Nicholas Pullen's The Black Hunger is a formidable debut that redefines the gothic horror genre with a queer twist and a deep dive into historical and mythological terrors. Set against a sprawling tapestry of time and place, this novel is an atmospheric labyrinth that intertwines the personal and the supernatural in a hauntingly evocative narrative.

At its core, The Black Hunger is a dark and intricate journey through the human soul's darkest recesses, as seen through the eyes of three narrators whose fates are inexorably linked. The story unfolds in an epistolary format, a choice that enhances the novel's eerie and introspective tone, allowing readers to delve deeply into the minds and emotions of its characters. John Sackville, our primary lens into this world, is introduced in the throes of despair, mourning the death of his lover while grappling with an insatiable hunger that mirrors his inner turmoil.

The novel takes us on a chilling odyssey from Scotland's ancient stone circles to the desolate wilderness of Ukraine and the frosty heights of Tibet and Mongolia. Each setting is vividly realized, with Pullen's historical and cultural research enriching the narrative and adding layers of authenticity to the chilling lore. The worldbuilding is meticulous, creating a palpable sense of dread and unease that permeates every page.

Pullen's prose is both lush and unsettling, weaving together gothic horror with rich historical detail and queer romance. The novel's gothic elements—dark secrets, forbidden love, and supernatural forces—are handled with a deft touch, maintaining a balance between suspense and emotional depth. The horror here is not of the jump-scare variety but rather a creeping, existential dread that builds subtly and persistently.

Characterization is a standout aspect of the novel. Each of the three narrators—John, Garrett, and a third, whose identity and story add crucial depth—are vividly portrayed, their struggles and emotions rendered with striking authenticity. The romance between John and Garrett is tender and tragic, their love story adding a poignant layer to the overarching horror.

The novel’s pacing can be slow at times, particularly in the initial sections as it lays the groundwork for its complex narrative. However, this deliberate buildup allows for a more profound engagement with the story's historical and mythological aspects. Some readers might find the information dumps and historical references a bit overwhelming, but these elements contribute to the novel's immersive atmosphere.

The ending of The Black Hunger is intentionally vague, leaving much to the imagination and prompting reflection long after the final page is turned. This open-ended conclusion may not satisfy all readers, particularly those who prefer neatly wrapped conclusions, but it adds to the novel's enigmatic allure.

In summary, The Black Hunger is a masterful blend of gothic horror, queer romance, and historical intrigue. Nicholas Pullen has crafted a chilling and thought-provoking tale that will resonate deeply with fans of the genre. It is a novel that demands patience and attention, rewarding those who invest in its richly woven narrative with a haunting and unforgettable experience.

This is the queer, gothic horror novel that I didn't know I needed.

The horror is visceral. The romances were tasteful and just the right amount for the story. I really liked the story-telling style of the book, where we have layers of narrators recounting historical events. I think it worked really well.

Like some other reviewers, I found the first part of the book very tedious and felt that all the Buddhist lore really bogged down the narrative. However, the rest of the book, especially the middle sections--"The Red Circle" and "The Black Hunger"--had a much better pace and was a 5/5 for me. I'm glad that I stuck through the rough beginning, because the rest of the book was so worth it.

I'd absolutely recommend this book to any fan of the genre.

I liked this quite a bit! I'm always a sucker for gay period pieces, especially in horror. The subject matter was interesting, but unless you're as obsessed with it as the protagonist, there are definitely parts that drag on and on. I'd recommend this to anyone who has the attention span for academic prose and drama that's a little too much, but not so far that it becomes camp.

Such an interesting premise for a book. The story begins switches back and forth between the 19th and 20th centuries, touching on Tibetan and Buddhist folklore, historical goings-on, and amazing fantastical otherworldly beings based in myth. The story was such an interesting spooky season read, teaching me about both history, for which the book was extremely well-researched, as well as creepy things, which of course I love. The story was so gothic and reminiscent of the great gothic masterpieces of the 19th century, that I would recommend this book to anyone looking for something so different, but so engaging and fun that you won't realize how long you've been reading. An absolute must for your pre-Halloween, and post-Halloween dark t0-read list.

