Author: Joseph Pietris

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Epeolatry Book Review: Madness from the Sea: Cthulu’s Lure by Jonathon T Cross

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Title: Madness From the Sea: Cthulhu’s Lure
Author: Jonathon T Cross
Publisher: That Spooky Beach
Genre: Occult, Horror, Dark Fantasy
Release date: 5th August, 2023

Synopsis: Frances Smith chronicled her visions of a tentacled deity in her private journal, but it was a mistake to believe her husband wouldn’t read it.
When Donnie discovers her journal, he tries everything to save their failing marriage, but as Frances’ sanity slips and her obsessions take hold, he realizes his efforts are in vain. Frances will only confide in her online followers, some of whom claim to be experiencing the same twisted phenomena.
Their worlds implode when a cloaked fanatic shares his intimate knowledge of Cthulhu and reveals Frances’ personal connection to the past. With newfound validation, Frances is determined to awaken the creature who has summoned her and consummate their union.
To reach Cthulhu’s isle, she’ll need to align her followers with the Cthulhu Cultists on an ill-fated voyage to R’lyeh. Lies, betrayal, and death untold await in this modern fanfiction sequel to Lovecraft’s classic tale of horror, The Call of Cthulhu.

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Epeolatry Book Review: Calamity by Constance Fay

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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: Calamity
Author: Constance Fay
Publisher: Bramble
Genre: YA, YA Science Fiction and Action, YA Dystopian
Release date: 14th November, 2023

Synopsis: The captain of a ragtag mercenary ship is given an offer she can’t refuse by the ruthless head of an intergalactic noble family. The only catch? She’ll have to team up with his son–an upsettingly competent hardbody with his own agenda–to get her reward.
She’s got a ramshackle spaceship, a misfit crew, and a big problem with its sexy newest member…
Temperance Reed, banished from the wealthy and dangerous Fifteen Families, just wants to keep her crew together after their feckless captain ran off with the intern. But she’s drowning in debt and revolutionary new engine technology is about to make her beloved ship obsolete.
Enter Arcadio Escajeda. Second child of the terrifying Escajeda Family, he’s the thorn in Temper’s side as they’re sent off on a scouting mission on the backwater desert planet of Herschel 2. They throw sparks every time they meet but Temper’s suspicions of his ulterior motives only serve to fuel the flames between them.
Despite volcanic eruptions, secret cultists, and deadly galactic fighters, the greatest threat on this mission may be to Temper’s heart.

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Epeolatry Book Review: Nightwood by Elana Gomel

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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: Nightwood
Author: Elana Gomel
Publisher: Crystal Lake Publishing
Genre: Mythology, Historical Fantasy, Fantasy Adventure Fiction, Horror
Release date: 18th January, 2023

Synopsis: All fairy tales were history once.
Ally is a Ukrainian bride who married a wealthy Californian, Carl Morris. Everything is strange in her new home: the shadowy redwoods, the peculiar neighbors, and the mystery surrounding the death of Carl’s first wife. But Ally is determined to leave her own tragic past behind and to be a good wife and a good American.
Escaping darkness is not so easy, however. Ally discovers that her house is situated on the borders of Nightwood, where fairy tales become nightmares and nightmares become reality. And the ruler of Nightwood has plans of his own.
When Carl is abducted by a forest monster, Ally follows him into the land where the Red, Black, and White Horsemen drag the sun in their wake. There she is taken prisoner by the ghoulish Little Mother and is forced to labor in a filthy farmyard filled with deformed human livestock. But Little Mother is not the most terrifying creature in Nightwood. The Ogre, squatting in the Castle with no Windows, is poised to invade our world. He has Carl; and he wants Ally.
Unexpectedly joined by new friends, Ally escapes to embark on a perilous journey across a dying land filled with mythical beasts and creatures from fairy tales. To save Carl, Ally will have to brave the horrors of Nightwood and uncover the shattering secret of her own identity.

