Drop Dead Gorgeous

by Donald Allen Kirch

"Would you like to hear a story?" The man couldn't help himself. His captor was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Her powerful eyes held his attention and made him forget that she had him confined in a basement; his hands and feet bound with duct tape. His heart raced as he meekly nodded his head 'yes' to the question. After getting past the terror and discomfort, he reasoned that there was nothing to worry about. He would be missed. He had loved ones who would call the police. All he had to do was wait. Letting this woman tell him a story was as good a stall as any. The mysterious woman weaved a tale of betrayed love and unwanted, unnatural experiments placed upon her. Of a loving wife, working on a top secret government program. Of a husband searching for love in all the wrong places. The prisoner couldn't believe what he was being told. A descent into insanity, fueled by a jealous rage, ended with using the tools of science for torture and revenge. With every blink of her lovely eyes, licking of her full lips, and heaving of her perfect breasts, the captor entertained a story most bizarre. Of a woman bent on teaching her cheating husband a lesson. The prisoner wondered...."Am I next?" WWW.DONALDALLENKIRCH.COM

Genres: Horror, Transgender

166 pages, Paperback

Published February 5, 2016

About the author

DONALD ALLEN KIRCH is an Multi-Award-Winning author who lives in The United States of America. He is an avid reader of history, Sherlock Holmes Mysteries, the paranormal, and is a "hardcore" Doctor Who / Star Trek fan. He has a degree in Radio and Television Arts and is listed in "Who's Who in America." After spending two weekends in the famous "Sallie House," a "haunted house" in Atchison, Kansas, he is one of the only authors of his craft who can claim to have been attacked by a ghost!

Donald is a Member of The Horror Writer's Association.

Reviews

[Char · Rating 4 out of 5]

Drop Dead Gorgeous is a bizarre and erotic horror story that resonated with me.

Follow the link to enter to win 1 of 3 Audiobooks of Drop Dead Gorgeous, (U.S. Only): http://www.horrorafterdark.com/2017/0...

Ray wakes up duct taped to a chair and soon realizes that he is being held captive by the most beautiful woman he's ever seen. She wants to tell him a story, and he wants to stay alive. So begins this wicked tale of revenge, sex, lies, genetic modifications, lust, and, perhaps a bit of social commentary. These are the reasons I say it was bizarre, but bizarre in a good way!

Click here to see the Drop Dead Gorgeous book trailer!

I had no idea where this tale was going, so I just hung on for the ride. I'm not going to get further into the plot, because most of the other reviews already do that. I will say that Mr. Kirch deftly strings the reader along until the perfect ending quickly arrives, leaving said reader in a daze. I was worried he would chicken out and shy away from the denouement this story so richly deserved, but he didn't.

Steve, Eve, Wells and even the evil Annabelle were well drawn, realistic characters. Not one of them was a cardboard cutout, they each had depth; both good points and bad. Sometimes I found myself feeling sorry for the villains and hating the "good" guy.

There's a lot to be learned here too, at least there is to my mind. How society treats women, (and men, really), based on their bodies and their looks. Many women would kill to have the body of Eve, but she would kill to get rid of it. That got me to thinking that I should probably be careful about what I wish for. Also, there are some scary experiments going on with genetic modifications, nanos and science-y stuff, which brought many ethical questions to the forefront of my mind. We all know that scientists are working on ways to make us immortal and while most of us would probably like to live forever, is that actually a good thing? The world is overpopulated as it is. It's rare that an erotic horror story bring up questions of such import, but this one did.

All in all, Drop Dead Gorgeous adds up to more than the sum of its parts,  and it delivers over and above what you would expect from the cover. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND it and look forward to reading more from Mr. Kirch in the future!

*Mr. Kirch provided Horror After Dark a review copy free of charge, in exchange for an honest review. This is it!*

[Bill · Rating 4 out of 5]

A twisted tale of love and revenge. There is no shortage of sexy times here and honestly, I felt a bit creepy about it more than once.

