Category: Reviews

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Epeolatry Book Review: The Amusement Park by Jeff Whitehead and Ryan Carr

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Title: The Amusement Park
Author: Jeff Whitehead
Artist: Ryan Carr
Genre: Horror Graphic Novel
Publisher: Storm King Comics
Publication date: 10th June, 2025

Synopsis: Two titans of horror come together for the first time ever, in John Carpenter Presents George A. Romero’s The Amusement Park, the graphic novel adaptation of George Romero’s lost 1973 film of the same name, presented by John Carpenter and Sandy King’s Storm King Comics.

William Lincoln, an impatient businessman in his 20s, casually asks a small-town coffee shop barista about a carousel horse atop its roof. Within earshot, an elderly man asks William if he would like to learn about the history of the sprawling amusement park that once stood on that spot, the carousel horse the final reminder of its existence. They settle into a conversation that immediately disturbs young William. It is the story of an elderly man hoping to experience the amusement park one last time to recapture childhood memories, to relish the rapidly fleeting remaining moments.

Instead of pleasant memories, each attraction becomes a surreal microcosm of aging and its inherent challenges as bodies and minds begin to break down. The elderly man is abused, pushed in a seemingly endless throng of elderly people through attractions that mimic the final stages of life. Finally, he winds up right back where he started, battered both mentally and physically. Instead of being able to leave the park, he realizes he is trapped in a loop, forced to relive the harrowing experience over and over. At the end of the elderly man’s tale, William is puzzled, concerned, and annoyed, irritated to have had his time wasted on such a story.

William quickly realizes that not everything in the coffee shop is as it seems. The elderly man with whom young William has been conversing shares his name. It is William Lincoln. Perplexed and scared now, young William attempts to leave, fleeing through the coffee shop’s front door. When the door closes behind him, William is back in the amusement park, transformed again into his elderly self, still trapped in the loop, forced to reconcile the reality of aging and ultimately, his own mortality.

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Epeolatry Book Review: It’s No Fun Anymore by Brittany Micka-Foos

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Title: It’s No Fun Anymore
Author: Brittany Micka-Foos
Genre: Domestic Horror
Publisher: Apprentice House
Publication date: 17th June, 2025

Synopsis: “It’s No Fun Anymore” is a collection of eight stories that explore the politics of victimization, the sites of trauma on women’s bodies, and their attempts to divine meaning from suffering.

 

In “The Experiment,” the murder of a young girl prompts a stay-at-home mother to undertake a desperate bid for agency, drawing unlikely inspiration from a 1950s self-help book. An MLM saleswoman in “Border Crossings” is held captive at the Canadian border, and in her marriage. And “Thumb Stump” introduces a new mother who worries her baby will inherit both her perceived deformity and generational trauma.

 

These stories examine the double binds of motherhood, the sham of “having it all,” the daily struggles. The centralizing thread is the question: How can trauma be transformed?

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Epeolatry Book Review: Savage Hearts by J.T. Geissinger

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Title: Savage Hearts
Author: J.T. Geissinger
Genre: Mafia Romance
Publisher: Bramble
Publication date: 22nd April, 2025

Synopsis: The third book in the scorchingly hot mafia romance Queens and Monsters series by USA Today bestselling author J.T. Geissinger, where John Wick meets Romeo and Juliet.

Savage (adjective):
1) Not domesticated; wild and untamed
2) A brutal or vicious person
3) Malek Antonov

He’s a myth. A ghost. A legend.
A Bratva assassin so feared, some won’t even dare to speak his name.

He comes in search of vengeance for the death of his brother, but what he finds instead is me.

A girl he thinks is someone else.
Someone unrelated to the man who killed his brother.
Except I am.

And when he finds out my true identity, he decides to take me as repayment for what he lost.

Now, I’m a little bird trapped in a cage, and the only way to survive is to make friends with the monster who captured me.

But friendship isn’t what the monster has in mind.

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Epeolatry Book Review: Brutal Vows by J.T. Geissinger

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Title: Brutal Vows
Author: J.T. Geissinger
Genre: Mafia Romance
Publisher: Bramble
Publication date: 22nd April, 2025

Synopsis: Dark, sexy mafia romance where the fast-paced tension of John Wick meets the high stakes love of Romeo and Juliet.

An Irish mobster with a brutal grudge.
An Italian mafia princess with a dark secret.
Two enemy empires joined in sacred marriage vows.
Let the hating games begin.

Reyna

If this arrogant Irish mobster my brother sold my niece to thinks I’m going to play nice over this arranged marriage BS, he should think again.
I don’t care if this match with the Mob will make my brother capo of the Five Families.
I don’t care how much money, territory, or power it will gain us.
I especially don’t care that the Irishman is the sexiest man I’ve ever seen.
I won’t allow my innocent niece to suffer the same way I did.
Even if I have to kill him.

