The Gothic vein pulses strong in Boyle’s latest, where a cursed cast of characters, one-by-one, meet their untimely fates, and where all the trappings of Victorian horror are polished and made modern. Notable for Boyle’s keen ear for dialogue and chilling descriptions. Strongly recommended.
—Ronald Malfi, New York Times bestselling author of Small Town Horror
The parched halls of Temple Fall feed off the reader like the best modern haunted houses out there, making this black-as-pitch book a worthy addition to your bookshelves alongside the likes of David Mitchel’s Slade House and Marcus Kliewer’s We Used to Live Here.
—Clay McLeod Chapman, author of Wake Up and Open Your Eyes
A creeping, clutching tale of doom and darkness inexplicably bound with hope and heart, Temple Fall will draw you into its hallowed halls and hold you there forever.
—Delilah S. Dawson
Told in beautiful prose and with gripping characters, Temple Fall is a vicious gothic wonder. Foster child Flynn and her young, wounded friends try to stay together to survive, but the house and the dead woman inside won’t permit it. So, they’re caught in a looping nightmare of death and dread as Flynn is forced to confront her family’s darkest secrets if anyone is to survive.
—Richard Kadrey, author of Sandman Slim and many more
A clever, mind-bending, frankly terrifying haunted house mystery, Temple Fall will delight fans of Mike Flanagan’s TV infestations … It serves up delicious scares and sinister, hallucinatory set pieces, but it’s the emotional truth at the center of it that’s going to haunt readers the longest: there’s nothing in life perhaps more frightening than those fleeting, burning years when you stop being a child but you are not an adult yet, and the future feels like a black maw ready to eat you up.
—Andrea Morstabilini, author of A Blood as Bright as the Moon
Like any great haunted house, Temple Fall is mysterious and labyrinthine, offering fresh surprises and terrors at every turn. The perfect read for a stormy night in a strange place.
—Shaun Hamill, author of A Cosmology of Monsters
Dark, persistent and unnerving, Temple Fall is an entrancing ghost story that gets under the skin with creeping dread. The reader is taken on a spectacularly twisted journey where generational trauma, disturbing histories and emotional scars have all left deep and terrible wounds. This is Picnic at Hanging Rock meets The Haunting of Hill House. I was absolutely bewitched!
— Heather Davey, author of The Ghosts of Merry Hall
PRAISE FOR THE BOOK OF THE BAKU
Eerie, tense and relentlessly inventive, The Book of the Baku haunts and delights in equal measure.
– J. S. Barnes, author of Dracula’s Child and The City of Dr Moreau
The Book of the Baku quickly hooks the reader with its compelling protagonist: a boy without a voice, caught in a web of dark mysteries stretching into his past and future. R.L. Boyle paints a convincing portrait of a teenager growing up special in an indifferent world full of flawed adults, and also reminds us of the importance of the stories we tell, not just to others, but to ourselves. A dark tale with a big heart, and a masterful debut.
– Shaun Hamill, author of A Cosmology of Monsters
An unsettling blend of dark social realism and surreal nightmarish images, RL Boyle’s YA supernatural fantasy calls to mind Issa López’s 2019 film Tigers Are Not Afraid. And the Baku – a dark dream deity, drawing from a deep well of botanical and body horror as it manifests its way into the waking world – is such an impressively scary creation!
– Ally Wilkes, author of All the White Spaces
An engrossing read about a mythical creature that devours nightmares . . . but they sometimes come back to haunt you. An inventive use of Japanese lore with a few surprises in store for the reader.
– A. J. Elwood, author of The Cottingley Cuckoo
The Book of the Baku is one of my favourite books from 2021. It’s a tense horror, combining fantasy with reality, exploring the impact of grief and guilt on men and women of all ages.
– British Fantasy Society
Rich characterisation and a deeply woven plot make The Book of the Baku frighteningly original whilst feeling oddly familiar. One of the brightest debuts of 2021.
– Bloody Flicks
One of the YA novels of the year … The Book of the Baku was one of the bravest and most impressive YA horror novels I have read in a good while. RL Boyle should now be on the radar of anybody with an interest in YA horror.
– Gingernuts of Horror
This is horror at its finest..Clever, moving, and deftly told, I would highly recommend this book. I can’t wait to see what R.L. Boyle does next. — Fantasy Hive
This book has the brilliance of The Babadook with the charm of Stranger Things. I highly recommend it.
– Grimdark Magazine
One of the most emotionally affecting books I’ve ever read. I’ve seen the book being compared to A Monster Calls, and that’s an incredibly apt comparison. I can see the people who loved that book loving this one, and it deserves to be as loved, recognised, and awarded as it was. The Book of Baku is not only the best book I’ve read this year, but perhaps one of the best I’ve ever read, and it needs to be read by everyone.
– Trans-Scribe
“An absolute triumph in the world of horror stories … Readers of any genre will enjoy this absolutely splendid story. Packed full of heartfelt family love and deeply ingrained horror.” — Emerald Archer
Definitely a must-read for any fans of horror.
– Little Bird Book Blog
This book has a loud and resonant heart in the shape of Sean, the bravest boy I have yet to encounter in the pages of a book…A simply stunning novel, and I cannot say anymore than that as my throat is sore with tears and my words are just not elegant enough to explain.
– Rachel Read It
I devoured this book in just over a day. The Book of the Baku dragged me in and didn’t spit me out until it was done with me.
– FanfiAddict Review
RL Boyle has done a superb job of writing a book which is both rooted in mythology and the supernatural but at the same time creating characters with believable human emotions and issues. The imagery used is brilliant… I would highly recommend this to any fans of horror/ thriller books and look forward to reading the authors future material.
–Yorkshire Book Lover
The author has brought [the Baku] to life in an imaginative way, imbuing it with a whole new level of creepy.
– Schizanthus
Chilling … It is Sean’s personality that kept me reading, as grief has followed him and yet even in a place of such horror, he has so much empathy and even extends that empathy to what might be evil. At times I wanted to cry for him and I admired him greatly.
– Coffee Cups and Books
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