Behrg Reviews: "My Pretties" by Jeff Strand

Jeff Strand is a master at telling stories, and in the storyland hotel he lives in--which we can only occasionally visit--there are many floors to explore, each one as diverse and unique as the next. Some are deceptively dark and foreboding, others have clown music and bright lights (though there are still creepy things lurking around corners), but no two novels will ever be exactly alike.

This is a good thing. Too often, successful authors fear straying from the mold they've created as it might alienate the audience they've tried to build. But Strand's okay with alienation. In fact he might just string you up in a cage in a quiet suburban basement and simply watch you there for some time. Eventually, though, he'll deliver that special type of novel that you really connect with, the one that shrieks at you as loudly as you scream back. Oh, wait, I don't talk to the novels I read either, I mean, that would be crazy . . .

All this to say, I dug My Pretties. It might not have hit as hard as Pressure did for me, or wow me the way Blister did in a--how is someone in Hollywood not picking this up and making it into a movie immediately--way, but it still was a floor worth exploring.

Now back to that clown music . . .