This ebook was provided by the publisher and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

In this captivating, highly atmospheric, and engrossing gothic-apocalyptic novel, The Black Hunger, we first begin at the end. We are introduced to one of our main character John Sackville as he scribbles his odyssey and speaks his forbidden lost love, Garrett, as he unravels the tale from the beginning introducing himself at the dawn of his youth, and his academic journey as a scholar that takes him an epic journey through Asia and somehow his fate becomes intertwined with a occult buddhist cult and how they plan to bring about the end of the world. 


It starts slowly and reels you in with forbidden love in a gothic scenery, then it pulls you close and grips you with fascination of horrors to come. There are other POV in this novel that I cannot describe without spoiling the book but Jesus Christ. This has been a highly emotional, atmospheric, and enthralling book from beginning to end. I was so engrossed from the very start that I gasped audibly when I finished it knowing there was not more to be read. I wish it would be a second book to come, but things ended so beautifully that I would not blame the author for not continuing. The way the author describes the scenery, the way he introduces new characters and wraps around, and weaves in prior characters that you thought to be passing, it was masterful. 


It is an epic gothic horror novel that you MUST read this fall if you love gothic, heavy world building and fantastic horror tales! 


I was given the honor to read this before it came out via NetGalley as an e-book in exchange for an honest review, and I'm oh so ever grateful for it!  I have made my pre-order for the physical book because I loved it so much!

Queer gothic horror? Yes, I’m sold.
The first part is a little tough to get through, it’s slow and full of a lot of information, but goodness the love story is amazingly sweet and tragic.

I want to thank the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

I give this book a 3.75/5 (rounded up to 4). It starts with mystery, horror, gothic creepiness, and some romance - I was immediately intrigued. The main character felt relatable and it was easy to root for him. Just as I got hooked on the plot, it switched to another set of characters and lost me. I stopped reading for a few days because it wasn't grabbing my attention anymore. It eventually picked back up again, only to lose me completely towards the story's climax. I realize that this is fiction but it became too outlandish for me. The ending also felt rushed.

If you're into gothic themes and horror, it's worth a read. But I wouldn't say it is a story I would want to read a second or third time.

What an unhinged book. I will sum it up using this quote: ""A cult of heretic Buddhist Russian aristocrats had harnessed cannibalism and black magic to summon the dead from beyond the veil, and to wreak vengeance upon the living." What?? John, our hero, for at least some of the book, is a young lord from England who got really into Oriental studies in college and decided to go be a British civil servant in India, in part to continue to sate his curiosity, including a few references to a mysterious sect of Buddhism no one can really tell him about, and in part so that he can go be gay in peace with his boyfriend. Things go well for a while, and then he digs a little too deep and gets pulled into the supernatural part of MI6, where the book briefly becomes a gothic horror novel told through letters and diary entries, set forty years earlier, and then there's another diversion to a war in Russia, and finally we get back to John trying to get to Mongolia to stop those Russians from ending the world.
As I said, truly unhinged. It was an enjoyable sort of unhinged, and kept me reading to the end, but wow. What?

4 "an ambitious, rip-roaring, queer bear, apocalyptic, gothic adventure romance" stars !!

Thanks to the author, Netgalley and Redhook book for an advance e-copy. This will be released October 2024. I am providing an honest review and this is my Halloween read of 2024.

I was so intrigued by this book's premise when I saw it pop on my Netgalley page and I immediately fast-tracked it and that was a very good reading decision.

This is a startlingly original work of immense scope, excitement and adventure. Our two lovers John and Garrett are set to meet the very dark side of Tibetan Buddhism and are railroaded into fighting for the saving of our planet. There is sweet romance, high adventure, plenty of demonic horror and travels to Central Asia, Tibet, Mongolia and China and even the Orkney Islands. There are also stories within stories whereby a dark Buddhist sect brings a whole new meaning to nirvana with power and annihilation. The pace is exciting with an intricate plot and plenty of historical detail to keep the reader at the edge of their seat. The prose is a decent 3 to 3.5 star variety but my enjoyment never veered far from 5 star territory.

(This really could have been a 4.5 to 5 star book with a couple of rewrites and a sharp editorial eye that could have dealt with a few episodes of mansplaining to deal with info dumping in a more creative manner. Also minor issues with pacing and a false sense of social justice issues (that did not fit in with the narrative or ambience of book)

Move away from the lily- livered works of Moreno Garcia into something more robust, exciting and absolutely fucking thrilling.

