Tagged: Book Review

Articles / Reviews

 by 

Epeolatry Book Review: The Clown: A Halloween Land Story

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 Clown: A Halloween Land Story
Author: Kevin J. Kennedy
Genre: horror
Publisher: KJK Publishing
Date: 1st October, 2024

Synopsis: Melissa is a fairly average teen, who lives in the small rundown coastal town of Black Island. Her only plan is to leave the first chance she gets. She is sick of weekends spent partying with her old school friends, knowing they are growing apart. She needs something more. When the carnival comes to town, the group finally have something a little different to do. Little do they know that the carnival, has its own plans for them, especially Melissa.

(more…)

Articles / Reviews

 by 

Epeolatry Book Review: The Lies We Conjure by Sarah Henning

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 Lies We Conjure
Author: Sarah Henning
Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy
Publisher: Tor Teen
Date: 17th September, 2024

Synopsis: Knives Out meets The Inheritance Games with magic in this standalone supernatural thriller by Sarah Henning: thirteen witches, a locked-room murder, and two non-magical sisters trapped in a deadly game of Clue.

Ruby and her sister, Wren, are normal, middle-class Colorado high school students working a summer job at the local Renaissance Fest to supplement their meager college savings.

So when an eccentric old lady asks them to impersonate her long-absent grandchildren at a fancy dinner party at the jaw-dropping rate of two grand―each―for a single night… Wren insists it’s a no-brainer. Make some cash, have some fun, do a good deed.

But less than an hour into the evening at the mysterious Hegemony Manor, Ruby is sure she must have lost her mind to have agreed to this.

(more…)

Articles / Reviews

 by 

Epeolatry Book Review: Ruthless Creatures by J.T. Geissinger

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: Ruthless Creatures
Author: J.T. Geissinger
Genre: Mafia Romance
Publisher: Bramble
Date: 7th January, 2025

Synopsis:Five years ago, my fiancé disappeared. He left me with a wedding dress I’d never wear. Left me with the kind of scars that can’t be healed. The man I built my future on vanished like a ghost. All that remained were my broken heart and a million unanswered questions.
Until a mysterious stranger arrives in town.
Tall, dark, and dangerous, Kage is as full of secrets as he is sex appeal. Though I know he’s hiding something, I’m drawn to him like a moth to flame. Heat crackles between us with every look, desire flares into passion, and I fall hard, helpless to resist.
But then I discover he’s been sent to collect on an unpaid debt from my missing fiancé….
And that debt is me.

(more…)

Articles / Reviews

 by 

Epeolatry Book Review: Cold Snap by Lindy Ryan

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: Cold Snap
Author: Lindy Ryan
Genre: Horror
Publisher: Titan Books
Date: 15th October, 2024

Synopsis: A grieving mother and son hope to survive Christmas in a remote mountain cabin, in this chilling novella of dread, isolation and demons lurking in the frozen woods. Perfect for fans of The Only Good Indians, The Shining and The Babadook.

Two weeks ago, Christine Sinclaire’s husband slipped off the roof while hanging Christmas lights and fell to his death on the front lawn.
Desperate to escape her guilt and her grief, Christine packs up her fifteen-year-old son and the family cat and flees to the cabin they’d reserved deep in the remote Pennsylvania Wilds to wait out the holidays.
It isn’t long before Christine begins to hear strange noises coming from the forest. When she spots a horned figure watching from between frozen branches, Christine assumes it’s just a forest animal—a moose, maybe, since the property manager warned her about them, said they’d stomp a body so deep into the snow nobody’d find it ’til spring.
But moose don’t walk upright like the shadowy figure does.
They don’t call Christine’s name with her dead husband’s voice.

(more…)

Articles / Reviews

 by 

Epeolatry Book Review: Charybdis by Suzanne Craig-Whytock

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: Charybdis
Author: Suzanne Craig-Whytock
Genre: Psychological Thriller; Woman Sleuth
Publisher: Jane’s Studio Press
Date: 28th February, 2024

Synopsis: When Greta Randall stumbles across a rare volume of Victorian poetry in a local antique market, she could never have imagined that it would take her on a journey through time. The secrets she discovers along the way may shed light on the book’s mysterious young author, Louisa Duberger, but at what peril?

