find her missing boy. Unfortunately, this abduction has a few wrinkles to it, not the least of which is that Brayden's father is a demon. Like, a literal demon. You know, from Hell. In his human form, he even has a tattoo on his back in big bold letters that say DEMON. So, yeah.
Dearborn delivers the goods with the supernatural aspect here, keeping the nasty stuff front and center. There's a lot of great demonic stuff happening herein, from possession and exorcisms, to our tattooed body-modder anti-heroes learning the ropes on all-things underworld, along with some half-demon ass-kickers and a scene or two that pay lovely homage to John Carpenter's The Thing.
Dearborn brings the action front and center, but also gives us a reason to care for Trisha and Joel beyond their positions as beleaguered parents. Both have a history with one another, and are in various stages of recovery from their drug-fueled past and questionable decisions. These aren't spit-shined do-gooders, but damaged goods that have been in rough spots and are still trying to do right by themselves and those around them, and not always succeeding.
I also really dug the subtle layers of feminism that Dearborn wove into her tale. This is a story about loss, but it also has strong elements of female empowerment, bodily autonomy, and combating rape culture and harassment (sometimes directly and violently). It's really awesome stuff, and, in my view, helped raise the narrative to a higher place thematically, putting it up above more pedestrian demon-hunting stories. I hesitate to call it "message fiction," since Dearborn keeps these things on the down-low, and because fiction with any kind of a message, either overt or not, apparently makes some sensitive readers sad and squeamish. Stolen Away, though, does have some vital commentary on the role of women in society, and it's refreshing to read demonic horror fiction where women aren't reduced to mere sexpots ripe for exploitation or in need of saving by either the big strong man or religious righteousness. Again, it's subtly (and suitably) handled but well-worth noting, and Dearborn incorporates it beautifully in order to serve the story and highlight the particular, and multiple, brands of horrors she's working with here.
[Note: This book was provided for review by Hook of a Book Media and Publicity.]
Tuesday, 9 August 2016
Review: Stolen Away by Kristin Dearborn
Stolen Away - Kristin Dearborn
Stolen Away by Kristin Dearborn
My Rating:
I received a free copy of Stolen Away from Erin at Oh, for the Hook of a Book in return for an honest review and as part of the Hook of a Book Stolen Away publicity blog tour in which my blog Scarlet's Web is taking part.
Stolen Away is a hard one for me to review. I did like the story and I wanted to finish it but when I put it down I wasn't compelled to pick it back up. However, when I did pick it back up I slipped easily back into the story so I'm a bit conflicted.
The premise was interesting and different from most books covering this topic, and the characters, although I didn't particularly like them, were well fleshed out. The two main characters have a history together and we learn throughout the book just how much they have been through as a couple and how that history affects the choices they make during the current storyline. Some of their choices annoyed the heck out of me though and there were little things like how Trisha goes from her breasts being painfully engorged and having to express milk to ease the discomfort, to it not being mentioned at all, like she just turned off a tap. Or the interlude chapter for example, it was good by itself but the character it was referring to hadn't felt a part of the story for some time and it wasn't until I was a good bit through it that I realised it was Cherry, then she just disappears again for another long period of time. It pulled me out of the flow of the story. A similar thing happens with Barlows character, not in such an abrupt way as with Cherry but it has the same affect on the flow of the story.
The whole time I was reading I was very aware of everything going on around me, a good book draws you in and drowns that out, it wasn't holding my attention enough to have that effect. I felt at times like I was reading a nastier paranormal romance rather than a full blown horror story, which it shouldn't have because the demon rapes the main character to get her pregnant in the first place. I think it's because of the whole inner dialogue she had going on when she thought about what happened and how she looked at the time, and also the the fact that she refers to him as her demon lover. He raped her, there was nothing lover like about it. Especially after the event itself. I can understand it from the point of view of him playing with them, seducing them and pulling them in but afterwards, after the event itself, he's an abuser not her demon lover.
There were points in the story that I think stood out and were more what I would expect and hope to find in a story like this. The scene with the dog, the exorcisms and Tabatha's character come to mind, these were for me the better parts of the reading experience. Overall there wasn't the level of fear and terror I would expect. There were some nasty events and the characters had their lives turned upside down but I would have liked to have seen the emotional panic, terror and fear ramped up a bit more.
All in all it was on OK read and I'm glad I picked it up but I much preferred Dearborn's previous book Woman in White .
