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Mayan Blue by [Michelle Garza, Melissa Lason]

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Michelle Garza

Melissa Lason

Mayan Blue Kindle Edition

by Michelle Garza (Author), Melissa Lason (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

67 ratings

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Xibalba, home of torture and sacrifice, is the kingdom of the lord of death. He stalked the night in the guise of a putrefied corpse, with the head of an owl and adorned with a necklace of disembodied eyes that hung from nerve cords. He commanded legions of shapeshifting creatures, spectral shamans, and corpses hungry for the flesh of the living. The Mayans feared him and his realm of horror. He sat atop his pyramid temple surrounded by his demon kings and demanded sacrifices of blood and beating hearts as tribute to him and his ghostly world.

These legends, along with those that lived in fear of them, have been dead and gone for centuries. Yet now, a doorway has been opened in Georgia. A group of college students seek their missing professor, a man who has secretly uncovered the answer to one of history’s greatest mysteries. However, what they find is more than the evidence of a hidden civilization. It’s also a gateway to a world of living nightmares.

Print length

164 pages
Language

English
Publication date

February 22, 2022
File size

866 KB
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Melissa Lason and Michelle Garza have been writing together since they were little girls. Dubbed The Sisters of Slaughter by the editors of Fireside Press. They are constantly working together on new stories in the horror and dark fantasy genres. Their work has been included in FRESH MEAT published by Sinister Grin Press, WISHFUL THINKING by Fireside Press, WIDOWMAKERS a benefit anthology of dark fiction. https: //facebook.com/sistersofhorror/ --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B09T77G61W
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Crossroad Press (February 22, 2022)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ February 22, 2022
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 866 KB
Simultaneous device usage ‏ : ‎ Unlimited
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Print length ‏ : ‎ 164 pages
Lending ‏ : ‎ Enabled

Best Sellers Rank: #3,289,933 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #19,335 in Occult Horror
- #35,234 in Occult Fiction

Customer Reviews:
67 ratings

About the authors

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Michelle Garza
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Michelle is from Arizona. She writes alongside her twin sister, Melissa Lason. They have been dubbed The Sisters of Slaughter. They write horror, science fiction and dark fantasy. Their work has been featured in anthologies such as FRESH MEAT by Sinister Grin Press, WISHFUL THINKING by fireside press, WIDOWMAKERS a benefit anthology of dark fiction. Their novel, MAYAN BLUE, was nominated for a Bram Stoker Award.
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Melissa Lason
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Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.
Melissa Lason writes alongside her twin sister Michelle Garza. They're known as the Sisters of Slaughter. Their first novel was nominated for a Bram Stoker Award.
See more on the author's page

Customer reviews

5 star		47%
4 star		31%
3 star		9%
2 star		5%
1 star		8%

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Top reviews from the United States

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Michael Hicks

The Sisters of Slaughter Earn Their Bloody Stripes!

Reviewed in the United States on May 25, 2016

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Dubbed The Sisters of Slaughter by the editor of Fireside Press, Michelle Garza and Melissa Larson make their novel-length debut with Mayan Blue. I think the Fireside folks were on to something with their proclamation, and the sisters earn their bloody stripes well here.

First off, let me just say how glad I am to read a horror book that is influenced by ancient continental American lore, rather then the johnny come lately Christian influences that predominate most modern works. Granted, those influences have produced some great stories, particularly in terms of my recent reads like Paul Tremblay’s A Head Full of Ghosts and Hunter Shea’s I Kill In Peace. But it’s fun to spice things up a bit by reaching into a deeper, richer history of the Americas.

Mayan Blue, as the title indicates, reaches back to the peak of the Mayan heyday, drawing on the occult beliefs of Mesoamerican and Central American people to craft a present-day horror story. Building off the debunked speculations of Mayan civilization reaching as far north as Georgia, the sisters craft a novel in which such speculations are on the verge of being validated. Unfortunately, the professor in possession of the evidence has gone missing, and his small team of university researchers are en route to recover him.

From the outset, Garza and Lason let the blood spill, plunging their small cast of characters into the depths of Mayan hell. There’s plenty of action to go around as the group is confronted with a number of horrors, from the labyrinthine and booby-trapped maze of the newly discovered Mayan temple to the angry gods and their owl-headed, sharp-clawed servants.

This is a fun and quick bit of adventure horror, with a number of well-drawn splatter scenes. Bodies are flayed and entrails spilled all over the place. My only real complaint about the book is that the characters are paper thin, with several of them never rising above a quickly drawn stereotype before being dispatched in some nicely grisly scenes. While their deaths are certainly interesting, it’s a shame that their demise is the most interesting thing to happen to them in the brief moments we spend with them. In order for horror to be truly effective, there needs to be characters to root for and against, people you can become attached to and sympathize for and with. I didn’t feel particularly attached to anybody in this book. While the gore and setting may be memorable, the characters, unfortunately, are not.