Donald Allen Kirch should seek therapy. Come to think of it, I may need it too after this one.
I should also give a shout out to the narrator of DDG, Kathryn LaPlante, because she did a fantastic job at narrating what must have been a very interesting project for her.

Well done all around. 4 Stars

Winner, winner, chicken dinner! I won a copy of this audiobook over at Horror After Dark (http://www.horrorafterdark.com/) Thanks, DAK and HAD!

[Frank Errington · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review copy

Drop Dead Gorgeous is a delightfully wicked tale of revenge. Mind you, this is a very sexual story and could easily be considered erotica, but there is also a heavy dose of horror.

Ray and his girl, Tammy, have been having a rocky period in their relationship, so when he goes to Diamond Jane's after work and doesn't come home, she just packs up and leaves after a few days.

Meanwhile, what's happening to Ray is about as strange as it gets. Kidnapped, but held captive by a woman who is Drop Dead Gorgeous. He name is Eve and her story is a doozie.

Eve's tale is doled out in bits and pieces to as Ray as he remains captive.and finds himself falling in love with the person holding him hostage. That in itself can lead to deadly consequences.

To tell more would just give away too much. I will say this book was at times a bit crass with an an overabundance of sex some might even consider vulgar. Drop Dead Gorgeous is certainly an original story and given daily advances in genetic engineering , it's easy to see how this could actually happen one day.

Recommended with the aforementioned warning for graphic sex scenes.

Drop Dead Gorgeous is available from Double Dragon Publishing in both paperback and e-book formats.

From his bio - Donald Allen Kirch lives in The United States of America. He is an avid reader of history, Sherlock Holmes Mysteries, the paranormal, and is a "hardcore" Doctor Who fan. After spending two weekends in the famous "Sallie House," a "haunted house" in Atchison, Kansas, he is one of the only authors of his craft who can claim to have been attacked by a ghost!

[AudioBookReviewer · Rating 5 out of 5]

ENTER THE AUDIOBOOK GIVEAWAY UNTIL 12/26/17!

My original Drop Dead Gorgeous audiobook review and many others can be found at Audiobook Reviewer.

First let me say that very few people, including authors, can surprise me.  Donald Allen Kirch not only surprised me but totally blew my mind!  I was expecting an entirely different genre of book based solely on the title.  Imagine my surprise when I discovered through listening alone that it was straight up, spine-tingling, eye crossing, mouth drooling horror!

Eve is a drop dead gorgeous woman with an engrossing story to tell.  Of course, it helps that she has the ability to seduce a man with a single glance turning him into a blithering horn-dog.

Annabel, Steve’s wife, discovered that Steve committed adultery.  Now Annabel has become a vengeful, evil woman with the skill and drive to do dole out the most heinous, gruesome and shocking punishment on her cheating husband and his girlfriend ever imagined!

I LOVED this book!  Kirch took the characters to places they did NOT want to go but did it in a skillful and fascinating manner.  Each character introduced was thoroughly developed through rich and vivid details and dialog.  Everything appeared authentic – dialog, medical and police terms, emotions, thoughts, actions – everything!  There was not a slow moment in the book, it was definitely an edge of your seat, nail-biting horror from beginning to end.

I wonder, will Eve just disappear off into the night or … guess only Kirch can answer that!  A definite five-star for the intense horror, gore, and sick twisted realism.

The cover is amazing and very accurate!

Kathryn LaPlante did an amazing job of narrating the story, bringing it to life with her talented voice and enthusiasm.  How she kept a straight face in some places while not cringing in others was amazing!  Her tones were spot on.  LaPlante added more dimension to each of the characters otherwise missed if just reading the story.

There were no issues with the production or quality of this audiobook.

Audiobook was provided for review by the author.

[Melanie Marsh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Holy crap on a cracker, this is one twisted book. I loved every sick minute of it. I’ve read several books by this author, and I have yet to be disappointed by any of them.



