Horror Double Feature (Bugs and Slugs): Lovers Living Lovers Dead and The Morgow Rises!

I read 2 books this week, and I don’t have a huge amount to say about either, so I’m putting them both in one post:

Lovers Living Lovers Dead – Richard Lortz

On December 29th, 2019, I received an email recommending that I read this book. I got around to it this week. This is the story of Michael and Christine’s messed up marriage. Christine is way younger than Michael, and she’s a bit weird. She acts like a freak, and small, flying creatures are irresistibly drawn to her. Michael makes her go to a psychiatrist, but the psychiatrist convinces him to look into his wife’s secret box. He doesn’t like what he finds in there. Oh no, he doesn’t.

I quite enjoyed this up until he opens the forbidden chest of secret mystery. I got a bit grossed out after that part. It reminded me a bit of Craig Jones’ Blood Secrets. I read the book very quickly, and finished it just 3 or 4 days ago, but to tell the truth, I can’t really remember how it ended. It was an entertaining read though. Thank you to Александр for the recommendation!

The Morgow Rises! – Peter Tremayne

After finishing Lovers Living Lovers Dead, I immediately started reading Peter Tremayne’s The Morgow Rises! This book has become a collector’s item because of the awesome cover art, but as a novel, it’s bottom of the barrel muck. This is terrible, unimaginative tripe.

A big slug kills some people. There’s a witch, some nuclear waste and the least memorable characters I’ve ever come across. Overwritten shit. I’ve read my fair share of trashy horror novels about worms, and this is definitely the worst I’ve come across. I really didn’t want to read past the first few chapters and ended up just skimming the last half of the book. The cover is a gross misrepresentation of the majority of what happens in this book. It’s mostly about opportunistic newspaper reporters and Cornish men drinking pints.

I read this after coming across a mention of the Morgow in Jenny Randle’s Mind Monsters. I looked it up online, and apparently the “Morgawr” lake monster was invented in 1975.