 Hello everybody, E here. Welcome back to 31 Days of Halloween. Today we are doing another top five Friday. Once again I'm not bringing back top five Friday, not right now anyways, but I am doing it for the month of October for 31 Days of Halloween. These books are in no discernible order. These are just another, since it's indie week, indie slash small press week, I figured I'd do another top five indie small press books. I've done this multiple times in the past. If I can find the videos, I'll leave them down there in the doobly-doo. But anyways, first off we have Crossroads by Laurel Hightower. This is the second book that I had read from Laurel, and I need to be upfront. I know probably everybody on this list, and I'm at least friends or acquaintances with each and every one of them, so keep that in mind. If you're worried about bias, I mean just check out my other reviews. I'm harder on my friends than I am on Strangers. So anyways, about this book, it is the story of a mother's grief. She lost her adult son. The best part of the book, I look for character pacing and dread. No matter what I read, even if it's romance, even though I rarely read it, I look for those three things. The characters need to be good, the pacing needs to be interesting, the book needs to be interesting, keep me reading, and the dread, even in something like romance or whatever it is, it's just a conflict. I don't want to either I want something bad to happen to somebody or I don't want something bad to happen to somebody. So dread plays into every genre. The character pacing and dread in here is absolutely phenomenal, but what I will note specifically, and I brought this up in my original review, my written review, everything for this one is I am super impressed with how we never meet this son character, yet Laurel managed to give all the character development we needed through how the mother looks at the world by comparisons like, oh, my son used to do that, my son used to say that, my son used to do this and that and the other. I thought that was brilliant and it's a favorite of mine. Alright, next up we have one that I don't really think it's an autumnal read like for Halloween season, but I also think it would be a hell of a lot of fun like sitting back and watching, you know, like Monster Flicks with your friends, and that is The Rue by Alan Baxter. Alan Baxter is an absolutely amazing person and amazing writer, and I've really, this is the first one I read from him since then, I've read The Gulp and Manifest, I can't remember the name right now, I've stopped my head, but this so far, and he'll probably cringe hearing it, but this one is my favorite one so far just because it is just fun from beginning to end. If you are a member of the horror community on Twitter, even some on YouTube, you're going to recognize a few names in this because he used a bunch of his acquaintances and friends and followers as the victims for The Rue, and yes it is about a demonic kangaroo. He's Australian, he did a fantastic job, just try it. I mean it's super short if you're looking to go, I don't know, it's 127 pages, and like five of those pages are the glossary with all the Aussie sling, so anyways definitely pick it up, check it out, it's a lot of fun. Next up we have a darker, much, much darker addition to this list, and that is Waif by Samantha Colesnick. I first read True Crime from Samantha, and I was chomping at the bit to get anything else that she published, and this one here is probably the most Cronenberg book I have ever read, and David Cronenberg writes his own books also, but this one is even more Cronenberg than his own book. It is about a woman who is trying to find herself, trying to, you know, going through trying to figure out her sexuality, trying to figure out a bad relationship, and it has some of the coolest gnarliest body horror I have come across. The boyfriend who wants to change so that she will, you know, love him or want to want him around, that one of the cooler storylines I've come across, but definitely, if you like David Cronenberg, definitely check this one out. Next up we have this one I have to give even more of a disclaimer. I am not only friends, good friends with this person, talk to her every single day, but I also am a business partner, and we have read my publishing company that I co-own with Darren Kapoff and TC Parker, the author I'm going to be talking about next. We have since removed it from her personal account and published it under The Hold Might Be or Publishing, so I have a vested interest in this book, but it's fantastic. Just go read other people's reviews if you don't trust mine because I have a vested interest, I understand, but this is the book, this is the reason why I contacted her to begin with, to ask her to come write Maiden with me. So we wrote a book together about a horror story about a boat out in the Bering Strait that is overcome by mermaids and some really gnarly crew members, but anyways, we're talking about salt blood. This one is absolutely, it's fantastic. I've never read anything like it. It's about a prison compound and the prisoners probably shouldn't be there. It's more along the lines of crimes against the state or that kind of thing. Anarchists, that kind of just, there's not terrible people on this prison island, and the mesh or whatever it is that's over the island, fantastic bit of creativity there, but my selling point here is the creature, the lore, everything behind it. This book is only 300 pages and I got so much lore, she introduced me to a brand new monster that I never heard of before, and it was a lot of fun from beginning to end, highly, highly recommended, recommend this, and I reviewed this ages ago before I even contacted her to come and work with me. Also, she's my editor. She's a bunch of different things, but yeah, salt blood, TC Parker, check it out. It's a different cover now. I actually created the, no, wait a second, did I do a new cover? I don't think I did a new cover for this one, but anyways, Keeland Patrick Burke did this one and it's fantastic. I don't think we had to change that one. Okay, next up, last one on the list. If you have not read this author, you're doing yourself a grave disservice. I reviewed one of her books yesterday and I keep saying this, but this channel is turning into a Hailey Piper fanboy account. This is Queen of Teeth by Hailey Piper. If you are discounting this book because you've seen the movie Teeth and you, or you don't like an idea of vagina dentata or that's, that's, that's teeth in your new, new cavity. Anyways, but if, if that kind of story turns you off, give this a try anyways, because it's not only about that. It's a sci-fi, what is it, dystopian future world where genetics have kind of gone crazy. Certain people are born with certain code. So many cool things go on here, but the climax of this book is absolutely bat shit amazing. We're talking about big set pieces, big action. We're talking tanks, giant monsters, all that stuff. And you can't really tell by the cover or by the description that it's gonna turn into that. But I promise you, if you, if you don't like this, I don't know, I just don't know what to tell you. And I would not know what to recommend you if you said that you did not like this book. And I'm not gonna say anything stupid, like, you know, if you don't like this, you're crazy, none of that stuff. But I would be hard pressed to recommend you anything else. If you were to ask me who's a new horror author, I should try. And I point out Hayley Piper, if you don't like Hayley Piper, you're probably not gonna like anything else that I recommend. But anyways, those are my five choices this time for my top five indie small press books. Have you read any of these books? If you have, let me know down there in the doobly-doo. But until next time, I have an E, you have an U. This has been another episode of 31 Days of Halloween. I'll talk to you guys later. Bye-bye!