mary Jones with cover art by Martin M Barbdu and published by Aconyte Books. Thank you to Aconyte Publishing, who provided me with a preview copy of this release to review. Per Aconyte’s site…

A sickness haunts the dreams of Arkham’s citizens – something deep in the Dreamlands is rising… return to Arkham Horror’s The Drowned City in this daring adventure. April May is convinced she has the worst job at the Arkham Advertiser: placing adverts for lost dogs is about as tedious as it gets! The only thing that alleviates her boredom is her fantasies of pulp adventures. But when her best friend succumbs to a mysterious unwakeable sleep, she realizes the city is sleepwalking towards something terrible. It’s been raining for days and the Miskatonic River is rising to dangerous levels. Arkham grinds to a halt as its population falls into a deep sleep. Under cover of these apparently unrelated disasters, shadowy forces move to usher in something truly nightmarish. With the aid of psychologist Carolyn Fern and Professor Harvey Walters, April May must venture into the strange realms of the Dreamlands, where a man in a golden mask holds the key to rousing the city from its collective nightmare. But for Arkham, the waters continue to rise, and it’s closer than ever to the manifestation of something that no one can wake from.

"The Nightmare Quest of April May” acts as a thematic follow up to Carrie Harris’ “The Forbidden Visions of Lucious Galloway” and is the second in a trilogy of novels that Aconyte is releasing to tie into Fantasy Flight Games’ “The Drowned City” event, which itself includes a new LCG campaign as well as the first DLC for Mansions of Madness in several years. This newest Aconyte novel is also the fourth book by author Rosemary Jones set in the Arkham Files universe and marks her return to the City of Arkham, where she began her mythos work in 2021’s "Mask of Silver". Throughout her prior releases, Ms. Jones has taken readers on a tour of the setting’s varied locales, including Innsmouth and Kingsport, while her creations, including Jeany Lin, Betsy Baxter, Raquel Malone Gutierrez & Paul Kopp, have interacted with over a dozen different investigators from the IP’s setting. In so doing, Ms. Jones has left a significant stamp on the lore of the Arkham Files universe and established her style of character-driven cozy horror across the setting. That familiarity with the setting, and her knowledge of the era, aid Ms. Jones in the heavy lifting of this release.

The opening chapters of "The Nightmare Quest of April May" provide readers with a robust introduction to April May and establish a tone for the book as April makes her way through life as a twenty-year-old resident of a Rivertown boarding house employed in entry-level sales. References to transportation, societal norms, and pop culture create a reading experience that makes clear the day-to-day challenges April contends with. At the start of the tale April is at a crossroads as she is determining how best to move forward in her life and career. Ms. Jones introduces the reader to April’s fleshed out support network of fellow River Town boarders early in the story. Ranging from a failed sports hero to a local nurse, her wise landlady and her enthusiastic best friend, readers are given many angles to view April’s interactions with those around her, which helps to provide different perspectives on the protagonist's struggles. In addition to her new creations, Ms. Jones also successfully weaves pre-existing investigators into her story.

"The Nightmare Quest of April May" picks up Carolyn Fern’s story after the events of her “Grim Investigations” entry, but before the events of Lair of the Crystal Fang, and Ms. Jones uses that era to show the psychologist grappling with the fallout of her initial exposure to the mythos, which is handled fabulously. Ms. Jones’ eye towards treating her Arkham Files work as historical fiction factors heavily into Carolyn’s life as a psychologist. The entertainment of the time often portrayed this relatively new branch of medicine as malicious. The characters that interact with Carolyn are often working from the negative stereotypes associated with that pop culture knowledge, and this presents interesting, and well developed, challenges for the doctor. Readers are also treated to the most fully developed use of Harvey Walters we have been given in the Aconyte line. Harvey is a standout character throughout this novel and is both engaging and fun every time he enters the story. Hopefully this will not be the last time Ms. Jones chooses to include him in her work. There is a third investigator that factors heavily into the story, but their revelation is part of the fun of the narrative and not to be given away prior to opening the book. One of the choices Ms. Jones makes with her narrative is that although the characters are predominantly working towards the same goal, they have different motivations for doing it and different opinions on how to best go about it. That variance allows for the investigators to have abrasive encounters with each other on their separate quests. Each of these confrontations is handled with an eye towards pulp drama and presents some of the best moments in the story.

