I found this book to be an enjoyable read. The story kept me engaged from start to finish and had some moments that really stood out. Overall, it offered an entertaining reading experience.

At the beginning of this book I was unsure if I would finish it. I am so glad I stuck with this book. It is unlike any story I have read before.

Galloway's Gospel is a tale of two Rachels, separated by 10 years. The titular character, Rachel Galloway, is a high school student who doodles in her history notebook while bored in class. She gives the doodles a backstory and religion. When she share the notebook with some classmates they believe it and Rachel finds herself the prophet of a religion taking in a life of it's own.

Ten years later Rachel Durwood, a town guard, is looking into the disappearance of fellow guardsman Mark. All clues point to the little town that disappeared a decade ago.

Experiencing both Rachel's stories in tandem was an experience. I thoroughly enjoyed seeing how their worlds collided. And I was amazed at how well the world was built. Nothing is superfluous, everything is important. I thought i knew where the story was headed and I was wrong.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the copy in exchange for an honest review.

This thrilling book straddles the line between horror and dark fantasy. Two women named Rachel ten years apart become connected through the mysterious happenings in Renfield County. Rebellious Galloway’s doodles become a sensation when a classmate, Francis, nudges her to create a historical colony and religion where pigs eat humans in exchange for crops. A cult starts to form, and things escalate quickly, with Galloway worrying about what and who are the real dangers in Burnskidde. Ten years later Renfield County Guard Rachel Durwood stumbles into the closed off Burnskidde and tries to unravel the disappearance of her colleague Mark. With an apparent doomsday approaching in this utopia, she hurries to figure out what happened ten years ago, poking at the cracks beneath the surface. As she tries to prevent mayhem from happening again, she battles religious fanatics and monsters alike.
There were a few holes that maybe I missed in the text, or are because I haven’t read any other of the Renfield set books by Rebelein. I will have to go check them out.

⭐️⭐️⭐️.5


“𝐈𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐚 𝐜𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐡𝐮𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐨𝐛𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐞 𝐯𝐢𝐛𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐚 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐞 𝐛𝐮𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐢𝐠𝐧𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐯𝐢𝐛𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐰𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐞𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐩𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞.”

This is a tough one for me.. this story started off strong and initially it captivated me and had my whole attention. The writing style was amazing and overall it was really well written. Sam Rebellion really does a good job of painting this imagery in your mind that you could see the story played out in your head. (At least for me)

However, once I started to creep the halfway point it drastically started to go downhill and I caught myself on multiple occasions wanting to rush this and get it over with.

The overall premise of this story though, so fun and beyond cool! I feel like maybe this genre or just this book is not for me.

Galloway’s Gospel is split into two separate time periods. 2009 v 2019 - I found myself gravitating towards the 2009 time period more only because that was when Rachel Galloway was in high school creating these drawings turned cult while 2019 is post dystopian and following the aftermath of the 𝐅𝐎𝐆𝐌𝐎𝐍𝐆𝐄𝐑. (You’ll have to read it to find out)

I will say I could most definitely see this book becoming a television show or movie. Throughout reading I was getting all the vibes.. stranger things mixed with a little bit of Supernatural.

𝐓𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐤 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐍𝐞𝐭𝐆𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐲 & 𝐖𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐚𝐦 𝐌𝐨𝐫𝐫𝐨𝐰 𝐁𝐨𝐨𝐤𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐀𝐑𝐂 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝 ✌🏼

Okay, I struggled hard with this book. This book is split into two timelines, 2009 and 2019. In 2009 Rachel is in highs chool. The 2009 portions of the books were my favorite. I loved imagining Rachel’s doodlings and how they came to life, it was fun! Then things sort of took a turn and as a result a religion (or cult) was formed. Then we hit the 2019 chapters. It was fun learning about the cult and just how everyone was affected after the town was unsealed from surrounding places. While that seems like it would be really fun, it was actually a little boring. I didn’t get how the two timelines intersected so I was just confused. The pacing of the whole book was on the slow side, so it was a little bit of a slog.

I had no idea what to expect going into this one, but Galloway's Gospel absolutely blew me away. With dimensional, well crafted characters and a smartly-paced plotline, I had such a fun time reading this,

A surreal horror story about cults, creativity, and belief gone wrong. The premise is original and the imagery is intense, but the pacing dragged in places and the extreme body horror won’t be for everyone. A bold concept that didn’t fully land for me, but fans of bizarre horror might love it.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

Damn I love the Edenville universe. What Sam does so well is he never forgets to put characters first, AND make things scary. The cult, the Botanist, Urqhuart, are great villains. The dual timelines and how they coincide is brilliant. I love how over the top some of the book is, and yet everything is so real we buy in without hesitation.

I love both Rachels. Galloway and Durwood are so sympathetic. I rooted for them, but knowing this is Renfield County, I realize how bad things can get.

Again, Sam's writing here is so smooth. Propulsive. The plot holds together and the horror never backs off. I loved it.

★★★ ½

I almost DNFed this book, and I'm very glad I didn't.

