Tag: Michael Stewart Hansen

Monthly Features – June 2025

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A Song at Dead Man’s Cove by Ana Yudin

I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for my honest opinion.

Synopsis: Never turn your back on the ocean…

2023. Another person has disappeared at Dead Man’s Cove in coastal Washington. Jaded from her job at the historic Irving Hotel, Zarya wanders to the scene of the tragedy. She has heard her Russian mother’s tales of rusalki—vengeful spirits that have died unclean deaths near a body of water—and never paid them much attention. But now, on a misty headland beside an abandoned lighthouse, Zarya locks eyes with the rusalka and is chosen to be the next victim. She must unearth the siren’s tragedy before Rusalka Week, a period in early summer when water-spirits roam freely on land.

1850. Josephine has just joined her newlywed husband in Washington, in the lighthouse erected by local businessman Hurley Irving. Marriage is not quite what she expected, and her melancholia grows over the course of the winter. The medic prescribes pregnancy as the antidote. What he doesn’t realize is how far Josephine is willing to go in order to become a mother.

The Gothic horror novel follows two protagonists, a modern-day misanthrope who fears intimacy and a woman in the Victorian era who thinks stealing love will make her whole. But how long can a person hide from love, and can love really be taken by force?

Summary: A Song at Dead Man’s Cove is a mesmerizing, multilayered ghost story that manages to be both otherworldly and deeply human. Ana Yudin delivers a narrative that is as much about ancestral trauma and unspoken truths as it is about sirens and shipwrecks. It’s a tale of women silenced by history—singing now through salt and shadow to be heard.

Highly recommended for fans of Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Erin Morgenstern, and readers who crave gothic atmosphere with a feminist edge.

See the full review here: A Song at Dead Man’s Cove
Purchase here

 

With Time to Kill by Frank Ferrari

I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for my honest opinion.

Synopsis: Everyone deserves a second chance, but how far would you go for one?

In the gritty streets of Edinburgh, Garry Plumb is about to find out. Living life on the periphery, never fitting in and always on his own, Garry’s world opens up when he meets Billy, the peculiar bus driver who has been watching him. Billy knows exactly how it feels to be ignored and his influence on Garry is immediate.

For the first time, Garry knows what it means to have his very own best friend. But this friendship is unlike any other, as Billy reveals how Garry can fix his entire life by changing his past.

But when the DCI John Waters, a relentless detective hunting a clever serial killer, enters Garry’s life, their friendship is put to the ultimate test.

Garry is willing to do anything for a second chance at life but, after meeting Billy, he has to ask would he kill for it?

This dark and captivating tale of self-discovery, murder and redemption will keep readers on the edge of their seats. With Time to Book One, a perfect blend of Scottish crime and sci-fi thriller, will leave you wanting more.

Summary: Overall, With Time to Kill is a gleefully dark mash-up of police procedural, serial-killer horror, and high-concept time travel. If you like your thrillers smart, Scottish, and just a little bit unhinged, clear an evening—you’ll race through this and immediately want the sequel.

See the full review here: With Time to Kill
Purchase here

 

The People Who Paint Rocks by Michael Stewart Hansen

I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for my honest opinion.

Synopsis: The People Who Paint Rocks is a multi-generational horror epic that transcends the boundaries of its genre. What begins as a period horror/drama in 1910 Santa Fe evolves into a chilling supernatural thriller by 1975, where a pregnant nurse and a detective tormented by spiritual doubt race to stop an evil older than memory. A moody, unsettling, and unrelentingly atmospheric work that grips the reader from the first page and refuses to let go.

The opening act is steeped in Western gothic, introducing us to Albert McCord, a grieving husband and father seeking revenge on the wolf that took his family. But the creature he hunts is no ordinary predator—it is the origin of something far more terrifying. Hansen cleverly seeds this early chapter with themes of loss, legacy, and the illusion of control. Albert’s struggle is both physical and existential, as he fends off his late wife’s scheming family while unknowingly chasing a malevolent force that will haunt generations to come.

Fast-forward to 1975, and the novel pivots into psychological horror, following Charlie, a pregnant nurse caught in a web of ritualistic murders, and Alonzo, a detective whose beliefs are unraveling. This shift is not jarring but deliberate, echoing the disjointed sense of time that defines much of the book’s unsettling tone. The narrative connection between Albert and the events six decades later becomes a dark thread pulling the characters toward an inevitable confrontation.

Summary: Overall, The People Who Paint Rocks is a gritty, big-hearted mash-up of western, creature feature, and generational ghost story. Come for the demon wolf and six-gun showdowns, stay for the way Hansen turns painted pebbles into the creepiest grave markers this side of Stephen King country. It’s messy, mean, and—when the sun finally comes up over Red Rocks—oddly hopeful.

