Author: Joseph Pietris

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Epeolatry Book Review: A Conventional Boy by Charles Stross

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​Title: A Conventional Boy
Author: Charles Stross
Genre: Fantasy
Publisher: Tordotcom
Date: 7th January, 2025

Synopsis: In this new Laundry Files adventure the fate of the world will literally depend on the roll of dice… twenty-sided dice, that is.
In 1984, Derek Reilly was just another spotty teenage dungeon master growing up in middle England. But then a secret government agency tasked with suppressing magical intrusions received a tip-off – and one midnight raid later, his life was turned upside down by the Satanic D&D Panic.
Decades later Derek, now middle-aged and institutionalized, is a long-term inmate at Camp Sunshine, a center for deprogramming captured Elder God cultists. He’s considered safe enough to edit the camp newsletter, and he even has postal privileges – which he uses to run a play-by-mail game. After 25 years, Derek finally has reason to escape: a nearby D&D convention. While Derek’s D&D games were full of fictional elder gods and world-ending threats, a LARP game at the con is a dread ritual designed to summon a great evil into our world, and it’s up to Derek and his players to stop them.
The fate of the world may depend on the contents of Derek’s magic dice bag.

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Epeolatry Book Review: Ruthless Creatures by J.T. Geissinger

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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: Ruthless Creatures
Author: J.T. Geissinger
Genre: Mafia Romance
Publisher: Bramble
Date: 7th January, 2025

Synopsis:Five years ago, my fiancé disappeared. He left me with a wedding dress I’d never wear. Left me with the kind of scars that can’t be healed. The man I built my future on vanished like a ghost. All that remained were my broken heart and a million unanswered questions.
Until a mysterious stranger arrives in town.
Tall, dark, and dangerous, Kage is as full of secrets as he is sex appeal. Though I know he’s hiding something, I’m drawn to him like a moth to flame. Heat crackles between us with every look, desire flares into passion, and I fall hard, helpless to resist.
But then I discover he’s been sent to collect on an unpaid debt from my missing fiancé….
And that debt is me.

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Epeolatry Book Review: The Parliament by Aimee Pokwatka

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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: The Parliament
Author: Aimee Pokwatka
Genre: Horror
Publisher: Tordotcom
Date: 16th January, 2024

Synopsis: The Birds meets The Princess Bride in this tale of friendship, responsibility, and the primal force of nature.
“Murder owls are extreme,” Jude said. “What’s more extreme than murder owls?”
Madigan Purdy is stuck in her hometown library.
When tens of thousands of owls descend on the building, rending and tearing at anyone foolish enough to step outside, Mad is tasked with keeping her students safe, and distracted, while they seek a solution to their dilemma.
Perhaps they’ll find the inspiration they seek in her favorite childhood book, The Silent Queen….
With food and fresh water in low supply, the denizens of the library will have to find a way out, and soon, but the owls don’t seem to be in a hurry to leave…
The Parliament is a story of grief and missed opportunities, but also of courage and hope.
And of extremely sharp beaks.
At the Publisher’s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

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Epeolatry Book Review: Madness from the Sea: The Dreamlands by Jonathon T. Cross

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​Title: Madness from the Sea: The Dreamlands
Author: Jonathon T Cross
Genre: Occult Horror
Publisher: Independent
Date: 6th September, 2024

Synopsis: Finn came of age knowing nothing of the world that once was. Cthulhu was released prior to Finn’s birth, and madness has since loomed over humanity. 
Although Cthulhu never left R’lyeh, his call continues to lure victims by the boatload.
On every continent, societies prepare their young against Cthulhu’s telepathic reach. Teaching them to resist the allure of R’lyeh, lest they be swayed to their doom.
Bad dreams and monsters under the bed are no longer scoffed at, they are active threats to humanity’s survival.
No one is exempt, no location is beyond reach, not even the depths of one’s mind are off-limits.
The frailty of humankind has never been on grander display.

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Epeolatry Book Review: The Songbird & the Heart of Stone by Carissa Broadbent

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​Title: The Songbird & the Heart of Stone
Author: Carissa Broadbent
Genre: Fantasy
Publisher: Bramble
Date: 19th November, 2024

Synopsis: Mische lost everything when she was forcibly Turned into a vampire–her home, her humanity, and most devastating of all, the love of the sun god to whom she had devoted her life. Now, sentenced to death for murdering the vampire prince who Turned her, redemption feels impossible.