Though nontraditional for reviews (and something I usually don't do!), I'm going to start with the negatives, so my feelings about this book make narrative sense: the first third or so of Galloway's Gospel was one of the most boring things I've read in a long time, mind-numbingly so. Rebelein's writing style that lends itself so well to the cosmic horror in the latter half of the book feels stilted and monotonous at first, and I found myself wondering why I should care about dual timelines that barely seemed to do much of anything in moving the story along in prose that felt mediocre at best. As someone that commits to reading books all the way through, this was the first one I can actively say I considered putting down and never picking back up again.

Thankfully, my (not great!) expectations became absolutely shattered in the second half—and especially last quarter—of the novel. Rebelein actively excels in his specific brand of imaginative, deeply unique horror, with twists that were downright stellar and an emotional reckoning of the two points of view crashing into a glorious whole that left me reeling even as I write this review. The bloodshot realness of the dynamics between the characters (especially the group of teenagers at the center of the '09 timeline) allowed me to suspend my disbelief even as the oddities began to pile, and the main antagonist absolutely boiled my blood in a way I didn't get from some of my more recent reads. Galloway's Gospel felt so truly unique from anything else I've read this year, and I found the world of the novel encircling me and refusing to let me go until the final page.

Though I'm glad I stuck with it, it's hard to forgive the book taking so long to go anywhere meaningful. The care Rebelein put in the scenes he highlights in the acknowledgements is deliciously palpable, and they stand out as some of the scenes I'll remember vividly for a long time. Unfortunately, everything else seems to somewhat pale in comparison. Some bits of the novel felt like little more than a length-padding bridge between the more fleshed-out scenes, and I think this book would absolutely excel if the first third or so was trimmed down just a bit to keep things engaging and meaningful for the reader—and allow them, too, to have faith in the fog and the world crafted lovingly by Rebelein's hands.

Thank you to NetGalley and William Morrow for the ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

To the best of my knowledge, there's never been a horror story quite like this.

Firstly, hats off to Sam Rebelein for world-building so well that the reader doesn't need to have read any of the other Renfield books. The weirdness was easy to absorb.

The story is told mostly from two perspectives (both named Rachel). The high school student who doodled cartoon pigs as a silly distraction and the agent who fights Renfield County's supernatural enemies. These are well-balanced, and I felt no frustration to get back to one Rachel while reading the other. Both of these are equally important. Either of Rachel's experience could make its own novel, but having both points of view gives a more complete and terrifying story.

It all started innocently enough, but Renfield masterfully crafts the horror that comes not just from the supernatural weirdness endemic to the down of Burnskidde, but also the horror that comes from people: how people come across an idea and manipulate it, how things spin out of control, and the consequences both immediately and ten years later when the town of Burnskidde is heard from after a long silence.

I like Rebelein's pacing, the tension builds and then it snowballs as the reader realizes just how terrible things have gotten, and then what's really beneath it all. Both Rachels are interesting, Durwood being a little more fleshed out as an an adult vs the teenaged Galloway. Galloway has much less agency as she goes from prophet to symbol, to (I will not spoil).

The tone isn't necessarily grimdark, though. There is a bit of snark, some humor, and some truly emotional moments. A great experiece reading and I will be looking into other of Rebelein's work.

Thank you to NetGalley and William Morrow for the opportunity to review this ARC.

There is something thrilling when you start reading a totally new to you author and you’re so blown away by their work that they become an auto-buy author. It’s a short list for me! Stephen Graham Jones, Catriona Ward, Josh Malerman, and now welcome to the club, Sam Rebelein. Funny enough the only book I have left to read to be caught up with his books is his debut- Edenville (don’t worry I bought a copy and it’s on the TBR for this year). Welcome to Renfield County, a country stained by the blood of a family annihilation, where the blood of the family stained the wood of the property and spread as the property fell apart. How the blood of the past possesses and corrupts the present. That’s the set up of Rebelein’s world, and this book is a fantastic addition to the Renfield universe. A story of two Rachels. One is Rachel Galloway, who just wants to feel seen in high school and as she starts to create the story of a fictional society ends up creating a modern cult. And Rachel Durwood, an investigator the supernatural who tries to investigate the modern day cult and save whoever she can from a possible apocalyptic event. I LOVED this book. A wonderful look at how even with good intentions, cult mentality and mythmaking can be corrupted and turned against you for power and control. It feels so rich in folklore in a space that doesn’t even exist. It harkens back to the classic horror trope of setting your stories in a fictional town that grows in lore and depth the more novels take place there- it’s Rebelein’s Derry. This is wonderfully written with excellent pacing and characters that you instantly can’t help getting invested in. Plus there is such a special aspect to Rebelein’s catalog that the more you read from them, the richer and more engaging each entry gets. A special new voice in horror that I hope to be reading from for a very long time.