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Epeolatry Book Review: Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle

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Title: Camp Damascus
Author: Chuck Tingle
Publisher: Tor Nightfire
Genre: Horror/Occult/Fantasy/LGBTQ+
Release date: 18th July, 2023

Synopsis: From beloved internet icon Chuck Tingle, Camp Damascus is a searing and earnest horror debut about the demons the queer community faces in America, the price of keeping secrets, and finding the courage to burn it all down.
Welcome to Neverton, Montana: home to a God-fearing community with a heart of gold.
Nestled high up in the mountains is Camp Damascus, the self-proclaimed “most effective” gay conversion camp in the country. Here, a life free from sin awaits. But the secret behind that success is anything but holy.
And they’ll scare you straight to hell.

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Epeolatry Book Review: Bad Moon Rising by Luisa Colón

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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: Bad Moon Rising
Author: Luisa Colón
Publisher: Cemetery Dance Publications
Genre: Horror, Occult
Release date: 11th August, 2023

Synopsis: In Gravesend, Brooklyn, sixteen-year-old Elodia is an outcast at school, at odds with her father, and longing for her mysteriously absent mother. Lonely and isolated, Elodia knows that something unspeakably terrible has happened to her—she just can’t remember what.

Miles away in upstate New York, a young man named Gabriel occupies his time by killing sparrows and searching for his birth parents. Gabriel wants to show them what a good son he can be, well-behaved and helpful and no trouble at all—until a savage betrayal plants an ever-growing seed of revenge within him.

Desperate for the promise of their past lives and future dreams, both Elodia and Gabriel are broken and scarred, their lives shattered. Their wounds run deep—and that kind of damage is irrevocable. Unchangeable. Irreversible.

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Epeolatry Book Review: Conjured Darkness by Michael Jess Alexander

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Title: Conjured Darkness
Author: Michael Jess Alexander
Publisher: Independent
Genre: Horror
Release date: 23rd December, 2022

Synopsis: In this short story collection, award-winning writer Michael Jess Alexander serves up a morbid menagerie of aliens, cultists, murderers, and more.

“Trapdoors” depicts a world plagued by a bizarre, seemingly lethal phenomenon.

In “The Screaming Void,” a betrayal of trust causes a teen to suffer unfortunate consequences.

A youth struggles to control a terrifying, newfound power in “Away Game.”

These and other tales make up this work of imaginative horror prose. 

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Epeolatry Book Review: Kill Radio by Lauren Bolger

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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: Kill Radio
Author: Lauren Bolger
Publisher: Malarkey Books
Genre: Horror
Release Date: 1st, April, 2023

Synopsis: When five-year-old Rory unearths his estranged father’s handmade crystal radio-which happens to patch straight through to Hell-violence and terror reign in the form of hellhounds, shadow figures, and demonic possessions.

Aided by a laconic fisherman and a charming warlock, Rory’s mother, Rachelle, must track down her ex, the only person who can shut down the radio before the worst denizens of Hell are unleashed on earth.

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Epeolatry Book Review: You are my Sunshine and Other Stories by Octavia Cade

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Title: You are my Sunshine and Other Stories
Author: Octavia Cade
Publisher: Stelliform Press
Genre: Horror, Sci Fi, Fantasy, Solarpunk, Short Story Collection
Release date: 21st September, 2023

Synopsis: Sometimes change can hurt. This collection of short stories traces the growing pains of a new world, beginning with the death throes of our current way of life and ending with a world transformed by science and technology, and by grief, hope, love, and humanity’s will to transform. This is a collection that will both tear you apart and tend to your wounds. Cade’s beautifully wrought stories are informed by science, tracing the biological and emotional threads that bind us, human and non-human alike. Containing a brand new novelette in the Impossible Resurrection of Grief universe, You Are My Sunshine and Other Stories is a promise of what worlds are possible if we allow ourselves to change.

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