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Ten Minute Warning
From the river to the sea, pain is universal. The dead know your secrets, and the living take their fears to the grave...A Hollywood magician cuts a woman in half.An old man yearns for the wife he lost.An artist paints with his shame.A plane crash like no other.The author of Food Of The Gods brings you ten more tales of transformation, lost loves, regret and blood. So much blood.This book contains darkness and horror, in all its many forms.You have been warned.
- GenresHorror
129 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 28, 2020
1 person want to read
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 30, 2021
Ten Minute Warning is a collection of short stories written by Em Dehaney and published by Brave Boy Books. Em Dehaney has been a subject of my reviews before, either with her own stories such as The Searcher of the Thames, or in collections with other authors such as The Burdizzo Mixtape which Caravan of Love was first published in 2019 which is also the first story I’m going to talk about today.
Caravan of Love isn’t a brand new story to me as I covered it previously when I reviewed the above mentioned collection. I did however want to just touch back onto it because it is a beautifully written story and I wanted to draw attention to it one more time. What I like about Dehaney’s writing is that she has a wide range of styles which she brings to her work, this was one of the first pieces I read by her and I like the masterful way she goes about bringing over what should at times be quite a gory and nasty scene, in a beautiful way. This story does just that, presenting the artist’s movements in such a beautiful way that it almost lures the reader into the final climax of the story.
Five Gold Rings is another story I really enjoyed, framed from the point of view of a man telling you about his past wives, the story takes a turn in the final pages. It’s a simple but very effective way to tell a story. It feels quite gritty and I suppose the content is fairly bleak. Another example of Dehaney’s range of styles, this one is very different from the stories either side of it but not so much that it’s a jarring change. It is however nice to be fully aware you’ve moved into a new story as sometimes is people’s writing style never changes it can be easy to forget you’ve moved on.
The Rape of Ivy House is easily my favourite story in this book, I actually got a chill in the later pages of this one. It’s actually a concept many can probably relate to as in recent years Sheffield City Council decided to introduce a Bedroom Tax, meaning that elderly people in council houses were facing a problem of no longer being able to afford their homes and therefore agreed to downsize to smaller dwellings. This isn’t the theme of this story, but it does have similar meddling from the Council. Mr Gonputh is an elderly man living in the home he’s always lived in, but when the council come knocking to “improve” his situation he isn’t all too pleased. The thing that really struck me about this story is that Dehaney lures you into thinking that she’s going to treat you to a happy ending.
The final tale I’ll be talking to you about today is Little Miss Colorado Dream Queen. Now I’ve mentioned this about Dehaney before but I’m going to do it again because I love this about her writing. In the horror genre, children can be very much treated like a protected asset. I obviously understand why we don’t want to see children harmed in any way, and why the thought of that is offensive. So before I go on, I want to make it clear that I do not hate children and I do not want harm to come to them. You might think that’s obvious but we are in 2021 so let’s just assume that nothing is obvious. Horror is supposed to upset you, it’s supposed to scare you and possibly even offend you. It is a very broad genre so you don’t necessarily have to watch or read the things you don’t want to, but I don’t feel that anything should be considered off limits. When you make horror a safe space, it loses the horror aspect. So when women and children are considered off limits, that’s a big no no for me, and Dehaney isn’t afraid to play with that line drawn in the sand. In this story she has included a character which I won’t spoil, but it is the name of a real person and quite a high profile case at the time so many will recognise it. Don’t be alarmed, this is not a story about child killing, it’s just a part of the story, but it’s the description of the character that I liked. This is an author who doesn’t shy away from the imagery surrounding the child character and I appreciate that as a horror fan.
There are many other, very good stories in the book but I just chose those four to talk to you about, your favourites may differ from mine and therefore I’d be interested to know which you preferred the most. Which story did you feel a connection or engagement with?
I would definitely recommend this book, particularly if you’re new to Dehaney’s work and want to get a proper idea of what her range and styles are like. It’s always good to try out a selection and this is a really nice variety of what she can do.
Caravan of Love isn’t a brand new story to me as I covered it previously when I reviewed the above mentioned collection. I did however want to just touch back onto it because it is a beautifully written story and I wanted to draw attention to it one more time. What I like about Dehaney’s writing is that she has a wide range of styles which she brings to her work, this was one of the first pieces I read by her and I like the masterful way she goes about bringing over what should at times be quite a gory and nasty scene, in a beautiful way. This story does just that, presenting the artist’s movements in such a beautiful way that it almost lures the reader into the final climax of the story.
Five Gold Rings is another story I really enjoyed, framed from the point of view of a man telling you about his past wives, the story takes a turn in the final pages. It’s a simple but very effective way to tell a story. It feels quite gritty and I suppose the content is fairly bleak. Another example of Dehaney’s range of styles, this one is very different from the stories either side of it but not so much that it’s a jarring change. It is however nice to be fully aware you’ve moved into a new story as sometimes is people’s writing style never changes it can be easy to forget you’ve moved on.
The Rape of Ivy House is easily my favourite story in this book, I actually got a chill in the later pages of this one. It’s actually a concept many can probably relate to as in recent years Sheffield City Council decided to introduce a Bedroom Tax, meaning that elderly people in council houses were facing a problem of no longer being able to afford their homes and therefore agreed to downsize to smaller dwellings. This isn’t the theme of this story, but it does have similar meddling from the Council. Mr Gonputh is an elderly man living in the home he’s always lived in, but when the council come knocking to “improve” his situation he isn’t all too pleased. The thing that really struck me about this story is that Dehaney lures you into thinking that she’s going to treat you to a happy ending.
The final tale I’ll be talking to you about today is Little Miss Colorado Dream Queen. Now I’ve mentioned this about Dehaney before but I’m going to do it again because I love this about her writing. In the horror genre, children can be very much treated like a protected asset. I obviously understand why we don’t want to see children harmed in any way, and why the thought of that is offensive. So before I go on, I want to make it clear that I do not hate children and I do not want harm to come to them. You might think that’s obvious but we are in 2021 so let’s just assume that nothing is obvious. Horror is supposed to upset you, it’s supposed to scare you and possibly even offend you. It is a very broad genre so you don’t necessarily have to watch or read the things you don’t want to, but I don’t feel that anything should be considered off limits. When you make horror a safe space, it loses the horror aspect. So when women and children are considered off limits, that’s a big no no for me, and Dehaney isn’t afraid to play with that line drawn in the sand. In this story she has included a character which I won’t spoil, but it is the name of a real person and quite a high profile case at the time so many will recognise it. Don’t be alarmed, this is not a story about child killing, it’s just a part of the story, but it’s the description of the character that I liked. This is an author who doesn’t shy away from the imagery surrounding the child character and I appreciate that as a horror fan.
There are many other, very good stories in the book but I just chose those four to talk to you about, your favourites may differ from mine and therefore I’d be interested to know which you preferred the most. Which story did you feel a connection or engagement with?
I would definitely recommend this book, particularly if you’re new to Dehaney’s work and want to get a proper idea of what her range and styles are like. It’s always good to try out a selection and this is a really nice variety of what she can do.
May 10, 2021
A wonderful collection of bite size morsels of creepy bloody goodness!
September 20, 2024
Dehaney is an underrated horror author. I've previously enjoyed two other books by her, and, while this one was probably my least favorite, there are still some incredible stories here. My favorites were "Ten Minute Warning" (two teenagers become paranoid after their family takes shelter in the basement due to what is presumably a nuclear war) and "The Tiger & the Lamb," which compared the Black Dahlia and Marilyn Monroe. The sad but ultimately hopeful "Herring Girl" was also excellent.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews