Fantasy / Horror Reading in August 2026

[Hobbit]

Here, I'm reading Richard Swan's Empire of the Wolf series. I am enjoying it, but at near the end of the third book, The Trials of Empire, am more than ready for a break.

Have you read them back-to-back, Atramentous?

They are quite intense!

M.

 

[blailock]

Interesting cover? Is that the a UK cover? In the states it is this one (below)

I'm not sure, Raf. It was the default on Goodreads.

 

[Raf]

Finished the 3rd book of Steve McHugh's Assembly series, "The Pilgrims of the Damned". Another exciting offering in this series. While the series shares the MC and other supporting cast, each book could be read as a standalone supernatural mystery / crime thriller.

In this book, Miles Watson, an Arbiter of the Assembly is off to Maine, USA to track a Werewolf and a Chaos Witch who have fled to the hinterlands of the northeast after a lengthy murder spree. The entire state of Maine has been walled off to contain the remnants of a vampire incursion from some 20 years ago. Those that did not "turn" back then have become something else. Animalistic walking dead known as Desolates.

House Idolator, one of the Lesser Houses of Vampires is trying to become a Great House by re-settling Maine and converting those survivors to be Dusk Worshipers. Dusk are the beings who thousands of years ago created the first vampires then disappeared. No one knows why. But Idolator forms a pilgrimage every year in Maine to bring supplies to survivors and to kill excess Desolate.

But this Pilgrimage is different and Miles, Church and a plucky reporter, also a Witch, have to find their culprits in a place that no one ever knew existed.

McHugh characters are fun, quirky and relatable. Good series and I'm waiting for the next book in the series which is out in late October.