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Monsters Inside: A Bright City Novella
Pepper Anderson is a disillusioned twenty-something living in Bright City. She spends her weekends partying with friends, trying to forget about life and all the a-hole men she has to deal with.
One weekend Pepper is attacked and something switches inside her. After she decides to kill her attacker she’s plunged into a world of bizarre technology, and weird and wonderful characters.
As Pepper fights for her survival to its climactic end, she uncovers a dark secret Bright City doesn’t want revealed.
Do we all have monsters inside us?
Pepper is about to find out, and so are you.
If you like Chuck Palahniuk and Jeremy Robert Johnson, you’ll love Monsters Inside.
One weekend Pepper is attacked and something switches inside her. After she decides to kill her attacker she’s plunged into a world of bizarre technology, and weird and wonderful characters.
As Pepper fights for her survival to its climactic end, she uncovers a dark secret Bright City doesn’t want revealed.
Do we all have monsters inside us?
Pepper is about to find out, and so are you.
If you like Chuck Palahniuk and Jeremy Robert Johnson, you’ll love Monsters Inside.
Paperback
Published April 1, 2020
45 people are currently reading
59 people want to read
About the author
Ric Rae
4 books6 followersRic Rae was born in the deepest, darkest South London, in the UK, but his blood is Portuguese/Indian via the cultural heritage of Guyana in South America (it's complicated!).
He has worked in bars on Greek islands, done deals on yachts in Cannes and burnt the candle at both ends with clients in Las Vegas.
Since 2002 he's been a director of a tech company within the TV & film rights industry, and recently he co-founded a health company. He once saw a chicken smoking a hookah with a smurf. He married that smurf.
Ric lives by the sea in Brighton with his wife and two daughters.
Go to my website
He has worked in bars on Greek islands, done deals on yachts in Cannes and burnt the candle at both ends with clients in Las Vegas.
Since 2002 he's been a director of a tech company within the TV & film rights industry, and recently he co-founded a health company. He once saw a chicken smoking a hookah with a smurf. He married that smurf.
Ric lives by the sea in Brighton with his wife and two daughters.
Go to my website
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
March 5, 2020
Not much about this novella makes sense, so you must go into it with that nugget in mind. That said, Monsters Inside deserves at least three stars simply because of our author's vivid and demented imagination.
This is the story of Pepper, a drugged out nobody who finds herself in a sticky situation with Robbo, a wannabe player who has just picked the wrong girl to mess with.
What happens next is the most bizarre scenario I think I've ever read in a book, but I can't say much more without giving away the plot so I'll just say that Pepper and Robbo are thrust into a madcap dash that has them running around with a very special object meant for bigger and better purposes.
Or so we're told.
The ending was perfect; kudos to the author on that.
3.5 stars, rounded down. Many thanks to the author and Reedsy Discovery for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
This is the story of Pepper, a drugged out nobody who finds herself in a sticky situation with Robbo, a wannabe player who has just picked the wrong girl to mess with.
What happens next is the most bizarre scenario I think I've ever read in a book, but I can't say much more without giving away the plot so I'll just say that Pepper and Robbo are thrust into a madcap dash that has them running around with a very special object meant for bigger and better purposes.
Or so we're told.
The ending was perfect; kudos to the author on that.
3.5 stars, rounded down. Many thanks to the author and Reedsy Discovery for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
January 3, 2020
Quite a gruesomely twisted tale! Do each of us have a little bit of monster inside us just waiting for the right combination of circumstances to make itself know?
When Pepper is sexually assaulted for the second time in her life, it flips a switch inside her. She is no longer willing to be a victim. Instead she will make her attacker pay!
Thus begins a series of events that lead to her ever devolving life. Follow Pepper and the other monsters she comes in contact with to their climactic end.
When Pepper is sexually assaulted for the second time in her life, it flips a switch inside her. She is no longer willing to be a victim. Instead she will make her attacker pay!
Thus begins a series of events that lead to her ever devolving life. Follow Pepper and the other monsters she comes in contact with to their climactic end.
March 15, 2020
How to describe this book? Absurd, depraved, dark, gritty, bonkers and at times utterly delicious. For the most part, though, it is crude, grotesque and unpleasant. Not that those qualities are enough to put me off or mar my enjoyment of a book in any way (and I do enjoy my horror); though, I do think it is fair to say that sci-fi-horror hybrid Monsters Inside was not really my cup of tea.
