Tagged: review

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Epeolatry Book Review: Your Blood and Bones by J. Patricia Anderson

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Title: Your Blood and Bones
Author: J. Patricia Anderson
Genre: Dark Fantasy, Horror
Publisher: Root of the World Publishing
Release Date: 27th August, 2023

Synopsis: Kill the monsters when they’re found.

No matter who they used to be.

The girl with secret feathers in her skin and strange bones jutting out beneath her clothes is resigned to her fate. Her deformities mark her a monster and the stories say monsters must die.

When her family finds out and turns on her, a village boy saves her and leads her on a frantic escape. The girl believes her death has merely been delayed—until he mentions a cure.

With the world against them and the monstrous change progressing, they must cross water, forest, and field to chase the rumor that fuels their desperate hope. But is hope enough to keep them going?

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Epeolatry Book Review: Winter’s Ghosts by Alyson Faye, Stephanie Ellis, Charlotte Riddell & Edith Wharton

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Title: Winter’s Ghosts
Author: Alyson Faye, Stephanie Ellis, Charlotte Riddell, Edith Wharton
Genre: Ghost Stories, Gothic
Publisher: Independent
Release Date: 29th November, 2023

Synopsis:Winter is traditionally the time for a ghost story. Alyson Faye and Stephanie Ellis continue this custom with their short stories, ‘Chilled to the Bone’ and ‘Dead Man’s Fair’ where, in both gothic mansion and remote hills, blizzards close in and the dead walk. Pairing with these modern day writers are Charlotte Riddell and Edith Wharton, both known for their skill in weaving a ghostly tale but whose stories are in danger of being forgotten. Their inclusion here is intended to help prevent this and honour those female authors who paved the way for the rest of us.

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Epeolatry Book Review: This is My Body, Given for You by Heather Parry

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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: This is My Body, Given for You
Author: Heather Parry
Genre: Contemporary Horror, Short Stories, Weird Fiction
Publisher: Haunt Publishing
Release Date: 11th May, 2023

Synopsis:  A girl suffering a bizarre menstrual aberration is exploited by those around her, including her father. A boy expresses his love for a nonhuman man by making himself animalistic. A girl abandoned by her community discovers the possibility of transmutation through cannibalism. A man struggles with his wife’s choices around her existence, and considers whether he should leave her alone in her semi-oblivion, or join her.
In This Is My Body, Given For You, Heather Parry places in our hands fifteen stories in which the body is something that can be changed, altered, and escaped from. With dripping blood, bruised tentacles, and seamed skin, Heather Parry’s debut short story collection will consume you.

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Epeolatry Book Review: Hot Iron and Cold Blood, An Anthology of the Weird West, ed. Patrick R. McDonough

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Title: Hot Iron and Cold Blood: An Anthology of the Weird West
Author: Various
Editor: Patrick R. McDonough
Genre: Splatter Western
Publisher: Death’s Head Press
Release Date: 26th September, 2023

Synopsis: Desperados and yellow-bellies be warned: These ain’t your typical westerns … Herein find legendary masters of anomalous Western and Horror stories— along with a posse of budding word-slingers— who all bring you an electrifying and frightening collection of extraordinary tales set in the Old West and beyond…Within these pages, the improbable is made real: cowboys encounter a chimeric critter of the night; dinosaurs return as massive poltergeists; Chinese railroad workers are haunted by invisible frights; outlaws experience Cronenbergian body-horror; fallen-light stalks mother and daughter upon a wintry prairie; a headless horseman roams the badlands; otherworldly creatures hunt within our domain; screaming spectral birds nest within the damned; and gunslinging women with murderous skills annihilate foolish notions of a man’ s world. These are just a handful of the offerings in this body of macabre lore. So, mount your saddlehorse and join this gang of rogue authors for a ride down dark trails of terror and unsettling thoroughfares that lead deep into strange, nightmarish territory. Here you gallop through places where law has no dominion and Death constantly deals a grim hand— and where the iron is red-hot and the blood drips ice-cold. Featuring stories by Joe R. Lansdale, Edward Lee, David J. Schow, Jill Girardi, R.J. Jackson, Vivian Kasley, Owl Goingback, Kenzie Jennings, Jeff Strand, Wile E. Young, and more. Edited by Patrick R. McDonough with an Introduction by R.J. Joseph

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Epeolatry Book Review: Passing Through Veils by John Harrison

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Title: Passing Through Veils
Author: John Harrison
Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Horror, Suspense
Publisher: Wordfire Press
Release Date: 15th August, 2023

Synopsis: A fusion of Shirley Jackson and Gillian Flynn, Passing Through Veils is a gripping psychological thriller about Kathryn Fields who moves into a run-down Georgetown, D.C. townhouse in hopes that restoring it will be a metaphor for her own rehabilitation from the recent nervous breakdown that derailed her promising career.