I look forward to seeing what this author comes up with next.

this book is a master class in ambiance and atmosphere. I was immediately sucked into this rich, well flushed out world and the slow, creeping build of the story. I love when a book really leans into its aesthetic, and this one was perfectly dark and creepy, while also layering beautiful love and loyalty throughout.

I'm always impressed when an author can take dark subject matter and weave so much heart throughout the story, taking something fantastical and making it deeply human. It makes for such a fantastic and immersive read.

This is a perfect fall read, I think I'll frequently return to it when I need to set the mood for the changing seasons. Thank you NetGalley and Redhook Books for the e-arc!

This is exactly 💯 the type of book I am drawn to and it did not disappoint in any way. I loved it. It was one you had to pay close attention to, because of the 3 storylines, I never felt lost however. Highly recommend.

I wanted to leave just a simple review of this book. But the truth is, when I started it, it immediately gave me the feeling of being, at best, culturally insensitive, but more likely somewhere on the spectrum between appropriative and exploitative. Then I worried maybe I was being overly sensitive, and I pushed the feeling away, but it came back by the end of the story. Still, this didn’t affect the storytelling or writing, and who knows, maybe I am being too sensitive or protective. With that in mind, I endeavored to appreciate the book on its terms and my review will try to be divorced of that experience. However, it feels important to mention, and so after my review I will touch on it again, briefly.
This story is sold as a queer gothic horror, and it definitely delivers. I would actually argue it has a lot of fantasy elements as well, and to say it is a gothic fantasy that employs horror tropes and imagery while having a queer love story at its heart wouldn’t be off course, and it blends all of those stylistic endeavors together really well. The main story follows a young man who ends up being conscripted to go on a quest to save the world from a nihilistic death cult, but this only takes up about half of the pages of the story. Pullen employs a nested narrative structure, where there are three separate stories, and they are presented as A(1), B(1), C, B(2), A(2), with our main story being the A storyline line. This nested structure isn’t new, though I usually see it in more speculative and sci-fi fantastical spaces, so I thought it was an interesting narrative device here, and it succeeded in some ways but also caused the story to lag in others. Every individual storyline was told in an epistolary format, and while this worked and made sense for B and C I thought it felt contrived for part A, our main story, and the majority of the story could have been told without that conceit to greater effect. In other stories this nested narrative is used to show parallels between stories, characters, or events. Here, though, it was just used to give backstory, to fill in details. Our B story takes place a few decades prior to our A story, and it gives context to the mess our main character has found himself in, and it is actually presented as an information dossier that our main character reads. The C story takes place a few years prior to B, and in its way provides more background for our B storyline characters. While this wasn’t the most inventive use of such a narrative device it was compelling, and it felt a creative and engaging way to explore intertwined histories. Aside from the narrative structure the writing was bold and direct. A little flowery here and there, but this always felt appropriate since it was in an epistolary format. I will say, though, the A storyline was a bit slow. It was the longest, with A(1) and A(2) probably making up half of the book, but it just felt like it dragged and dragged, especially the first part. I think the format was in part to blame, as there were no section breaks at all in the entire A(1) section, so it didn’t have the narrative peaks and natural cliffhangers you can create by having chapter breaks, and it really did suffer from a lack of momentum as a result. This was avoided in the B storyline as it was presented, primarily, as a series of journal entries. This created a rhythm and a natural set of breaks that were quite effective in keeping my interest piqued, keeping me on the edge of my seat. To be fair there was a lot of world-building to be done in that first section, and he did a wonderful job of setting a tone, I do just wish it might have had more momentum. It doesn’t even need to be shorter in length, just structured a little differently to give the reader more to latch on to instead of a sprawling narrative that just flows from one scene to the next as it does.