In a way, you could say Drop Dead Gorgeous is about self discovery, and some other psychobabble nonsense, but it’s really about revenge and the lengths that one woman goes through to make her husband pay for his transgression. I mean, there’s getting revenge, and then there’s getting REVENGE. She just takes it to the next level of crazy. Seriously.



At first, I was kind of thinking, Hell, this guy deserves what he gets. But the more the story goes on, the more I found myself feeling really really sorry for him. His life is totally flipped upside down and inside out.



I highly recommend this book to anyone looking for something different to read from the typical “scorned lover” type of story. This is definitely not a romance book.

[Amanda Leanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is a story being told within this story, and the overall tale is dark and twisted, as well as sexy and intriguing. The best way I can think to describe it would be the erotic telling of something similar to Frankenstein, or perhaps a more serious and yet just as sexual Rocky Horror, dancing with an equally erotic case of Stockholm Syndrome. The two sides of the story are easily discernible and each brings forth new light to the current situation. There is a lovely blossom of curiosity as you get through the introduction of our killer and here the odd hints of their past. How did she get like this, then? Why is she so sympathetic and yet so cruel? How bi-polar and off of her rocker is this damn woman?
The detective seems an oddly sad addition to the scenes. I'm glad he's there, as I would have been curious as to any investigation without his chapters, so he is not unnecessary. His plight, though, seems somewhat morose. No one cares about the investigation, no one supports him in his beliefs and direction, until evidence is overwhelmingly on his side. Even then, you feel as if he is destined to get the short end of the stick. If this story continues on, though, I feel we will get to know the lone detective quite a bit better.
As to the content, it is something that not everyone will enjoy. There is an interesting pull that can leave many quite uncomfortable. The mix of sex and violence is something that is often dealt with by brute force and exaggeration or by painting it purely horrific. The author does neither, although it can be said to lean a little closer to the brute force side. Eve, our lovely captor, is definitely the "in your face" type. With this book, it works beautifully to outline the pure dysfunction. Every character has a psyche bordering on sociopathic tendencies and coupled with at least some sense of narcissism, some more than others. Even our victim, a man that could be said to be a result of life situations, has a darker streak that makes him somewhat difficult to sympathize with. In fact, I felt my sympathy jump from character to character as I went deeper into the book. They are all horrible people in some way, and yet they each seem to be in a situation that results from a mistake they made being punished way more than anyone deserved.
If you enjoy slasher films with big breasted characters as much as you like a good psychological mind bend (nearing Chuck Palahniuk level of crazy), then you should give Drop Dead Gorgeous a read!

[Toni · Rating 5 out of 5]

Donald Allen Kirch has done it again!

I picked up this novel intending to read only a bit before bedtime; the next thing I knew, it was 1:00 AM and I was blinking to stay awake to finish it.

This story starts off running and then settles into a blind gallop, getting more sinister with each step.

Ray Hoie awakens to discover himself in a basement, duct-taped to a chair. A beautiful woman appears and proceeds to tell him a story, a horror story…of a neglected husband, his scientist wife, and what happens when that husband strays.

For Steve Kane’s crime against wife Annabelle, he pays the ultimate price. Annabelle has discovered a formula using nanobots to change the shape, consistency, even the DNA of flesh. Steve is drugged, bound, and transformed—externally and internally—into a biologically-perfect woman. Annabelle doesn’t stop there, however. She intends to make her husband experience the pain every woman deceived by a man can suffer…and she succeeds. Then she frees Steve, now renamed Eve Doe …with a set of deadly pre-programmed subliminal suggestions firmly in place.

David Wells is a police officer with the Addison, Kansas PD. When someone reports Raymond Hoie missing, he can’t discover who. It wasn’t any of his friends, his former girlfriend couldn’t care less, so who wants Ray found, and why? Wells’ determination to locate a two-bit no-good gets him into trouble with his superiors, but he sticks to the case, and what he discovers will stay in his memory for a very long, very disturbing time.

