Book Review: Bleed by Ed Kurtz

Walt Blackmore has just moved into his brand new home, where he is met by an unusual brown stain that has formed on the ceiling. He tries to paint over it, but it keeps coming back – and its growing. As it grows it feeds on cockroaches, rats… but pretty quickly it moves onto human blood.

“It was no longer just a stain. It was a living entity. And it was feeding.”

This book has been my favourite read of the year so far. SO. DAMN. GOOD. It’s clearly heavily influenced by Clive Barker’s “The Hellbound Heart”, so if you’re a fan of that kind of gruesome yet brilliant horror, then this book needs to make its way onto your TBR. However, it might not be for you if you have a weak stomach.

It’s simply unputdownable, the pages practically turn themselves! The pace is perfect, there’s never a dull moment, it constantly had my attention and dying to find out what happened next – and the fun thing is that I could never even predict what was coming. This book had me hook, line and sinker; I was along for the ride! And what a bloody, disgusting ride it was. Quite easily one of the most disturbing and unsettling books I have ever read. It will live long in the memory, and when it comes to horror, that is ALWAYS a good thing.

Watching our protagonist’s descent into insanity was incredibly addictive. I found myself thinking about this book a lot when I wasn’t reading it. A sure fire sign that I’m loving a book is when I tell everyone around me about what I’m currently reading (much to my mum’s disgust and concern, I’m sure she wishes my literary tastes were slightly less horrific).

I sometimes find it really difficult to write a review for a book that I really loved, all I want to do is exclaim “I LOVED IT. ALL OF IT.” over and over again! So I’ll stop before I become tedious… simply put – pick this up! I’m so glad the Nocturnal Reader’s Box included this book in one of their boxes, who knows if I’d have found it otherwise. BRILLIANT. 5 stars!

Johann

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