Tongues

I was provided a print copy of Tongues by Sam Joyce for review.

Tongues is a horror story from the beginning. It does take a bit to understand what exactly the focus of the horror is. The story moves from one anti social group to another before telling us what the real evil is. The horror is a practitioner of a voodoo-type spirituality, Palo Mayumbe. Carmen (the practitioner) unleashes a sinister spell in a small Texas town.

I have to say I was a little disappointed in how this story played out. I'm not sure if I received a galley or uncorrected proof. There weren't typos but there were issues of continuity at times. For example: in one sentence the heroine jerks a gun out of the bad guys hands. Two sentences later she struggles with the bad guy to take the gun away from him. That kind of continuity issue.

The story itself was scary enough and I did like it over all. Serious evil running rampant with no way to stop it. But some of the depictions of the evil people were doing just seemed too jarring. Not just graphic (which I have no problem with) but seemingly included more for shock value than story progression. Graphic violence, graphic sexuality (at one point bordering on the absurd). A six hour or so road trip took up a major portion of the book, bogging it down for me.

The ending didn't really resolve the problem and didn't really set us up for any future books.  I always strive to be positive in my reviews, and Tongues by Sam Joyce, is an o.k. book, but for me it fell a bit flat. If you like horror stories about evil spirituality, and can get past a few continuity issues, you'll probably like Tongues. Enjoy!

Mike