Broken Shells: A Subterranean Horror Novella

De: Michael Patrick Hicks

Narrado por: Justin Thomas James

Antoine DeWitt is a man down on his luck. Broke and recently fired, he knows the winning Money Carlo ticket that has landed in his mailbox from a car dealership is nothing more than a scam. The promise of $5,000, though, is too tantalizing to ignore.

Jon Dangle is a keeper of secrets, many of which are buried deep beneath his dealership. He works hard to keep them hidden, but occasionally sacrifices are required, sacrifices who are penniless, desperate, and who will not be missed. Sacrifices exactly like DeWitt.

When Antoine steps foot on Dangle's car lot, it is with the hope of easy money. Instead, he finds himself trapped in a deep, dark hole, buried alive. If he is going to survive the nightmare ahead of him, if he has any chance of seeing his wife and child again, Antoine will have to do more than merely hope. He will have to fight his way back to the surface, and pray that Jon Dangle's secrets do not kill him first.

©2018 Michael Patrick Hicks (P)2018 Bleeding Ear Audio

Don't trust car dealerships!

Woo, that was a doozy! It was exhilarating, disgusting and creepy!

Hicks really is good at describing horrific gore and I found myself cringe and shudder at the some of the scenes.
Antoine was a great character and I was really rooting for him till the end.

Justin Thomas James was great for the narration. I appreciated him using different voices for the characters and I loved hearing him swear 🤣

Definitely recommend this if you like the bugs from Starship Troopers and the horrors they displayed because Hicks does his bugs WAY better!

Trigger warnings

It seems silly to have trigger warnings on a horror story. We’re all here because we relish the unexpected. However, I did want to give a warning for the racism in this story. If it were longer, I might have been able to forgive the amount of racist people in this story. But, with the story this short there are only so many people with talking roles, and of those talking roles I felt there was an unnecessarily high percentage of racism, both personal and institutionalized. Along side that I’d also would like to give a warning for police brutality. When I sit down with a horror book I prefer to keep real world horrors to the absolute minimum.

The idea for the story was solid, but I wish there had been more character development. That being said, if you are looking for a quick story with massive amounts of body horror, this is the story for you.

The narrator was amazing. I could just listen to his voice all day.

Entertaining tale of bugs and bad luck

Antoine DeWitt’s day starts pretty poorly after he clocks a stupid redneck in the mouth and loses his job. Dude deserved it, anyway, but that ain’t gonna help pay the bills.

It’s looking pretty bleak for Antoine until he gets home and finds out that he may have won $5000 on a “Money Carlo” car dealership scratch off mailer. Must be too good to be true. As a matter of fact, that may be the biggest understatement of his life. The span of which is suddenly in danger of getting much shorter. Much, much shorter.

A very well written and entertaining tale of bugs and bad luck and all the things that you take for granted.

A new master of horror?

I received a free audio copy from the author, with no expectation of a review. All my thoughts are my own.

A down on his luck ex-con gets fired. On returning home, his wife informs they've won $5,000, but he has to go to some out of the way car sales lot to pick up the cheque. Not suspicious. At all. But Antoine can't afford to waste the chance, and treks out to get his winnings. Turns out it is a hoax, but the owner of the lot has far more nefarious plans for Antoine.

At just under three hours, this is a short story, but it sure packs a lot in. The narrator does a good job voicing the different characters, and making us root for Antoine throughout. But the thing that surprised (and pleased) me the most, was the niggling doubt about who was the real villain at the end of the story.

Relatively short, but a helluva listen!

This was my first book of Hicks' that I've experienced, and I am happy that I did so in an audio format. I'm amazed how much character development Hicks was able to squeeze into a story that is relatively short. The protagonist and the antagonist feel like fully fleshed-out people that you can empathize with. I contribute this both to the thoughtful details in the book and to the soulful performance provided by Justin Thomas James.

The swapping of the narrative between character perspectives and the story itself is reminiscent of some of my favorite King books The story has plenty of surprising moments, although a couple are arguably cliche, but the ride overall was enjoyable, always wondering what was coming up around the corner (sometimes literally!).

Justin Thomas James' portrayal of the characters completely brought the book to life. He not only expertly swaps between voices, but also retains the appropriate character moods and tones. He brings all of the emotional expressions to life, which is not always something that audio books delivers on.

Now the rough stuff: The audio book isn't seamless, but to be fair the ones that are have been few and far between! There is one moment in the audio production at a chapter break where it is apparent that the recordings were done separately (slightly different tone and sound quality). Although it jarred my immersion a bit, it was quickly forgotten as the narrator swiftly moved back into the cadence of the characters' personalities.

For a quick story with thoughtful, fully-expressed characters (written and performed) I would definitely say this one is worth a shot!