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Witch-Cult Abbey
When, in 1940, Saul Prior receives a letter from Lady Caroline Degabaston to catalogue the library of Thool Abbey in Hertfordshire, he jumps at the chance. But he soon finds himself in a realm that seems cut off from the real world. In the cryptic fastnesses of the abbey, Prior is beset by bizarre dreams and seems incapable of leaving the place. Lady Caroline proves to be a baleful and mysterious presence, and Prior is mired in a landscape that mingles Gothic terror and surrealism. The actual books that Prior is tasked with cataloguing are themselves a farrago of occultism, psychological aberration, and cosmic horror. And when other presences manifest themselves in and around the castle, Prior knows that he has stumbled into an adventure that is unlikely to end short of death or madness. Mark Samuels has knitted together many of the themes that appear in his previous work into a grand synthesis of dread and awe. Impeccably written, with careful attention to historical detail and the portrayal of the strange characters he puts on stage, Witch-Cult Abbey is a triumph of supernatural terror.
162 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2020
About the author
Mark Samuels
93 books212 followersMark Samuels (1967-2023) was a British writer of weird and fantastic fiction in the tradition of Arthur Machen and H. P. Lovecraft. Born in deepest Clapham, South London, he was first published in 1988, and his short stories often focus on detailing a shadowy world in which his protagonists gradually discover terrifying and rapturous vistas lurking behind modernity. His work has been highly praised by the likes of Thomas Ligotti and Ramsey Campbell and has appeared in prestigious anthologies of horror and weird fiction on both sides of the Atlantic.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews
October 28, 2020
I bought this book because it seemed like it would be perfect for October reading and because it takes place in an old abbey in a remote, rural area of England, a setting I'm completely drawn to. After finishing Witch-Cult Abbey, I can say without hesitation that if ever a book was meant to be read as Halloween approaches it is this one. When the first chapter opens with a quotation from Poe, well...you know it's right. And sweet Jeezus, it scared the crap out of me. There just aren't many books that do that any more, so yeah.
full post with no spoilers (that would just be wrong) here
https://www.oddlyweirdfiction.com/202...
Mark Samuels' excellent writing here kept me on tenterhooks the entire time as my ongoing question of how much worse things could possibly get was constantly asked and answered. Witch-Cult Abbey is one of those books that grows darker and more sinister at every turn as you wait for some sort of relief that never comes. I can't count the number of times I was sorely tempted to turn to the ending, only to discover once I got there that it wouldn't have helped relieve the ever-tightening knots in my stomach. It is also the kind of horror novel I enjoy reading -- it is intelligent and atmospheric, there is no descent made into utter gratuitous grossness, and it hearkens back to the days of classic gothic/horror storytelling while remaining thoroughly modern weird in the telling. The book itself -- absolutely old-style beautiful with fine illustrations marking the beginning of each chapter, and I am in awe of the work of Joseph Dawson here. I sense more Zagava offerings coming my way.
Very, very highly recommended. I'm shivering again just thinking about it.
April 12, 2020
*FULL DISCLOSURE. I (VAGUELY?) KNOW MARK SAMUELS.*
The basic plot of this novel (the longest piece of prose from Samuels to date) is quite simple; it is London during the blitz and an unemployed booksellers cataloguer, Saul Prior, is offered a position at Thool Abbey to catalogue the Degabaston family collection of, as it turns out, esoteric and occult books. The clues in the title indicate that there is more to it than meets the eye.
This might on the face seem quite unpromising and, dare one say, a well worn theme, but Samuels takes this plot and takes it into some very odd territory. Prior finds himself in a building which is continuously re-configuring its structure, located in a landscape of perpetual darkness attempting to catalogue books some of which only allowing glimpses of their contents before sealing their covers together or otherwise rendering themselves inaccessible. Not that this seems to bother his employers who assure him that the “meaningless gibberish” he writes as an alternative bibliography has a “profound esoteric reality” beyond its “facile exoteric appearance” for the “close attentive reader”. Virtually the only books that do allow themselves to read are multiple volumes of Thomas Ariels huge work ‘Kruptos’. Readers of Samuels volume ‘The White Hands’ will know that this harbours nothing good. These elements mirror the psychological condition of Prior who kept in (or allowed to kept in) a drugged and exists between various ‘realities’, none of which are pleasant. The plot rattles along and is re-assuringly bleak.
