AND THE WATER SHALL CALL THEM HOME A water-borne blight hits a small community on a remote Scottish island. The residents are a mix of island-born and newcomers seeking a slower life away from the modern world; all have their own secrets, some much darker than others. Some claim the illness may be a case of mass hysteria – or even a long-buried curse – but when ferry service fails and phone towers go down, inconvenience grows into nightmarish ordeal as the outwardly harmonious fabric of the community is irreversibly torn apart. This week’s review is the deliciously unsettling new horror novel Dead Water by C A Fletcher. Still broken by a traumatic loss, Sig lives a quiet existence. Shunning human contact whenever possible, she is happy to spend her time alone. Obsessed with free diving, Sig only finds real peace when swimming deeper and deeper below the waves. Dark thoughts swirl around in her mind. Would it be so bad if she just drifted away? Over the course of a weekend, Sig is forced to confront a supernatural force that has been released near her home as well as the inner demons plaguing her increasingly fragile mental state. In…

Please note, Ghosts is book four in The Voices series. If you haven’t read the three books that precede this then there will most definitely be spoilers ahead.  Seven years ago, the voices came. Some people could hear and others despised them for it. As death and destruction spread, a ghostly figure was waiting in the shadows. Now the Flitting Man is ready to show his face – and no one is safe. Pilgrim was made for this broken world. He’s chosen his path and will stop at nothing to see it through. Lacey grew up in this changing world. She’s lost almost everything to the Flitting Man, but her fight isn’t over yet. Albus sees this world as others cannot. And the friends that he’s kept safe are facing terrible danger. Addison belongs to a very different world. She might just be the future, if she survives… If you are a regular reader of The Eloquent Page, then you know I normally write long rambling reviews about the books I read. I wax lyrical about how the writing made me feel. What I liked and what I thought of the characters, basically all manner of book-related waffle. I find…

Don’t trust the Liar. Don’t go in the River. Do not cross the King. In Red Valley, California, you follow the rules if you want to stay alive. But even that isn’t enough to protect Sadie now that she’s unexpectedly become the Liar: the keeper and maker of Red Valley’s many secrets. In a town like this, friendships are hard-won and bad blood lasts generations, and when not everyone in town is exactly human, it isn’t a safe place to make enemies. And though the Liar has power—power to remake the world, with just a little blood—what Sadie really needs is answers: Why is the town’s sheriff after her? What does the King want from her? And what is the real purpose of the Liar of Red Valley? Granting dreams and wishes is old news. In genre fiction, practitioners of that particular art are ten a penny. Imagine if there was someone who could make your lies come true. At first glance, you might think that sounds terrible, but really think about it. You could wipe away that horrible thing you said or did. You could remove the hurt from your life. Sure, it would be a lie and there…

WHO BETTER TO SOLVE A MURDER THAN A DEAD DETECTIVE? When Detective Inspector Joe Lazarus storms a Lincolnshire farmhouse, he expects to bring down a notorious drug gang; instead, he discovers his own body and a spirit guide called Daisy-May. She’s there to enlist him to The Dying Squad, a spectral police force who solve crimes their flesh and blood counterparts cannot. Lazarus reluctantly accepts and returns to the Lincolnshire Badlands, where he faces dangers from both the living and the dead in his quest to discover the identity of his killer – before they kill again. Two reviews in a handful of days? Yes, when you’re on a roll you’ve just got to go with it. Our second book of the week features more murder, but this time things have a distinctly supernatural air rather than science fiction vibe. The Dying Squad by Adam Simcox follows a dead cop given the opportunity to discover the truth of his own demise. The big problem with being dead though is that your memory is Swiss cheese at best. The more time you spend amongst the living, the less of yourself you remember. Not the most useful skill when you are attempting…

While most of the world has drowned beneath the sudden rising waters of a climate apocalypse, Dinétah (formerly the Navajo reservation) has been reborn. The gods and heroes of legend walk the land, but so do monsters. Maggie Hoskie is a Dinétah monster hunter, a supernaturally gifted killer. When a small town needs help finding a missing girl, Maggie is their last best hope. But what Maggie uncovers about the monster is much more terrifying than anything she could imagine. Maggie reluctantly enlists the aid of Kai Arviso, an unconventional medicine man, and together they travel the rez, unravelling clues from ancient legends, trading favours with tricksters, and battling dark witchcraft in a patchwork world of deteriorating technology. As Maggie discovers the truth behind the killings, she will have to confront her past if she wants to survive. Welcome to the Sixth World. November has been Native American Heritage Month, so I thought I would mark the occasion by seeking out some appropriate genre fiction. Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse is the first book in a post-apocalyptic series that uses Native culture, myths and legends as its basis. Maggie Hoskie makes for an engaging protagonist. Many of the Diné…

