Author: A. R. James

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Epeolatry Book Review: Dehiscent by Ashley Deng

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Title: Dehiscent

Author: Ashley Deng

Genre: Eco-horror, Sporror, Gothic

Publisher: Tenebrous Press

Release date: August 1, 2023

Page count: 92

Synopsis: As the world’s climate swings rapidly between oppressively hot and freezing cold, the remnants of civilization huddle in small communities to scrape together what they can to survive.

All except the Zhu family.

Yi has lived in her ancestral house her entire life, sheltered and safe from the scarcity that plagues her community. Her family enjoys a secret life of running water, electricity, and an abundance of food.

But as Yi seeks a way to share their fortune, she learns the terrible secret of the Zhu house.

DEHISCENT is an Eco-Horror tale of a future that has practically arrived, and the humanity that lurks in the most inhuman of places.

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Epeolatry Book Review: The Oddly Pedestrian Life of Christopher Chaos #1

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Title: The Oddly Pedestrian Life of Christopher Chaos #1
Author: Based on an idea by James Tynion IV; Script by Tate Brombal Tate Brombal Art by Isaac Goodhart; Colors by Miquel Muerto Miquel Muerto; Letters by Aditya Bidikar
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Genre: Horror, Fantasy, Action/Adventure, Comics & Graphic Novels, LGBTQIA+
Release Date: 28th June, 2023

Synopsis: From the New York Times bestselling and multi-Eisner award-winning writers of Something is Killing the Children, The Department of Truth, and House of Slaughter; and the artist on Victor and Nora: A Gotham Love Story comes this LGBTQ+ horror-hero coming-of-age series that’s Invincible meets Doom Patrol.

Meet teenage mad scientist Christopher Chaos. For all his life he knew he was different. His brilliant mind works in ways that defy logic and enable him to do things that push him beyond his peers. Unfortunately, these abilities have also caused great pain in his personal life–leading others to fear him and leaving Christopher with profound loneliness and guilt.

Then one day something cracked. When the cute boy at high school turns out to be a deadly creature, Christopher finds himself pitted in a world of monsters, heroes, and a cult of hunters out to kill them all.

 

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Epeolatry Book Review: Us by Sara Soler

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Title: Us
By: Sara Soler (English translation by Silvia Perea Labayen, letters by Joamette Gil)
Genre: Graphic Memoir, Non-Fiction, LGBTQIA+
Publisher: Dark Horse Books
Release Date: 25th July, 2023

Synopsis: Us is Sara and Diana’s love story, as well as the story of Diana’s gender transition. Full of humor, heartache, and the everyday triumphs and struggles of identity, this graphic memoir speaks to changing conceptions of the world as well as the self, at the same time revealing that some things don’t really have to change.

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Epeolatry Book Review: Shanghai Immortal by A. Y. Chao

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Our reviews may contain affiliate links. If you purchase something through the links in this article we may receive a small commission or referral fee. This happens without any additional cost to you.

Title: Shanghai Immortal
Author: A.Y. Chao
Publisher: Hodderscape
Genre: Fantasy, Folklore, Sword & Sorcery, Romance
Release date: 31st October, 2023

Synopsis: This richly told adult fantasy debut teems with Chinese deities and demons cavorting in jazz age Shanghai.

Half vampire. Half fox-spirit. All trouble.

Pawned by her mother to the King of Hell as a child, Lady Jing is half-vampire, half-hulijing fox-spirit and all sasshole. As the King’s ward, she has spent the past ninety years running errands, dodging the taunts of the spiteful hulijing courtiers, and trying to control her explosive temper – with varying levels of success.

So, when Jing overhears the courtiers plotting to steal a priceless dragon pearl from the King, she seizes her chance to expose them, once and for all.

With the help of a gentle mortal tasked with setting up the Central Bank of Hell, Jing embarks on a wild chase for intel, first through Hell and then mortal Shanghai. But when her hijinks put the mortal in danger, she must decide which is more important: avenging her loss of face, or letting go of her half-empty approach to life for a chance to experience tenderness – and maybe even love.

