Book review stop! Today I’m delighted to be the host for Savage Indulgence, a horror short story novel written by S. Raquel.
First thing first, let me thank the author for providing me with an e-copy of this book. Much obliged *hat tip*
MEET THE BOOK
Don’t bite off more than you can chew.
Joyce has a taste for the forbidden.
After years of reveling in the finer things life has to offer, she invites four dinner guests to partake in an exquisite feast.
As her guests morph into victims, Joyce prepares for the next phase of her dinner. But her long-awaited plans crumble before her very eyes when she realizes her victims may be defective.
Despite the setbacks, Joyce will stop at nothing to satiate her hunger.
Savage Indulgence is a skin-crawling short story with an acquired taste.
Horror, short story
Publication date: 22/02/02
Purchase links
READ MY REVIEW
Cover: Powerful. It leaves nothing to the imagination, and I quite like the artist’s style, too.
Oh my. This is a peculiar story, one I decided to read on a whim and that left me with a satisfied feeling. As I already said once or twice in previous reviews, sometimes a good horror is just what the doctor ordered.
First of all, I’m so pleased to see an elderly woman as 1. the MC 2. the villain and 3. the narrating voice. I know I’m not wild about first POVs; I’m also able to praise them when they’re done well. Plus, Raquel gives Joyce a powerful voice and an impressive personality.
Am I disgusted by Joyce’s flavor of choice? Yep. Am I impressed at how unrepentant she is without falling for the cackling cartoon villain trap? Also yep.
Savage Indulgence is a page-turner, albeit it challenged my disbelief once or twice. Or not, in retrospect. I’ll admit I asked myself if people could really be that gullible, that blindingly trusting and stupid—after giving it a bit of thought, I realized that yes, people could, and yes, Raquel’s portrait of your Average Joe was accurate.
Call me cynical all you like; that’s accurate, too.
Raquel’s writing is pleasant to read, mistake-free—yay!—and it flows nicely enough. She’s the living proof that self-pub can be done, and be done well, if there’s enough attention to the details (*coughs* editing *coughs*).
Flaws section: lured by the title, I was expecting a big twist at the end, a twist that didn’t… come? I mean, you talk about a twist and my mind goes places. That’s maybe the best feature of every book, a detail or a revelation that nobody would guess. Here, well. Connecting the dots is not immediate, but that’s not a twist. That’s added info. Aw.
4 stars on GR.
MEET THE AUTHOR
A self-publishing mentor, best-selling author, and public speaker, Shayla Raquel works one-on-one with writers every day. A lifelong lover of books, she has been in the publishing industry for a dozen years and teaches on author branding, indie publishing, book marketing, and the craft of writing.
Her award-winning blog teaches new and established authors how to write, publish, and market their books.
She is the author of the Pre-Publishing Checklist, “The Rotting” (in Shivers in the Night), The Suicide Tree, The 10 Commandments of Author Branding, All the Things I Should’ve Told You, and “Savage Indulgence.” In her not-so-free time, she studies all things true crime and obsesses over squirrels. She lives in Oklahoma with her husband and three fur babies.
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