Please note, though not a direct sequel to Fury From The Tomb chronologically The Beast of Nightfall Lodge does occur after the events in that book. Due to that it is possible that what follows may include some minor spoilers. When Egyptologist Rom Hardy receives a strange letter from his old friend, the bounty-hunting sniper Rex McTroy, he finds himself drawn into a chilling mystery. In the mountains of New Mexico, a bloodthirsty creature is on the loose, leaving a trail of bodies in its wake. Now, a wealthy big game hunter has offered a staggering reward for its capture, and Rom’s patron – the headstrong and brilliant Evangeline Waterston – has signed the team up for the challenge. Awaiting them are blizzards, cold-blooded trappers, remorseless hunters, a mad doctor, wild animals and a monster so fearsome and terrifying, it must be a legend come to life. The brave souls who make up The Institute for Singular Antiquities have returned with a new adventure. Dr Romulus Hugo Hardy, Rom to his friends, is the brains of the operation. Evangeline Waterston is the Institutes benefactor and occult expert while cowboy Rex McTroy is the action man. Finally, there is Wu the…

Saqqara, Egypt, 1888, and in the booby-trapped tomb of an ancient sorcerer, Rom, a young Egyptologist, makes the discovery of a lifetime: five coffins and an eerie, oversized sarcophagus. But the expedition seems cursed, for after unearthing the mummies, all but Rom die horribly. He faithfully returns to America with his disturbing cargo, continuing by train to Los Angeles, home of his reclusive sponsor. When the train is hijacked by murderous banditos in the Arizona desert, who steal the mummies and flee over the border, Rom – with his benefactor’s rebellious daughter, an orphaned Chinese busboy, and a cold-blooded gunslinger – must ride into Mexico to bring the malevolent mummies back. If only mummies were their biggest problem… Angry Robot have long been one of my favourite imprints; their authors always deliver the most delightfully quirky reads. Based on experience I know that anything they publish is going to be a treat. When it comes to genre fiction, the self-styled Exasperated Automatons consistently deliver books that are hugely entertaining and blissfully easy to lose yourself in.  I’m pleased to report that their latest, Fury From The Tomb by S A Sidor, continues this trend. Take it from me, I work…

Please note, The Devil’s Colony is the final part of the Fatal Folklore Trilogy. It is entirely possible if you haven’t read books one and two then this review could contain some minor spoilery type elements and stuff. Don’t say I didn’t warn ya! Ben McKelvie had a good job, a nice house, a beautiful fiancée . . . until a bloodthirsty shapeshifter took everything away. Ever since, he’s been chasing supernatural phenomena all across the country, aided by dedicated zoologist Lindsay Clark and wealthy cryptozoologist Richard Severance. Now they face their deadliest challenge yet. In the New Jersey Pine Barrens, a man named Henry Drexler operates a private compound called Välkommen, which is Swedish for “welcome.” Indeed, Drexler welcomes all visitors—so long as they’re racists, neo-Nazis, or otherwise in cahoots with the alt-right. But Drexler is no mere Hitler wannabe. Once he was Severance’s mentor, and his research may well have summoned a monster to the Pine Barrens. To find out the truth, Ben and Lindsay must enter the camp incognito. There, under the watchful eyes of Drexler’s bodyguards and sociopathic son, they will learn that the most dangerous beasts lurk in the human heart. Back at the tail…

Only a rag-tag team of gargoyles stands between humanity and extinction. Hell has released its ravening horde of demons, leaving most of humanity a puke-spewing, head-spinning mess of possession. Humanity’s last hope? A team of misfit gargoyles—including a cigar chomping, hard-ass grotesque—come alive and ready for battle during the End of Days. They guard the last cathedral-turned-sanctuary atop a bald knoll in the North Carolina mountains. Gargoyle protection grudgingly extends to any human who can make it inside the Sanctuary, but the power of the stonecutter blood magic, which protects the sanctuary, may not be enough when a rogue grotesque and his badly-wounded ward arrive. All the hounds of hell are on their heels. The last Sanctuary is about to fall. Ahh, my favourite fictional sub-genre – the end of the world. Always a joy. I may have mentioned this before, I can’t remember? I do love me some apocalyptic fiction. The latest Armageddon to grace my review pile is Stone Cold Bastards by Jake Bible. The gates of Hell are open and they are spewing forth a demonic horde. Our last line of defence? A mismatched collection of humans and living gargoyles. The main story focuses on a monster…

