Currency of Souls
4/5
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Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
Welcome to Eddie’s Tavern, the only functioning waterhole in a near-dead town. Among the people you’ll meet tonight are: Tom, Milestone’s haunted lawman, who walks in the shadow of death; Gracie, the barmaid, a wannabe actress, doomed to spend her hours tending bar in a purgatory of her father’s making; Flo, the town seductress, who may or may not have murdered her husband; Cobb, a nudist awaiting an apology from the commune who cast him out; Wintry, the mute giant, whose story is told only in cryptic messages scribbled beneath newspaper headlines; Kyle, the kid, who keeps a loaded gun beneath the table; and Cadaver, who looks like a corpse, but smells real nice, and occupies his time counting stacks of pennies.
And then there’s Reverend Hill, who will be in at eleven, regular as clockwork, to tell them who’s going to die, and who’s going to drive.
Welcome to Eddie’s, where tonight, for the first time in three years, nothing will go according to plan, as Milestone plays host to a war among souls desperate to escape.
From Publishers Weekly:
"...a gripping horror novel whose motley cast of characters drink the evening away in a seedy bar, Eddie’s Tavern, in a dying town called Milestone. Each is stained by--and may even have caused--an ugly death that still haunts him or her... At the haunting conclusion, escape proves only a brief respite from damnation."
From Booklist:
"Burke's sharp-edged prose includes enough unforgettable characterizations and dollops of macabre wit to distinguish him as one of the most clever and original talents in contemporary horror."
From the Agony Column:
"Burke writes one memorable sentence after another, ratchets the action up at an alarming pace and by the time the going gets weird, you know that Burke is a pro... You get that collection of odd personalities, each with a great backstory. But you get those backstories in the context of a really, really eventful night at the ol’ Tavern. Lives will end, at least for a short while. Undeaths will begin. Murders will be committed and if not solved, perhaps they’ll get resolved."
From the Rocky Mountain News:
"Bram Stoker Award-winner Burke spins a weird, frightening tale of despair and redemption with a deft touch of irony."
Kealan Patrick Burke
Born and raised in a small harbor town in the south of Ireland, Kealan Patrick Burke knew from a very early age that he was going to be a horror writer. The combination of an ancient locale, a horror-loving mother, and a family full of storytellers, made it inevitable that he would end up telling stories for a living. Since those formative years, he has written five novels, over a hundred short stories, six collections, and edited four acclaimed anthologies. In 2004, he was honored with the Bram Stoker Award for his novella The Turtle Boy. Kealan has worked as a waiter, a drama teacher, a mapmaker, a security guard, an assembly-line worker at Apple Computers, a salesman (for a day), a bartender, landscape gardener, vocalist in a grunge band, curriculum content editor, fiction editor at Gothic.net, and, most recently, a fraud investigator. When not writing, Kealan designs book covers through his company Elderlemon Design. A movie based on his short story "Peekers" is currently in development as a major motion picture.
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Reviews for Currency of Souls
12 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This was okay for me. I liked some parts more than others and thought it was a decent story overall. I was really excited going into this book because I was in the mood for a little horror and I have heard great things about Kealan Patrick Burke's work. I am glad that I decided to give this book a listen.The beginning of the story actually ended up being my favorite part of the book. The book opens with Tom going to Eddie's Tavern for his normal Saturday night. Everyone at the bar spends their Saturday nights together waiting to see if they will be picked for an unpleasant task. Nobody wants to be there but they know there is really no choice in the matter. The group of characters at the bar were great. All of them were incredibly unique and added something to the story. I couldn't wait to see what they were waiting for.Of course, things do not go as planned on the night in question. Honestly, things go about as bad as they possibly could. There are new characters introduced and a few unexpected situations but the magic of those opening scenes in the bar just never seemed to return to the story. The story had a lot of different threads and kind of seemed to be all over the place at times. Things did come back together by the end of the story some things didn't make a whole lot of sense.I thought that Rich Miller did a good job with the narration. I thought he had a very pleasant voice that was really easy to listen to hours at a time. My only complaint would be that it was hard to tell when there was a change in point of view of the story which was confusing at times. Overall, I think that he did a great job keeping the story moving forward. I wouldn't hesitate to listen to his work again in the future.I do think that some readers will like this one more than I did. I did have good time with this one even though I had to go back and listen to certain parts more than once when I found myself feeling a bit confused. I do hope to read more of Kealan Patrick Burke's work in the future.I received a copy of this audiobook from the author / narrator via Audiobook Boom.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Currency of Souls puts its own unique spin on the idea of making deals with the devil. A motley group of people living in a near-dead town meet every week at Eddie's Tavern, where a preacher gives them instructions by the local preacher to drive and kill sinners in order to make up for their own sins. But when the usual plan goes wrong, and the group tries to break free of their burden, events quickly spiral out of control.This is a fast paced read and while each character might not be likeable, at least they are interesting. The sheriff, Tom, is the main focus and he's troubled by his inability to handle much of anything and his general feeling of helplessness. But as he tries to fight his own way free, while also saving his son, he begins to take necessary action.The devil character is interesting, because he is not really a devil and religiously speaking it's hard to tell where he stands, though he does make deals and more often than not the deals are not to the benefit of those who come to him.As I said, this was a fast read and I enjoyed it. Though there were aspects that I'm still not clear on and I'm uncomfortable with an aspect of the story that I can't really talk about without giving anything away. Regardless, it's worth a read.