"Hell Cat of the Holt"
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“blood and breath.”
After a failed marriage, Anne moves into her grandparents' home in the village of Mabley Holt, where she becomes an unashamed cat lady. She meant for it to be a temporary living situation that is until Anne loses both her grandparents after a terrible accident. Something her grandfather told her before he died begins to stalk her very soul, when strange sightings of a big black cat foreshadows more than some bad luck in “Hell Cat of the Holt”. This novella is a standalone story from Mark Cassell’s “Shadow Fabric” mythos, but I included a link to his recently released box set (containing three other books) for the same price, which includes his bestselling novel “The Shadow Fabric”.
After a failed marriage, Anne moves into her grandparents' home in the village of Mabley Holt, where she becomes an unashamed cat lady. She meant for it to be a temporary living situation that is until Anne loses both her grandparents after a terrible accident. Something her grandfather told her before he died begins to stalk her very soul, when strange sightings of a big black cat foreshadows more than some bad luck in “Hell Cat of the Holt”. This novella is a standalone story from Mark Cassell’s “Shadow Fabric” mythos, but I included a link to his recently released box set (containing three other books) for the same price, which includes his bestselling novel “The Shadow Fabric”.
Readability
The pace of “Hell Cat of the Holt” was alright, but I did not like the structure. The story is broken up into odd chunks that could have been better organized for a cleaner presentation. There are no chapters. There’s just five parts to the story, but each section is headed with a subtitle like you would often see in a short story format. For instance, “A Story I Heard” is basically the introduction of the story and runs like seven pages, the next part “My Name is Anne” runs around forty two pages, followed by an “interlude” that runs six pages, then the largest part of the story running about forty six pages, and finally what is effectively the epilogue which is four pages. So effectively the story itself is broken into two main parts with several scene breaks throughout, but some not really as necessary as others. I feel like my reading experience could have been better if the story had been broken into several short chapters with subtitles rather than broad sweeping parts. The shorter parts read like proper chapters, but the two lengthy parts I felt had too much packed under one subtitle (like an overwritten short story). Aside from structure, the story is well edited and even includes additional artwork among the text.
Creativity
The majority of the story is told from a first person perspective through the main character Anne, but there are some parts where the perspective shifts to third person for some side characters. The transitions in perspective are seamless. Cassell has strong prose when he wants to paint a scene. He does a good job at bringing gruesome details to life with strong use of metaphors. There were things described at the end that had me seeing/hearing the disgusting sights and sounds within my mind in high def. The dialogue came across as fairly natural, nothing too witty or melodramatic about it.
Delivery
Is “Hell Cat of the Holt” supernatural? Yeah, there are ghosts, demons, abominations, but… it’s a grueling build up along the way towards revealing why any of the paranormal things are happening and how they’re connected. The story starts out really strong by creating tension and dread during the intro with a tragic accident scene. When I get to part one of Anne’s storyline things slow down and the “B” storyline is her trying to find her lost cat, Murphy. There is a second accident involving a van during the story to bring the big black cat back to the forefront, but I thought it was redundant and came off as lazy. The van man serves as an awkward plot device twice in this novella. It was kind of funny to me that Harriet’s character was a tool as well, but when Anne saw her outside late at night walking into the woods she just kind of shrugged it off. Screw Harriet, lol! That was the only time the character’s actions didn’t line up with the atmosphere. Well, that and the fact that the final scene(s) all take place during the same night, after Anne and Clive were supposed to be leaving Leo’s house to go home for bed. Anne gets up and makes another visit to Leo’s, then his neighbor’s, then back to Clive’s house, then into the wilderness with little to no sense of fear during what is assumed to be the witching hour. I liked Pippa’s character, she was interesting. Everybody else was blah, but Anne’s strong independent woman shtick actually worked at the end with the two cats.
