#nicholas pullen

Content warnings

Death, murder, gore, body horror, blood

Cannibalism

Torture

Homophobia

Anti-semitism from the antagonists, anti-semitic speech, anti-semitic imagery

Blackmailing, threats

Sexual harrassment

Mentions of war

I am not sure if I managed to get all the content warnings, so please proceed with caution as this book gets quite dark.

Review

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC!

I am not sure how to talk about this book. I have many feelings about it, some of which are rather complicated, which I am not sure if I will be able to express adequately.

Firstly, I really enjoyed the writing style, which reminds me of classic gothic novels in the best ways. I loved the epistolary format of this novel, and the way it's interspersed with diary entries and (more) letters. The atmosphere is haunting at times, and downright terrifying at others. I could sort of guess how this book would end, but at the same time, the story is riveting and I couldn't put it down.

I will say, there are only five chapters in this whole 400 page book, which could make it a tough reading experience. For me, I struggled to find intervals where I could put the book down, which isn't really a problem I guess, because I wanted to keep reading anyway.

I also loved the romance, which was really sweet but also heart-wrenching. I appreciate how the characters navigated their dynamic, of being master and servant, as well as how dedicated they are to each other. However, I should note that this is NOT a romance novel. If you want to read this for the romance, refer to the synopsis and reevaluate.

One important aspect I have to discuss is how Buddhism factors into the story. Given that the Evil Cult in this book follows a (fictional) heretical branch of Buddhism, I was a little worried about how Buddhism would be portrayed. Barring the Evil Cult, I think the author did a good job of being respectful to the religion and culture; the main character is a white guy who studies Buddhism, and he is portrayed as respectful and fascinated by Buddhist/foreign culture and texts. (I have seen some other reviewers criticise this book as being too "woke", so.) However, this book references and quotes translations of Buddhist texts, as well as features important historical figures like the Dalai Lhama. Given that I have zero knowledge of early 20th century Tibetan Buddhism, I have no idea how accurate or realistic this portrayal is.

I was raised Buddhist, so I know some of the basic lore enough to know what's going on, as well as which aspects of the story are fictionalised. When reading other reviews of this book, I realised that a lot of readers know basically nothing about Buddhism. This makes me worried that people may read this book and form incorrect, or even damaging beliefs about Buddhists or Buddhism.

My version of this book is an eARC, so this may have been included in the final version, but I believe that the above issues I mentioned could be easily rectified by including an Author's Note to clarify which aspects of the book are fictionalised, as well as references to research sources.

I will say, I do appreciate Buddhism being such a large focus. Most gothic novels take place in western settings and focus on Christianity or Catholicism, and lots of horror genre cults are some variation of Satanic, so I quite enjoyed getting to read a gothic novel inspired by my own religion for once, even if some bits might be blasphemous.

There's a lot more that could be discussed about the book's approach to, like, religion in general, but I'm going to leave my thoughts on this as is, simply because I am not knowledgeable enough to analyse this.

I think this could be a divisive novel; as far as I can tell, people either love or hate the writing style and format, and the inclusion of Buddhism seems to have left other reviewers confused (people who don't know what's going-on) or conflicted (people who do know what's going on, enough to point out that the depiction of Buddhism is worrying).

Personally, while I am still somewhat conflicted about the portrayal of Buddhism, I would still highly recommend this novel to gothic horror enthusiasts.