All of this is narrated in a ‘Lovecraftian’ style. Now; I don’t think I actually read the words “hideous putrescence” together, but both words must surely appear singly somewhere, along with various ‘abominations’, ‘Stygian oceans’, ‘charnel lairs’ etc etc. This type of thing is normally fatal for me (I have read more than enough ‘sincere’ Lovecraft ‘homages’ which become unintentional pastiche or worse, parody) but Samuels avoids this because the “facile exoteric appearance” of the prose overlies influences and references drawn from the likes of Poe, Borges, Machen and Ray and Montague Summers. The latter, who has a style not dissimilar to Lovecraft at times, appears in the book as Alphonsus Winters. ‘Witch Cult’ also draws from cinema and seems particularly inspired by Carl Dreyers very odd, and wonderful, ‘Vampyr’ (1932), itself inspired by Le Fanu’s ‘Camilla’. It is a film shot almost entirely in a perpetual neither/neither state. Samuels knows his (weird) stuff that's for sure.
Overall this is a book which wears its influences (relatively) lightly, written in a very readable (albeit divisive) style. If you enjoy Lovecraft or indeed any of the names cited above you will probably enjoy this.
A few words on the book itself. Zagava do nice books but this is one their best. An oversize h/b (about 12” high), tastefully and subtly bound, clear type and illustrated by Joseph Dawson. It is rarely that a book feels so ‘right’ (size/texture/weight) in my hand. A lovely thing in a tiny run though other formats are available.
The basic plot of this novel (the longest piece of prose from Samuels to date) is quite simple; it is London during the blitz and an unemployed booksellers cataloguer, Saul Prior, is offered a position at Thool Abbey to catalogue the Degabaston family collection of, as it turns out, esoteric and occult books. The clues in the title indicate that there is more to it than meets the eye.
This might on the face seem quite unpromising and, dare one say, a well worn theme, but Samuels takes this plot and takes it into some very odd territory. Prior finds himself in a building which is continuously re-configuring its structure, located in a landscape of perpetual darkness attempting to catalogue books some of which only allowing glimpses of their contents before sealing their covers together or otherwise rendering themselves inaccessible. Not that this seems to bother his employers who assure him that the “meaningless gibberish” he writes as an alternative bibliography has a “profound esoteric reality” beyond its “facile exoteric appearance” for the “close attentive reader”. Virtually the only books that do allow themselves to read are multiple volumes of Thomas Ariels huge work ‘Kruptos’. Readers of Samuels volume ‘The White Hands’ will know that this harbours nothing good. These elements mirror the psychological condition of Prior who kept in (or allowed to kept in) a drugged and exists between various ‘realities’, none of which are pleasant. The plot rattles along and is re-assuringly bleak.
All of this is narrated in a ‘Lovecraftian’ style. Now; I don’t think I actually read the words “hideous putrescence” together, but both words must surely appear singly somewhere, along with various ‘abominations’, ‘Stygian oceans’, ‘charnel lairs’ etc etc. This type of thing is normally fatal for me (I have read more than enough ‘sincere’ Lovecraft ‘homages’ which become unintentional pastiche or worse, parody) but Samuels avoids this because the “facile exoteric appearance” of the prose overlies influences and references drawn from the likes of Poe, Borges, Machen and Ray and Montague Summers. The latter, who has a style not dissimilar to Lovecraft at times, appears in the book as Alphonsus Winters. ‘Witch Cult’ also draws from cinema and seems particularly inspired by Carl Dreyers very odd, and wonderful, ‘Vampyr’ (1932), itself inspired by Le Fanu’s ‘Camilla’. It is a film shot almost entirely in a perpetual neither/neither state. Samuels knows his (weird) stuff that's for sure.
Overall this is a book which wears its influences (relatively) lightly, written in a very readable (albeit divisive) style. If you enjoy Lovecraft or indeed any of the names cited above you will probably enjoy this.
A few words on the book itself. Zagava do nice books but this is one their best. An oversize h/b (about 12” high), tastefully and subtly bound, clear type and illustrated by Joseph Dawson. It is rarely that a book feels so ‘right’ (size/texture/weight) in my hand. A lovely thing in a tiny run though other formats are available.