Told from Steve’s point of view with rapidly mounting horror and more than a bit of grim midnight-black humor, Drop Dead Gorgeous is the kind of story which might make a good many men hesitate the next time they attempt to pick up that pretty girl sitting on a nearby barstool. Its well-written descriptive narration will definitely cause a few flinches from male readers. It’s shocking and startling…and for all we know, it might some day actually happen.

This story is designed to keep the reader turning those pages, not wanting to put the book down until that final devastating one is reached. A Caveat may be necessary for some, however: The book contains frank language and quite a few explicit sex scenes.

Where do you get these ideas, Don?


This novel was supplied by the author and no remuneration was involved in the writing of this review.

[Jessica Bronder · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ray wakes to find himself duct taped and in a basement. Then the perfect woman comes downstairs. Her name is Eve and she has a story to tell. The story is about Steve. Steve is in satellite dish sales when Annabelle starts coming into the store to keep asking him about satellites when she is really looking for a companion. What follows is a whirl wind romance and a beautiful wedding.

Annabelle is a scientist and has discovered nano tech that can change the body. Everything from healing cancer cells to making plastic surgery a thing of the past. When she finds that Steve has cheated on her she gets her own revenge on both him and the girl he was with. But as Eve tells this story to Ray, he comes to love her and doesn’t really notice the rotting corpses stacked in the basement with them.

This book reminds me of the classic B scifi movies mixed with bad 70’s porn. A loser of a guy meets the quick girl who is super smart and good in bed. He marries her but when she gets wrapped up in her invention he goes looking elsewhere for sex. Of course he is going to get caught but the end results were not what he expected.

I loved the book. It has that classic horror feel to it, a great case of revenge with some insanity mixed in, and lots of sex. I don’t think this is a book for everyone. But if you have one of those senses of humor I think this would be a good read.

I received a complimentary copy of this book. I voluntarily chose to read and post an honest review.

[Jill Bonham · Rating 4 out of 5]

So I won this audiobook in a raffle I found through Char's Horror Corner. She had given it an interesting review which peaked my curiosity. I pretty much avoid erotica and even romance novels but what the heck. Sometimes you have to go outside your comfort zone. I listened to this in a day as I had a day trip. I can say this book definitely kept my interest. It has a science fiction vibe so I liked that. It had parts that were laugh out loud funny. It made me think about a lot of things which is why I like to read to begin with. All in all, a bizarre quirky science fictiony horror entertaining sexy book.

[Starr Gardinier · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow! What a premise. Donald Allen Kirch never ceases to amaze me with his endless, absolutely entertaining story ideas. In “Drop Dead Gorgeous,” Donald shows what it’s like for a man to suffer a woman’s scorn. I’m not even sure as a woman if my mind could go there. But Donald’s does.

Steve Kane meets and marries a woman, Annabelle Schreck, whom he believes he could spend the rest of his life with—and maybe he could have. But not long after they’re married, Steve finds himself spending too much time without his wife’s passionate love. Despite the fact Steve loves his wife, his needs aren’t being met and so after meeting Tana, falls prey to an age-old relationship breaker: he cheats on Annabelle. Unfortunately for him, Annabelle walks in on him and Tana. Annabelle is hurt and beyond irate. Revenge is not a strong enough word for what Annabelle has in mind. The torment Steve is made to suffer will, regrettably for Steve, be a lifelong bane; and he can’t even kill himself to stop the pain.

Years later, Eve Doe kidnaps Ray Wells. During his captivity, Ray learns of Eve’s persecution at the hands of another. Eve tells him the story of her past, how she’ll always be haunted by the person she used to be, and why she has kidnapped him (and many others before him).

As these two plots come together, it will stun you to learn how intricately woven together they really are. Obviously, a woman’s scorn is not something any man would want to endure, let alone live with for many, many years to come.

Bravo, Donald!

