 Hi there today on Typical Books. We're gonna talk about Horror in the Woods by Leigh Montford. It is a typical book. It's a line I haven't used in a long time on this show. I don't use it often enough. I must say I like the cover. It's fairly plain but it wraps around the back and front match which is something that I love in a book. There's another thing that I love in a book. It is a self published author that does well. Now Leigh Montford, this was his first book. I just found that out. I knew that he had done the demonic and I had noticed the demonic because it shared a cover in a way with the very popular book The Nightmare Room because the house that is the basis is a stock image that is the basis for both covers. Their covers are very very different. Sure, but with the sharp eye and as a designer that does look at stock photos from time to time I noticed it right away also because they came out kind of close to one another and they both came out on the Horror Writers Association new releases around the same time so I really noticed it right. There's an website that I used to love called Doppelganger Design that would show the similarities between magazine covers so maybe my eye is just tuned to that. My head, heart, eye and soul is tuned to Hillbilly Horror. Now I don't know if you would take offense by my calling it Hillbilly Horror. I like to say rural horror but rural is hard to say. Rural isn't the easiest word. I remember being asked by a gaggle of French people, mostly Francophones that had very little English. What is the word that is an urban? What is the word for people outside of the city that live in the countryside? Like we were in the countryside at the time he said like us like here what do you say we don't live urban we live and I said rural and they all burst into tears laughing at me. They had a very hard time pronouncing rural as do I. So Hillbilly Horror it is and coming from the countryside I mean I don't take offense to it if you do let me know because I'm very curious about what to call Hillbilly Horror. Forest horror, countryside horror, rural horror. What are other terms for my favorite genre? Horror in the woods is very similar to something like wrong turn and I loved wrong turn. It has its detractors and it may not be the best film in the entire planet but along the lines of Texas Chainsaw Massacre specifically the Sawyer family and wrong turn I love that sort of story. I love the forest, I love old families, I love the idea that there could be something inherently wrong with that clanism and I like the idea of interlopers taking what isn't theirs going where they're not welcome and that sickening feeling when a city folk goes stomping into a cabin in the woods uninvited. You'll find shades in here within some of the family members. There's a brother sister duo that remind me a lot of baby and Otis Firefly so being a fan and it could fit right into that Hillbilly Horror. Devil's Rejects, House of the Thousand Corpses, that sort of rob zombie bent to Hillbilly Horror I do enjoy and there is a team in here that is reminiscent by no means are they carbon copies but that's part of what I like about this it's not a carbon copy of any of those titles and there are some Richard Lehman sort of influences going on here too that said it is fun splatter it's extreme it is gory it is vile it is violent it is wrong on so many levels but it's fun it's not quite there with extreme I say it's extreme and I believe that it is captioned it's part of a series there's three series to this extreme book series by Lee Montford that are linked by theme they're not a congruent story from what I understand and I do need to read the next one tormented but yeah I don't know I wouldn't recommend it to everybody who likes a light horror or fair if you've been looking for something needier violent you like cannibals you like hillbillies then this is a sort of thing you might enjoy it's also super fun it's a fast read I ripped through this it is a beach read for horror fans of splatter period it is fun summer reading for me especially because I do love the forest and spending time in the forest and this features a forest a lot like the forest in back country where portions of that where we're filmed not only was a friend of mine assistant director on that hi Ty shout out to Tyson parts of that was filmed at a landing in a campground in a forest that I know fairly well some parts of it and I just missed that right now so horror in the woods felt really at home for me so I did apply the bookscorer to it and I believe it got 76 it gave us four stars and I would say that where it's losing stars is that there are a few very cliche dialogue terms that are just not believable or realistic or a little too campy or comedic and it's not comedic by any means and it just didn't didn't jive and there were a few grammatical things that took me out of it now understand Lee is British but this has been Americanized to a certain extent so perhaps that is where that a little bit of stumbling came for me but that wasn't the biggest thing it was only that it was just so fast and so furious it left a little to be desired as far as character development some people were very one note and it's not that there is a small cast and it's not that there is a large cast I certainly didn't get anyone too confused because everyone is distinct we just didn't spend enough time with some of the real