He did a good job of developing characters, at least our protagonists for all three sections, with first person narration offering an intimacy that he exploited. I appreciate that our main character being queer is central to this story. It may not be at the actual heart of the story, though it does play a role in how and why events unfurl they way they do, but more importantly it is at the heart of our main character. His love story is tender and empowering and a critical part of who and how he is, and I really appreciate it being handled the way it was. It wasn’t an afterthought or just another character trait but instead a critical factor in shaping how our main character exists and moves in the world, and it was heart-warming to boot. Aside from that aspect our main characters do feel like they are complicated, they have depth and are engaging, sometimes fitting into classical archetypical boxes but always feeling like they were more than that, like they were well-lived, genuine people. Our antagonists are less interesting. I mean, they are fun, but they are only ab few steps below mustache-twirling stereotypes. Their aims are pretty simple, but how and why they got to the emotional places they’re at is never really explored. They just want the world to burn, and they want to be the one lighting the match when it does, essentially, with their nihilistic, occult worldview combining with inflated sense of ego and desperate need for power and control. While the magic they employed and the cult they were part of were unique, they were pretty simple antagonists, not new or complicated. Still, they were interesting. They definitely had a gravitas about them, the way they carried themselves and were presented in the story was compelling and engaging, even if they didn’t feel particularly multi-dimensional.
The story itself was interesting enough, creating a nihilistic death cult that misinterpreted, or told their own version, of the mythos and legend regarding the historical Buddha, Siddartha Gautama, one that led them to a backwards belief that the only actual end to suffering is complete destruction of all life. The response to this cult, especially by the Buddhist characters, was a very westernized, sensationalist response that flies in the face of actual Buddhist religious belief, which is to say they wouldn’t react the way they do unless they don’t actual believe in the Buddhism they teach and profess to practice, but that’s neither here nor there. Having a secret government agency fighting this death cult, and having connections with various religious leaders, such as the 13th Dalai Lama and so forth, was an interesting, if not somewhat iconoclastic, bit of storytelling. Still, the threat was genuine and interesting enough, and playing with religious ideas can always yield interesting results. I think what worked for me least in the story is that I really felt like a strong sense of journey was missing. Yes, our main character goes on an extensive physical journey, from his childhood home to Mongolia and back again, but so much of that journey is one that happens to him. He doesn’t really make a whole lot of choices once the ball starts rolling. The question that the story asks of him, as well as of our B and C story protagonists, to a lesser extent, is what is the purpose of life in the face of so much suffering? Our main character knows how cruel the world can be, with his queer identity being at the center of his experiences of mindless cruelty and judgment. Is whatever joy you can eke out in the face of violence, cruelty, hatred, and suffering worth it? The death cult says no, they say the only released from suffering is to end all life as we know it, and there are echoes of this sentiment that resonate with our hero. So, there is some level of introspection, on the part of our hero, but it still doesn’t feel like much of a journey. Maybe this is due to the framing device, and the fact that we are explicitly told about some significant events that happen in the last 10% of the story right in the opening pages, the chosen narrative device explicitly spoiling some of the most emotionally explosive scenes, which made everything feel like a forgone conclusion, robbing it of a real feeling of movement or choice, or of emotional journey. Whatever introspection has happened, our hero has made up his mind before we meet him, and while this does invite us as readers to engage in our own introspection on some really heavy and important ideas it doesn’t add to the sense of journey in the story. I live the questions Pullen is forcing the reader to reckon with, and I think he imagines up an interesting straw-man cult to force those questions on us, wrapping them up in a strong gothic atmosphere, a fantasy quest, and the power of queer love. My own reservation regarding cultural insensitivity and appropriation aside, which I will get to momentarily, I think the story is fun. It has a high stakes fantasy quest, some horrific scenes of depravity and violence to keep you on edge, a clever narrative framing with strong and confident writing, and a rich and well-developed primary character that is interesting and who you want to spend more time with. The nihilistic cult/occult magic aspects aren’t particularly inventive, they are just transposing well-trod ideas onto a (dare I say exotic?) cultural landscape, playing with religious, spiritual, and cultural ideas that will probably be foreign to most of the western audience. However those well-trodden ideas are that way for a reason, they create compelling stakes and serve as a perfect foil for any reluctant hero, and I appreciate the effort to mix them up and set the story in a time and place different than what is normally expected.
