Category: Reviews

Articles / Reviews

 by 

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

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: 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…

(more…)

Articles / Reviews

 by 

Epeolatry Book Review: Omniviolence by Jones Worthington

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: Omniviolence
Author: Jones Worthington
Genre: Science Fiction
Publisher: Vesuvian Books
Publication date: 25th February, 2025

Synopsis: Jackson Cross kills strangers with nothing more than a drone and a computer in exchange for crypto—all from his mother’s basement.

When his accounts are scythed, and he’s pegged at the top of the most popular slaysite, Jackson is ejected from his virtual comfort zone and forced to go on the run.

Joseph “Bones” Carboni is an old-school mafia hitman with a lot of demons and one big problem: he’s developed a conscience. When tasked with slaying fifteen-year-old Jackson, Joe breaks rank. Now, he must decide if playing the hero is worth having a target on his own back.

Attacked from all sides and struggling to survive in a world where your elderly neighbor or an angry kid on social media can be your executioner, neither Joe nor Jackson realize they’ve become entangled in a global power struggle that could change what it means to be human.

(more…)

Articles / Reviews

 by 

Epeolatry Book Review: Splitter by Stu Croskell

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: Splitter
Author: Stu Croskell
Genre: Military Thriller; Crime Action; Mystery Action
Publisher: Severed Press
Publication date: 8th January, 2025

Synopsis: When a deadly marine creature escapes AUTEC, the US Navy’s top-secret Bahamian research facility, retired Navy SEAL, turned marine biologist, Jack Tarr, is called back into action. Reluctantly leading a team of SEALs, Jack embarks on a perilous pursuit across the Caribbean, through the treacherous Florida Keys, and into the stormy Gulf of Mexico.

But the hunt takes a dark turn when Jack uncovers a shocking link to his best friend’s mysterious disappearance. As the terrifying creature pushes the team to their limits, Jack must navigate a web of Navy secrets and confront a horrifying truth—one that could shatter everything he thought he knew about loyalty, survival, and the ocean’s darkest depths.

(more…)

Articles / Reviews

 by 

Epeolatry Book Review: Black Out the Stars by Christopher Bond

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: Black Out the Stars
Author: Christopher Bond
Genre: Crime horror
Publisher: Aquino Loayza
Publication date: 25th March, 2025

Synopsis: Marcus, a man estranged from his family, returns to his roots amid a backdrop of generational trauma in rural, poverty-stricken Ohio, only to find that not all family secrets die given time. As Marcus helps his uncle drain a pond on their ancestral property, he uncovers the dark secrets of his family and the land they’ve called home.

(more…)

Articles / Reviews

 by 

Epeolatry Book Review: Bodily Harm by Deborah Sheldon

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: Bodily Harm
Author: Deborah Sheldon
Genre: Crime horror
Publisher: Undertaker Books
Publication date: October 11, 2024

Synopsis: Survival has a price… Is Cara ready to pay it?

From the moment she feels a gun barrel shoved into her back, Cara Haynes is thrown into the brutal world of vicious criminals and the police officers tough enough to pursue them.

Cara has lived in Melbourne just a few weeks when she survives an armed robbery at her local pizzeria. Traumatised, afraid and alone, Cara’s lifeline is Mick Thompson, a detective from the Armed Offence Squad, whose compulsion to find these violent offenders keeps him awake at night. But soon, Cara doesn’t know the difference between safety and danger…

Written by award-winning author, Deborah Sheldon, Bodily Harm is a fast-paced, savage and disturbing read where one woman’s nightmare becomes a detective’s obsession. Don’t miss out—get your copy today!

(more…)

Articles / Reviews

 by 

Epeolatry Book Review: Shadowplays, ed. Peter Coleborn and Mike Chinn

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: Shadowplays
Author: various, ed. Peter Coleborn & Mike Chinn
Genre: horror
Publisher: PS Publishing
Publication date: 1st October, 2024

Synopsis: From an old regional theatre on the English coast to a Hollywood sound stage, an odd audition in London, by way of a sad and lonely hotel that attracts a series of strange residents. And much else too. Here are reflections on the nature of truth, how fiction and childish verse can impact reality, and the dangers inherent in retreating from that reality. Photographs and hauntings. Loss and longing. Just how lucky is it being lucky. Strange revenges and even stranger curses.

These nineteen tales of skewed everyday existence, divorced from the outwardly mundane world, demonstrate that all is not quite how it at first appears. These small, uneasy dramas play out in the shadows, in the twilight, hiding from the rational world.

These stories embrace the Shadows.

(more…)

Artwork / Events / Other / Payment Type / Reviews

 by 

Taking Submissions: Lizzie Borden Anthology

Deadline: June 1st, 2025
Payment: $10 and a contributors copy
Theme: New and unique takes on the legends and realities of the Lizzie Borden story

Everyone knows the legend of Lizzie Borden, especially the dark nursery rhyme…

 

Lizzie Borden took an axe

Gave her mother 40 whacks.

When she saw what she had done,

Gave her father 41

Riverdale Avenue Books has teamed up with the Historical Lizzie Borden house to put together an anthology of stories, under the direction of award-winning horror author Sèphera Girón, who has visited the house multiple times over the past few decades.

(more…)

Articles / For Readers / Reviews

 by 

Epeolatry Book Review: Black Cat Tales, An Anthology of Black Cats, ed. Francesca Maria & Mark Causey

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: Black Cat Tales, An Anthology of Black Cats
Author: Various, ed. Francesca Maria and Mark Causey
Genre: Horror, Dark Fantasy
Publisher: Black Cat Publishing
Publication date: 13th June, 2025

Synopsis: A black cat approaches, do you let it cross your path, or run in the opposite direction? From the superstitious to the unlucky, from a witch’s familiar to a soul stealing grave robber, black cats have captured our imagination and remain solidly in the realm of the dark. 

Join authors from around the world for never before published horror, dark fantasy and mystery short stories and poems featuring the beloved, feared and mystical black cat. Black Cat Tales showcases a diverse group of authors ranging in age from 17 to 80, some with multiple award winning publications under their belts, for others, this will be the first time seeing their work in print.

(more…)