Award-winning writer Suzanne Craig-Whytock is the author of four previous novels, Smile, The Dome, The Seventh Devil, and The Devil You Know, and two short story collections, Feasting Upon The Bones and At The End Of It All, as well as the humour collection What Any Normal Person Would Do. Her short fiction and poetry have appeared in numerous literary journals, and she regularly publishes essays focused on life’s absurdities under the pen name ‘Mydangblog.’ She is also the Editor of DarkWinter Literary Magazine, an online journal which publishes short stories and poetry from both emerging and established writers, as well as the founder of DarkWinter Press and Baxter House Editions. Charybdis is her fifth novel.

Praise for Charybdis:

“Monsters come in many forms — from mythological jealousy to Brontean obsessive misfires of the mind. In Suzanne Craig-Whytock’s beautifully crafted literary mystery, the past and present are swept up in a whirlpool of their own making as a modern-day English literature student attempts to unravel the dark secrets and desires of an obscure Victorian Canadian poet.” Rod Carley, author of RUFF. Twice long-listed for the Leacock Medal for Humour.

(more…)

Articles / Reviews

 by 

Epeolatry Book Review: The Incubations by Ramsey Campbell

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 Incubations
Author: Ramsey Campbell
Genre: Horror, Supernatural Thriller
Publisher: Flame Tree Press
Date: 26th November, 2024

Synopsis: A collectable hardcover edition for Ramsey Campbell’s 60 years in publication.

 Leo Parker’s stay in Alphafen seems idyllic, but after he leaves, the nightmares begin: an airport turns into a labyrinth, his own words become treacherous if not lethal, and what are those creatures in the photographs he took? Even the therapy Leo undertakes becomes a source of menace.

 Perhaps Leo has roused an ancient Alpine legend. Even once he understands what he brought back, his attempts to overcome its influence may lead into greater nightmares still…

(more…)

Articles / Reviews

 by 

Epeolatry Book Review: The Parliament by Aimee Pokwatka

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 Parliament
Author: Aimee Pokwatka
Genre: Horror
Publisher: Tordotcom
Date: 16th January, 2024

Synopsis: The Birds meets The Princess Bride in this tale of friendship, responsibility, and the primal force of nature.
“Murder owls are extreme,” Jude said. “What’s more extreme than murder owls?”
Madigan Purdy is stuck in her hometown library.
When tens of thousands of owls descend on the building, rending and tearing at anyone foolish enough to step outside, Mad is tasked with keeping her students safe, and distracted, while they seek a solution to their dilemma.
Perhaps they’ll find the inspiration they seek in her favorite childhood book, The Silent Queen….
With food and fresh water in low supply, the denizens of the library will have to find a way out, and soon, but the owls don’t seem to be in a hurry to leave…
The Parliament is a story of grief and missed opportunities, but also of courage and hope.
And of extremely sharp beaks.
At the Publisher’s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

(more…)

Articles / Reviews

 by 

Epeolatry Book Review: Madness from the Sea: The Dreamlands by Jonathon T. Cross

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: Madness from the Sea: The Dreamlands
Author: Jonathon T Cross
Genre: Occult Horror
Publisher: Independent
Date: 6th September, 2024

Synopsis: Finn came of age knowing nothing of the world that once was. Cthulhu was released prior to Finn’s birth, and madness has since loomed over humanity. 
Although Cthulhu never left R’lyeh, his call continues to lure victims by the boatload.
On every continent, societies prepare their young against Cthulhu’s telepathic reach. Teaching them to resist the allure of R’lyeh, lest they be swayed to their doom.
Bad dreams and monsters under the bed are no longer scoffed at, they are active threats to humanity’s survival.
No one is exempt, no location is beyond reach, not even the depths of one’s mind are off-limits.
The frailty of humankind has never been on grander display.

(more…)