230 pages

4 stars

Part horror, part western, part science fiction with a touch of fantasy, this book gives the reader much to think about. It is also very real in the sense that it discusses the reality of being Black in Texas in 1911.

I enjoyed this little novel. I found the writing fascinating. Mr. McCandless has a real talent.

There is a spate of horrific killings going on around the little town. People are literally being torn apart. All watched over by the eerie and mysterious Thicket that stands nearby the settlement. The sheriff is determined to find out who is doing the killings, as is the town doctor. They are joined by a few other unlikely heroes who set out to discover the perpetrator. The town people want to blame the few Blacks in the town.

What they discover is far beyond imagination.

I would like to thank NetGalley and Ninth Planet Press for forwarding to me a copy of this interesting and dare I say, fun, book for me to read, enjoy and review. The opinions expressed here are solely my own.

Horror In the Big Thicket

Texas has grown a bumper crop of exceptional writers and Bruce McCandless III has garnered a good reputation, so I signed up for this ARC as soon as I saw it. I wasn't disappointed! Written in an eclectic style of Texas gothic horror, the tale reminds me of the stories of Edgar Allan Poe, Ambrose Bierce, and Irish author Sheridan LeFanu, leavened with the folksiness of Mark Twain.

Sour Lake is and was a real place. Set in the hot, humid, overgrown edge of the Big Thicket, the events took place about as far from an urban center as you can get. Venturing out after nightfall must have been terrifying in a place so sparsely settled, where no end of vicious predators--with four legs or two--could hunt without fear of discovery or capture.

I was riveted from the opening chapter and the first horrific attack. The ensuing investigation introduced the characters and more than a few complications as the search for the killer began. One problem they faced was that, though the story takes place in 1910, for many Texans of that day, it had never made it beyond the Civil War.

"Doc" Walter McDivett and his nephew and ward, Jake Hennessy, were interesting characters. Doc was a man whose best years had been in the past century, while Jake revelled in the progress of the 20th. Though Doc wouldn't concede that young Jake was a grown man and viewed his interests as a childish hobby he hoped that he'd outgrow, they weren't so unalike.

Jake's interest in building flying machines may not have earned him his uncle's respect, but their conflict illustrated how the impact of the era's new technological and scientific discoveries was changing society, which added depth to the plot. In a sense, the resistance of the old against the new foreshadows the very nature of the evil that has come to their town.

I received a free ARC of Sour Lake from NetGalley courtesy of the author and Ninth Planet Press. Though I'm grateful for the opportunity to read this excellent book, my views are my own, delivered without obligation. If you like southern gothic horror, especially with a Texas twang, you'll love this book. Bruce McCandless may be the third, but he's second to none!

A colorful mix of western, sci-fi and vampire tale, 'Sour Lake' is a gory story about a bloodthirsty creature in East Texas and a group of men fighting the evil threat.
While the plot was OK, I had some problems with the often discursive writing, telling too much detail especially about side characters which distracted from the real story. However, after about the first half the book concentrated more on the events going on, so that pace and tension went up a bit. Overall, an interesting and entertaining different take on vampire lore.