From electrifying horror author Nick Cutter comes a haunting new novel, reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian and Stephen King’s It, in which a trio of mismatched mercenaries is hired by a young woman for a deceptively simple task: check in on her nephew, who may have been taken against his will to a remote New Mexico backwoods settlement called Little Heaven. Shortly after they arrive, things begin to turn ominous. Stirrings in the woods and over the treetops—the brooding shape of a monolith known as the Black Rock casts its terrible pall. Paranoia and distrust grips the settlement. The escape routes are gradually cut off as events spiral towards madness. Hell—or the closest thing to it—invades Little Heaven. The remaining occupants are forced to take a stand and fight back, but whatever has cast its dark eye on Little Heaven is now marshalling its powers…and it wants them all. It’s weird, I was struck with a couple of different impressions almost immediately I started reading Little Heaven. Firstly, eating a ham sandwich when you’re reading horror was a rookie mistake. Secondly, and more importantly, I felt in some respects I was reading a Western. So much so I had…

Richard leads a simple, uncomplicated life in the suburbs of London where anonymity is a virtue. His life has a routine. His cleaner visits twice a week and he works out in his basement, where occasionally he kills people. Everything is as Richard wants it until David enters his life. What happens next changes his whole existence and the lives of those around him. Is he able to trust anything to be true? And will he be able to escape David or will David take over his life completely? When we first meet Richard, he appears to be entirely average. He works from home living a quiet existence, and the only obvious quirk of his personality is his love of precision and order. It swiftly becomes evident however, that there is a little more to Richard than meets the eye. His tidy little life masks the fact that he enjoys nothing better than killing. Richard, using his tried and tested method of stalking potential victims, meets an ideal candidate in the form of David. Everything appears to be playing out exactly the way it always has in the past, but Richard is about to find himself on the receiving end…

Aurel and Zora Schwartz are a married couple trying to make a modern relationship work. But an old secret is going to affect them in ways neither of them can imagine. And Zora’s daughter Livie may find herself caught in a trap built long before she was born. The ending will leave you stunned and speechless. Get ready to scream. We’ve all been envious of another person at some point in our lives. You’ve looked at someone and thought “They’ve got it all sorted. They have the perfect life, the perfect family”. No doubt, part of you has wanted to be just like them. The thing you must remember is that the socially acceptable face of a person is little more than a thin veneer of civility. Inside, in the dark recesses of the human psyche, everyone is just as screwed up as you are. Everyone has issues, has skeletons in the closet. The character of Aurel reads like a prime example of this. On the face of it, he has it all. He loves his life. He is in a stable marriage, and even gets on with his step daughter. On the flip-side of that however, you quickly realise…

Before we begin a word of dire warning. Dominion is a direct sequel to Drake. If you haven’t read book one in this series then there is a good chance that this review may continue something akin to minor spoiler. Don’t say I didn’t warn you… In the tunnels deep under London, the Earth elementals are dying. Hunted by something they know only as the Rotman, the elementals have no one trustworthy they can turn to. Enter Don Drake, diabolist and semi-reformed hitman, and an almost-fallen angel called Trixie. When the Matriarch tells Don that Rotman is actually the archdemon Bianakith, he knows this is going to be a tough job. Bianakith is the foretold spirit of disease and decay whose aura corrupts everything it comes near, and even the ancient foundations of London will crumble eventually. Now Don, Trixie and the Burned Man have to hatch a plan to keep Bianakith from wiping out the elementals and bringing down the city. But the Burned Man has other plans, and those may have dire consequences for everyone. The past never stays buried, and old sins must be atoned for. Judgement is coming, and its name is Dominion. At the beginning…

