A big thank you to Joseph Fulkerson, Translucent Eyes Press, and Netgalley for this copy of 'Brood of Vipers'.

We follow along with two different men going through two very different journeys. Dr. Ezra Solomon, a preacher who endures a major loss, and Seph, a recovering drug addict trying to get his life right to be back with the family he lost. This book took a turn on the religious I wasn't prepared for in the most grotesque and hell-bent way, and I actually loved every second of it. The descriptions of some of these scenes took me out but was morbidly some of my favorite. The story itself was good, but there were times I wished it was a tad longer in certain spots, because it carried this rushed undertone that I felt took away from some of the scenes in the book. The author did put a good amount of depth in for the characters that I did appreciate that helped flush each of them out individually in the short amount of time we had with them. While I think the ending was a little lackluster, it did end in a place where your imagination can fill in the details. It felt like a mixture of Constantine meets Blumhouse and I truly enjoyed this for what it was.

All - in - all I give this a 3.50 star review.

Definitely scratched my Appalachian-folk-religious horror itch. Well fleshed-out character and setting, the small town horror vibes really hit the mark.

Thank you Netgalley, Translucent Eyes Press and Joseph Fulkerson for the eArc of Brood of Vipers.

Brood of Vipers of a medium paced, quick religious based horror which I really enjoyed the premise of. There is enough character development and plot direction to keep you engaged, even though you know what direction this book will take, I did however, find that in the middle, the writing didn't flow as much as I usually would of liked and found it a little clunky.

This book doesn't hold out on the visceral gore, I could almost smell the coppery smell of blood and the descriptions of the sacrifices were great ( I like gore though! ) Keen to read more from Joseph as I did enjoy his writing style.

3.5 stars for story graph 3 for Amazon, Netgalley, Goodreads.

⚠️⚠️Triggers and spoilers⚠️⚠️
Graphic animal abuse, murder, sadism, cannibalism, filicide, mentions of suicide

"Seph remembered the angel, causing chills to run down his spine. Was it a messenger from heaven? It didn’t look or act like any angel he had read about in the Bible. Had he been taught wrong from the start? Was God not loving and merciful like the stories he remembered learning as a child in Sunday school? How is it even possible?"
"Seph couldn’t help thinking how ludicrous this all was. Grigori, fallen angels, words that are alive. The God of the Bible has some terminal illness and is on his deathbed. He glanced at the supernatural creature patiently standing before him, waiting for his next move. So, he decided to take a leap of faith."


⚠️⚠️Triggers and spoilers⚠️⚠️

💭.
Dr. Ezra Solomon is the pastor of Living Way Tabernacle, a medium-size church, with a congregation of close to a thousand. He started questioning his faith after his car accident which crippled him and killed his wife. Shit started to go crazy after his encounter with Matanbuchus (who is actually Belial- a fallen angel in disguise) who supposedly heard his prayers and healed him. Believing he was called by Matanbuchus to consecrate himself, to be his prophet. He promised to worship Matanbuchus and in return, he'll be imbued with incredible powers like 'miracle healing'. All he needed to do was prove his loyalty by making certain sacrifices and rituals - one of which is to offer and kill his own son.
It's up to Seth, the protagonist, to figure out how to stop one crazy-obsessed, religious nut and the cunning, deceiving Matanbuchus/Belial from freeing Azazel (sin eater) to cause further havoc and destruction.
Insane, wild and ludicrous...funny, amusing read that one shouldn't take too seriously. The ending was a cliffhanger and we're probably expecting a sequel along the way? Again, I would have rated this higher if it did not contain graphic content of animal abuse. (Cat lovers be warned!)

📖 If you like:
💀 Fast paced religious / cult horror
💀 The Stand, Revival and Midnight mass vibes
💀 Good Vs evil trope

Thanks to NetGalley and Victory Editing NetGalley Co-op for the arc!

3.0✨

Brood of Vipers is sooooo good. I couldn't stop reading it. I recommend everyone to read this book as fast as they can because it's really good and the characters are fantastic and the story is immaculate.

3.5 ⭐️

Thanks to NetGalley for my ARC

I'm a big fan of religious horror, so I had a good time with this one. The pacing was fast and it was a quick read. I loved the gore/body horror. I couldn't give this 4 stars, mainly because it felt too short. I wanted more explanation of a few events. More detail about the way things worked.

Thank you for allowing me to read this book early in exchange for an honest review! I gave this novella 3.5 stars

I like religious horror and this was an interesting take on it. I think the writing could have used a little bit of polish to make the dialogue feel more realistic. Big warning for animal cruelty.

This was a disturbing take on religious horror. The vivd imagery of the otherwordly works so well in telling this chilling story. Instantly the reader finds themselves gripped by the lives of those involved. A great novella to kick of spooky season.