Okay, now for my reservations. Look, I have written and re-written this a half dozen times, and in most cases it ended up dwarfing the length of my actual review. I am trying to avoid that. Here is the thing, I am an uncommon reader for this book. I am an American who started practicing Tibetan Buddhism in college, then studied it professionally, along with classical Sanskrit and Tibetan through my graduate studies, and then I ordained as a Tibetan Buddhist monk, and I live in a Gelug monastery in southern India, where I have been for more than 13 years. In addition to constant study at the monastery I translate professionally and teacher Buddhism around the world, though primarily in India and the US. So, I have both a sensitivity to and a proficiency in all of the cultures and religious ideas he is playing with in this story. I don’t have any problems with playing with Buddhist mythologies, there are more than enough stories that take Christian ideas of the devil or demons and combine them with Pagan or neo-Pagan ideas as well as just pure imagination, why can’t the same be done with Buddhist ideas or beliefs? One difference, though, is that in almost all contexts that those are created Christianity is the dominating if not hegemonic cultural identity, and very few consumers will think this is what Christians actually believe. That isn’t the case for Buddhists and Tibetan Buddhists, particularly. So, it does require some level of sensitivity. And what put me off isn’t the liberal interpretation of Buddhist ideas, but rather a lack of confidence that there was any genuine knowledge or interest in these communities and belief systems as anything more than story fodder. I have no idea what the author knows or practices, but my impression form this story is of someone who has read a bunch of entries in the World Encyclopedia of Religion, as well as a few highly fetishized translations, but doesn’t have any strong, experiential knowledge. Yes, the story takes place at the turn of the 20th century, our main character’s degree is in Orientalist Studies, I expect the character’s descriptions and understandings to be biased, orientalist, essentialist, imperialist, and fetishizing. That’s fine. But that same feeling comes across in authorial narration as well. It is little things, things that don’t affect the story but clue me in to a lack of experiential knowledge. Simple things, like presenting Pali/Theravadin interpretations of Buddhist ideas of stories (such as the philosophical understanding of the Four Noble Truths, or the story of how the historical Buddha became a buddha) and treats them as if Mahāyāna Buddhist and especially Tibetan Buddhist believe or interpret them the same way, which they don’t. Or he references studying Tibetan and Sanskrit in ways that just indicate he has little familiarity with studying either, they are just an exotic and exciting thing to put in the story. Or he puts words in the mouth of important historical spiritual leaders like Tsongkhapa and the 13th Dalai Lama that are antithetical to the Buddhist beliefs they espouse—even if there were this nihilistic cult that harnessed black magical powers as described in the story, and these spiritual leaders criticized it, the words he puts in their literal mouths betray a complete lack of understanding of Buddhist cosmology or philosophy (and is actually one of the things I found openly offensive). Even in the author acknowledgments at the end he makes a reference to the Pali language, and translations of Pali texts, as being as close to the authentic speech of the Buddha as you can get, which just shows a fundamental misunderstanding of how the Pali language was created and employed (spoiler: no one ever spoke Pali. It was invented by Sinhalese scholar-monks, based on Sanskrit, decades after the death of the historical Buddha, as a means of codifying and limiting the Buddhist textual corpus so they could claim authority or scriptural interpretation). These and so many other little things, like referencing a text by Tsongkhapa as his magnum opus, whereas any specialist will say that particular text is wildly important but much more so for lay people and for everyday practice than for deep understanding, as it doesn’t contain any of his exploration of the esoteric teachings nor does it contain his most elaborate or refined explanations on emptiness, the meaning of reality. It is easily accessible and important, but few dedicated scholars would label it as his most important work. There are even scenes where the character says he recognizes a particular Tibetan phrase, which is then written (as if spoken by a different character,) but is written in an academic method of Tibetan transcription that is entirely divorced from Tibetan pronunciation. And here’s the thing – none of these details matter for the story at all. But they add up to leave me with really little confidence in the author. They leave me feeling that he has some academic/historical understanding, was fascinated by some of the fantastical imagery in The Tibetan Book of the Dead (which not all Tibetan Buddhists agree is an authentic or realistic explanation of the intermediate state, but it was fetishized by early western hippie adopters and is studied wildly out of context and in such a way that distorts Buddhist soteriological understanding), and these combined with maybe reading some Pali (and confusing it for what all Buddhists believe, whereas Tibetans hold many of the texts in the Pali canon as not being definitive nor being able to be understood literally), and all of this added up to what feels like ungrounded confidence to exotify another culture’s religious worldviews and understanding that is really little more than the common western orientalist, imperialist, essentializing impulse. There is undoubtedly a genuine appreciation for the teachings and cultures referenced, but it doesn’t feel like enough experiential understanding to warrant the gross liberties taken with important religious figures and spiritual & cultural worldviews. Honestly, it left me with a bad taste in my mouth for the entirety of the novel. I did my best to overlook what felt like fetishizing and appropriation to appreciate the story, and I think I was able to, but I wish I didn’t have to.

