The Toll Comes Due, by Robert Weaver and Wesley Winters
19 Aug 2024The Book
Synopsis:
Robert Weaver, author of the Occult Britain series, and Wesley Winters, author of Nobody’s Savior, have teamed up for a themed crime fiction split about facing one’s self and the person we have become versus who we still can be.
The Last Chime by Robert Weaver They’re on the run, hiding from the police in a remote and forgotten farmhouse. They are not alone. There’s a man in a church bell nearby, a man of legend and supposed fiction. Will he be their savior or destroyer?
Going Sideways by Wesley Winters When brothers Pip and Bet accept a job to kidnap a child from the playground, they quickly learn the “simple” assignment is far more complicated and dangerous than they’d been led to believe. Not only is the child the District Attorney ‘s offspring, but their employer is one of the most feared and monstrous gangsters in the city.
My Review
The Toll Comes Due is a book that collects two crime fiction mixed with horror elements novelettes from the authors Robert Weaver and Wesley Winters. Two stories that heavily play with the identity themes, but with different perspectives, and that heavily lean away in the style.
The Last Chime, written by Robert Weaver, features a more mysterious and creative story; a prose that borders the lyrical, slowly weaving the emotional touch that will surprise us later. Two people on the run in an isolated farmhouse, and a mysterious figure that lives inside a fallen bell; we have the elements for a gothic and dreamy tale.
In Going Sideaways, Wesley Winters presents a much faster story, a crime tale following two brothers that are hired for a sinister job, kidnapping a kid, without imagining the consequences it will have for them. Playing with body horror elements, we have a drier prose, but a story equally captivating, more going for the thrilling and adrenaline inducing route.
A terrific read, which I totally recommend if you want your stories with a bit of horror as the spice giving the flavour; perfect bite size tries of what these two talented authors can offer to you as reader!
The Author/s
Robert Weaver
Stories arise from the woven fabric of all that can be at the inception of everything. My intention is to capture these moments that exist just out of reach of perception, in the world we call imagination.
My motto: every story should have mystery to unravel or inequity to overcome.
Wesley Winters
Welsey Winters is an author of queer-centric fiction, including the horror collection Nobody’s Savior (Slashic Horror Press, 2024) and the crime novella Going Sideways, as featured in The Toll Comes Due, co-authored with Robert Weaver. Winters has appeared in several recent anthologies, including Terrible Lizards and the second volumes of both HorrorScope and That Old House: The Bathroom. He is also the editor of WMP Dark Fiction Magazine, which has published four times since 2023. He is a father of three and an advocate for autism and depression.