Jerrod Balzer, husband of the  Buffy the Vampire Slayer season 8 guest star  Robin Balzer, has just published Fear the Woods: Book One: How to Make a Vampire.

I started reading it after midnight Halloween and could not stop until I finished the last word.

Balzer understands that the key to making horror real is to anchor the arcane in the mundane, and he does it beautifully and hilariously with the characters of Bob, who is “comfortably poor,” and Jeezy, whose real name is too difficult to mention and who therefore goes by variations on his middle initials, some less nice than others (“Cheesy” and “Sleazy” are too high school brands). When they were introduced in the second chapter of Fear the Woods, I wanted to watch a series of Bob and Jeezy movies. I think Shaun of the Dead was shooting for this kind of gut-punching hilarity.

I’m tempted to write something serious like: “Balzer’s portrait of Tapperville’s dire socio-economic life is bleak and unsentimental, yet leavened with humor” It is. It’s also &%@$ing funny and dead on.

Enjoy Fear the Woods.