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

A thank you to Netgalley for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This book was a total knockout! This story was an emotional rollercoaster that hit at all the right times!
This book is truly an absolute must read for anyone who likes love stories, religion, or adventures into uncharted worlds.

I approached this book with no specific expectations, given the synopsis’s skillful withholding of details. Yet from the very first page, I was utterly spellbound. This novel does more than tell a story; it ensnares you, holds you in its grasp, and refuses to let go. It’s a masterclass in eliciting a spectrum of emotions, leaving you yearning for more. I’m genuinely heartbroken that it has ended, and I almost feel sorry for the next book I pick up, as it will have to meet an impossibly high standard. Regardless of your usual genre preferences, the sheer brilliance of this narrative will undoubtedly captivate both your heart and mind.

A massive thank you to NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for my honest review. [Pub Date: October 8, 2024]

Holy hell, this book is a knockout! It’s been ages since a story hit me this hard. This one doesn’t just pack a punch—it delivers a full-on emotional rollercoaster. While it’s difficult to summarize without spoiling the magic, trust me when I say it’s an absolute must-read for anyone who cherishes powerful love stories, vibrant South Asian culture, and religion, or craves epic adventures into uncharted worlds.

I went in with no real expectations since the synopsis wisely keeps its secrets close, but from page one, I was utterly captivated. This book doesn’t just tell a story—it grabs you, holds you tight, and refuses to let go. It’s a masterclass in evoking every possible emotion, leaving you desperately yearning for more. I’m genuinely heartbroken that it’s over, and honestly, I pity the next book I pick up because the bar has been set impossibly high. Regardless of your usual genre, this story’s brilliance will capture your heart and mind.

A dazzling debut that spans generations and brings in so many interesting details from history, religion, and the occult. The main love story between John and Garrett is really touching and their loyalty to one another in some really heinous circumstances is extremely inspiring. There are some extremely graphic scenes of horror that are fantastically scary and gross. A great story and great writing equals a great book.

In this book the gothic ambiance and supernatural elements blended exquisitely with the fantasy world-building. I was particularly impressed by the narrative's richness, which added depth and complexity to the tale. Although the buildup was slow paced in the beginning yet the story remained suspenseful and intriguing. While I appreciated the book's eerie atmosphere and engaging storytelling, it ultimately didn't resonate with me as a reader. However, I can recognize its appeal to fans of horror and fantasy, who will likely be drawn in by its haunting ambiance and immersive narrative. A solid read, even if it wasn't my cup of tea.

*** I'd like to thank NetGalley for providing me this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Not my typical genre but the blurb really intrigued me. What a ride!!! It's starts mild and slow building but when it takes off it does it with a bang. Secret societies, demonic cults and so much more. This book is a beautiful blend of fact and fiction for it is based in and around real historical characters and events. It is rich with religious diversity as it explores many different religious beliefs and groups. It approaches many real life issues such as religious persecution, homophobia and the economic divide between social classes. Overall this was a very good read and so different from any other book I have read. It is apparent that the author put a lot of time and effort into research for this incredible story. I mean who doesn't like a good story about the preventing the apocalypse?

I had a tough time deciding whether to give this book 3 or 4 stars, but as you see, I arrived at 4. First and foremost, I was surprised by the homoerotic nature of much of the story as there were no warnings- typically not my cup of tea, but it ended up being crucial to the story. The book as a whole can be neatly broken up into three major sections, which I will rate and review separately.

Section 1- This section, as is often the case, introduced us to major characters, themes, setting etc., which is all well and good, except it was legitimately the full first third of the book, 33%, and in which there a massive info dump about the setting. In fairness, these portions are extremely well researched and it seems the author did his due diligence, but was overwhelming at times. Up until the last few pages of this section, nothing particularly interesting happens, and as mentioned above, this is quit a bit of man-on-man action, which I was not prepared for. This section almost drew a DNF from me, but I pushed forward. Character development was acceptable, but not dazzling, and the main romantic relationship felt very one dimensional, something that carried through the book. 3 stars

Section 2- this section, in my opinion, was the best part of the book. It is recounted to the reader through an epistolary fashion, that, while interesting, did not seem organic, and at times felt forced. I often found myself thinking, “Nobody would write this in a letter to someone else.” Or, “Who would write this in their journal?” All that being said, this was a very riveting third of the book that I almost wish had been a standalone with a bit more fleshing out. 4-4.5 stars

Section 3- In this section we have all the actual action, conflict, and struggle missing from section 1. The pacing felt a bit off in places, and some of the connection I think the author intended didn’t quite hit home, but overall it was a decent ending with well thought out components. 3.5 stars.

