The Hags of Black County

By: Michelle Bowser

Narrated by: Michelle Bowser

Length: 3 hrs and 17 mins

Publisher's summary

Ruled by a committee of Hags, and fueled by toothless rivalries, Black County lurks just far enough out of the way to be completely unnoticed by the rest of civilization. Its inhabitants have been mentally warped for generations and the land itself seems to have the power to drive anyone unlucky enough to visit into ridiculous hillbilly madness.

When a construction Company needs to bury a pipeline through its ludicrous hills and valleys, a twisted charm goes to work and every aspect of already bizarre Black County life takes a gory turn for the hysterical. Take a preposterous trip along with its citizens, both native and new, through escapades such as the Hag parade, the grand opening of Madame Skunk's House of Ill Repute, the demolition derby riot, and the rabid zombie clown apocalypse.

©2014 Michelle Bowser / Burning Bulb Publishing (P)2017 Michelle Bowser / Burning Bulb Publishing

Hags Run Amok

Black county is run by hags (witches). The inhabitants are generally idiots who fight among themselves about everything and anything. It is the annual hag parade and festival and everyone comes to watch the hag fights and demolition derby.

That’s about all there is to this plot-less mess. It is basically an endless stream of scenes of hags and idiots tripping over themselves. It might be funny if there was some sort of sense to the madness, rather than endless descriptions of characters and scenes about ugly and witless characters. At first, I thought it might be a children’s book, it is so nonsensical, but the crude language and sexual innuendos eliminated that possibility.

While listening, I tried desperately to find something redeeming in this mélange of chaos, but ultimately failed to do so. Writing a book is a great work of effort and applaud all authors the effort, then to go further and record it, speaks to that task. Unfortunately, there is simply nothing here to merit listing to this novella/long short story? Perhaps with thoughtful editing, it could be transformed into a children’s book about witches and idiots. But that is not for me to say. My apologies to the author, I just can’t find anything here.

The story is performed by the author, who with her enthusiasm and character voices does a reasonably good job and has a good voice. Unfortunately, the production quality is somewhat poor, like listening in a room with too much echo. The music at the beginning and end are poorly mixed and it is hard to hear the announcer. Also, somewhere near the end, there is an irritating guitar piece that shocks the listener. It isn’t just a moment or two, but almost a whole song. Most audiobook listeners prefer the story and not music in their audio.

Unfortunately, there is no way to recommend this book, no audience I can conceive of who would find it worth listening to.

Audiobook was provided for review by the author/narrator/publisher.

Please find this complete review and many others at my review blog.

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