An omnipresent concern throughout this story is the storm threatening to flood Arkham. As the investigators each work to resolve a type of sleeping disease affecting more and more Arkhamites, the ongoing storm presents a well-realized physical concern for the residents of Arkham, and of River Town specifically. The potential consequences of the rising tide for the community are a historical concern for the area and Ms. Jones utilizes lore-specific locations like Schoffner's General Store to demonstrate the mindset of the community as they come to grips with what is coming. Creatively, Ms. Jones successfully uses the weather to provide a very real feeling of impending doom for her characters without ever resorting to a typical fight scene to give a physical challenge for the protagonists. The storm acts as an adversary just as much as the actual antagonists of "The Nightmare Quest of April May", and the antagonists are fantastic! The forces April May is arrayed against have solid reasoning behind their actions, and their plan is well laid out and fits perfectly into the pulp end of the Arkham Files mythos. Clues as to who is involved are provided frequently and the revelation of why they are doing what they are, as well as their history with Arkham, is laid out to great effect. I hope that the antagonists transition into one of the Arkham game systems in the future so I can also enjoy battling them myself.

As I said in the beginning, this book is part of an overall moment in the Arkham Files IP as part of "The Drowned City". Aconyte has released over twenty books related to the Arkham Files setting in the past five years and each has succeeded at different aspects of the IP. "The Nightmare Quest of April May" may be the most well executed in terms of its relationship with the setting due to its tie to the forthcoming game releases, though. I suspect that taking the time to read this release, before playing the LCG or DLC content of "The Drowned City", will have an impactful effect on the narrative you create at your gaming table. "The Nightmare Quest of April May" works fully on its own merits, presenting readers with engaging character work and a worthwhile mystery, but as a tie-in novel I believe it excels in that it elevates the experience for fans engaging in the game’s narrative at this turning point in Arkham’s history.

I hope you enjoyed this look at “The Nightmare Quest of April May”. If you would like more updates about the history of Arkham, its residents, and events tied to the area, then you can find me on Bluesky or ArkhamHistorian.com

Best regards
Dude in progress

I’ve never read any of the other Arkham books in this series but I don’t think you have to. I really enjoyed this book - it felt classic and new at the same time. The characters were engaging and interesting, I was invested in their outcome during the whole ordeal and the book leaves an opening for more follow up to see what happens after all the events that take place. I can’t wait to find out more about what happens in the series.

I read an eARC of this book so thank you to the author and the publisher. This is a fantastic edition to Arkham Horror, a series I’m absolutely loving. I’m really enjoying these modern takes on Lovecraftian tales which keep the creativity whilst being more inclusive.

I loved the sense of community this story drives. There was such a strong feeling of quite different people supporting one another and connecting through their shared proximity as neighbours within the boarding houses. These are people who focus more on what they have in common than their differences and it added such a lovely feeling of care and connection. These people are made stronger through their relationships with others.

On the other hand we have some rather intense villainy playing out, in a way I didn’t expect! This book took me on quite a winding journey as I (and the characters) learned new information about the antagonist, their history and their nefarious intentions.

Our heroine’s deep desire to not only help her friends and neighbours but also to rescue missing dogs meant I held her in high regard and was totally invested in her success. She works for a newspaper and has noticed a string of missing dog announcements. This leads her into quite some peril as she investigates.

This was a fascinating exploration of sleep and dream land and the connection with the waking world. Overall an exciting, compelling novel that’s fast paced and with characters you can root for!

Oh, this was DELIGHTFUL.

