THE SUBSTITUTE

The greatest thing e-books have done is let people publish things practically for free, and I'm pretty sure the covers are some of the best Photoshop jobs around. I picked this because apparently I am dreadfully amused by books about the terrors of bears. 

THE SUBSTITUTE by Terry Hayman.

Expectations:

This bear is about to mess up your day. He's got (totally natural) red eyes and big teeth and he's going to SUBSTITUTE his salmon dinner for your face! 

What I Got:

A man is sure his daughter is being selected by the evils of nature to serve as a sacrifice, because nature demands random teenage girls be killed to atone for our automobile exhaust and pollution of water supplies and such. He decides to go out into the woods and yell at nature and tell it to kill him instead. Nature then sic's every bit of wildlife, from robins and squirrels and a giant bear on him and literally rip him up and leave him to die. He survives as a bitter, wheelchair bound shell of a man missing several important body parts. 

This is why I never go camping. Nature hates us.

Cover Execution:

8/10

A bear eats off his manhood. You have every right to fear bears. 

HELLER

It's been a while. I'm sure you've not missed my horrible reading adventures. Honestly, I've read a number of good and bad things the past months back but ignored this blog; but this title made me want to return to my chronicles.

HELLER by JD Nixon.

Expectations: 
No bloody idea. Other than HELLER. HELLER must be this saucy chick figure here. (Like all true HELLERs her hair is insane, I might note). Some blond guy is going to try and get the drop on her and she's going to kick his ass. That's what HELLERs do. Asskick! Wait now I'm totally excited about this book. It's going to own. 

What I got: 
... NOPE. HELLER is a super imposing 6'5 blond man who is mysterious and smouldering and has hired short, inept girl to work PR for his surveillance company. Of course he has tons and tons of money and cars and a personal gym and lots of ladies and takes in stray goth kids and burn victims. Tilly the inept young PR lady pines about HELLER and constantly checks out how hot he is and somehow, ends up always fumblingly saving the day for her company. Oh, and to top it off she gets a creepy "HELLER" tattoo on her body to show her devotion. And fantasizes about her hot boss HELLER all the time. And looks at his magnificent mysterious European butt a lot. I'd like to know where the author got this creepy HELLER fetish and how I can stop her from writing any more of these things, because apparently there are 4 of them in this series. 

I hate this impostor Heller so much. I could better tolerate him if I wasn't so jealous of the personal gym and collection of cars. 

Cover Execution:
2/10
...Well. Heller is that... blond thing off to the side. And Inept PR is the figure in the middle. And... HELLER is probably stated about 10 times per page of text in this book. 

....HELLER.