Reviews also posted to my blog: Scarlet's Web
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Synopsis for Stolen Away
Publication Date: June 24, 2016
Publisher: Raw Dog Screaming Press
Publication Length: 220 pages
Trisha will admit she's made a few mistakes in her life but that checkered past is behind her. She loves her kids, even if it's tough being a single mom. But her loyalties are put to the test when her infant son disappears in the middle of the night, and his big sister says a monster took him.
Now Trisha has to face the full truth behind the one-night-stand that produced Brayden in all its scaly torridness – Brayden's father wasn't human and isn't interested in sharing custody. However, even though DEMON has pulled this stunt many times before, he made a mistake when he chose Trisha. The one thing she won't do is give up her son without a fight. Along with her ex-boyfriend, Joel, Trisha is dragged back into the seedy underworld in a desperate fight to reclaim her son, only this time she's got a lot more to lose.
MARCH 11, 2016 BY GROLFE
(Book Review) Kristin Dearborn’s Woman in White is one of the Best Releases of 2016
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I’ve read a few of Kristin Dearborn’s short stories and enjoyed them. I read her novella, Sacrifice Island, and I loved it. And now, I get this novella, Woman in White. Let me say this, this lady can write her ass off. She tells a story in a way that’s not overly writerly. By which I mean that she’s not throwing literary words in the readers face or writing above her head. That’s not to say she couldn’t if she wanted to, I’d bet it’s quite the contrary. The thing I like is that it’s just a great writer telling a fantastic story so that everyone can get it. The person who first comes to mind for me in this style is Stephen King. And to further equate it to people I admire…I liken her style to that of my favorite guitar player, Slash. He can fucking play, but what he does best, and better than anyone, is play within the song. He does exactly what fits the song instead of trying to show off. That’s exactly what Dearborn excels at within the framework of this fun, engaging, and terrifying tale.
From the opening chapter where a woman in white stands in the middle of a snow-covered road, and the unfortunate thing that happens to Dennis, to the cast of characters, each one as real as you and I, Dearborn is off and running and bringing the fictional Maine town of Rocky Rhodes and it’s bizarre troubles to life.
A rash of disappearances where the only thing left behind is loads of the victims’ blood, stirs up the small community. Inside this mystery, we get real people with real problems. A girl who has an abortion in this tiny town without secrets, shunned and shamed by people she’s grown up with her entire life. Her ex-boyfriend is a jealous no good asshole, and her boss at the diner is truly a hero in waiting. Officer Staghorn (what a great name!) and Lee Dudley, a forensic chemist who just so happens to be sleeping with the married officer, are sent up to Rocky Rhodes to see if they can make any sense of the missing bodies and/or the blood left behind. It isn’t long before these two are ensnared in the mayhem and the madness descending upon this small town.
The way Dearborn paints this frozen town in the grips of a Maine winter will have you chilled to the bone as much as the horrible creature haunting its population. I couldn’t help but be reminded of some of my favorite films and novels. The disappearances brought back that unsettling feeling I got the first time I read ‘Salem’s Lot. The snow and isolation, along with the fear and paranoia of what the hell is out here with us gave me flashbacks of John Carpenter’s The Thing. The overall vibe and style also reminded me of Stephen King’s Dreamcatcher (the novel, not the terrible adaptation).
I don’t do spoilers, so I won’t give anything away. Just believe me…. if you love King, if you enjoyed The Thing, you cannot miss this read! One of the best novellas I’ve had the pleasure of reading and certainly an early contender for my 2016 Top Ten list.
I give Woman in White 5-Stars!
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Woman in White by Kristin Dearborn
NOVELLA
Available: Feb 4, 2016
Publisher: DarkFuse
Format: eBook ($2.99)
Synopsis
Rocky Rhodes, Maine.
As a fierce snowstorm descends upon the sleepy little town, a Good Samaritan stops to help a catatonic woman sitting in the middle of the icy road, and is never seen or heard from again. When the police find his car, it is splattered in more blood than the human body can hold.
While the storm rages on, the wave of disappearances continue, the victims sharing only one commonality: they are all male. Now it’s up to three young women to figure out who or what is responsible: a forensic chemist, a waitress struggling with an abusive boyfriend, and a gamer coping with the loss of her lover.
Their search will lead them on a journey filled with unspeakable horrors that are all connected to a mysterious Woman in White.