But when Mische is saved by Asar, the bastard prince of the House of Shadow with a past as brutal as his scars, she’s forced into a mission worse than execution: a journey to the underworld to resurrect the god of death himself.

Yet, Mische’s punishment may be the key to her salvation. In a secret meeting, her sun god commands her to help Asar in his mission, only to betray him… by killing the god of death.

Mische and Asar must travel the treacherous path to the underworld, facing trials, beasts, and the vengeful ghosts of their pasts. But most dangerous of all is the alluring call of the darkness–and her forbidden attraction to Asar, a burgeoning bond that risks invoking the wrath of gods.

As her betrayal looms, the underworld closes in and angry gods grow restless. Mische will be forced to choose between the redemption of the sun or the damnation of the darkness.

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Epeolatry Book Review: Consequential by T.C. Parker

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Title: Consequential
Author: T.C. Parker
Genre: Fantasy Mystery
Publisher: Nefarious Bat Press
Publication Date: 7th October, 2024
Synopsis: Fresh from her recent foray into crime-solving, demonic fallen god (and would-be detective) Sunny is back from Coventry – with a debt still owed to the murderous ghost of Lady Godiva, and now a giant mythical pig in need of babysitting on her to-do list.
What she needs, more than anything, is a nice hot bath and an episode of Poirot.
Fate, unfortunately, has other plans. As does her newest human ally, Jonas.
Plans that will lead Sunny down a conspiracy-riddled rabbit-hole of murder, mutilation and moral philosophy – and give her a brand-new reason to dust off her fedora and go chasing after the perp…

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Epeolatry Book Review: The Thirteenth Child by Erin A. Craig

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Title: The Thirteenth Child
Author: Erin A. Craig
Genre: YA Dark Fantasy
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Publication Date: 24th September, 2024

Synopsis:Hazel Trépas has always known she wasn’t like the rest of her siblings. A thirteenth child, promised away to one of the gods, she spends her childhood waiting for her godfather—Merrick, the Dreaded End—to arrive.
When he does, he lays out exactly how he’s planned Hazel’s future. She will become a great healer, known throughout the kingdom for her precision and skill. To aid her endeavors, Merrick blesses Hazel with a gift, the ability to instantly deduce the exact cure needed to treat the sick.
But all gifts come with a price. Hazel can see when Death has claimed a patient—when all hope is gone—and is tasked to end their suffering, permanently. Haunted by the ghosts of those she’s killed, Hazel longs to run. But destiny brings her to the royal court, where she meets Leo, a rakish prince with a disdain for everything and everyone. And it’s where Hazel faces her biggest dilemma yet—to save the life of a king marked to die. Hazel knows what she is meant to do and knows what her heart is urging her toward, but what will happen if she goes against the will of Death?
From the astonishing mind of Erin A. Craig comes the breathtaking fairy tale retelling readers have been waiting for— what does a life well-lived mean, and how do we justify the impossible choices we make for the ones we love? The Thirteenth Child is a must-read for fans of dark fairy tales, romantasy, and epic fantasy alike.

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Epeolatry Book Review: Asunder by Kerstin Hall

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Title: Asunder
Author: Kerstin Hall
Genre: fantasy
Publisher: tordotcom
Publication Date: 20th August, 2024

Synopsis: Karys Eska is a deathspeaker, locked into an irrevocable compact with Sabaster, a terrifying eldritch being―three-faced, hundred-winged, unforgiving―who has granted her the ability to communicate with the newly departed. She pays the rent by using her abilities to investigate suspicious deaths around the troubled city she calls home. When a job goes sideways and connects her to a dying stranger with some very dangerous secrets, her entire world is upended.

Ferain is willing to pay a ludicrous sum of money for her help. To save him, Karys inadvertently binds him to her shadow, an act that may doom them both. If they want to survive, they will need to learn to trust one another. Together, they must journey to the heart of a faded empire, all the while haunted by arcane horrors, and the unquiet ghosts of their pasts.

And all too soon, Karys knows her debts will come due.

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