A bestial face appears at windows in the night. In the big white house on the hill angels are said to appear. A forgotten tenant in an isolated building becomes addicted to milk. A strange goddess is worshipped by a home-invading disciple. The least remembered gods still haunt the oldest forests. Cannibalism occurs in high society at the end of the world. The sainted undead follow their prophet to the Great Dead Sea. A confused and vengeful presence occupies the home of a first-time buyer . . . In ghastly harmony with the nightmarish visions of the award-winning writer’s novels, these stories blend a lifelong appreciation of horror culture with the grotesque fascinations and childlike terrors that are the author’s own. Adam L.G. Nevill’s best early horror stories are collected here for the first time. Seems entirely apt, what with Halloween being just around the corner, that this week’s review falls squarely into the horror genre. Some Will Not Sleep is collection of Adam Nevill’s short fiction that were original published in the period between 1995 to 2011. Eleven wonderfully macabre tales that cover the whole gamut of the horrific. The supernatural rubs shoulders with the bizarre, body horror and…

Set against Iceland’s volcanic hinterlands, four thirty-somethings from Reykjavik – the reckless hedonist Egill; the recovering alcoholic Hrafin; and their partners Anna and Vigdis – embark on an ambitious camping trip, their jeep packed with supplies. Victims of the financial crisis, the purpose of the trip is to heal both professional and personal wounds, but the desolate landscape forces the group to reflect on the shattered lives they’ve left behind in the city. As their jeep hurtles through the barren land, an impenetrable fog descends, causing them to suddenly crash into a rural farmhouse. Seeking refuge from the storm, the group discover that the isolated dwelling is inhabited by a mysterious elderly couple who inexplicably barricade themselves inside every night. As past tensions within the group rise to the surface, the merciless weather blocks every attempt at escape, forcing them to ask difficult questions: who has been butchering animals near the house? What happened to the abandoned village nearby where bones lie strewn across the ground? And most importantly, will they ever return home? Well, this is most definitely a first for me, time for some psychological Icelandic horror. The Ice Lands follows four friends travelling across the country. They…

In a weird bit of synchronicity, August appears to have had a distinctly African flavour here at The Eloquent Page. First there was that fine debut novel Infernal from South African born author Mark de Jager. Then the fantastic Poison City by Durban based author Paul Crilley arrived. To round things off, it seemed only appropriate to celebrate another of my favourite authors from the southern hemisphere, Joan De La Haye. So breaking from tradition, today you are getting two reviews for the price of one. I’ve decided to rename Friday August 26th to “Joan De La Haye Appreciation Day”. I first discovered Joan’s work a couple of years ago with her splendid zombie novella Oasis. Since then, she has continued to produce wonderfully dark fiction including the deliciously evil Fury. I kept promising myself that I would go back and check out some of her other work in her back catalogue. This week, I finally managed to get some space in my schedule and so decided it was high time to check out the two books below. Burning Marcie Grove is a lonely witch. After a full moon ritual she decides to do something about the abysmal state of…

The name’s Gideon Tau, but everyone just calls me London. I work for the Delphic Division, the occult investigative unit of the South African Police Service. My life revolves around two things – finding out who killed my daughter and imagining what I’m going to do to the bastard when I catch him. I have two friends. The first is my boss, Armitage, a fifty-something DCI from Yorkshire who looks more like someone’s mother than a cop. Don’t let that fool you. The second is the dog, my magical spirit guide. He talks, he watches TV all day, and he’s a mean drunk. Life is pretty routine – I solve crimes, I search for my daughter’s killer. Wash, rinse, repeat. Until the day I’m called out to the murder of a ramanga – a low-key vampire – basically, the tabloid journalist of the vampire world. It looks like an open and shut case. There’s even CCTV footage of the killer. Except… the face on the CCTV footage? It’s the face of the man who killed my daughter. I’m about to face a tough choice. Catch her killer or save the world? I can’t do both. It’s not looking good for…

Kid is trying to survive in a world gone mad. Hungry, thirsty and alone in a desert wasteland, she’s picked up on the side of the road by Wolf, Dolly, Tank and Pretty Boy – outlaws with big reputations and even bigger guns. But as they journey across the wild together, Kid learns that her newfound crew may not be the heroes she was hoping for. And in a world that’s lost its humanity, everyone has a bit of monster within them… Picture this, the world has gone to Hell in a hand cart. Three hot meals and a comfortable place to sleep are nothing but a distant memory. Society has all but collapsed, and what remains has devolved into chaos. Everywhere bands of bloodthirsty raiders travel the radioactive wastelands killing and, if you’re really unlucky, eating you. The choices you have left are more than a little limited. In fact, there is really only one question left to answer – what exactly would you be prepared to do in order to survive? This is the question that Kid keeps asking herself. Completely alone and miles from anywhere she has a simple choice – accept a ride from a group…

