‘Dominion’ packed full of gore

  DANGER: DISTURBING, OFFENSIVE CONTENT AHEAD
  You know a horror novel is going to be good when a guy gets his berries plucked within the first five chapters.
  Such is the case with Bentley Little’s “Dominion.”
  The rhythm changed. What had been gentle became aggressive, then just plain rough. He opened his eyes, looked down. The woman was smiling up at him, and there was something in the expression on her face that chilled him.
  She grabbed his balls tightly and with one quick pull yanked them out by the roots. ...
  The woman, still on her knees before him lifted her hands to catch the spurting blood, smearing it on her face and in her hair, laughing with drunken, ecstatic glee.
  The guy getting his love spuds uprooted is merely a sideshow to this very gory circus.
  “Dominion” starts innocently enough, centering around Dion, who has just moved to Napa, Calif., with his single mom. He’s not looking forward to being the new kid in school, but he quickly finds a friend in Kevin and soon becomes smitten with Penelope, an outcast at the school. Rumors swirl around Penelope, who lives at a local winery with her mothers — all five of them.
  Dion and Penelope begin spending all their time together, and when the Napa residents, including their own families, begin turning into amoral hedonists, the pair get caught in the middle of an ancient evil that reveals much about both their origins.
  A master of horror, Little’s books are not for the weak of stomach. The gore sometimes does have a certain “Evil Dead” dark comedy feel to it, but it’s sickening nonetheless. Readers actually find themselves cringing yet laughing out loud, thinking, “I can’t believe that just happened!”
  Little also frequently twists sexual intimacy into something vile and disgusting. In “Dominion,” sex has nothing to do with love and everything to do with violence and death. The author uses every sexual taboo there is to gross out his readers.
  Those easily offended should stay away from “Dominion,” but those who find reading about a guy getting his nuts cracked slightly amusing, this book is for you. With “Dominion,” Little illustrates he has a great imagination — that, or he’s just a big ol’ perv.