Simple Pleasures and Widow serve as a fantastic introduction to the collection, gleefully unsettling tales of everyday situations twisted into something horrific. You know how they're going to end as soon as they begin, but it's a hell of a lot of fun getting there.
Angel Lust was one of my two favorites, the story of two washed up prostitutes who decide to get into some really dark, really kinky, really messed up amateur porn to make a quick buck. It's brutal, gross, and darkly humorous, with not just one but two final twists.
Retirement Woes was more sad than horrific, a story of ordinary horrors, but Micah’s Muse quickly gets things back on track with a struggling writer and his monstrous muse. Flesh was a lot of fun, with a would-be-rapist who chose the wrong woman to stalk, while Carnality was a perfect follow-up of a different kind of thwarted love.
Lunch Date with Loa Loa and Ink were decent stories with some genuinely squeamish moments, but I found them to be a bit of a lull in the collection. Bone Phone was my other favorite, a seemingly simple story of a haunted phone, but the way the conversation devolve, revealing dark secrets, is exquisitely satisfying.
Sister Alice’s Suitor was a story that pairs well with the first two, putting a grotesque, haunting twist on a lonely woman's first fateful night of intimacy. The Hand That Feeds was another lull for me, but I liked the way it was told, and appreciate the very subtle punchline at the end. Jack and Jill wraps things up with another story of sex, hunger, flesh, and love that goes wrong.
Full of cannibalism, erotic encounters, twisted obsessions, and fearful secrets, Ad Nauseam is a solid collection, and one where the strength of the telling is equal to the strength of the horrors.
Kindle Edition, 204 pages
Published April 20th 2012 by Dark Moon Books