A Brood of Vipers
Joseph Fulkerson

3.75 / 5 Stars

Ok, so ...

This one is a really fast paced horror story that drops us (literally) right into the driver's seat from page one.

It's dark, gory and grotesque, in the best ways.
It's got some really well written, vivid horror scenes ... My only minor critique would be that some of the dialogue could use a little punching up, in my personal opinion. Other then that, I found this tale of twisted faith to be an intriguing and disturbing read.

I recommend sacrificing some time for this religious horror novella.

I look forward to what he writes next!

Thanks to Netgalley, Translucent Eyes Press, and Joseph Fulkerson for this ARC eBook in exchange for my honest review.

I’m a sucker for religious horror, so I was very excited to be approved for this ARC.

This story shows what grief can do to a person (although I would have liked more about Ezra’s grief, instead he curses out God once and not long after is a changed man) and it shows exactly how far one will go to have power and feel like a God.

It’s fast paced, the story goes by so quickly and the battle between good and evil is so dark and disturbing. The overall story was very engaging with some good twists and turns. The ending had me questioning a lot of things and I would have loved a bit more development on the characters.

I give this one 3.5 stars.

Thanks to the author, Translucent Eyes Press and NetGalley for the ARC. I’m leaving this review voluntarily.

4.5* A fast paced horror indeed, and by fast paced i mean apostle to apostasy in one flap of an angels wings. Ezra Solomons faith is found lacking following a tragic accident and he is eager to prove his faith in his new saviour at any cost… Guinness world record for how low can you go is 8.5 inches, well i bet Ezra could do 6.66

The one thing holding this back for me from a 5* review is just that i wish we had a little more chance to get to know the characters. From page 1 you are straight onto this religious rollercoaster, but I’d have liked a little more background or time to get to know the characters personalities and relationships before they’re catapulted into chaos to fully feel the losses and changes they go through during the story.

The ending was giving me bad wig and sunglasses having an old friend for dinner IYKYK and i was living for it, and I do really want a sequel.

The cover is so great and I'm a sucker for religious horror so I was hoping for a little more than this novella had to offer. The religion is here and the horror is definitely here, but the whole story felt rushed. I think this could be a much better book with an extra hundred pages. The characters needed fleshing out. The hero got the most background of any character, the villain could have benefitted from similar background information.
The story is there, just not assembled with enough detail and care. I expect this writer will get better with experience and I will look forward to future works. Rating is rounded up to 2.5.
Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC.

I have once again been fooled by a dope cover. This book follows a preacher and an ex-addict, as their lives intersect when a devil comes to earth to offer deals.

The premise to this book was good—I love a religious horror, and the idea of a preacher working with a devil (although not new) is still an interesting premise. It’s easy to see how power can corrupt a man like that, who already has a taste for it as a spiritual leader. And the inclusion of Seph, an ex-addict who just wanted to be better for his son, was a good juxtaposition for the preacher character (corruption of the “good” spiritual leader, vs his foil, a “bad” person serving out a sentence but who wants to do what’s right).

That being said—a good premise does not make a good book! The writing was unbearably clunky, and nothing was explained past a surface level. Like, there was no complexity or drama to anything I was reading, and the characters were all very one-note. It was just “This happened, then this happened, He said this, He wanted this”. It was like someone had an idea of what they wanted to happen, and then wrote the bare minimum amount of words (while using a thesaurus) to connect those events. Just not an enjoyable read, and seemed to drag on even though it was incredibly short, just because it was hard to stay engaged when I didn’t care about anyone or anything.

Feel free to skip this one.

Thank you to NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for my honest review!

I am a sucker for religious horror done well, so I was excited when I was approved to read an ARC of this novella. It is a tight, rapid-pace story and I finished the whole thing in one session, which really shows that the author is able to harness a sense of momentum. This story had a number of things that worked well, even though it didn’t ultimately work for me.

Firstly, the idea of exploring angels and demons, and the ideas of an old-Testament style of faith through the lens of contemporary American, radical, evangelical modes of faith and worship is not entirely new, but it is a fun one. Fulkerson takes this idea and runs with it to one of its logical ends, but he does so in a fun and interesting way. The overall story was clever and engaging, and it made me want to keep reading. I also liked the narrative structure, of moving between the two characters and being witness to where they both started and how they both moved through the story. The back and forth created enough dynamism that the story never felt like it was running slow or getting stale. The story wasn’t afraid to have some moments of intense and unexpected violence, which I appreciated, and the ending, while not unexpected, was built up well, and the final twists and turns fell earned, narratively.

