Category: Reviews

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Epeolatry Book Review: Find Him Where You Left Him Dead by Kristen Simmons

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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: Find Him Where You Left Him Dead 

Author: Kristen Simmons

Publisher: Tor Teen

Genre: Horror

Release date: September 2023

Synopsis: Four years ago, five kids started a game. Not all of them survived.

 

Now, at the end of their senior year of high school, the survivors―Owen, Madeline, Emerson, and Dax―have reunited for one strange and terrible reason: they’ve been summoned by the ghost of Ian, the friend they left for dead.

 

Together they return to the place where their friendship ended with one goal: find Ian and bring him home. So they restart the deadly game they never finished―an innocent card-matching challenge called Meido. A game without instructions.

 

As soon as they begin, they’re dragged out of their reality and into an eerie hellscape of Japanese underworlds, more horrifying than even the darkest folktales that Owen’s grandmother told him. There, they meet Shinigami, an old wise woman who explains the rules:

 

They have one night to complete seven challenges or they’ll all be stuck in this world forever.

 

Once inseparable, the survivors now can’t stand each other, but the challenges demand they work together, think quickly, and make sacrifices―blood, clothes, secrets, memories, and worse.

 

And once again, not everyone will make it out alive.

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Epeolatry Book Review: The Horror at Pleasant Brook by Kevin Lucia

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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 Horror at Pleasant Brook

Author: Kevin Lucia

Publisher: Crystal Lake Publishing

Genre: vampire / occult horror

Release date: October 2023

Synopsis: This Halloween, a malevolent, creeping horror invades a small, isolated town nestled deep in the Adirondacks. It cares nothing for this town’s secrets, prejudices, or flaws. Its only desires are to consume everything in its path and spread, until nothing else remains.

It is ancient, pitiless, and unstoppable. It is the horror at Pleasant Brook.

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Epeolatry Book Review: Our Own Unique Affliction by Scott J. Moses

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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: Our Own Unique Affliction

Author: Scott J. Moses

Publisher: Dark Lit Press

Genre: vampire / occult horror

Release date: 26 April 2023

Synopsis: Our Own Unique Affliction is the story of Alice Ann, a dejected immortal who longs for her life in the sun. Navigating guilt, loss, family, meaning, murder, and all that comes with the curse of living forever. An existential bleak, quiet until it’s not, hallucination on duality, rife with fangs, empathy, blood, and grief.

 

Content warnings from the author: “Alcohol use, suicidal ideation, self-harm, neglect, violence, and musings on the nature of reality. How little we know.”

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Epeolatry Book Review: Estate Sale by Mia Dalia

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Title: Estate Sale
Author: Mia Dalia
Genre: Occult Horror
Publisher: Black Ink Fiction
Release Date: 27th April, 2023

Synopsis: It has been said that every small town has a house on a hill, the one the witch lives in.
But what if there is more to the story? The devil, after all, is in the details.
The old lady of the Koshmaroff estate is finally gone. In life, she was a mystery; in death, she leaves behind a house full of strange, yet seemingly ordinary objects. Objects, which the curiosity-driven locals rush in to buy, only to see their lives take nightmarish turns as a result.
No one knew the old lady’s husband dabbled in dark magic. No one knew the two of them traversed decades and continents, hobnobbing with the most famous occultists of the 20th century and building their collection. They have acquired such terrible treasures along the way.
Come, see for yourself.
Step inside for a bargain of a lifetime.

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Epeolatry Book Review: Pinata by Leopoldo Gout

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Title: Pinata
Author: Leopoldo Gout
Genre: Supernatural/Possession/Vengeance Horror
Publisher: Tor Nightfire
Release Date: 14th March, 2023

Synopsis: A Head Full of Ghosts meets Mexican Gothic in Piñata, a terrifying possession tale by author and artist Leopoldo Gout.

It was supposed to be the perfect summer.

Carmen Sanchez is back in Mexico, supervising the renovation of an ancient abbey. Her daughters Izel and Luna, too young to be left alone in New York, join her in what Carmen hopes is a chance for them to connect with their roots.

Then, an accident at the worksite unearths a stash of rare, centuries-old artefacts. The disaster costs Carmen her job, cutting the family trip short.

But something malevolent and unexplainable follows them home to New York, stalking the Sanchez family and heralding a coming catastrophe. And it may already be too late to escape what’s been awakened…

They were worshipped by our ancestors.

Now they are forgotten.

Soon, they’ll make us remember.

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Epeolatry Book Review: Tiny Tales of Terror: Volume 1 and 2

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Title: Tiny Tales of Terror: Volume 1: Spots and Other Stories and Tiny Tales of Terror Volume 2: Anchor and Other Stories
Editor: Dave Musson
Genre: Horror
Release Date: 5th May, 2023

Synopsis:

Tiny Tales of Terror: Volume 1: Spots and Other Stories and Tiny Tales of Terror

The kids are alright…aren’t they?

Something weird is happening in the Happy Woodland Nursery – the delightful middle class preschool setting for the delightful middle-class children in the delightful middle-class town of Kingsworth. Spots have appeared on all of the young folk in the Badger Sett room and the staff can’t work out what’s caused them.

For the most part, the little boys and girls seem fine. But then, naptime rolls around and things change.

Delve into this twisted tale from author Dave Musson, then stick around ten more afterwards – there’s creepy dolls, unwelcome visitors, evil spirits and a few bad dreams too.

Tiny Tales of Terror, Volume 2: Anchor & Other Stories

Nurse? Nurse??

The last place the man in the otherwise empty ward wanted to be on a stifling summer’s day was in hospital, but he’d passed out at work and didn’t really have a choice. Still, at least he was feeling better now. Well, kind of…

No-one seemed to be responding when he pushed the call button – probably no-one could hear the button over the white noise that screeched every time he tried. And just what was going on with the colours in the room beyond the curtain pulled around his bed? They weren’t normal.

Good job he had his anchor to tie him to the real world…whatever that is.

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Epeolatry Book Review: The Vile Thing We Created by Robert P. Ottone

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Title: The Vile Things We Created
Editor: Robert P. Ottone
Genre: Suburban Folk Horror
Publisher: Hydra
Release Date: 18th April, 2023

Synopsis: Lola and Ian had what they thought was the perfect relationship. Vacations. Fine dining. A healthy sex life.

 

But when their childless lifestyle begins impacting their social lives, they decide to take the natural next step.

 

But what happens when that next step cracks the perfect foundation Lola and Ian have built?

 

What happens when that next step is anything but natural?


Robert P. Ottone’s The Vile Thing We Created is a terrifying vision of parenthood in the tradition of Ira Levin and Thomas Tryon.

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Epeolatry Book Review: Linghun by Ai Jiang

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Title: Linghun
Editor: Ai Jiang
Genre: Gothic Ghost Story
Publisher: Dark Matter Ink
Release Date: 4th April, 2023

Synopsis: From acclaimed author Ai Jiang, follow Wenqi, Liam, and Mrs. to the mysterious town of HOME, a place where the dead live again as spirits, conjured by the grief-sick population that refuses to let go. This edition includes a foreword by Yi Izzy Yu, Translator of The Shadow Book of Ji Yun, the essay “A Ramble on Di Fu Ling & Death” by the author, and two bonus short stories from Jiang: “Yǒngshí” and “Teeter Totter.”

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