Bloodsucker City by Jim Towns

Bloodsucker City by Jim Towns

Publication Date: November 2, 2021
 

Bloodsucker City by Jim Towns was a truly entertaining and fun read if you enjoy a classic horror story. The novella was a quick and easy read that I enjoyed over the weekend. Reader do be warned, some of the details get grotesquely graphic and gory but for any fan of classic horror you should not be deterred. Jim Towns method of storytelling reminds me of classic horror films from the 1980's and I love it!

Bloodsucker City's narrator is Lena. Unfortunately, Lena has found herself in quite a dilemma. She has been framed for the murder of her son, Jonathon. Lena is a widow struggling to make ends meet working a job she hates to put food on the table and a roof over her and her son's head. She is forced to leave Jonathon, a 10-year-old, unattended while she works. Lena comes home to find her son brutally murdered and within moments of this horrific discovery the police show up and arrest her for the crime. The story is set in the 1930's so there is no forensic evidence, or any type of investigation conducted to prove Lena's innocence. She is caught "red handed" literally. 

Lena is sentenced and convicted to life without parole in one of the worst prisons imaginable, Steelegate Island Prison for Women. The prison is known to house some of the worst criminal women in the state and also known to never have any rehabilitated prisoners released back into society. Lena is processed in and soon finds herself amid hell on earth. Not only does she have to watch her back with other prisoners, she also must be wary of the prisons' wardens, whom she has been warned are more than their outward appearances let on. Lena soon finds that Steelegate Island Prison is in essence like a holding pen for livestock awaiting slaughter. Prisoners are fed and basic needs are provided for, but they are no longer treated as humans, they are stripped of all their dignity and are just awaiting their turn to be run through the slaughterhouse. Steelegate figurative and literally drains the life out of its prisoners. 

I enjoyed Bloodsucker City. I thought it was an entertaining, light horror read. I personally would love to see the author, Jim Towns, and publisher, Castle Bridge Media, turn Bloodsucker City into a graphic novel or comic series. The novella itself reads like a comic to me and I feel like it would transfer very easily into an illustrated story that would appeal greatly to classic horror fans. 

Thanks to Netgalley and Castle Bridge Media for an advanced copy for an honest review. 

For Purchase: Bloodsucker City