Publisher: IYF Publishing/Dragon Hoard Press
Publication Date: July 6, 2024
Page count: 217 pages
Ivy considered this. She’d not paid as much attention to the individual lawn ornaments as Lexie had, obviously, but the poor guy carrying an unwieldy aluminum ladder to the back of the property looked like the typical Christmas gnome.
But life-size.
“Notice how his hair sticks out from under his cap,” Lexie said. She nervously rubbed at the silver circle she’d pulled from beneath her shirt while she spoke. “Isn’t it just like the gnome’s hair? It even has a ceramic look to it. Like the wind could whip through the trees and that hair won’t move a bit.”
“The cap certainly won’t blow off,” Ivy muttered. She was starting to agree with Lexie. The guy who’d introduced himself as Dash Heggs looked like he’d stepped away from someone’s lawn display and grown to human size to come work on the tree line behind the Harris house.
The fellow leaned the metal ladder against a tree and shook it as if testing its security. They were far enough from the scene and insulated enough by the thick glass they couldn’t hear the metal clanking of a construction ladder, but Ivy imagined it anyway, complete with heavy bungee cord clunking against its legs. His partner handed him what looked like a battery-powered chainsaw. If the thing could cut through more than one branch, she’d be surprised.
Riveting Christmas-set tale of nature fighting back.
Silver Bells is a riveting new Christmas-set horror tale by author Sandy Lender in which the spirits of a natural area cross into the physical world to halt the encroachment on their sacred land by developers. With its well-drawn, engaging main characters, compelling plot, and witty dialogue, I couldn’t put this book down and completed it in one highly satisfying evening’s reading.
The main character is Ivy Light, who has come to Reindeer Creek, Kansas, to visit her lifelong friends, Candy and Arthur Harris, for the holidays. She is a welcome support for Candy, who had suffered a late-life pregnancy that ended in a miscarriage the previous year. Arthur is distracted by threats against his company, hiring a security firm to safeguard his home and family, but has been an unsympathetic partner during her difficult recovery. The marriage is quickly eroding, and Arthur is keeping secrets.
With the onset of the holidays and Arthur’s planned work-from-home schedule, security is reduced to a single man, the capable and sexy John Knightley. But when a neighboring family’s home burns to the ground days before Christmas, Candy welcomes the shocked and displaced Stovalls to move into their basement apartment to regroup, recover, and allow the two teenage daughters to complete the semester at their high school, doubling the number of people John needs to keep up with. When strange things start happening around the family, and Arthur abruptly changes his work plans to keep going into the office, John realizes he’s spread too thin. And as the attraction between him and Ivy heats up, he calls in an old friend as a backup.
The author does a great job with character development, imbuing each with individual personalities that quickly gained my support or suspicions. The plot is revealed through multiple points of view and has several compelling secondary storylines vying for the cause of the danger unfolding in Reindeer Creek. I was delightfully distracted from discerning the true nature of the menace at work until the big reveal. Time passed without notice, and I was highly entertained and satisfied by this fun, horror-filled novella.
I recommend SILVER BELLS to horror readers who enjoy a holiday
setting.
Thank you so much for hosting and reviewing today.
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing SILVER BELLS with your visitors today and thank you for the kind words about my new book! I'll stop back in after work to see if any of your visitors had questions for me to answer. It's a joy to share!
ReplyDeleteI totally forgot to mention how much I laughed at about Ivy turning the radio down in the car to see better. We all do it!
DeleteHa! Yep...we all do!
DeleteThis sounds like a good story.
ReplyDeleteThank you! I hope you can check it out. And thank you for joining in on the tour here!
DeleteMarcy, absolutely riveting! So much fun!
ReplyDeleteSounds like a good read.
ReplyDeleteTY, Rita!
DeleteGreat excerpt and giveaway. :)
ReplyDeleteTY, Cali. If I were a fancy-dancy author out of a fancy-dancy publishing hour, the giveaway would be bigger & better. Y'all are stuck with a hybrid author's offerings instead! ;)
DeleteWhat is your favorite space to do your writing?
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry I didn't get back to the blog after work yesterday to answer this. My fave space is just about anywhere...although I've been doing an awful lot of writing at the kitchen table lately. I can watch my chickens criss-crossing the backyard from there when I need a break from staring at the computer screen.
DeleteThanks for such an insightful response and much success to you!
DeleteI like the blurb and excerpt.
ReplyDeleteTY, Sherry! And thank you for joining in on the tour!
Deleteintriguing
ReplyDeleteDo you have a favorite travel destination?
ReplyDeleteSounds so good. Thank you for the excerpt & your review! :)
ReplyDeleteHow do you celebrate when you finish writing a book ?
ReplyDeleteGreat excerpt, this sounds very good
ReplyDeleteCongratulations on your book!
ReplyDeleteThis looks like a great read. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteWhat is your go snack /drink when you are writing?
ReplyDeleteHow did you choose the setting for your book?
ReplyDeleteHow do you balance plot driven elements with character driven elements in your storytelling?
ReplyDelete