See the full review here: The People Who Paint Rocks
Purchase here

 

Review: The People Who Paint Rocks by Michael Stewart Hansen

~ likelystory18 ~ 2 Comments

Synopsis:

The People Who Paint Rocks is a multi-generational horror epic that transcends the boundaries of its genre. What begins as a period horror/drama in 1910 Santa Fe evolves into a chilling supernatural thriller by 1975, where a pregnant nurse and a detective tormented by spiritual doubt race to stop an evil older than memory. A moody, unsettling, and unrelentingly atmospheric work that grips the reader from the first page and refuses to let go.

The opening act is steeped in Western gothic, introducing us to Albert McCord, a grieving husband and father seeking revenge on the wolf that took his family. But the creature he hunts is no ordinary predator—it is the origin of something far more terrifying. Hansen cleverly seeds this early chapter with themes of loss, legacy, and the illusion of control. Albert’s struggle is both physical and existential, as he fends off his late wife’s scheming family while unknowingly chasing a malevolent force that will haunt generations to come.

Fast-forward to 1975, and the novel pivots into psychological horror, following Charlie, a pregnant nurse caught in a web of ritualistic murders, and Alonzo, a detective whose beliefs are unraveling. This shift is not jarring but deliberate, echoing the disjointed sense of time that defines much of the book’s unsettling tone. The narrative connection between Albert and the events six decades later becomes a dark thread pulling the characters toward an inevitable confrontation.

Favorite Lines:

“You got more balls than brains, son.”

“Some rocks are hard to read. Some are easy.”

“The wolf he’d hunted so determinedly suddenly seemed insignificant compared to the secrets the red rocks had been keeping.”

My Opinion:

I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for my honest opinion.

Michael Stewart Hansen’s The People Who Paint Rocks splices a dust-blown 1910 New Mexico western to full-tilt folk-horror and somehow makes the seams feel natural. From page one we’re pitched into camp-fire mist and an injured stranger clutching a dead infant, while a spectral wolf circles just out of the light. What starts as a classic “frontier bad-omen” tale quickly sprawls across decades and states, dragging in an orphan-stuffed mission school, a crooked land grab, and a sanitarium where nuns hiss Latin that would curdle holy water. The mood stays taut because Hansen never lets the supernatural drown the human stakes; every eerie set piece, from a wolf pacing in a carnival cage to a demon-tinged asylum corridor, lands on the backs of characters already bowed by grief or greed.

At the center is Albert McCord, a rancher still raw from losing his family to a “black wolf”—animal, spirit, or both. His dogged hunt stitches the novel’s timelines together: one minute he’s evangelizing dynamite-strong coffee with his ranch hand Earl, the next he’s staring down that same black beast against a blood-red mesa. The wolf’s menace is real enough to draw actual Winchester fire, yet it also feels like whatever evil the locals have been whispering about since the priests of Our Lady of Sorrows were found slaughtered on All Hallows’ Eve. When Albert finally realizes the painted stones dotting his land may be grave markers rather than kids’ crafts, the horror pivots from creature-feature to something far older and sadder.

The large cast could have ballooned into chaos, but Hansen doles out POVs like camp-fire stories—each one lurid, self-contained, and building the overarching mythos. William Ward, the whiskey-soaked heir who wants Albert’s ranch, is more tobacco-spit than moustache-twirl, yet his brand of entitled cruelty fits the book’s grimy view of power. Later chapters jump to a 1970s asylum where Sister Kinney’s bone-snapping transformations crank the horror to Exorcist-level body fear, all while a pregnant nurse and an unnervingly prescient child pass painted rocks like cursed postcards. The tonal gear shifts might jar some readers, but the through-line—wolves, faith, and buried sins—keeps the engine firing.

What really sells the novel is the language: plain-spoken frontier grit bumping against sudden poetry. Hansen can describe a saloon stare-down with the same weight he gives a wolf’s last breath or a nun’s Latin snarl, and the dialogue rings true whether it’s ranch-hand humor or courtroom doom-saying. If there’s a flaw, it’s that the time jumps demand close attention—blink and you’ll miss which decade you’re bleeding in—but the payoff is worth the occasional whiplash. By the time Albert stands ankle-deep in desert soil written over with painted stones, the book has earned every chill.

Summary:

Overall, The People Who Paint Rocks is a gritty, big-hearted mash-up of western, creature feature, and generational ghost story. Come for the demon wolf and six-gun showdowns, stay for the way Hansen turns painted pebbles into the creepiest grave markers this side of Stephen King country. It’s messy, mean, and—when the sun finally comes up over Red Rocks—oddly hopeful. Happy reading!

Check out The People Who Paint Rocks here!