Category: Articles

Articles / Reviews

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Epeolatry Book Review: Were House by E. Rose Sabin

Disclosure:

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: Were House
Author: E. Rose Sabin
Publisher: Arucadi Enterprises, LLC
Genre: Fantasy
Release date: September 15, 2015 (Reprinted 2021)

Synopsis: Jobless and evicted from her apartment, Charlotte Ramirez has nowhere to go. Being were compounds her problem. The animal spirit inside her is a jaguar, and it’s restless. When she passes a man on the street and recognizes, via her unique ability to “see” the animal within other weres, that he carries within him the spirit of a wolf, she turns to follow him only to see him brutally stabbed. Because she witnessed the stabbing, she is contacted by other weres and taken to the house of a clan of weres. Has she found the home she is looking for or only more trouble? To win a place in the clan she is told that she must accomplish daunting tasks: learn whether the stabbing victim is alive or dead, discover who stabbed him and why, and locate the stabber so that he or she can be brought to justice. Charlotte wants very much to become part of the were family, so she embarks on her assigned duties without careful planning and with no idea of the difficulties and dangers she will face. As she blunders through her initial attempts, she makes enemies of some of the were household, discovers and unwittingly endangers a young were who is not part of the household, and faces enemies who are determined to destroy the weres. Charlotte quickly learns what a high price she’ll have to pay for the privilege of making the Were House her home.

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My Top 5 Horror Tropes and Why They Work So Well

My Top 5 Horror Tropes and Why They Work So Well

By: Rose Atkinson-Carter

Horror literature is not for the faint of heart. It’s a genre that exploits and explores our deepest, darkest fears, painting terrifying and unsettling images in our minds. And while these chilling narratives can take various forms and shapes, there are some well-established tropes that authors and readers keep coming back to — for better or for worse. 

 

These tropes exploit some of our most commonly held fears to keep readers in a vice-like grip, always turning the next page despite having their hearts in their throats. Chances are your favorite horror stories include one of them too. Perhaps even more than one, as many of the best tropes play well with each other.

 

While some have become clichés, others still send shivers down our spines, especially when skillfully implemented or subverted. In this post, I’m going to delve into 5 of my personal favorite horror tropes and why I believe they work so well. 

 

Let’s dive into the abyss together.

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Articles / Reviews

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Epeolatry Book Review: Let Me Out by Emmett Nahil and George Williams

Disclosure:

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: Let Me Out
Author: Emmett Nahil and George Williams
Publisher: Oni Press
Genre: Horror, Occult, Supernatural
Release date: 3rd October, 2023

Synopsis: After a body is found in the woods, Mitch Sahadi and his friends are accused by the local police of devil worship and murder. The gang decides the best way to get revenge is to embrace the devil. If you can’t beat the accusations, why not make them true?

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Articles / Interviews

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An Interview With Scott Leeds On Schrader’s Chord

Melody E. McIntyre’s Interview Questions for Scott Leeds

Scott Leeds lives in the Pacific Northwest and his debut novel, Schrader’s Chord comes out September 5, 2023 from Tor Nightfire. It’s a gripping tale about a man who returns to clean up his father’s estranged estate and inadvertently opens a portal to the underworld when he and his friends play four cursed records. It’s a fun, scary horror thriller and I was happy to read and review an ARC for The Horror Tree, and now I’ve had the opportunity to interview Scott Leeds himself.

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Indie Bookshelf Releases 09/15/2023

Got a book to launch, an event to promote, a kickstarter or seeking extra work/support as a result of being hit economically by life in general?

Get in touch and we’ll promote you here. The post is prepared each Thursday for publication on Friday. Contact us via Horror Tree’s contact address or connect via Twitter or Facebook.

Click on the book covers for more information. Remember to scroll down to the bottom of the page – there’s all sorts lurking in the deep.

 

Before you scroll down through the books however, please could you consider checking out the ‘Creatives in Crisis’ section. This has been added to help those who need additional support at this time. Thank you!

 

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Articles / Reviews

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Epeolatry Book Review: Bloom by Delilah S. Dawson

Disclosure:

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: Bloom
Author: Delilah S. Dawson
Publisher: Titan Books
Genre: Horror, Thriller, LGBTQIA+
Release date: 3rd October, 2023

Synopsis: A sweet sapphic romance takes a deadly dark turn in this sharp-as-a-knife novella with the slow build menace of Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber―from a New York Times-bestselling author hailed by Chuck Wendig as “a storyteller working at the top of her class.”

Rosemary meets Ash at the farmers’ market. Ash―precise, pretty, and practically perfect―sells bars of soap in delicate pastel colors, sprinkle-spackled cupcakes stacked on scalloped stands, beeswax candles, jelly jars of honey, and glossy green plants.

Ro has never felt this way about another woman; with Ash, she wants to be her and have her in equal measure. But as her obsession with Ash consumes her, she may find she’s not the one doing the devouring… Told in lush, delectable prose, this is a deliciously dark tale of passion taking an unsavory turn…

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Articles / Interviews

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Triangulation: Seven-Day Weekend – Parsec Ink Explores Labor Automation

Triangulation: Seven-Day Weekend

Parsec Ink Explores Labor Automation

By Angelique Fawns

Parsec Ink published Triangulation: Seven-Day Weekend, its 20th collection of short stories in July of this year. The theme embraces what life would be like if we could all live a seven-day weekend. Containing 37 stories and poems from around the world, including one from yours truly called “The Time Modules”, this anthology draws on multiple genres, like fantasy, science fiction, and horror for its exploration.

 

Humanity craves efficiency, subconsciously forming habits to make each portion of our day more comfortable, allowing us the time and ability to expand our horizons. From Neanderthals learning migration patterns for hunting food to coding scripts to streamline processes to the dream of roads filled with fully autonomous vehicles, we push boundaries to make our lives easier. What does the world look like when jobs are automated to the point that the labor force is non-existent? What happens when our lives become as easy as they can be?

 

Greg Clumpner, the editor, is a fellow speculative writer and member of Parsec, Pittsburgh’s premier science fiction and fantasy organization. He has a Mechanical Engineering Degree and MBA. I sat down with him to learn more about the genesis of this project.

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Articles / Reviews

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Epeolatry Book Review: The Citadel of Bureaucracy by J.D. Mitchell

Disclosure:

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 Citadel of Bureaucracy
Author: J.D. Mitchell
Publisher: Fighting Reality Books
Genre: Urban Fantasy, Political Satire, Speculative Fiction
Release date: 1st June, 2023

Synopsis: Part story, part game, this is a book in which YOU make all the decisions!

The Citadel of Bureaucracy holds dark and dangerous perils for civil servants unprepared for its labyrinthine cubicle walls, but enter you must. The Albatross Pay System has shorted you, money’s tight, and long hours have left you ragged and in desperate need of a vacation. You’ve just got to make it through one more day. But it won’t be easy. Packed with asbestos, bad wiring, and with air quality equivalent to a dank, rat-infested dungeon, the Darby Complex, known as “The Citadel” to its hapless inmates, is riddled with appalling hazards and frantic civil servants to test you beyond all reasonable limits.

Working against the clock, you must fight unreliable transit, dodgy I.T., the dreaded Canada goose, and a rising sense of nihilism in an effort to get paid and clear your desk before your vacation. YOU decide which paths to take, which dangers to risk, and which colleagues to confront. May the blessings of the Janus-faced God of Finance and H.R. be with you, for you’ll find little succour in the Citadel’s unhallowed halls.

Collects The Never-Ending Party #1–#5 from the ComiXology original digital series, in print for the first time!

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