The pace of “Hell Cat of the Holt” was alright, but I did not like the structure. The story is broken up into odd chunks that could have been better organized for a cleaner presentation. There are no chapters. There’s just five parts to the story, but each section is headed with a subtitle like you would often see in a short story format. For instance, “A Story I Heard” is basically the introduction of the story and runs like seven pages, the next part “My Name is Anne” runs around forty two pages, followed by an “interlude” that runs six pages, then the largest part of the story running about forty six pages, and finally what is effectively the epilogue which is four pages. So effectively the story itself is broken into two main parts with several scene breaks throughout, but some not really as necessary as others. I feel like my reading experience could have been better if the story had been broken into several short chapters with subtitles rather than broad sweeping parts. The shorter parts read like proper chapters, but the two lengthy parts I felt had too much packed under one subtitle (like an overwritten short story). Aside from structure, the story is well edited and even includes additional artwork among the text.
Creativity
The majority of the story is told from a first person perspective through the main character Anne, but there are some parts where the perspective shifts to third person for some side characters. The transitions in perspective are seamless. Cassell has strong prose when he wants to paint a scene. He does a good job at bringing gruesome details to life with strong use of metaphors. There were things described at the end that had me seeing/hearing the disgusting sights and sounds within my mind in high def. The dialogue came across as fairly natural, nothing too witty or melodramatic about it.
Delivery
Is “Hell Cat of the Holt” supernatural? Yeah, there are ghosts, demons, abominations, but… it’s a grueling build up along the way towards revealing why any of the paranormal things are happening and how they’re connected. The story starts out really strong by creating tension and dread during the intro with a tragic accident scene. When I get to part one of Anne’s storyline things slow down and the “B” storyline is her trying to find her lost cat, Murphy. There is a second accident involving a van during the story to bring the big black cat back to the forefront, but I thought it was redundant and came off as lazy. The van man serves as an awkward plot device twice in this novella. It was kind of funny to me that Harriet’s character was a tool as well, but when Anne saw her outside late at night walking into the woods she just kind of shrugged it off. Screw Harriet, lol! That was the only time the character’s actions didn’t line up with the atmosphere. Well, that and the fact that the final scene(s) all take place during the same night, after Anne and Clive were supposed to be leaving Leo’s house to go home for bed. Anne gets up and makes another visit to Leo’s, then his neighbor’s, then back to Clive’s house, then into the wilderness with little to no sense of fear during what is assumed to be the witching hour. I liked Pippa’s character, she was interesting. Everybody else was blah, but Anne’s strong independent woman shtick actually worked at the end with the two cats.
#LFLR Indie Rating: 5/10
Cassell blends Germanic folklore and his Shadow Fabric mythos in this supernatural novella. Maybe it’s just because I’ve been reading mostly horror lately, but I really didn’t get wrapped up in this story. I thought Anne was boring, the other characters were just as boring, except for Pippa the clairvoyant painter. The paranormal activity is vivid and is the most redeeming quality in this story, with all its complexities and variety of forms (living shadow substance, specters, impossible abominations, the fabric of reality tearing open, and more). "Hell Cat of the Holt" is just a piece of a larger universe that makes up the “Fabric” collection in its entirety, with nearly seven hundred pages of content. Mark Cassell is a prolific author with a litany of short story contributions published in variety of collaborated anthologies. Aside from horror, he has also written some dystopian cyberpunk with his “Chaos Halo” short story collection as well as other speculative fiction. His author page on Amazon has five pages worth of published works carrying his name so there is plenty to discover from Mark Cassell.
Cassell blends Germanic folklore and his Shadow Fabric mythos in this supernatural novella. Maybe it’s just because I’ve been reading mostly horror lately, but I really didn’t get wrapped up in this story. I thought Anne was boring, the other characters were just as boring, except for Pippa the clairvoyant painter. The paranormal activity is vivid and is the most redeeming quality in this story, with all its complexities and variety of forms (living shadow substance, specters, impossible abominations, the fabric of reality tearing open, and more). "Hell Cat of the Holt" is just a piece of a larger universe that makes up the “Fabric” collection in its entirety, with nearly seven hundred pages of content. Mark Cassell is a prolific author with a litany of short story contributions published in variety of collaborated anthologies. Aside from horror, he has also written some dystopian cyberpunk with his “Chaos Halo” short story collection as well as other speculative fiction. His author page on Amazon has five pages worth of published works carrying his name so there is plenty to discover from Mark Cassell.
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