standouts horror in the woods finding that desecrated body was only the beginning for Ashley and our three friends it was supposed to be an adventure-filled weekend a chance to get away from the hustle and bustle of city life and experience the peaceful tranquility of nature but when they ventured into those woods their trip turned into a horror far beyond what they could have ever imagined because these four friends have wandered into the territory of the violent grotesque web family a group of psychopaths who have the taste for human meat and they are hungry Ashley and our friends must face this evil head-on and worse discover the shocking secret behind the family's existence I did enjoy this very much like I said four stars maybe we'll read some lemontfort soon enough I have a bit of a tbr to get through but I will be looking forward to some more lemontfort in the future he has something new out so definitely check them out and I will say the web family I'm a sucker for well-named things the web family is a perfect name for this family and it becomes so much more sinister as you read on took me a couple days before I was like oh yeah oh yeah so I like getting that reaction I will book a few days after you put it down so on the list right now is the wise friend by Ramsey Campbell a very different pace of reading it took me two chapters to slow down after some vile fast-paced spatter this is meaty and slow and it reminds me a little bit of reading like a druid or something like that an absolute master of modern horror the finest modern horror story I've read in a long time with razor sharp prose Campbell layers a satisfying narrative with intricate unsettling details the most distinctive living voice in the field so this is like I said a slower paced meaty read very dialogue heavy I like dialogue without dialogue tags so this is really feeding a lot of the theory in me and some of the craft triggers when it comes to horror is definitely hitting those buttons and the creepiness of a nearby forest has already become apparent so maybe it's not too removed from horror in the woods next up I'll probably hit this Gary Brombeck's coffin county because I just want to stick in the woods it's got woods on the cover I don't really know what it's about I know that it is about an abandoned graveyard and it's an old town that has a settlement I guess like a Roanoke kind of thing going on so I'm looking forward to that maybe it will be somewhere in between coffin in the woods and the wise friend this incidentally was something that I picked up in February if you haven't checked it out already I did do a reading for the north granville public library and we picked this up across the road from the library basically a book market in February when I did an author event there so I was it was like everything old as new again seems like ages ago when we're out and about doing author events and stuff like that so thank you very very much for watching and I talked about horror in the woods today and other horror books and I've been carrying on with my channel I'd like to make a note though and just check in to make sure that everyone knows I'm not above or beyond or outside if everything that's going on I definitely watch the news and I know there's more than horror in the woods happening outside of our own windows sometimes on the news or in our own backyards in some cases and I'm not untouched by everything that's been going on in the world and I'm paying attention to the news in health most recently specifically so I just want to make sure that everyone is safe and taking care and knowing that in my love of horror my still continuing to talk about horror read horror right you create horror write horror and just generally love horror is a lot of my piece of Zen that's always been one of my coping mechanisms one of my happiest places one of my spots where I feel the most me and I'm sure that I'm preaching to the choir here when I say I hope you can find a little bit of your own Zen in some of this terror on the page and not so much of the horror on the news there's a distinct line between real and fantasy when it comes to horror even though the two may be very entwined especially when it comes to the madness of man but I'll thank you so much for watching and for all your continued comments and support of my channel and horror and my craft by reading my books and stuff like that and suggesting other authors books there's been a lot of love on the horror channels these days so keep that up find your Zen stay hydrated and have an oaky spooky day you may have noticed a video that was up the other day that was just a new channel intro so I'm sorry if I had led anybody on with such a groovy title and a neat thumbnail and such a short-looking little video that it might have been something ultra important all it was is a bit of a change to reflect my small change in that I do talk about new releases more often on the channel and that was something I hadn't mentioned quite properly in my older video and I just wanted a little bit of a change I had wanted to have that as a private video but it was working much better to get some sort of views without it so thank you for tuning in to such a short little video that was just a little bit of a new channel intro so I hope nobody minds I know I don't really need to like explain myself but I feel a little bit better just saying hey note that's what that was