Sherlock Holmes faces his greatest challenge yet when he meets the Cenobites, the infamous servants of hell. Late 1895, and Sherlock Holmes and his faithful companion Dr John Watson are called upon to investigate a missing persons case. On the face of it, this seems like a mystery that Holmes might relish – as the person in question vanished from a locked room – and something to occupy him other than testing the limits of his mind and body. But this is just the start of an investigation that will draw the pair into contact with a shadowy organisation talked about in whispers and known only as ‘The Order of the Gash’. As more and more people go missing in a similar fashion, the clues point to a sinister asylum in France and to the underworld of London. However, it is an altogether different underworld that Holmes will soon discover – as he finds himself face to face not only with those followers who do the Order’s bidding on Earth, but those who serve it in Hell: the Cenobites… I’m a big fan of Hellraiser franchise. I’ve seen the films, read the original novella and purchased the comic books. In…

An astonishingly inventive and terrifying debut novel about the emergence of an ancient species, dormant for over a thousand years, and now on the march. Deep in the jungle of Peru, where so much remains unknown, a black, skittering mass devours an American tourist whole. Thousands of miles away, an FBI agent investigates a fatal plane crash in Minneapolis and makes a gruesome discovery. Unusual seismic patterns register in a Kanpur, India earthquake lab, confounding the scientists there. During the same week, the Chinese government “accidentally” drops a nuclear bomb in an isolated region of its own country. As these incidents begin to sweep the globe, a mysterious package from South America arrives at a Washington, D.C. laboratory. Something wants out. The world is on the brink of an apocalyptic disaster. An ancient species, long dormant, is now very much awake. My wife has a pet tarantula. I’ve told her on more than on occasion that it disturbs me. I find myself both terrified and fascinated by it in equal measure. I remember when it first arrived in our household, I used to have nightmares that it would somehow learn to escape from its tank, successfully open all the doors…

Amaranthine and Other Stories serves up nine schlock horror slices, sprinkled with quirk and humour. Forget vampires. Forget werewolves. Forget ghosts. Humans are the ultimate grotesques. Variant flavours of woe sift through these pages. The results are sometimes hilarious, sometimes outright hair-raising! From time to time I like to dip my toes in the waters of short fiction. Horror always lends itself well to this particular format, so when the latest collection from Erik Hofstatter arrived in my mailbox who was I to refuse? So sit back and relax as we enjoy nine different interpretations of the purest evil. The Birthing Pool – Sean suffers a horrible break up. He becomes obsessed with filling the void that has been left behind. First story in the collection and were already in utterly gross territory. Those with a delicate constitution, beware. This one is proper nasty! You’ll never look at undercooked food in quite the same way again, I can guarantee it. Tristan’s Equation – More obsession, but this time it is a mathematical problem that plagues Tristan’s every waking moment. What does it all mean? Where are his family and why has he been left utterly alone? Amaranthine – How best…

In a change from the norm this post is a first for The Eloquent Page, a review written by two people. Thanks to Nadine for her invaluable insight. The Fireman has prompted much vigorous discussion and debate in our household.   No one knows exactly when it began or where it originated. A terrifying new plague is spreading like wildfire across the country, striking cities one by one: Boston, Detroit, Seattle. The doctors call it Draco Incendia Trychophyton. To everyone else it’s Dragonscale, a highly contagious, deadly spore that marks its hosts with beautiful black and gold marks across their bodies—before causing them to burst into flames. Millions are infected; blazes erupt everywhere. There is no antidote. No one is safe. Harper Grayson, a compassionate, dedicated nurse as pragmatic as Mary Poppins, treated hundreds of infected patients before her hospital burned to the ground. Now she’s discovered the telltale gold-flecked marks on her skin. When the outbreak first began, she and her husband, Jakob, had made a pact: they would take matters into their own hands if they became infected. To Jakob’s dismay, Harper wants to live—at least until the fetus she is carrying comes to term. At the hospital,…