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Cards with the Devil eBook Mike Eserkaln

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Cards with the Devil eBook Mike Eserkaln

Very interesting read! One of a kind!


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Cards with the Devil eBook Mike Eserkaln Reviews

An excellent read. Cards With The Devil is everything I have been wanting for years in Fiction! It's very clever, straight-forward with the reader, however complex, and very fun to read. Mike Eserkaln brings you through the story in a way that is difficult to turn away from! It's an excellent book, and comes with my recommendation! D
A fresh take on a classic theme, Cards with the Devil artfully blends elements of comedy, mystery, and horror into an entertaining and well thought out tale. A cool book all-around.
Great debut novel by the author. The book get's straight up crazy as it goes along and it's fantastic. Great twists and writing. did you know he is a professional comedian as well?
“Cards with the Devil,” although the first novel by Mike Eserkaln, reads like the work of a seasoned author. Equally surprising is a rather simple concept that beguiles the quality and depth of Eserkaln’s storytelling. While the casual reader will get on with “Cards with the Devil” without difficulty, complexities rest below the surface that will speak to readers seeking a bit more from their reading.

Eserkaln’s imperfect protagonist (Thomas) remains likeable enough to compel the reader onward in a tale familiar enough to generate suspense and keep us turning pages, but just as we’re given points that feel familiar and are certain of our bearing, Eserkaln presents us instead with alternative outcomes that are equal parts original and entertaining.

Thomas’ journey, sans the Devil, isn’t that different from the one many of us find ourselves traveling. As one character points out, Thomas has “spent more time fretting than living,” taking much of his “gift” for granted. Like the best speculative fiction, “Cards with the Devil” begs many philosophical questions, but to its credit never seeks to answer those questions in a way detrimental to the narrative.

All in all, “Cards with the Devil” is a novel that might have found a home on Rod Serling’s bookshelf. Fans of speculative fiction the likes of Joe Hill will feel at home with “Cards with the Devil.”
A very engaging read that was tough to put down. The author develops the main character through love, pain, loss, and a healthy dose of suspense and fear. I enjoyed the fact that the story is set out over a period of many years and decades and follows history through the various locales and settings. The author also uses the cards and suits to lend emotion to various chapters. While the character development of some of the people in the story did lead me to have to go back here and there to re-capture their original nuances and relationships, this didn't detract from the overall story. Hope to see more in the future from this author.
The premise of this book struck me as interesting at first, even if it does seem somewhat contrived on the surface, sort of like a parody of a million other stories you might have heard before, but the more I dug in, the more this book wrapped itself around me.

I found myself trying to think of a comparable experience, and while I'm sure there are countless similar works, this had the eerie vibe of a dark little Stephen King short story, similar to "Riding the Bullet" or "The Jaunt" (not in content, but emotional resonance). In fact, it felt like a lot like Joe Hill's "Heart-Shaped Box" or "NOS4A2" without the ultra-violent endings. In it, the Devil appears in the opening chapter, but haunts Thomas over the years of his life as he changes his name and befriends a similarly Devil-contracted man, Erik, given infinite money for a later-to-be-played game of chess. Their traumas intersect, and as time passes on, a sort of madness sets in. Thomas's life becomes bleaker, culminating in desperate decisions and hallucinations of happiness. There are painfully tragic scenes, such as the burying of a man beneath a highway, and a luck-induced night of gambling that turns darkly south.

While some scenes jumped time without fully resolving subplots and conflicts along the way--inherent in the authorial device to frame the novel as Thomas's personal journal--I found these issues very much forgivable and effective in leaving lingering beats of tension. Some stories come back to Thomas, others do not. But each has an impact on his character growth in both small and big ways.

Full disclosure, I sort of know the author--I've seen him perform at Comedy City, and in fact, he and his comedy troupe performed at my backyard wedding reception--but I can honestly say this book was nothing like what I expected. Don't skip over it because it's self-published or has fewer reviews than other horror best-sellers. This is definitely a high quality book that, at times, will take your breath away, and at other times, you'll have a hard time putting it down.
Couldn't put it down!
Very interesting read! One of a kind!