The 'Killer Pizza' Series by Greg Taylor

Here is an especially horror filled series of books that will leave you shivering and hungry.

High School

Killer Pizza (Killer Pizza #1)

Pizza you’ll die for!

Toby McGill dreams of becoming a world-famous chef, but up until now, his only experience has been watching the Food Network. When Toby lands a summer job at Killer Pizza, where pies like The Monstrosity and The Frankensausage are on the menu, things seem perfect. His coworkers, Annabel and Strobe, are cool, and Toby loves being part of a team. But none of them are prepared for what’s really going on at Killer Pizza: It’s a front for a monster-hunting organization!

Learning to cook pizzas is one thing, but killing hideously terrifying monsters? That’s a whole other story. Still, if Toby quits Killer Pizza, will monsters take over his town?

The whole idea of a pizza place being the cover for a monster hunting organization is genius. I mean, who would expect that? And it’s a pretty good way to pay for all the equipment. 

The coolest thing about this book is that the monster isn’t the kind of monster you’re used to. It’s not a vampire or a zombie. But original monsters you’ve never heard of. And they are terrifying. The monsters in the first book are werewolf-like creatures but with no hair, are over eight feet tall and indestructible. Extremely terrifying.

“A monster is roaming the night in Hidden Hills, Ohio. But why worry about monsters when you can sink your teeth into a Killer Pizza? Greg Taylor serves up a hot slice of horror that I couldn’t put down!” – R.L. Stine

The Slice (Killer Pizza #2)

Four months after they discover that their new place of employment, Killer Pizza, was a front for an underground Monster Hunting Organization, Toby and his fellow rookie Monster Combat Officers, Annabel and Strobe, have been invited to New York City to tour KP Headquarters. But the exclusive tour is cut short when a monster emergency sends the trio off on a secret mission delivering Calanthe, a beautiful 14-year-old, a monster with serpent-like abilities, into the Monster Protection Program. It seems like an easy assignment until the teens realize Calanthe is the sacrificial offering in a ceremony set to happen in a few days and her people will stop at nothing to get her back!

Not much to say about this book except that I enjoyed this book just as much as the last one. Calanthe’s monster abilities made her an interesting character. 

Check out the back of this book and the first book for special pizza recipes created by Toby McGill.

Vampire Stakes (Killer Pizza #3)

When Toby McGill, now a veteran of Killer Pizza’s underground Monster Hunting Organization, makes the chilling discovery that vampires have invaded the small town of Raven’s Run, he and his fellow Monster Combat Officers, Annabel and Strobe, have no time to lose. They must defeat the undead creatures before their numbers spread. But in this action packed third Killer Pizza adventure, the KP teens find themselves up against a supernatural enemy far more dangerous than any they have faced so far.

The challenges — including a midnight battle in an unearthly cemetery, a creepy, abandoned mansion and a beautiful but very lethal young vampire — are many. Can the MCOs prevail? Or will their perilous mission prove to be their last? Anything is possible in the deadly monster universe of Killer Pizza!

It wasn’t easy to get my hands on this story because it doesn’t exist in physical book form. I had to buy it on iTunes as an eBook for $7.99 and read it on my computer. I don’t enjoy reading books like this. I’ll read fanfiction online, but I don’t enjoy reading whole books on a screen because I like to read books on paper. But I wanted to know how this story ends. I hope all of you out there appreciate all the work I put into making this blog great. 

The great thing about this book is that it gives me the chance to talk about vampires. Luckily the vampires in this book are nothing like the vampires in the Twilight books. The Twilight vampires are the worse vampires ever and the whole book series is awful. I tried reading the first book back in high school and I couldn’t do it. They are just horrible.

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If you like stories about high school teens fighting monsters, check out the Nickelodeon show The Troop. The Troop is a live action television show about a trio of teenagers who fight and capture monsters and other supernatural phenomena that invade they hometown. Episodes are available on iTunes.

This weeks’ Weird but True Fact about Pizza

A pizza shop in Oregon sold slices layered with more than 100 types of cheese.

Well, this is the last my spooky October book reviews. I hope you enjoyed it.

Afraid of Everything by Adam Tierney

HAPPY 150^THBOOK REVIEW

And to celebrate, here is a book of short horror stoires written specially for young readers.