I really like Sam’s work. It’s not straight horror, there’s fantasy elements that always have you trying to guess where his characters are going to take you and that feeling of unease is what makes his stuff so engaging. There’s a creepy town, excellent female protagonists and an unhinged incel cult leader, what more do you need.? The Redfields are (sort of) alive and well and waiting to haunt your dreams. Read this.

I should've dnf'd this. There were parts of it that were ok. But overall, I just thought it was ridiculous and boring. There were some little plots happening and even though they connected to the main cult plot, I think they would have been more interesting on there own or connected to a better overarching plot. I loved "The Poorly Made and Other Things", so I think that this author is much better at writing short stories. That being said, I still want to read Edenville. Either to solidify my opinion, or come to the conclusion that this book was just bad.

Thank you to NetGalley for the e-ARC.
I had a hard time getting into the first half of this book, it's a bit confusing and the pacing is slow. It's told in two different time frames, my issue with that being 2009 was far more interesting than 2019. Wasn't bad but I didn't love it.

Comp with Jasper Fforde and less conventional culty horror like Black Sheep by Rachel Harrison. Also a strong Heathers (1988 film)vibe with Francis having a Christian Slater sense about him.

This is a book for those who loved the over the top weirdness of Edenville and want more. It's a wild ride that asks the reader to strap in and accept what will come while also serving as a pointed critique of organized religion and faith in it accepted at face value, without asking any questions.

There is a lot of early 00's nostalgia including band references and glimpses of what it meant to be a teenager in 2009.

This was a wild reading experience! I previously read and loved The Poorly Made, so I was thrilled to start this one. While it is an entirely different feel and tone than The Poorly Made, Galloway’s Gospel is executed with the same level of talent and terror, marking author Rebelein as one of the rising stars in current horror.

Ten years apart, two different Rachels are slowly drawn together by a dangerous, mysterious cult. One of them may have created it, and the other is trying to bring it down; both are caught up in events beyond their control. Together, they may not be enough to prevent a complete descent into madness.

This book is gory, frightening, weird-and also both fun and emotionally resonant. The author has a gift for describing monsters or events that will haunt your nightmares for days, while also writing characters and emotions that are so deeply, achingly human and real. This book has horror for every type of horror fan: cosmic-horror, folk-horror, cult-horror, dark comedy horror, monster-horror, body-horror… I could go on. This story refuses to fit into a box, and I loved every weird, wonderful moment of it. If you like horror with a very speculative edge, you have to pick up Galloway’s Gospel; I’ve never read anything else like it, and I don’t know that I will again until the author writes another book.

I would recommend Galloway’s Gospel to readers who love horror, scary cults, monsters, dual timelines, and wonderfully weird stories.

Thank you to NetGalley and William Morrow for the arc! All thoughts & opinions in the review are my own.

I love the premise of this story, and the prose is excellent and fun to read. I had more trouble than I anticipated in terms of connecting to the teenage characters; I would've enjoyed this more if some of those teenage-focused scenes were made more concise and faster paced, especially in the beginning of the story.

I enjoyed Sam Rebelein's previous book "The Poorly Made" but this one is just not for me. It was off to a strong start but didn't hold my interest for long. I'm giving up on it. Thank you anyway.

Let me begin this by saying that it's a wild ride. When you are entering the world of Renfield County, be prepared to bet your minds blown and relentless action. It will absorb you so fully into it you won't realise when the book has ended. Equal parts emotional, hopeful and mesmerising, this book is going to be a jolly good time for all looking for a horror that is different.

The story takes place in two timelines; in 2009 where we follow high schooler Rachel Galloway who's bored musings become the foundation for a grotesque cult of pigs and bats who eat people to provide crops and animals, & Rachel Durwood in 2019 who is on her mission to learn about this cult and dismantle it after her coworker Mark goes missing. Both women are immensely interesting and layered. Galloway's helplessness, her loss of control over what was happening, was truly scary to read. More than the monsters, it was her emotions that made the entire situation more horrific. Durwood is someone you'd call stubborn, even in the face of clear doom. She never gives up. Maybe it's a bad thing. But it was inspiring. I felt seen. I'm many others will do too.

The supporting cast is equally strong. My favourites were Bruce Oake, Durwood's mentor, and Emma Dring, Galloway's best friend. They are perfect foils to the two Rachels but that doesn't stop them from being their own character whose arcs are equally interesting to read about (like I'd totally read a book that's entirely based on Bruce). The world building is rich, sometimes gory and always dark. Renfield County is a cosmic onion that has endless peels to discover and savour. I am super invested in the world already and can't wait to read Edenville & Poorly Made and Other Things!

I came here looking for a fun time. I left with teary eyes and a changed perspective on some aspects of life. That ending will live rent free in my mind forever. One of the best upcoming releases in 2025. I highly recommend this one to all who like speculative fiction. You won't leave disappointed. Big thanks to the author, publisher and Netgalley for this e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was funny and terrifying at the same time. Quite enjoyable.
Small town horror. Folk Horror. Religious Horror.
Horror for all horror fans.
A fever dream at times, great pacing.