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Epeolatry Book Review: Jamie Hallow and the End of the World by A. V. Wilkes

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Title: Jamie Hallow and the End of the World

Author: A. V. Wilkes

Publisher: Cemetery Gates Media

Genre: Horror, Fantasy, LGBTQIA+

Release date: July 11, 2023

Synopsis: Jamie Hallow is an Unbeliever…

For thousands of years, the Legion protected humanity from eldritch terrors. But when the nukes dropped, the balance was broken. The Legion retreated underground, ceding the surface to radioactive fall-out, surface scavengers, and things from Outside.

Several years since the war’s end, queer teenage misfit Jamie Hallow – Legion born and raised – finds the bunker’s theocracy stifling. His ex-boyfriend has pledged allegiance to the secretive Taskforce, running missions into the hot zone of the crumbling city.

And when Jamie learns just what his ancient cult is prepared to do to ‘save’ humanity, he must choose where his loyalties lie.

A novella from A.V. Wilkes — HP Lovecraft meets Mean Girls by way of The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.

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Epeolatry Book Review: Family Curse: Field Notebooks (1880-2020)

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Title: Family Curse: Field Notebooks (1880-2020)
Author: Tenacity Plys
Genre: LGBTQ+ Fiction, Horror, Mystery, Fantasy
Publisher: Bottlecap Press
Release Date: September, 2022

Synopsis: They say in town that every generation, fairies lure a member of Virgil’s family into the local woods, never to be seen again. Virgil doesn’t really care about that; they’re just squatting at their aunt’s vacant house during quarantine. But one night, they’re awoken by a knocking at the back door that leads them into a tangle of family secrets, and a mystery that’s as heartbreaking as it is chilling.

To avoid disappearing themself, Virgil has to piece together journal entries from three generations of their relatives, who all spent their lives wondering why their siblings were taken. If Virgil can solve the puzzle, they won’t just save themselves — they’ll put more than a hundred years’ worth of family history to rest. This story of a neurodivergent family’s struggle to understand themselves is by turns spooky, funny, sad, and hopeful despite everything.

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Epeolatry Book Review: The Ward by Cavan Scott

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Title: The Ward
Author: Cavan Scott
Artist: Andres Ponce
Letters: Mauro Mantella
Genre: Horror, Fantasy, Drama
Publisher: Dark Horse Books
Release Date: 31st January, 2023

Synopsis: St. Lilith’s is a secret hospital for supernatural creatures. A place, and a life, Dr. Nat Reeves thought she left behind. She was wrong.

When a wounded woman with a tail appears on her doorstep, Nat crash-lands at her old job in the emergency room of the city’s last recourse for the otherworldly ill. The personnel are overworked, the facility is underfunded, and all operations must be kept hidden from the public, including Nat’s own family. Some of the staff, like the self-duplicating nurse Lydia Black, are glad to have her back. Others, like Luis Cervantes, a new resident with something to prove (and more to hide), not so much. And who can tell what Dr. Kumasaka, the ghostly head of the department, is thinking?

All Nat knows is that the overwhelming need they face every day is enough to keep the truth of why she left St. Lilith’s at bay, at least, for a while. Then a magical plague hits the city, and everything sets to change, for everyone.

From the author of bestselling titles for Star Wars, Doctor Who, Star Trek, Warhammer 40,000, Vikings, Judge Dredd, and others comes an intense medical drama abound with fairies, trolls, and real human pathos.

Collects The Ward: Welcome to the Madhouse #1–#4.

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Epeolatry Book Review: The Warden by Daniel M. Ford

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Title: The Warden
Author: Daniel M. Ford
Publisher: Tor Books
Genre: Fantasy, Fiction, LGBTQ+
Release Date: 18th, April, 2023
Synopsis: There was a plan.

She had the money, the connections, even the brains. It was simple: become one of the only female necromancers, pass as many certifications as she could, get a post near the capital, then… profit. The funny thing about plans is that they are seldom under your control.

Now Aelis, a daughter of a noble house and a trained Magister of the Lyceum, finds herself in the far-removed village of Lone Pine. Mending fences and delivering baby goats, serving people who want nothing to do with her. But, not all is well in Lone Pine, and as the villagers Aelis is reluctantly getting to know start to behave strangely, Aelis begins to suspect that there is far greater need for a warden of her talents than she previously thought.

Old magics are restless, and an insignificant village on the furthest border of the kingdom might hold secrets far beyond what anyone expected. Aelis might be the only person standing between one of the greatest evils ever known and the rest of the free world.

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