Spider

I’m supposed to marry sweet, beautiful Lili. So why can’t I stop thinking about her swamp witch of an aunt?
Reyna who hates me. Reyna who challenges me. Reyna with the guts of a Viking, the body of a fertility goddess, and the attitude of a feral cat.
Nothing good can come of what I’m feeling for a woman who’s not the one in the wedding contract I signed.
A woman I want so much, I’ll have to burn the whole world down to get.
If she doesn’t kill me first.

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Epeolatry Book Review: Death at the Playhouses by Stuart Douglas

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Title: Death at the Playhouses
Author: Stuart Douglas
Genre: Crime Fiction
Publisher: Titan Books
Publication date: 18th March, 2025

Synopsis: A second witty, fun, 1970s-set whodunnit in the Lowe and Le Breton mysteries series, featuring two ageing actors attempting to solve a murder after their famous co-star is found dead in a doorway outside the theatre in which they’re performing. Nostalgic cozy crime that’s perfect for fans of The Thursday Murder Club and Death & Croissants.

It’s 1971 and, in between filming seasons of Floggit and Leggit, ageing actors Edward Lowe and John Le Breton sign up for a short run of Shakespearean tragedies at the Bolton Playhouse. But, once in Lancashire, they discover they have been invited to join the theatre’s repertory company for two reasons – because the company manager is keen to take advantage of the publicity surrounding their successful BBC comedy series, and because Sir Nathaniel Thompson, the much-lauded star of the show and knight of the realm, has been sacked for drunkenness.

John fears an awkward scene, should Thompson – who he knew during the war – return to reclaim his job, but when the great actor’s body is found, bludgeoned to death in a nearby alleyway, the unlikely crime-solving duo find themselves investigating another fiendish mystery that takes them from the northwest of England to the Netherlands, and which, rather inconveniently, seems to have John’s ex-wife Sally at its heart.

Death at the Playhouses is the second in The Lowe and Le Breton Mysteries series.

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Epeolatry Book Review: We Like It Cherry by Jacy Morris

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Title: We Like It Cherry
Author: Jacy Morris
Genre: Supernatural Horror
Publisher: Tenebrous Press
Publication date: 31st July, 2025

Synopsis: Ezra Montbanc is burned out. The reality series he hosts—immersing himself into the cultures and celebrations of Indigenous tribes—borders on pure exploitation and has been relegated to tax write-off status by the network; this was not the prestigious journalism career he had long envisioned.
Everything changes when Ezra receives an invitation to document the rites of a mysterious, hitherto unknown tribe: the Winoquin, who reside in the harrowing, inhospitable Arctic. Ezra and his crew depart immediately for the home of the Winoquin, only to find themselves in a bloody battle for survival against a mythical horror with a serious grudge against modern man.
We Like It Cherry is a story about identity and the quest for success, splashed with supernatural slasher vibes and the nail-biting relentlessness of survival horror.

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Epeolatry Book Review: Jake’s Guide to Getting Into Hell by Jake Bannerman

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Title: Jake’s Guide to Getting Into Hell
Author: Jake Bannerman
Genre: Dark Humor / Satirical Horror / Religious Satire
Publisher: Independent
Publication date: 4th April, 2025

Synopsis: Jake’s Guide to Getting Into Hell is a ferocious, no-holds-barred guide for those who have rejected the polished dogma of religion and are seeking something more real, raw, and laugh-out-loud funny. Written with blasphemous wit, it tears apart religious conventions and exposes the absurdities of society’s sanctimonious attitudes. The book uses humor and extreme language to make readers question their beliefs, laugh at their own discomfort, and consider what “hell” really is.

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Epeolatry Book Review: This Skin Was Once Mine By Eric LaRocca

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Title: This Skin Was Once Mine and Other Disturbances
Author: Eric LaRocca
Genre: Horror
Publisher: Titan Books
Publication date: A brand-new collection of four intense, claustrophobic and terrifying horror tales from the Bram Stoker Award®-nominated and Splatterpunk Award-winning author of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke.

THIS SKIN WAS ONCE MINE
When her father dies under mysterious circumstances, Jillian Finch finds herself grieving the man she idolized while struggling to feel comfortable in the childhood home she was sent away from nearly twenty years ago. Then Jillian discovers a dark secret that will threaten to undo everything she has ever known about her father.

SEEDLING
A young man’s father calls him early in the morning to say that his mother has passed away. He arrives home to find his mother’s body still in the house. Struggling to process what has happened he notices a small black wound appear on his wrist. Then he discovers his father is cursed with the same affliction.

ALL THE PARTS OF YOU THAT WON’T EASILY BURN
Enoch Leadbetter goes to buy a knife for his husband to use at a forthcoming dinner party. He encounters a strange shopkeeper who draws him into an intoxicating new obsession and sets him on a path towards mutilation and destruction…

PRICKLE
Two old men revive a cruel game with devastating consequences…

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