There were, however, some elements of this story that took me out of it. The writing itself just felt very clunky, both the general prose and especially some of the dialogue, which felt forced. Sometimes the writing felt more like an elaborate outline then a proper narrative. The way our characters started and ended scenes, how the action and drama transitioned, felt almost non-existent. The characters also felt a little flat. The archetypes of evangelist preacher who suffers extreme loss and doubts his faith as a result and the recovering addict fresh from prison trying to turn his life around are well-trod, and there wasn’t a lot added to them here. The characters felt a little bit flat, and I didn’t feel invested in them having any sort of dimensionality beyond what their archetypes established for them. They both just needed more development. I never felt for a moment that the preacher was actually lost in grief. We see him curse out the heavens once, and then he is a changed man. What happens to losing his wife of the last however many decades? How quick is he to be so utterly transformed into something else? Yes, his supernatural experiences would radically alter a person, but none of his giving in to this path felt earned or deserved. It was similar with Seph. His story is stereotypical and light, I don’t see anything in him that tells me anything about his struggle with addiction, of how being imprisoned affected him, of how much the weight of being an absentee father holds him down. Nothing about his journey feels earned. Ultimately it feels like things just happen around these characters, and they are along for the ride. (Almost literal) deus ex machinae are what pull the story forward, with close to nothing about the interior life of our two characters playing a part in the ride they’re taking. The whole idea of a supposedly virtuous character being entranced by the dark power of this angel and a broken or less virtuous character being lionized to fight for the light, that can be compelling. But we need to see the characters struggle, and actually have an internal journey. Instead, it just feels like they happen to be hanging out there while things happen. (Also, it just feels a little cringey to have a character be a recovering addict and an ex-con and have that be the shorthand for a character that needs redemption. We don’t learn anything about his life or his struggles, we juts get these titles thrown at him, and he is reduced to those things, and that is what signifies him as the less virtuous character. It felt like appropriating genuine struggles as a not particularly compelling short cut to actually exploring a character’s depth).

So, while I had fun reading it, I didn’t love this novella. I think the characters and the writing both need some work. The idea for the story is a fun one, going to a well-worn sandbox but finding something interesting to build there. The narrative structure and the momentum were also well-done, keeping the reader constantly on their toes and always moving forward. Ultimately, though, the overall execution just needed a little more work for me to have really enjoyed this. It is a short little novella, and if you enjoy religious and folk horror you can read this in a setting and might find some promise here, and have a good time. So, I am not saying not to read this, just that I wouldn’t recommend it across the board, especially for readers who prioritize character and a tight, flowing prose.

(Also, there were just a lot of formatting errors. During long dialogue scenes there wouldn’t be line breaks between different characters talking, for instance. It was quite distracting and on occasion I had to re-read passages to be clear on who was speaking or acting. It definitely didn’t help the experience, but seeing as I am reading an ARC those things may all be fixed, yet, so I am not letting that affect my review).

(Rounded up from 2.5)

I want to thank the author, the publisher Translucent Eyes Press, and NetGalley, who provided a complimentary eARC for review. I am leaving this review voluntarily.

3.5. This was definitely a creepy read, at 115 pages it’s also a super quick one. I will warn that there is some animal abuse. It kept me turning pages although the content was a bit disturbing.

This is a religious horror which takes the ferver of belief and twists it into something very dark and disturbing.

When the pastor of a successful church is in an accident, he loses his wife and finds out he will never walk again. His faith is quickly reduced to ashes and in a moment of grief, he cries out for a sign. But what appears before him isn't exactly God. This being will heal him and claims to be able to make him a powerful prophet. Of course, these things will require sacrifices. The pastor glady accepts.

In a halfway house in town, two younger men are looking forward to their future free of drugs. They're on the road to happiness and just need to spend their time there going to meetings and church services.

These two worlds are going to meet in a gruesomely bloody way as the pastor now serves his new master and will stop at nothing to gain more power. Oh yes, there will be blood.

This is a novella and the story goes by quickly. It gets right to the meat of the story and doesn't expand too much into detail. Which, for the most part, works. However, I wanted a little more exposition. I wanted to know what the characters were thinking and feeling. Sometimes it just jumped from scene to scene. That's a minor complaint though. Because the sacrifices are gleefully brutal and the battle between good and evil will get a big life altering pay off!

I recommend this book.

The premise sounded intriguing but this was a DNF for me The writing felt simultaneously too simple and too wordy/clunky. Unfortunately, this prevented me from continuing with the story.

The premise of this book is what initially intrigued me, I love a good religious horror story. Unfortunately I found this book flat, the characters were a little two dimensional and the plot didn’t deliver for me. While the writing was easy to understand and read, I also found it repetitive at certain times. This just wasn’t for me.

I loved the premise of this novella and if this was the first hundred pages of a longer work I would rate it higher, but as is it ends just as it’s getting really interesting! I love the rivalry between Seth and Ezra and I do hope there is more to come.