5 to 95 (Suggested for all readers)

Featuring 26 terrifying short stories each based on a different A to Z phobia, this book is perfect for the young reader who wants a real scare.

I found this book of scary stories at a recent Long Beach Comic Con being sold by the author, Adam Tierney. He told me that when he was a growing up in the mid-80’s that he loved reading scary stories and watch scary movies and that now he has a kid of his own who also loves horror. But in this day and age, horror related stories for kids have gotten a lot tamer. So, he wrote this book. To learn the full story, click on the Kickstarter link below:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/adamctierney/afraid-of-everything-horror-stories-for-all-ages/description

I told him I liked his idea of using phobias and asked him if he had heard of the fear of long words; Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia. He said no. I’m hoping if he writes a sequel he’ll include more weird phobias like Nomophobia (the fear of being without cellphones) and Sidonglobophobia (the fear of cotton balls).

I am happy to say that I’ve gone through this whole book and everything is just the right amount of scary. Scary enough to give you shivers but not scary enough to keep you from reading. 

This weeks’ Weird but True Fact about an Abnormal Fear

Arachibutyrophobia is the fear of getting peanut butter stuck to the roof of your mouth.

Stained by Cheryl Rainfield

High School

16-year-old Sarah Meadows longs for ‘normal’. Born with a port-wine stain covering half her face, all her life she’s been plagued by stares, giggles, bullying, and disgust.

But when she’s abducted on the way home from school, Sarah must summon her personal strength to survive abduction and the horrific abuse at the hands of a deranged killer.

This girl is definitely the strongest female character ever. She had to go through so much more than any other female character I’ve talked about on this blog. And that’s saying something (Check out past April Henry posts). She was blindfolded for months. Only given peanut butter, bananas, and crackers to eat. And she had to go to the bathroom in a bucket while blindfolded. And that’s not mentioning the physical and psychological abuse. I know for a fact I would not have been able to do what she did to keep from breaking. 

The point of view switches between Sarah and her family; and on the top of the page showing how many days she’s been gone.

Now let’s talk about port-wine stains. According to kidhealth.org, a port-wine stain is a birthmark that literally looks like maroon wine was spilled or splashed on the skin. Though they often start out looking pink at birth, port-wine stains tend to become darker (usually reddish-purple or dark red) as kids grow. 

Personally, I’m fascinated by discoloration on the skin. It makes me think, “On a genetic level, how does that happen?” and “Why do some people have it and not others?” After reading this book, I decided to have one of my characters have a port-wine stain on their face too.  

You will be on the edge of your seat throughout this entire book. Trust me.

This weeks’ Weird but True Fact about Skin

You lose about 500 million skin cells every 24 hours.

Hellworld by Tom Leveen

HAPPY OCTOBER!

To celebrate October, here’s a “hell-raising” story to get us in the Halloween mode.

Pun intended. 

High School

5 years ago, Abby Booth’s mom, co-host of a ghost hunting reality show, went missing while filming in a ‘haunted’ cave in Arizona.

Since then, Abby’s life has all but fallen to pieces, most notably because of her dad’s deep depression and how they’ve drifted further and further apart.

But now, at 17, Abby has decided that things will change. She plans to go to the same cave where her mom and the crew went missing and to find out, once and for all, what happened there.

With the help of the co-host’s son Charlie and two of his friends, Abby sets off on a quest for answers…but what the group ends up finding, what they stumble across in that dark, primordial cave in Arizona, is nothing they could have ever imagined.

Abby was investigating a possible haunting… she never expected that there could be something worse.

This book has a story-telling style that I’ve never seen before. The way each chapter switches between the Then and Now. You’re left in the dark for most of the story. 

I considered multiple times just reading the Then chapters first and the Now chapters next but I stuck with reading the story the way it was written.

Even though you feel lost, keep reading. The Then and Now element makes this story all the more suspenseful. 

That’s enough about the writing style, on to something else.

The biggest subject featured in this story is Religion vs. Science. There’s a whole Then chapter talking about different religions, how some religions have more than one god, and how science is involved. And I’m going to stop there because all of that chapters’ information kind of went over my head. Besides you can’t have a reasonable conversation about Religion vs. Science without hurting someone else’s feelings. 

This weeks’ Weird but True Fact an Odd Discovery

A man accidentally discovered a 49,000-year-old human settlement while taking a bathroom break in an Australian park.