PRAISE FOR MARC JOAN

'The absorbing winter escape of a read that I had been seeking'

Prashanth Gopalan, Strange Horizons

'Riddled with mysteries, the darkest of human emotions, and it is a book that will instigate curiosity, yet send a shiver down your spine each moment you turn a page'

India Today

'I find the astonishing stories collected -- and arranged chronologically by historical era -- to be consistently enthralling, amazing, and powerful. They are beautifully written and filled with both sharp characterizations of conflicted, complicated people and rich, multi-layered detail about the states, landscapes, history, and lingering myths of southern India. . . . I recommend Hangdog Souls heartily to all thoughtful readers who long to be immersed in a fulsomely realized world that skillfully combines very old mythologies and phenomenally new reflections on what they can still mean'

Jerrold E. Hogle, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of English, University of Arizona

'A complex and wildly ambitious novel which makes no apologies for bringing together contrasting genres and influences – from historical fiction to the Gothic, from intergenerational family drama to “realist” fiction, from supernatural horror to sci-fi, all infused with elements of philosophy, myth and spiritualism and conveyed in rich and beautiful prose'

Ends of the World