Lastly, the writing. To say this was an easy read would be misleading. There were many words used that were unknown to me, but that would only really be known to anyone who has researched or lived in the part of the world in which the story takes place. I do not, however, mean that this was not a fast read. Especially after the slog of section 1, the book moved very quickly and I was motivated to find out what happened next.

Thank you to the author,RedHook books, and NetGalley for the ARC in return for an honest review

Rating: 4.5 / 5

There was something about this book that enraptured me within the first few pages. I won’t sugarcoat and suggest that it wasn’t slow, as it certainly was, but the snail-like exposition was largely due to lay the framework for the plot that would slowly unfold as the novel progressed. There is a great deal of information, setting and character introductions done throughout the first part of the book. All of this is necessary to provide insight and understanding into the historical references and time period being presented. It was through this that I was able to garner a distinct appreciation for history at the hands of the author, something I later confirmed when researching him further.

The novel opens with John Sackville, a scholar, academic and adventurer confined to a cell where he waxes poetically on his life, finds his thoughts lingering on individuals of his past, and understanding that his life is no longer in his hands, he begins a fervent attempt at chronicling his life and all of the events that would ultimately lead him to the point at which he finds himself now.

The Black Hunger is engaging and captivating from the very first few pages, to be certain, structured in four distinct parts and utilizing an epistolary (written letters) format, we begin to learn the stories and lives of three men whose fates become intrinsically linked due to some cosmic design and circumstance.

As mentioned, there is a particular slowness to the beginning of the novel, which I personally am of the mind was done intentionally as to not overwhelm readers before they’ve really gotten into the thick of the novel itself. An evident passion for history also gives way to a particular reverence to the source materials that served as inspiration for the novel too, particularly those of Tibetan occultism and cultural mysticisms.

Labyrinthine, and atmospheric, Pullen’s ability to keep a reader on the hook, while slowly unveiling the horror slow and steady like a papercut is something to be commended. There wasn’t the knee-jerking, jump scare type of horror but rather a slow, horrific tapestry gradually peeled back to reveal what was lurking underneath. An overall sense of dread and foreboding claimed my own psyche at times in preparation for what would undoubtedly be an awe-evoking paradigm of beauty and the horrific wonder that can come with it.

Even further commendable is that each character is fashioned in such a way to be compelling without compromising the overall tone and pacing of the plot. Every character felt as though they had their place it the grander macrocosm of the story, and each played their part wonderfully. Further still, the emotional resonance that is achieved throughout the story is both beautiful and heartbreaking, as a reader themselves can easily find themselves identifying with the highs and lows, the triumphs and failures as they go along.

A word of caution, however, to the readers that prefer for all their reading experiences to have clear cut conclusions, as this was very much not that. The open-ended nature of the ending left some to be desired, but far more to be pondered on as the story of The Black Hunger is further digested and ruminated on.

This will be a novel that I revisit in the future, to be certain. On a first read alone, I feel there is much that I may have missed as my mind went several places all at once in an effort to full encapsulate just what it was, I was reading on the page. But, for me, that’s the sign of a good book and a preferable reading experience.

4.5 stars, though rounded down to 4 whilst I continue to fully comprehend the experience The Black Hunger has given me.

I'd like to thank NetGalley, as well as RedHook Books and Nicholas Pullen for the opportunity to read The Black Hunger ahead of its publishing date in exchange for an honest review.

A gothic, 19th century Satanic Panic tale told in a voice that is at best elegant, at worst pretentious. While parts of this book intrigued me, including violent and imaginative horror and a queer romance, the pace was punishingly droning. This book is laden with historical references to ancient Asian spiritualities and customs, which I have no background in and thus no frame of reference, and I found myself bogged down in the dry technicalities of every painfully meticulous detail. At the root of "The Black Hunger" is a fascinating, unique, and compelling story, but the pacing and telling of it saps the magic from the story itself. This book wasn't for me, but I can see the appeal that it could have for others.

Thank you to Redhook Books for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.