A fantastical tale of a boy, his dog and monsters
Full Disclosure, I was provided a copy of this book free from the author in exchange for an honest review.
Bufkin County is not your average backwoods town as it is the home of Hitch Tull and his amazing dog Salem. What ’s so amazing about Salem is that she lays eggs. One egg eventually hatches to reveal a creature taken right out of the pages of mythology. How the town handles this anomaly and the subsequent events that follow make for a delightful fantastical yarn that was just too good to put down.
From the Cyclops invasion to Bufkin’s Quattrodecennial Bi-Hemisfair we see a picture of a town that may be down but are not out and will fight to restore and rebuilt. Toss in flying vampire squirrels in the forest and green eyed men that appear in dreams and this story morphs into a tale less of an egg laying dog and more of a fight for survival between the citizens of Bufkin county and the predators of the monster world.
This book, quite frankly is a scream. Not to give too much away, for the first half I found myself laughing out loud at the antics (and names) of most of the citizenry of Bufkin County. To say the names are ‘punny’ is an understatement and many of the residents of Bufkin are a caricature of some sort of stereotype. The story falls somewhere between “Dark Shadows” and the “Three Stooges” with the balancing act that Jon Maas has achieved between the funny and the sinister. And while the stage is being set for a knock down drag out between the monsters and the Citizenry of Bufkin County…. It’ll have to wait until the next book. Which I hope will be as much fun to read as this one was.
Jennly Reads 