I received this book from the author, in exchange for an honest review.

Until now, occult was a declination of the horror genre that I still had to explore, so curiosity was the main motivation that drove me to read Ash: Return of the Beast. Though it was an interesting and at times intriguing read, I'm still not certain, however, that this is exactly my cup of tea...

The premise for this story comes from a real-life individual whose existence I knew nothing about until now: Aleister Crowley was, in short, an occultist and satanist who had been dubbed the "wickedest man in the world", and after searching for more information about him online (not to mention seeing his unsettling picture!), I'm hardly surprised at the definition. The novel opens with the mysterious disappearance of Crowley's ashes to reach the present days and follow a series of gruesome murders targeting pastors of various denominations and involving a disturbed rock singer. A detective from the Seattle PD and an agent from the FBI are thrown into an uneasy alliance to solve the murders and deal with the dark forces that threaten to overwhelm the world. Be prepared for an unexpected, not to mention troubling, ending though...

The narrative part of the book is indeed interesting and fast-paced, once the necessary introductory material and back-story have been dealt with, and as soon as the events start to roll, and take on the appearance of an unstoppable avalanche, the reading becomes almost compulsory and gains added speed through the author's choice of going back and forth in time (even when it's a short time frame) to show how small events in the past have come to impact those in the present and are leading toward the narrative climax. There are several excursions into branches of the occult culture, like numerology, that make for a fascinating reading, even for someone as skeptical as myself.

Where the book did not work for me, unfortunately, was with the characterization: apart from the frequent head-hopping and several typos, that could prove quite distracting at times, I could not get a sense of the various players, both main and secondary ones, as people - to my eyes they appeared more like props put there to carry the story, and as such they were not invested with the qualities I usually need to take an active interest in them, to care for them. The majority of the character building rests on long dialogue exchanges that seem aimed more at broadening the reader's understanding of the occult sub-culture rather than at the fleshing out of the people present on the scene. Even when personal details were added to the mix, it happened in a "telling" rather than "showing" mode, and that did little to deepen my knowledge of what makes these people tick.

Detective Brian Kane, for example, is described as a gruff man with a strong down-to-Earth tendency, who finds it extremely difficult to accept the information provided by his counterpart, FBI agent Rowena Ravenwood: this was meant to show the antithesis between his disbelieving attitude and her vast knowledge of the occult world, gained through years of work in the special FBI branch that deals with such phenomena. What I did not like in this representation was Kane's excessive use of colloquialisms that to me felt both unnatural and contrived, and not at all like an organically ingrained speech pattern. Ravenwood, on the other hand, was given the task of pedantically "educating" Kane, falling prey to long, drawn-out explanations to which the detective replied with repeated requests for clarification and declarations of skepticism that in the long run proved somewhat irritating. Ravenwood's long-suffering patience and her considerations about Kane's on-off "inner Teddy Bear" soon followed along the same route, and unfortunately all these elements prevented me from enjoying the story as I had wished.

Despite this purely personal misgivings, though, the novel offers a quick, engrossing read - with the forewarning that it contains strong themes not recommended for the very young and the squeamish: if horror, supernatural and Lovecraftian-like creatures rising from the darkest depths are in your chords, then this book is certainly for you.


http://spaceandsorcery.wordpress.com/2014/12/13/ash-return-of-the-beast-gary-v-t...

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From my blog http://www.onstarshipsanddragonwings.com/

Ash: Return of the Beast by Gary Val Tenuta; an occult thriller about a dead black sorcerer, a broken cop, a mystical FBI agent and the end of the world
When Tenuta asked me if I would read and review his occult thriller, I have to admit I was a little nervous. I don’t handle scary or gruesome tales well at all, and it was rather outside of my normal reading, but I’m glad I gave it a try! The prologues were a little tough for me to get through due to their gruesome nature (not for youngsters!!), but once I got to the meat of the story I was compelled by Tenuta’s writing and characters to find out what happened!