Aside from that, I had a fun time with Mayan Blue. I greatly appreciated the change of scenery it provided, and the way its influences in both the creature-feature and slasher genres merged to form a truly appropriate temple of doom.

[Note: this review is based an advanced, uncorrected proof copy supplied by the authors in exchange for an honest review.]

5 people found this helpful

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Edward Lorn

Originality marred by errors.

Reviewed in the United States on May 13, 2017

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The typos and grammatical errors were abundant but not so much that I had to stop reading. The errors are simple and do not mangle the reading experience. I was shocked to find the book wasn't published by the authors but by Sinister Grin Press. I'd heard good things about them, but the editing herein was terrible. Most of the stuff I found could have been caught by even an amateur proofreader. Here are some examples of the errors I found. If I added everything I highlighted, this review would be 3,000 words long, so I'm only giving samples.

Repetition of words: If I read "before them" one more time, I might go blind. There's a place where the authors use that phrase three times on one page, and then they use "above them" back to back too.

Typos: "In the utterly blackness of his surroundings." This is only a sample. I counted over a dozen misspelled or wrongly-used words.

Instances where the authors seemingly don't know what certain words mean: This happens a lot, actually, but this was the sentence that stuck out the most. "The air of the cavern was cool, yet also filled with dust and debris." Does the cave not have gravity? Why's there debris (litter and/or pieces of rock) floating in the air?

Silly wording: "Kelly slapped her hand over her mouth to hold back the frightened cries escaping through her fingers." She's not slapping her hand over her mouth to stop the scream from escaping through her fingers. She's slapping a hand over her mouth to stop the scream from escaping her mouth. If it escapes between her fingers after that, fine, but the order of that sentence is just silly.

Anthropomorphic penises: "His manhood shrunk back and hung there in disappointment and concern." Okay, so this isn't an error, but it sure is funny.

Words left in after editing: "Kelly leaned against him, letting him feel her wet body against his through his thin layer of clothing."

Pretty much every error you find in unedited indie fiction can be found here. Nothing shocking. Nothing that breaks the story. Which brings me too...

This book is a lot of fun, which is why I threw it an extra star. Had the story sucked, it would've easily been a one star instead of two. It's a cheesy, b-horror-movie romp full of unique creatures and plenty of action. I know modern horror readers don't pay much attention to errors, but I really do wish, for the sake of authors just starting out in this business, that publishers and indies alike would care a little more. I mean, this book was an award finalist. What are we saying to the newbies by publishing poorly-edited material and having it hold pride of place in the community? It also comes down to simple respect for your reader. They're spending their hard earned money on you. The least you can do is provide them with quality content.

In summation: I knew going into this one, based on other reviews I'd read, that the editing was nonexistent, so there was no shock involved, other than finding out that the book was published by an actual press. Shame on you Sinister Grin for not treating this book and its author with enough respect to have it professionally edited. The fact that I knew about all the errors going in doesn't make it okay, but at least I knew about them. If you're one who can ignore multiple typos and broken sentences, you should enjoy yourself.

Final Judgment: Originality marred by errors.

2 people found this helpful

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Cedar Hollow Horror Reviews

I love indigenous history

Reviewed in the United States on December 30, 2017

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Well, paint me blue! Mayan Blue is a tour-de-force through blood and bodies. I love indigenous history, especially Mayan history. Don't believe the hype? Then, you should read this book to see what I'm talking about.

Professor Lipton discovers the Mayans had migrated north to Georgia. This is a once in a lifetime discovery. Professor Lipton goes missing. His associate and a group of students search for him. Mayan hell is unleashed on the small team of students. The Sisters of Slaughter let the bodies hit the floor. There is plenty of blood and gore to go around. The team of students must face the pissed off gods and their owl-headed servants as they travel deeper into the labyrinth that is the newly discovered Mayan temple.

The killing scenes are great. The scenes are stomach -wrenching and they will make you grimace. With that being said, I didn't get attached to these characters. I didn't get to learn much about them before they were slaughtered. These things did not take away from the great debut novel that is Mayan Blue.

This book is short, yet ferocious. Mayan Blue reads like an 80s horror movie. At times throughout this book, I was yelling at the characters for stupid decisions. The Sisters of Slaughter will have you reading late into the night, though!

This is my first time reading the Sisters of Slaughter, but it definitely won't be my last!

One person found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Amabush

Pretty awful

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 27, 2017

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I'm sorry to say I didn't enjoy this book at all. It was incoherent and inconsistent, for example the main female protagonist is initially presented as being rather plain, but later in the novel there's a reference to her 'simple beauty'. The violence is extreme and insistent: this had a desensitising effect so that towards the end I was unmoved by the considerable sufferings of the characters, in fact I felt that my own suffering had outstripped theirs by the time I finished reading.
I'm not sure who the intended audience is but my guess would be teenagers with a taste for gross-out.

Ryanocerous

Pretty meh

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 15, 2016

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A poor man's Richard laymon book, this was much longer than it needed to be. I found the prose very uninspiring and just didn't care what was going to happen next.