I was a little sad to see that the second Drowned City book didn't include Lucius and Rudi, though I imagine we'll see them again in the third one. This one was written with a lot of building dread, a fantastic set of characters (I genuinely loved April May especially), and a fascinating way to tie together the Dreamlands and Cthulhu's awakening. It felt incredibly grounded in the world with the pulp stories and films and all that. Great writing, a strong narrative throughline with a good sense of when to cut to new characters and new scenes, though everything seemed to be happening all at once toward the end and I think we could have heard about some of the new characters there a bit earlier to help tie them in earlier in the story, even if their use didn't pop off until later. Nevertheless, I wasn't lost when they all went off all at once, and how some of the parts clicked together were simply incredibly satisfying.

I do wish <spoilers>the epilogue hadn't skipped so far ahead, but I'm looking forward to seeing those events actually play out, which I imagine we'll also see with Harvey in book 3, as he was the connecting point between 1 and 2.</spoilers>

Thank you to Aconyte and to NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I had so much fun with this book! It was easy to read and love and I will definitely read more from this author. The premise is just too good and it delivers. Loved the plot and the atmosphere. The characters were so good and adorable in a way. Such a fascinating story!

I enjoyed it quite a bit. However, the ending left a bit to be desired, and the epilogue felt a little tacked on. I could have done without it.

My thanks to NetGalley and Aconyte Books for an advance copy of this novel, the second in a series about a plague of illness that descends on the town of Arkham, Massachusetts, one that makes people sleep, trapped in nightmares that can be used to deluge the world in horror and destruction.

Sleep and I have never been boon companions. My mother called me a colicky child, one that fussed being laid down, kicked away blankets, climbed out of cribs, and would force my parents to take midnight rides to get me to sleep, usually when my father had found a great parking spot outside our apartment. My father had another name for me when not sleeping, something not used in polite society. In addition to my getting to sleep problems, I am a lucid dreamer who, as much as I remember has always had long convoluted dreams, usually weird, occasionally violent, many times just depressing. Funerals for family, friends declaring their hatred at me, bones coming out of my body, living in a yurt in the woods, chased by robots. The Dreamlands and I have agreed to disagree, for probably all my life. That's probably why I found this tale so disturbing, so uncomfortable. The idea of being trapped in my dreams really does fill me with fear .Add in other elements and one has a very good tale, guaranteed to ruin sleep for many. The Nightmare Quest of April May: An Arkham Horror Novel by Rosemary Jones is a story about a city filling with water, sleepers not awaking and Elder Gods turning their eyes to our mortal plain, and thinking the time might be now to visit.

April May is working at the Arkham Advertiser, the newspaper of record for Arkham, Massachusetts, answering phones at the classified desk. This is not her dream job, but it beats working in her uncle's store, though her dream is to be a painter. May and her best friend from kindergarten Nella, share a dream. To go to Paris, and live the life they want to live, but for now May places ads in the newspaper. And business is good. There seems to be a lot of missing dogs in town, and a call from a psychologist brings even more information. There seems to be a lot of people having nightmares in town. Dark ideas making it hard for people to sleep. May herself has had odd dreams, of a tower with a man in a golden mask, trying to tell her something. Soon the nightmares are replaced with somethings worse, people are falling asleep and not waking up. The hospitals are overwhelmed with sleepers, just as the rain comes. A deluge that might soon flood the town. May can sense something wrong, a feeling felt by others in the town, but somehow important facts are forgotten, like dreams upon awakening. As the waters run, people keep sleeping, dogs keep disappearing, May has to trust in something she fears most to free her friends from a never ending sleep.

Another great entry in a series that has become my favorite. I love the Aconyte line of stories for both the authors and the diversity they bring to the stories. Diversity I know that H. P. Lovecraft would have hated. The story is well done, eerie, spooky unsettling. The added danger to animals, adds something special to the story. There is a good mix of magic, esoteric knowledge and discussions on cake, which I also liked. Rosemary Jones is a very good writer, one I have read a bit before, and Jones can create characters that one cares about. Also Jones has a good ear and feeling for the era, dropping in a lot of stories and authors from the 20's and adding to the story's atmosphere. And I will again mention its a spooky, scary fun story.

This is the second in a series called The Drowned City series, but on does not have to have read the first one to understand it. Though one should, as it was good, as are all the books in this series. I quite enjoyed this one, and look forward to more by Rosemary Jones.