loved reading this book, it was a great job in both a scifi and horror novel. The characters were really well done and the story was super well done.

“Living forever doesn’t seem so great, especially if your family’s dead”.

Desperado Dini is a short novella by Dunkie Tang, which follows Linda Tompkins. Linda is a dancer at a nightclub, who is addicted to cocaine. Linda and two other dancers are booked to attend an event. At the event, Linda realises that there is trouble ahead and she tries to escape the imminent danger. As she is fleeing, she is transferred to another world and is confronted by evil monsters.

Desperado Dini is a weird novella. I enjoyed the first 40%, where we are introduced to Linda and her lifestyle. Tang does a great job at setting the tone by introducing these three brothers who are passionate about murder. Tang also shows some of the challenges that dancers regularly face. My favourite aspect of this story was getting to know more about Linda Tompkins.

However, the second half of this novella is bizarre and confusing. Linda is transferred into another world, where she meets new people and learns about a mission. Tang has undoubtedly written something creative in this novella, but I did not feel immersed or engaged in the book's second half. I'm not too fond of the cover, but it does depict how weird this novella is.

In conclusion, Desperado Dini is a unique and weird novella with a memorable protagonist. I can recommend this novella to anyone wanting to read something short and strange.

3 / 5 stars.

Thanks to Dunkie Tang, Unnerving and NetGalley for providing an arc in exchange for an honest review.

This is another Unnerving Rewind or Die book, and once again, it doesn’t disappoint. I know you might be thinking I’m biased, since I am a Rewind or Die author, but I took off my author hat and put on my book reviewer hat to assess this book. It’s wild!

While many other books in this series start off with a jolt, this one is a little slower to get to the B-movie fun. It starts serious and twisted as we’re introduced to the killers. Desperado Dino makes her entrance a little later, and again, the tone is rather stark, reading like a crime drama. That’s not a criticism. It’s extremely well developed and the writing is top notch, but the subject content is a bit hard to swallow at times.

Desperado Dino is the stage name Linda Tompkins, a stripper who is desperate for money. Linda has a stalker, which takes the book down a dark disturbing rabbit hole. I’ll be honest. By the halfway point, I was ready to put it down. Not because of anything the author did. Again, the book is well written. I just preferred not to read the subject content.

Then, everything bonkers. I mean B-O-N-K-E-R-S! And the B-movie love prevalent in the Rewind or Die series came to light.

I can’t say much about the second half without spoiling it other than it took me on a wild adventure, and it was worth reading the first bit to get to the craziness of the last part.

So I recommend giving it a read. The characters are fun, the plot is well developed, the dialogue is great. 4 stars.

Linda Tompkins works as a dancer in a nightclub and when she puts her outfit on, she's not Linda anymore: she is Desperado Dini, a hot gunslinger. Addicted to cocaine and often surrounded by creeps at work, she is in need of a change. When her boss arranges a private meeting with three mysterious men, she knows something is not right but she has no idea what's about to happen to her...

What an interesting and particular horror novella! It starts with a very creepy situation where we get to meet these three strange brothers and their passion for... murder. My interest was immediately caught.
And then we get to know Linda/Dini and her struggles. I really liked Linda, she is a great main character, well written and with a clear voice.

However I feel like this novella is missing something, which is the reason why I'm not giving more stars to this story. There is a long fantasy part (it's a bit complicated to talk about it without spoilers) where Linda is experiencing something very strange, meets new people and discovers about her mission... I felt like that was definitely too long and bizarre, it could have been the coolest part of the story but in the end it did not deliver for me, sadly. I was not bored but I started losing interest there.

Which also leads me to another problem: we have a trio of murders and we know little to nothing about them. Why? Linda is a great character, she deserves to be put against great villains! Instead we just know a bit about their MO and the color of their eyes, and that's a true shame. I wanted more of the Privak brothers.

Desperado Dini is a good novella, very original. I liked the plot and how it's written, I just hoped we had more of the bad guys. Anyway I'll definitely keep an eye on Dunkie Tang from now on!
3 stars.

* Thank you to Dunkie Tang, Unnerving and NetGalley for providing this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

DESPERADO DINI is the kind of book you finish, and shake your head in puzzlement, wondering what the heck did you just read. This dark fantasy/horror mashup is completely nuts with intricate and amazing world building.

The story opens with a meet and greet with the big bad, a trio of supernatural, stripper-murdering brothers who have the vibe of the steam junkies from Stephen King’s Doctor Sleep. Chapter two brings in Detective Mariana Pontiac, who investigates the murder of one of the brothers’ victims. Chapter three adds our reluctant heroine to the mix, a cocaine-addicted stripper whose most successful persona is Desperado Dini, a gun slinger. Linda aka Dini makes a great protagonist, as she’s relatable and flawed. The story gets cooking, when Dini agrees to make some bank beyond the walls of Artie’s Secret, the gentlemen’s club where she dances. The middle drags Dini to another dimension, with seers and prophesies, cults and creeps.

I adored the writing voice and found the fantasy segments strange and intriguing, but that whole trip down the rabbit hole went on longer than I would have liked, but that may have been because I wanted more time with the disturbing brothers who have forever changed the way I look at a Denny’s. I also would have liked the detective to have a larger role, a more consistent point of view, and a bigger final battle. I did, however, really dig the ending.

There’s so much originality and goodness in this book. Dini’s addiction was handled really well as was her job as a sex worker. The subtle dark humor was on point. I loved the risks and choices the author made with the plot.

For me, this is a three and a half star read, rounded to four.

The Rewind or Die books are a blood-splattered oasis in these turbulent times. I am a huge fan of the series, which invokes the spirit of horror movies watched on videotape.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Thanks to NetGalley and Unnerving for providing an Advance Reader Copy.