Steve Stred

Fast-paced thrill-ride!

Reviewed in Canada on February 22, 2021

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From the very first day that I entered into the dark fiction community, Michelle and Melissa have been cheering me on and encouraging me every step of the way. I’ve been recommended their work time and time again, but it was ‘Mayan Blue’ and ‘Tapetum Lucidum’ that really stood out for me. (I’ll be starting Tapetum shortly!)

‘Mayan Blue’ always interested me as I’ve always been intrigued by Xibalba and the Mayan lore of the Underworld. The Mayan Death Gods, specifically Ah Puch, have always got my imagination running and because of this, I wanted to see what type of carnage the Sisters of Slaughter could conjure up.

What I liked: The story begins innocently enough. Four college students and the Professor’s Assistant hike into the Georgia wilderness. They’re off to meet up with the Professor of Archaeology who has discovered a doorway in a cave, that he believes is Mayan. Little do the group of five know that the Professor has accidentally disturbed things that should never have been disturbed.

From this point on, Garza and Lason craft a story filled with survival and brutal, brutal moments. As the Gods of Death march forward and lust to capture the humans and bring them to the massive pyramid for sacrifice, the humans struggle to stay alive, even if they don’t know it’s already too late.

There are some gruesome scenes in here, scenes that rival anything Barker ever conjured. We get tons of blood, amazing progression as the various creatures get their moments in the spotlight and we see just how much each of the humans themselves, want to stay alive.

I really enjoyed how fast-paced this was and how vividly each of the underworld incarnations were described.

What I didn’t like: Two things. The first was, I felt like three of the five individuals were there just to be slaughtered. I didn’t get enough of them or their actual personalities to care much about them and the one woman was incredibly annoying. The second, was I wished there was more background on the lore surrounding what was to come. I felt like I had to play catch up as various levels and events happened and some characters filled the reader in after. Minor, but I think some parts would’ve made more sense.

Why you should buy this: Absolute, underworld blast. This was a really fun time, with a ton of Mayan history and anytime you can get a horror story based around Xibalba, the reader should be happy. The twosome crafted a really frantic, high-energy story and I loved how we saw things go darker and darker. Great stuff!

Jim Goforth

Mayan Bloodshed!

Reviewed in India on July 11, 2016

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The last couple of years have seen a phenomenal amount of excellent new horror writers surfacing and unleashing their considerable sanguinary scribbling talents on the world in terms of short stories, novellas and novels, and the fact that so many of them have been female is truly excellent. Introducing the Sisters of Slaughter. Authors Michelle Garza and Melissa Lason are twin sisters who well and truly live up to this moniker bestowed upon them by Fireside Press, with their very first foray into the world of novels. While they’ve been keeping busy in regards to writing shorts, delivering pieces with the impact of being gut-punched by a sledgehammer, the duo have now turned their attentions to penning full-length books and Mayan Blue is their debut.
On the surface, the premise of the story seems simple: A bunch of students comprised of Alissa, Tyler, Dennis and Kelly decide to accompany archaeologist Professor Lipton and his associate Wes on what should be a straightforward expedition delving into Mayan culture, with the belief that it actually spanned as far as Georgia.
From there though, things go to hell for this intrepid collective in a hurry, considering the professor manages to open up a gateway to Xibalba, a deadly underworld of pain, bloodshed and sacrifice, where bloodthirsty entities reign supreme. The Lord of Death, Ah-Puch is brutal master of this domain and any mortal beings inadvertently cast into this dark netherworld are going to find themselves in a place that will make any perceived notion of Hell look like kindergarten.
The Sisters of Slaughter don’t just dab a bit of blood here and there, they literally splash buckets of it with gleeful, gory abandon as the story tears through at a breakneck pace, hurling characters into horrendous situations around every corner, every twist and turn. There’s little time for respite; this is an epic horror adventure that plants its foot on the accelerator and doesn’t let up once, and nor does it falter or slow up, keeping brutally active until the unexpected conclusion.
The character development is solid, albeit with some more fleshed out or focused upon than others, the imagery is sensational and really splatters those visions of Xibalba across one’s mind as clearly as if they were present in that netherhell, the pacing as mentioned is ruthless and on-par with a runaway locomotive, and the gore is top notch and inventive. The authors have certainly done some comprehensive research to bring the subject matter to life as well and coupling all this with their smooth, flowing, rapid-fire narrative makes for one hell of a ride. Buckle up, things are going to get messy.
Mayan Blue makes for an excellent debut and I’ll be eagerly awaiting more from this deadly duo.

One person found this helpful

Desmond Reddick

Excellent pulp horror

Reviewed in Canada on May 26, 2017

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Reminiscent of The Ruins with a Splatterpunk edge, this book scratches a lot of the itches you're looking for in horror. Really enjoyed it.

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About the authors

Michelle Garza

Melissa Lason

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