The End by Kayleigh Dobbs
Black Shuck Books , Horror , Kayleigh Dobbs / January 26, 2024

After a much-needed* sabbatical from The Eloquent Page, I’m back to it with a renewed sense of purpose. 2024 promises a whole host of great new genre fiction and I intend to point you in the direction of some of the best. I’m easing back into reviewing this year with a short story collection for Black Shuck Books called The End by Kayleigh Dobbs. It’s a small but perfectly formed anthology picking apart my very favourite sub-genre – apocalyptic fiction. Let’s dive right in… The Claim Read more […]

Lamb by Matt Hill
Dead Ink , Fantasy , Matt Hill , Sci-Fi / November 14, 2023

When lorry driver Dougie Alport carries out a deadly attack on his employer’s head office, the reverberations of his actions unleash a grief in his wife Maureen that threatens to reveal the secret she has spent years hiding from their son, Boyd. Moving north to start again is Maureen’s best response. But as the walls begin to throb with mould and his mother slips from his grasp, Boyd decides to flee, finding solace with a new friend at the landfill site on the edge of town. Here, a startling Read more […]

Red River Seven by A J Ryan
A J Ryan , Horror , Orbit / October 31, 2023

A man awakes on a boat at sea with no memory of who he is or how he came to be there. He’s not alone – there are six others. None of them can remember their names, but all bear the scars of recent surgery. When a message appears on the onboard computer – Proceeding to Point A – the group agrees to work together to survive whatever is coming. But as the boat moves through the mist-shrouded waters, divisions begin to form, and the group is plagued by questions. Who is directing them, Read more […]

Looking Glass Sound by Catriona Ward
Catriona Ward , Horror , Thriller , Viper Books / April 20, 2023

In a lonely cottage overlooking the windswept Maine coast, Wilder Harlow begins the last book he will ever write. It is the story of his childhood summer companions and the killer that stalked the small New England town. Of the body they found, and the horror of that discovery echoing down the decades. And of Sky, Wilder’s one-time best friend, who stole his unfinished memoir and turned it into a lurid bestselling novel, Looking Glass Sound. But as Wilder writes, the lines between memory and Read more […]

Dark and Lonely Water by Graeme Reynolds

When Samantha Ashlyn is forced to return to her home town to write an article on a series of drownings, she initially resists, finding disturbing similarities to her childhood experiences. However, once she starts looking into the assignment, she finds that things are not what they seem. An ancient evil is rising again, aided by what appears to be a centuries-old conspiracy to keep it hidden. With the help of a disgraced police diver, Sam races to stop the nightmare before more lives are lost. Not Read more […]

The Hollows by Daniel Church
Angry Robot , Daniel Church , Horror / November 11, 2022

In a lonely village in the Peak District, during the onset of a once-in-a-lifetime snowstorm, Constable Ellie Cheetham finds a body. The man, a local ne’er-do-well, appears to have died in a tragic accident: he drank too much and froze to death. But the facts don’t add up: the dead man is clutching a knife in one hand, and there’s evidence he was hiding from someone. Someone who watched him die. Stranger still, an odd mark has been drawn onto a stone beside his body. The next victims Read more […]

The Vessel by Adam Nevill
Adam Nevill , Horror , Ritual Limited / October 30, 2022

Struggling with money, raising a child alone and fleeing a volatile ex, Jess McMachen accepts a job caring for an elderly patient. Flo Gardner—a disturbed shut-in and invalid. But if Jess can hold this job down, she and her daughter, Izzy, can begin a new life. Flo’s vast home, Nerthus House, may resemble a stately vicarage in an idyllic village, but the labyrinthine interior is a dark, cluttered warren filled with pagan artefacts. And Nerthus House lives in the shadow of a malevolent secret. Read more […]

Family Business by Jonathan Sims
Gollancz , Horror , Jonathan Sims / October 21, 2022

JUST ANOTHER DEAD-END JOB. DEATH. IT’S A DIRTY BUSINESS. When Diya Burman’s best friend Angie dies, it feels like her own life is falling apart. Wanting a fresh start, she joins Slough & Sons – a family firm that cleans up after the recently deceased. Old love letters. Porcelain dolls. Broken trinkets. Clearing away the remnants of other people’s lives, Diya begins to see things. Horrible things. Things that get harder and harder to write off as merely her grieving imagination. Read more […]

The Creeper by A M Shine
A M Shine , Head of Zeus , Horror / September 25, 2022

Superstitions only survive if people believe in them… Renowned academic Dr Sparling seeks help with his project on a remote Irish village. Historical researchers Ben and Chloe are thrilled to be chosen – until they arrive. The village is isolated and forgotten. There is no record of its history, its stories. There is no friendliness from the locals, only wary looks and whispers. The villagers lock down their homes at sundown. It seems a nameless fear stalks the streets, but nobody will Read more […]

Dead Water by C. A. Fletcher
C A Fletcher , Horror , News , Orbit , Supernatural / August 8, 2022

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 Read more […]

The Unfamiliar Garden by Benjamin Percy
Benjamin Percy , Hodder , Horror , Sci-Fi / January 10, 2022

The night the sky fell, Jack and Nora Abernathy’s daughter vanished in the woods. And Mia’s disappearance broke her parents’ already fragile marriage. Unable to solve her own daughter’s case, Nora lost herself in her work as a homicide detective. Jack became a shell of a man; his promising career as a biologist crumbling alongside the meteor strikes that altered weather patterns and caused a massive drought. It isn’t until five years later that the rains finally return to nourish Seattle. Read more […]