Reviewed by Starr Gardiner, author of “The Other Side: Trent’s Story,” book two of the Other Side series

[Julie Baswell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ray awakens to find himself tied up in a basement somewhere unknown. He discovers that his captor is a drop dead gorgeous female that he had shared drinks with the night before. She then begins to tell him a story that started seven years ago. As she weaves her unbelievable tale, Ray becomes intrigued. But how could such a wild story be true? The vision before him could never be the person depicted in this story. As time passes, Ray finds himself falling in love with Eve, his captor. In the meantime, Detective David Wells is searching for Ray. Even though no one seems to care about Ray’s disappearance, Detective Wells can’t seem to let it go, and spends all his free time following the few clues there is, hoping he will find Ray before it’s too late.

This was definitely intriguing. It was no mystery to me how it would end, but I could only hope for the best. Kudos to the author for humanizing the characters, and making them so interesting. I can not decide if I liked or disliked any of them, except for Wells. He is actually the only one that I could feel sympathy for.

[Kelvin Reed · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Drop Dead Gorgeous" (2016) by Donald Allen Kirch is a very unique horror/sci-fi novel that tells three tales: Ghastly experiments a mad scientist conducts on her cheating husband, a man kidnapped by the “husband” years after the experiments are completed, and a police officer’s search for the missing man. The novel is loaded with sex and violence but probably considered par for those who read horror lit. The narration by Kathryn LaPlante is exceptional. No literary flair but the story held my attention. The 1950’s style comic book cover is a nice touch. Strongly recommended.

[S.B. (Beauty in Ruins) · Rating 4 out of 5]

While it opens with a scene that's reminiscent of a Criminal Minds episode, Drop Dead Gorgeous quickly veers into something more akin to a Roger Corman movie, before reaching a conclusion that could have come straight out of the Twilight Zone.

What Donald Allen Kirch weaves here is a twisted story of revenge, medical experimentation, and outright insanity that only gets more intense as it races along. Here we have a young man who wakes up in a strange basement, surrounded by stacks of rotting bodies, bound and gagged, with no memory of how he got there. The revelation that his kidnapper is an impossibly beautiful woman is certainly an interesting twist, but her backstory is the biggest twist of all.

You see, 7 years ago Eve Doe - the world's most perfect woman - was a man known by the name of Steve Kane. Forget the usual horror cliches, because Eve is neither a crazy drag queen nor a tormented transsexual. Instead, she is a perfect punishment, a genetic life sentence for cheating on Steve's mad scientist wife.

That's about as much as I want to say about the plot, as you really need to discover it for yourself. It's the interplay between Ray and Eve, between captive and captor, that is at the heart of the story. Kirch establishes them both very well, allowing their own fears and failings to play off one another. It's not often a book like this successfully manages to switch the roles of monster and victim so many times so successfully, but be prepared to have your assumptions challenged.

Drop Dead Gorgeous is a book that goes to some very dark places, with some of the most imaginative scenes of torture and transformation that I've encountered in some time. It's not the book I expected it to be, and the reading experience is that much better for it.


Originally reviewed at Beauty in Ruins

Disclaimer: I received a complimentary ARC of this title from the author in exchange for review consideration. This does not in any way affect the honesty or sincerity of my review.

[Cyrene Olson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Uncaged Book Reviews:

This has to be one of the weirdest, most twisted, and completely engaging books I never expected to read. A whole lot of horror, dashed with a bit of sci-fi, and a sprinkling of humor, and emotionally – you never know who to cheer for. Do you fall for cheating Ray, or cheating Steve? I never did decide.

So we start with Ray, who is kidnapped by Eve, and wakes up bound and tied in a basement with rotting corpses in a corner. And it’s only getting started. Wait until Ray is forced to listen to Eve’s story of how she came to be as she is. You will hate Ray, and then feel sorry for him. There is a roller coaster of emotions in your decisions to like/hate these characters and it doesn’t let up. And wait until you meet Steve and Annabelle. Dr. Frankenstein could learn something from these characters. Great read, very original storyline – worthy of its rating.