But when she discovers a forgotten vanity behind a false wall in her bedroom and the secrets hidden there, the veil between the real and the surreal is abruptly pierced, and the ghost of a beautiful woman who was murdered in this very townhouse escapes to seek revenge.

Is this simply a fantasy of Katherine’s damaged psyche?

Or have her own demons finally escaped to torment her?

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Epeolatry Book Review: Such a Lovely Family by Aggie Blum Thompson

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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: Such a Lovely Family
Editor: Aggie Blum Thompson
Genre: Mystery/Thriller
Publisher: Forge Books
Release Date: 12th March, 2024

Synopsis: The cherry blossoms are in full bloom in Washington, D.C., and the Calhouns are in the midst of hosting their annual party to celebrate the best of the spring season. With a house full of friends, neighbors, and their beloved three adult children, the Calhouns are expecting another picture-perfect event. But a brutal murder in the middle of the celebration transforms the yearly gathering into a homicide scene, and all the guests into suspects.

Behind their façade of perfection, the Calhoun family has been keeping some very dark secrets. Parents who use money and emotional manipulation to control their children. Two sons, one the black sheep who is desperate to outrun mistakes he’s made, and the other a new father, willing to risk everything to protect his child. And a daughter: an Instagram influencer who refuses to face the truth about the man she married.

As the investigation heats up, family tensions build, and alliances shift. Long-buried resentments surface, forcing the Calhouns to face their darkest secrets before it’s too late.

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Epeolatry Book Review: Reading Stephen King edited by: Brian James Freeman

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Title: Reading Stephen King
Ediotor: Lina Rather
Genre: Literary Criticism Reference
Publisher: Cemetery Dance Publications
Release Date: 20th November, 2023

Synopsis: Stephen King has inspired millions of readers with his writing for more than four decades now, and this special volume of essays gathers together some of his high-pro le fans to discuss why they love reading Stephen King.

Many of these fans are acclaimed authors of ction in their own right. Some of them have written insightful books about Stephen King’s work, exploring how King’s natural storytelling gift has allowed him to create stories that reach people in every language around the world. A few of them have even written, produced, and directed movie adaptations of King’s most acclaimed works.

Inside this book you will join Clive Barker, Stewart O’Nan, Richard Chizmar, Frank Darabont, Stephen Spignesi, Justin Brooks, Tony Magistrale, Michael R. Collings, Rocky Wood, Robin Furth, Kevin Quigley, Hans-Åke Lilja, Billy Chizmar, Jack Ketchum, Bev Vincent, Mick Garris, and Jay Franco as they discuss their love of reading Stephen King…

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Epeolatry Book Review: A Season of Monstrous Conceptions by Lina Rather

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Title: A Season of Monstrous Conceptions
Author: Lina Rather
Genre: Historical Fantasy, Dark Fantasy, LGBTQIA+
Publisher: tordotcom
Release Date: 31st October, 2023

Synopsis: In 17th-century London, unnatural babies are being born, with eyes made for the dark and webbed digits suited to the sea.

Sarah Davis is intimately familiar with such strangeness―having hidden her uncanny nature all her life and fled to London under suspicious circumstances, Sarah starts over as a midwife’s apprentice to a member of the illegal Worshipful Company of Midwives, hoping to carve out for herself an independent life. But with each new unnatural birth, the fear in London grows of the Devil’s work.

When the wealthy Lady Wren hires her to see her through her pregnancy, Sarah quickly becomes a favorite of her husband, the famous architect Lord Christopher Wren, whose interest in the uncanny borders on obsession. Sarah soon finds herself caught in a web of magic and intrigue created by those who want to use her power for themselves, and whose pursuits threaten to unmake the earth itself.

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