Reviewed by Carissa
TITLE: Trick or Treat
AUTHOR: J.L. Merrow
PUBLISHER: JMS Books
LENGTH: 22 pages
BLURB:
The memory of this party could haunt him forever …
Dragged along to a haunted house by his mates, Sam’s at the Halloween party from hell — the guy he fancied has turned out to be a bigot, and Sam has just outed himself to his whole football team.
Escaping to the garden, he meets James, an enigmatic stranger with a mischievous smile, and the evening soon takes a turn for the better. The night may be chilly but the heat between Sam and James is hotter than Hades.
But James has a role to play in the evening’s ghostly entertainment, and it’s a story with a deadly ending. Unless Sam can change the script and stop history repeating itself, “till death do us part” will come sooner than he thinks.
REVIEW:
Ok, yes, yes, I know–I missed Halloween by like two week, sue me. I didn’t see the book till it was the 31st, and I really love Merrow’s stories, so even though this one is a bit late I still wanted to read it. If it makes it any better, it was a very good story…
This story is short, but there is certainly a lot about it that I love. Sexing up ghosts, fights to the death, the inappropriate use of unsuspecting trees…it has so much going for it. And because it is J.L. Merrow writing it, you know it is going to be good and English-y.
(I may or may not have forgotten that braces can mean suspenders, and not just dental work in the UK…it made for a confusing few minutes while I tried to puzzle out the need for spectral dentists in the afterlife.)
And while I wish it was longer (something I say about almost all my favorite short stories) Merrow does a great job of telling a full story is so few pages. I didn’t leave feeling that I missed anything, even if there was so much more that I wanted to see. Plus the book has a bit of a dark, but nice, twist at the end that I liked.
Overall? Highly enjoyable even if read in the middle of November.
RATING: 
BUY LINKS:
I do like JL Merrow’s writing – another one for the list!
It’s been a while since I read anything by this author. This sounds like a fascinating read.
I read it just the other day, after Halloween, too, so at least now you have company! 🙂 I thought, while short, it was just such a great read, full of the distinctive voice JL Merrow has, that I appreciate so much. Even though it’s called Trick or Treat, I don’t think anyone has to worry about needing to reading it over the holiday, just when they’re in the mood for something spooky and delightful.