Please note Judged is the third book in a series. It is highly likely if you haven’t read the first two books then this review will contain some spoilers. Don’t say I didn’t warn ya! Kit’s job description includes solving crimes – the supernatural kind . . . Glow, a fae-created drug, is rapidly going viral and the suppliers have to be shut down. Teaming up with Aiden and Dante, Kit follows leads across London, tracking down dealers. They stir up trouble, making themselves a target for the gang they’re trying to stop. In the Otherwhere, Thorn stumbles across a secret that could destroy both the human and Fae worlds. The Veil that separates our human world from the fae realms is weakening and the goddess is dying. And if she dies and the Veil fails, madness and chaos will wreak unstoppable havoc upon both lands. Thorn turns to the only person he knows who’ll be able to help him: Kit. Torn between working the Glow case and her loyalty for the young prince, Kit is propelled headlong into a world of danger. She faces enemies from both the Otherwhere and our world. And as the stakes are raised, the…

Please note The Way of Sorrows is the final part of The Angelus Trilogy. If you haven’t read books one and two then it is highly likely, I can almost guarantee it, that there will be spoilers in the review that follows. With that said, enter at your own risk. The earthly—and cosmic—adventures of Katherine Taylor and Jay Harper come to an electrifying, action-packed conclusion in The Way of Sorrows, the final installment of Jon Steele’s critically acclaimed Angelus Trilogy. Sadly all good things must come to an end. I felt slightly conflicted when I started reading The Way of Sorrows. Part of me wanted to know how this story was going to pan out, things have been building towards an epic conclusion since book one, but another part of me was dreading that there was going to be an end at all. I love it when I connect to a book, or series of books, like this. An author has proven their worth as far as I am concerned if I am actively concerned about what happens next to a character. When The Way of Sorrows begins, the ultimate evil that has been working in the shadows for millennia…

Mire House is dreary, dark, cold and infested with midges. But when Emma Dean inherits it from a distant relation, she immediately feels a sense of belonging. It isn’t long before Charlie Mitchell, grandson of the original owner, appears claiming that he wants to seek out his family. But Emma suspects he’s more interested in the house than his long-lost relations.  And when she starts seeing ghostly figures, Emma begins to wonder: is Charlie trying to scare her away, or are there darker secrets lurking in the corners of Mire House?  Who hasn’t dreamed of inheriting a rambling old house hidden in the heart of the countryside? I know I certainly have, even if it has seen better days and is a bit worn round the edges. It sounds like the perfect rural idyll. When the reader is first introduced to Emma, the sadness that permeates her character is quickly established. She has suffered recent loss and that trauma has left its mark. She is keen to escape the past, to find somewhere new where she can build a life and really belong. The opportunity to start again at Mire House seems almost too good to be true. As she starts…

Back in the day, Captain Abraham Idaho Cleveland had led the Fleet into battle against an implacable machine intelligence capable of devouring entire worlds. But after saving a planet, and getting a bum robot knee in the process, he finds himself relegated to one of the most remote backwaters in Fleetspace to oversee the decommissioning of a semi-deserted space station well past its use-by date. But all is not well aboard the U-Star Coast City. The station’s reclusive Commandant is nowhere to be seen, leaving Cleveland to deal with a hostile crew on his own. Persistent malfunctions plague the station’s systems while interference from a toxic purple star makes even ordinary communications problematic. Alien shadows and whispers seem to haunt the lonely corridors and airlocks, fraying the nerves of everyone aboard. Isolated and friendless, Cleveland reaches out to the universe via an old-fashioned space radio, only to tune in to a strange, enigmatic signal: a woman’s voice that seems to echo across a thousand light-years of space. But is the transmission just a random bit of static from the past—or a warning of an undying menace beyond mortal comprehension? After an explosively rip-snorting prologue, to confirm our protagonist’s suitably heroic credentials, there…