MY TOP 5 INDIE BOOKS

Happy June, everyone!

Due to living with my head permanently lodged in sand (or in a book), I don't know if anything special happens in June...but at least it's sunny. Well, not here in the UK where I live, but I'm sure it's sunny somewhere.

To brighten up the notoriously grey and rainy apparent summer season, I thought I'd tell you a bit about my favourite indie books. I want to mention outright that I'm not including the works of anyone involved in this blog just because it seems a bit...something?...but I have included these fabulous people in lists I have posted elsewhere.

That being said *cough Stephen Kozeniewski's SKINWRAPPER would be in this list if I didn't feel weird about including him on a site he contributes to cough*

In no particular oder, here are my TOP 5 personal favourite indie books to date:

MILK by Adam Millard

So this book is about... how do I even describe this book? I'll just stick to the back-cover blurb:

In a post-apocalyptic world, Lou, a goods trader (batteries, cloth, books, pornographic devices) stumbles upon a new business opportunity when he miraculously begins to lactate. Milk is a rare commodity in a world gone to hell, and so before long everyone in town wants a piece of the action, but there's something not quite right about the milk - other than the fact it came from a fifty year-old man.

The milk is bad, turning everyone that consumes it into radioactive mutants with a penchant for human flesh. Now it's up to Lou to put things right, before everyone he knows becomes a milk-guzzling cannibal.

Whatever you do, don't drink Lou's Milk...

I met Adam Millard at a horror convention and, having never read a book of his before, I approached his trading table and browsed his work. I picked up MILK and innocently asked what it was about. Millard said, and I quote - 'It's about...er...um...it's the story of...just read the back.' And so I did, and knew that I had to have it. It is the single funniest book I have ever read.

STARERS by Nathan Robinson

Imagine if you found yourself the attention of the entire world...

The dysfunctional Keene family awaken one Saturday to find several strangers and neighbours staring at their home. Events turn more bizarre when more hypnotised strangers arrive, all seemingly transfixed with those within the Keene household. As the ominous crowd gathers and grows larger by the hour, the Keenes find themselves under siege in their own home. With hundreds, then thousands of bodies pressing against the walls of their home, a rising body count and grim premonitions plaguing their dreams, the family must work together to discover who or what is controlling the Starers.

It's been an age since I read this, but it was still one of the first books that jumped to mind for this list. It's weird and creepy as hell.

PUNCH by J. R. Park

It's carnival night in the seaside town of Stanswick Sands and tonight blood will stain the beach red.

Punch and Judy man Martin Powell returns after ten years with a dark secret. As his past is revealed, Martin must face the anger of the hostile townsfolk, pushing him to the very edge of sanity.

Humiliated and stripped of everything he holds dear, Martin embarks on a campaign of murderous revenge, seeking to settle the scores both old and new.

The police force of this once sleepy town can't react quick enough as they watch the body count grow at the hands of a costumed killer.

Can they do enough to halt the malicious mayhem of the twisted Punch?

I read this in one sitting and it is bloody marvelous, I tell you!

THE FINITE by Kit Power

The Finite started as a dream; an image, really, on the edge of waking. My daughter and I, joining a stream of people walking past our house. We were marching together, and I saw that many of those behind us were sick, and struggling, and then I looked to the horizon and saw the mushroom cloud. I remember a wave of perfect horror and despair washing over me; the sure and certain knowledge that our march was doomed, as were we.

The image didn't make it into the story, but the feeling did. King instructs us to write about what scares us. In The Finite, I wrote about the worst thing I can imagine; my own childhood nightmare, resurrected and visited on my kid.

I've been saying this for years - it blows my mind that more people don't know about Kit Power. This guy just gets it - how to write characters, how to tell a story, how to keep you turning pages - he gets it all. His characters are so real that whatever the story is about, the stakes are high. It was hard for me to pick a favourite of his books to include on this list, but I guess this is the one my mind drifts back to the most. It's horrifying, and beautiful, and excellent.

I honestly can not put into words how much you need this author's books in your life. Please, if you never take any other recommendation from me, give this dude a shot (pick any book, you really can't go wrong). It actually pains me that he's not hitting every bestseller list under a major publisher, selling movie rights, and sitting on Graham Norton's sofa telling everyone how happy he is to be a global success.

I don't know if I've mentioned it already but I think I might be a superfan. 

WYRD AND OTHER DERELICTIONS

and also

CUNNING FOLK

by Adam Nevill

Okay okay, so turns out I couldn't pick a favourite out of these two, but I didn't want to take up two spaces on this list with Adam Nevill books so here they are together.

Something is missing from the silent places and worlds inside these stories. Something has been removed, taken flight, or been destroyed. Us.

Derelictions are weird tales that tell of aftermaths and of new and liminal places. Each locations has witnessed catastrophe, infernal visitations, or unearthly transformations. But across these landscapes of murder, genocide and invasion, crucial evidence remains. And it is the task of the reader to sift through ruin and ponder the residual enigma, to behold and wonder at the full horror that was visited upon manking.

Wyrd contains seven derelictions, original tales of mystery and horror from the author of Hasty for the Dark and Some Will Not Sleep (winner of The British Fantasy Award for Best Collection).

This short story collection won't be for everyone, but it's definitely for me. It's very likely the most unique book I've ever read, in that none of these stories contain protagonists, or characters, really, for that matter. Each story takes you through the aftermath of some terrifying event and reading them is sort of like watching the first-person camera footage of someone stumbling through each horrid event. How Nevill actually manages to make this scary despite the lack of characters to feel scared for is beyond me, but it's a real triumph of a collection and an idea so perfectly executed that it's destined to make any writer feel jealous for not thinking up such a concept first.

Money's tight and their new home is a fixer-upper. Deep in rural South West England, with an ancient wood at the foot of the garden, Tom and his family are miles from anywhere and anyone familiar. His wife, Fiona, was never convinced that buying the money-pit at auction was a good idea. Not least because the previous owner committed suicide. Though no one can explain why.

Within days of crossing the threshold, when hostilities break out with the elderly couple next door, Tom's dreams of future contentment are threatened by an escalating tit-for-tat campaign of petty damage and destruction.

Increasingly isolated and tormented, Tom risks losing his home, everyone dear to him and his mind. Because, surely, only the mad would suspect that the oddballs across the hedgerow command unearthly powers. A malicious magic even older than the eerie wood and the strange barrow therein. A hallowed realm from where, he suspects, his neighbours draw a hideous power.

The suspense - oh, the suspense! This is for sure my favourite current read and I don't know what (if anything) will be able to top it.

Anyway, that's the end of my rambles for this month, thanks for reading!