Book Review - One Buck Horror Volume 1

Book Review - One Buck Horror Vol 1 edited by Christopher and Kris M. Hawkins

One Buck Horror is an affordable anthology priced at 99cents. There were 5 short stories in this anthology, all by authors I'd never read before. The two that stood out for me were:

A Lullaby for Caliban by Mark Onspaugh  - A touching story of some kids who try to steal a pickled foetus from a carnival.

The Cornfield by Mike Trier- a fast paced take on the werewolf.

Although the remaining 3 stories didn't work for me, I'll be checking out volume 2.

Rating 3/5

• Format: Kindle Edition
• File Size: 125 KB
• Publisher: Coronis Publishing (24 Jun 2011)
• Language English
• ASIN: B00584MMG8

Visit the publisher's website here

Other books you may be interested in:

The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 20

Houses Without Doors by Peter Straub

RoW80 - Round 3 - The Final Check in

Woohoo, it's the final check in and I'm still standing.

So what did I do? I completed my initial good reads reading challenge of 12 books and increased it to 17 books for the year. I'm about half a book away from meeting that goal.

I think I wrote at least 10 new poems this round maybe more. Without digging through the jungle of files on my hard drive I won't know the exact figures.

Completed about 80% of the spreadsheet data for my novel in progress.

Started a semi regular deep breathing exercise which grew into a regular yoga routine.

I committed to studying for a BA in creative writing.

As always during ROW80 the support and motivation from the community has been fantastic, hopefully I'll put that motivation to better use next round. My goals for round 4 will be the same as for round 3 but with the added goal of catching up on poetry rewrites. I need to start getting this stuff subbed out.

Hope to see you all in October.

RoW80 - Round 3 - Check in 13

All goals apart from my exercise goal have stalled. I've kept to the yoga routine every day since last check in, added in a new move, increased the level on an existing one and modified another posture to an easier version so I'll see how that goes for the next week. I've noticed that some of the stiffness has gone from across my neck and shoulder's.

I'll get back on top of studying today and hopefully figure out a bit more of the novel's timeline.

It's the final few days of Round 3, thanks to everyone whose stopped by the blog throughout this round. I hope you've all found much success with your writing.

Book Review - The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

Book Review - The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving

The narrator introduces us to Sleepy Hollow a village rife with superstitions and legend. The main character Ichabod is well liked within the community and has his heart set on the daughter of Van Tassel. After a night of telling ghost stories at the estate, he heads for home and experiences the local legend first hand. Overall it's an ok story, it had an old fashioned charm about it and was interesting to see the original story that inspired the film.

Rating 3/5



Other books you may be interested in:
The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 20
Apartment 16 by Adam Nevill

RoW80 - Round 3 - Check in 12

Ok, I have absolutely no idea where the week went between Sunday and today, so I'll just keep this brief:

Exercised every day apart from yesterday, I'm sure you need to give muscles a rest period so I took yesterday off as I'd done about 6 days straight. Already feel better mentally but the physical benefits will take awhile to materialise.

Wrote a new poem last night

Haven't read anything since Sunday

Have now filled in spreadsheet data for my novels timeline up to Chapter 5. Already seen a problem area where the time for 2 events may be too close together.

Managed to do 750 words but lost 200 due to net problems and had to redo. I wouldn't have minded so much but I lost the section where I was prodding my own brain.

Feeling a bit bombarded lately so need to sit down and write out a to do list, get back on top of things.

Hope everyone's well

I think that was everything

ROW80 - Round 3 - Check in 11

Going to restate my goals here as I've still been slacking since getting back from holiday. Internet's still being tempermental, went down on me while I was updating the learning blog for my course and it's pretty much thrown 750 words out the window.

1) Keep up with studies
2) Read fiction/ poetry most days of the week
3) 5 minutes of pranayama at least 5 times a week
4) Write, rewrite and analyse one new poem a week (scheduled for Wednesday nights.)
5) Read one fiction writing related article at least once a week.
6) Continue with prep work for the 2nd draft of a novel.


Goal 1 - I did get all my coursework together and read some more of Ruth Padel's 52 ways of looking at a poem. I 've decided to go for a full BA in Creative Writing now and my assessment won't be til July, with 2 assignments still to go and the way I fall off wagons I think aiming for the March assessment will be cutting it fine. 
Goal 2 - Did read a chunk of Scott Nicholson's creative Spirit on Saturday while I had the dog glued to my lap for a couple of hours. 


Goal 3 - Every day for 4 days and added in a couple of yoga postures. Will add on more yoga once I've got used to the current exercises.


Goals 4 and 5, nothing on those


Goal 6 - I haven't even looked at the novel. I've switched the desktop computer over to my weak strength 3G network so if I get caught up on internet stuff today, I'll try and plug out the novel's timeline this evening and maybe do 750 words assuming the 3G isn't tediously slow.


For anyone else interested in doing a creative writing BA in home study, I'm studying with the Open College of the Arts

See the rest of the crew here:

Book Review - The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

Book review - The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson


The bulk of the story is told from the perspective of loyal friend and solicitor to Dr Jekyll, Mr Utterson which I was a bit disappointed in, as a reader I would have liked to have been up close and personal with Jekyll and Hyde. With so many film and drama adaptions based on this story it was interesting to see how the original work was done and it offers up an interesting idea of what would happen if we could separate those unsavoury drives of the human psyche from our good.

 Rating: 3/5

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Classics; Rev Ed edition (27 Feb 2003)
• Language English
• ISBN-10: 0141439734
• ISBN-13: 978-0141439730

Other Books you may be interested in:

The Invisible Man by H. G. Wells

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson

ROW80 - Round 3 - Check in 10

Going to make this quick. I don't have much to report other than I'm increasing my deep breathing exercises to 6 minutes seeing as I've stopped fidgeting and hoping to move into some light yoga exercises by the weekend and possiblely move on to classes when my stamina's up. I haven't touched my novel's spreadsheet since I got back from hols and still need to crack on with course work.

Thanks to everyone swinging by on Sunday, I've decided to pursue a full BA in creative writing, I'm kind of terrified at the commitment and I've come full circle now because I started a degree once before way back and ended up walking away from it. But I'm doing home study and only concentrating on one module at a time rather than 3 or 4 different classes a week. Hopefully history won't repeat itself and anything that benefits writing is a must.

Hope you're all chugging along nicely