Goodreads | Amazon
Title: Ash: Return of the Beast
Author: Gary Val Tenuta
Pages: 8058 Kindle locations
Genre-ish: Occult Thriller
Rating: ★★★★☆- Compelling, a couple of warnings
Setting: Ash: Return of the Beast is set in the modern day Seattle mostly, except when they go exploring various regions of Hell, and all that magic stuff ;-)
Premise: Aleister Crowley was a major figure in the occult back in the day, but he’s not finished despite that whole death thing. When preachers start getting murdered and mutilated, a Seattle cop and mystically-informed FBI agent have to team up to figure out what is going on and stop it before the world ends.
Strengths:
Ravenwood and Kane are great characters with several secrets they keep from each other and their chemistry develops at a good pace through out the book. This is a refreshing change from the boy-meets-girl books where everyone is suddenly in love with each other :).
A lot of research evidently went into this book, and I learned some interesting things about the history of the occult.
The dark elements of this book are certainly dark, and if that is something you are interested in, you wont’ be disappointed!
The writing was really compelling, even though there wasn’t really much of a mystery, I still was always excited to pick up my Kindle and keep reading.
Weaknesses:
A few typos which is typical of self-published books, however mixing up a characters name (albeit a secondary character) is a little weird (I think it was Coldwell to Cawell or something like that).
Rape (including of children), mutilation, suicide and vengeful spirits are all included in Ash: Return of the Beast, you’ve been warned. I didn’t think that I was going to make it past the prologues (yes multiple) with how much heavy stuff was happening, but once I made it past those, it was mostly a cop thriller.
The multiple prologues and epilogues just didn’t work for me. It seems that there should only be one of each and simply a break between different sub-plots….
The “Teddy Bear” lines that Ravenwood used to describe Kane at times got a little repetitive…. Show don’t tell!
Summary:
I really had no idea what to expect when accepting Ash: Return of the Beast for review, but I’m really glad I did. It’s definitely for mature audiences only, and you need to know that there is some really dark stuff, but if you are okay reading about all of that, then you will probably enjoy Ash: Return of the Beast. I’m a fan of those crime thriller shows on TV, and found a very similar feel for most of the book, except with the whole magic is real thing. As long as you know what you’re getting into, you should definitely pick up a copy of Ash: Return of the Beast! I’m also very much looking forward to future work by Tenuta, maybe something less dark next time? :D ( )

More reviews at: http://www.onstarshipsanddragonwings.com/2012/09/21/ash-return-of-the-beast/

Ash: Return of the Beast by Gary Val Tenuta; an occult thriller about a dead black sorcerer, a broken cop, a mystical FBI agent and the end of the world
When Tenuta asked me if I would read and review his occult thriller, I have to admit I was a little nervous. I don’t handle scary or gruesome tales well at all, and it was rather outside of my normal reading, but I’m glad I gave it a try! The prologues were a little tough for me to get through due to their gruesome nature (not for youngsters!!), but once I got to the meat of the story I was compelled by Tenuta’s writing and characters to find out what happened!

Title: Ash: Return of the Beast
Author: Gary Val Tenuta
Pages: 8058 Kindle locations
Genre-ish: Occult Thriller
Rating: ★★★★☆- Compelling, a couple of warnings
Setting: Ash: Return of the Beast is set in the modern day Seattle mostly, except when they go exploring various regions of Hell, and all that magic stuff ;-)
Premise: Aleister Crowley was a major figure in the occult back in the day, but he’s not finished despite that whole death thing. When preachers start getting murdered and mutilated, a Seattle cop and mystically-informed FBI agent have to team up to figure out what is going on and stop it before the world ends.
Strengths:
Ravenwood and Kane are great characters with several secrets they keep from each other and their chemistry develops at a good pace through out the book. This is a refreshing change from the boy-meets-girl books where everyone is suddenly in love with each other :).
A lot of research evidently went into this book, and I learned some interesting things about the history of the occult.
The dark elements of this book are certainly dark, and if that is something you are interested in, you wont’ be disappointed!
The writing was really compelling, even though there wasn’t really much of a mystery, I still was always excited to pick up my Kindle and keep reading.
Weaknesses:
A few typos which is typical of self-published books, however mixing up a characters name (albeit a secondary character) is a little weird (I think it was Coldwell to Cawell or something like that).
Rape (including of children), mutilation, suicide and vengeful spirits are all included in Ash: Return of the Beast, you’ve been warned. I didn’t think that I was going to make it past the prologues (yes multiple) with how much heavy stuff was happening, but once I made it past those, it was mostly a cop thriller.
The multiple prologues and epilogues just didn’t work for me. It seems that there should only be one of each and simply a break between different sub-plots….
The “Teddy Bear” lines that Ravenwood used to describe Kane at times got a little repetitive…. Show don’t tell!
Summary:
I really had no idea what to expect when accepting Ash: Return of the Beast for review, but I’m really glad I did. It’s definitely for mature audiences only, and you need to know that there is some really dark stuff, but if you are okay reading about all of that, then you will probably enjoy Ash: Return of the Beast. I’m a fan of those crime thriller shows on TV, and found a very similar feel for most of the book, except with the whole magic is real thing. As long as you know what you’re getting into, you should definitely pick up a copy of Ash: Return of the Beast! I’m also very much looking forward to future work by Tenuta, maybe something less dark next time? :D ( )