This graphic and bizarre novella, told from a multi-person viewpoint, is definitely a book which will polarize reviews. It started off well, and promisingly so, with the tantalizing sequence of a woman murdering the man who raped her, to an eccentric and friendly cannibal living in an underground bunker; I thought, and hoped, it was going the way of Sin City, and supposed that therein was the anthology influence. But, I was a little disappointed at the direction it went in after that, sticking with its two horrid main characters, to tell a simple, brief tale of some of the most deranged individuals, and their collective involvement in a shady government experiment. It all becomes a little inane then, with eyeballs in oranges, copious cum references and crude language, and it does seem as if Rae has gone all out to shock and repulse the reader. Again, hit me with the shock, by all means, but I’m no real fan of the vulgarity.
Overall, I enjoyed reading the book, in spite of myself; the horror within is good fun. But, the book is far from serious work, though it is certainly not a comedy, either; it lurks somewhere in the darkest parts of the space between. As well as the somewhat enticing themes of cannibalism, murder and recreational drug use, it does contain several references to rape and sexual assault, so it is not to be taken light-heartedly. It is a somewhat brief tale, which seems to wrap up pretty quickly, without becoming too deeply involved. A fun read, sure. High-brow? Of course not. Monsters Inside is clearly a sardonic, cynical satire on the more dumbed-down aspects of modern life, and I understand that Rae was presenting some degree of profound moral message at the end, but I must be truly honest: I don’t know what it was. If you like short, gross-out horror reads, give it a go; everyone else, perhaps not.
This graphic and bizarre novella, told from a multi-person viewpoint, is definitely a book which will polarize reviews. It started off well, and promisingly so, with the tantalizing sequence of a woman murdering the man who raped her, to an eccentric and friendly cannibal living in an underground bunker; I thought, and hoped, it was going the way of Sin City, and supposed that therein was the anthology influence. But, I was a little disappointed at the direction it went in after that, sticking with its two horrid main characters, to tell a simple, brief tale of some of the most deranged individuals, and their collective involvement in a shady government experiment. It all becomes a little inane then, with eyeballs in oranges, copious cum references and crude language, and it does seem as if Rae has gone all out to shock and repulse the reader. Again, hit me with the shock, by all means, but I’m no real fan of the vulgarity.
Overall, I enjoyed reading the book, in spite of myself; the horror within is good fun. But, the book is far from serious work, though it is certainly not a comedy, either; it lurks somewhere in the darkest parts of the space between. As well as the somewhat enticing themes of cannibalism, murder and recreational drug use, it does contain several references to rape and sexual assault, so it is not to be taken light-heartedly. It is a somewhat brief tale, which seems to wrap up pretty quickly, without becoming too deeply involved. A fun read, sure. High-brow? Of course not. Monsters Inside is clearly a sardonic, cynical satire on the more dumbed-down aspects of modern life, and I understand that Rae was presenting some degree of profound moral message at the end, but I must be truly honest: I don’t know what it was. If you like short, gross-out horror reads, give it a go; everyone else, perhaps not.
February 28, 2020
Unique read!
This book was unlike any I've read before. The author has an amazing way with words...painting such vivid pictures for the reader to envision.
This book was unlike any I've read before. The author has an amazing way with words...painting such vivid pictures for the reader to envision.
Read
January 30, 2020
Some information on Monsters Inside
* Is it part of a series?
The Bright City books are set in the same universe, while they are not a 'follow on series', the books do overlap in characters and ideas, but they can be read in any order.
* Where can I get it?
It's available NOW on Kindle Ulimited!
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Amazon UK >>
In paperback!
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* Would you like an advance copy of my next book?
Join my reader list here: www.RicRaeWrites.com/join-my-reader-list
June 6, 2020
It´s a really weird story and the eye that is kept apart from the body really creeped me out! Although this is a sci fi story I could not stop thinking about how similar some situations that are described in the book are so normal and present in our daily lives which also freaked me out.
I downloaded a free copy of this book from Amazon and I´m posting an honest review.
I downloaded a free copy of this book from Amazon and I´m posting an honest review.
August 5, 2020
Not my cup of tea and to be honest, quite the bs. To each their own I guess. Story deteriorated for me in the second half of the book. I'm well aware I read it for free, but I wouldn't have lost anything had I not read it.
November 4, 2023
Beyond Bizzarre
Horrifying, bloody, gruesome and crazy weird. A tale of human monsters that is sick as all get out. Not for the weak of heart ot stomach.
Horrifying, bloody, gruesome and crazy weird. A tale of human monsters that is sick as all get out. Not for the weak of heart ot stomach.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews