Rating: 4 Stars

Publisher: RCubed Books

Genre: Horror/Paranormal

Tags: Horror/Paranormal, Short Story, Vampires

Length: 23 Pages

Reviewer: Cindi

Purchase At: Amazon

Blurb –

In the hushed solitude of a desert mountaintop, Asa Beck, a centuries-old vampire, perches on the precipice of his existence. With the horizon aglow, heralding the impending sunrise to the east, he grapples with a lifetime burdened by immortality and the shadows of a tormented past.As the first rays of dawn paint the sky in amber and gold, Asa’s thoughts drift back to the origin of his immortal curse—the twisted path that led him to embrace the darkness within and the relentless thirst that etched deep scars upon his soul.Yet amid this bleakness, there remains a flicker of bittersweet memory—the one man Asa dared to love, a beacon of light in his endless night. Their love, forbidden and fleeting, lingers as a poignant reminder of a human heart that once beat within his chest.With the sun’s ascent looming ever closer, Asa confronts an existential crossroad. Should he continue his existence as a creature of the night, forever haunted by the echoes of his past and the insatiable hunger that defines him? Or does he dare to seek redemption, to find solace in the eternal slumber that awaits with the breaking dawn?As the first rays crest the horizon, casting long shadows across the barren landscape, Asa Beck, the immortal wanderer, finds himself at the brink of a decision that will define his eternal fate.

Review –

My love of Rick’s books started with his horror. While I wouldn’t say Here Comes The Sun is a full on horror story, it does tell the story of a vampire, and how he’s managed to exist for nearly two hundred years. It’s short at 23 pages, so I can’t say a whole lot in my review. Even so, as with all the author’s short stories, a lot is said in those few pages.

Asa Beck is contemplating what led him to where he is today – on a mountaintop awaiting the sunrise that could end his lonely existence once and for all. The question is this… does he allow the sun to turn him to dust? Or does he continue as he has for the past two centuries?

The reader doesn’t know until the very end, so I hope other reviewers don’t give it away.

Asa’s story is sad, really. It all started when he met a beautiful man named Louis Abbott by a stream one night.

Like a fly trapped in a spider’s web, Asa was drawn to the man’s dark beauty and the surreal aspect of him in summer clothes. There was something paradoxically dangerous and beautiful about him. There was also a sense that this meeting was fate.

They shared what Asa believed was a magical night, even meeting up again. Unfortunately, those meetings went from being magical to being a nightmare, one that Asa’s been forced to endure for the past two hundred years.

Now he wants it over, done.

That’s all I can say about the story without completely giving it away.

I felt sorry for Asa. He got sucked in by Louis only for things to not quite go as he’d hoped.

I really enjoyed this, as I have all of Rick’s books. The only reason I’m not rating it higher is because I ended it wanting more.

A huge thank you to the author for a review copy.