July 1, 2022
A nearly pitch-perfect pastiche of classic gothic and weird tropes, brilliantly filtered through the themes Samuels has been exploring for decades. By building upon the rich lore of "The White Hands," one of Samuels's finest stories, Witch-Cult Abbey can be considered something of a career culmination, but one that pushes weird fiction forward into new and frequently terrifying territory. I loved every single word of it.
October 1, 2020
In England during World War II, a middle-aged man named Mr. Prior gets a job to catalogue the library of Thool Abbey, only to realize, upon arrival, that he has unwittingly wandered into a very bad situation (not a spoiler: when the name of the book is WITCH-CULT ABBEY, you just know that the abbey in question isn't going to be populated with benevolent bunny rabbits). I found this novel to be a grimly macabre slab of atmospheric old-school Gothic horror, written with Mr. Samuels' usual Stygian panache and perfect reading for this soul-poisoned Autumn corrupted by "...tentacles of spiritual contagion" (to use a phrase that crops up in the book a few times). Numerous references and links to Mr. Samuels' first collection THE WHITE HANDS has made me very interested in rereading that volume (also, like this one, recently republished by Zagava).
May 11, 2021
Around my feet and cane wriggled vilely bloated grave-worms, bleached utterly white by their underground existence, rendered blind, ravening for the rotting dead. . .
This short novel is a great example of British antiquarian horror with a distinctly Gothic mood. Samuels shows great capacity for enchantingly florid description. There's also some interesting concepts here like "auto-necromancy," bewildering time shifts, a building re-arranging itself, and books writing and projecting themselves into infinity. Some of these concepts don't feel entirely foreign to other works by Samuels' I've read which shows the influence of Borges.
I think what works best here is the creepy sense of place Samuels establishes. Our narrator wanders in a building of suffocating and disorientating eternal night, often by mere candlelight and gradually uncovers the dark truths of this strange place. In its best moments I was reminded of Jean Ray's masterfully-written "Malpertuis," which is high praise.
But the plot was just too meandering in the first half, even for me and that's my main problem here. As much as I enjoyed the rest of it, I can't help thinking it would have been better as a longish short story. Also, while I appreciate "meta" references in this sort of niche fiction, I feel I enjoy its presence less than I use to.
I tried to put aside the politics of the author while reading this but you can see it creepin' in at times. I'll just say that personally I'm far more attuned and attracted to atheistic cosmic horror; the white/black, good/evil dynamic in this feels a bit archaic, but I suppose that's the point -- it's comforting to believe things could be put aright. (Lulz.)
...occasionally I would hear the faint comings and goings of the abbey denizens, their distant footfalls passing along corridors or descending staircases, their ghostly voices, the words indistinct, murmurs in low tones, whispers like the wheezing of a last breath, and the muffled wooden creaking of the Jacobean annexe as its ancient structure settled as uneasily as the bones of a dying patient turned over in a hospital bed.
This short novel is a great example of British antiquarian horror with a distinctly Gothic mood. Samuels shows great capacity for enchantingly florid description. There's also some interesting concepts here like "auto-necromancy," bewildering time shifts, a building re-arranging itself, and books writing and projecting themselves into infinity. Some of these concepts don't feel entirely foreign to other works by Samuels' I've read which shows the influence of Borges.
I think what works best here is the creepy sense of place Samuels establishes. Our narrator wanders in a building of suffocating and disorientating eternal night, often by mere candlelight and gradually uncovers the dark truths of this strange place. In its best moments I was reminded of Jean Ray's masterfully-written "Malpertuis," which is high praise.
But the plot was just too meandering in the first half, even for me and that's my main problem here. As much as I enjoyed the rest of it, I can't help thinking it would have been better as a longish short story. Also, while I appreciate "meta" references in this sort of niche fiction, I feel I enjoy its presence less than I use to.
I tried to put aside the politics of the author while reading this but you can see it creepin' in at times. I'll just say that personally I'm far more attuned and attracted to atheistic cosmic horror; the white/black, good/evil dynamic in this feels a bit archaic, but I suppose that's the point -- it's comforting to believe things could be put aright. (Lulz.)
...occasionally I would hear the faint comings and goings of the abbey denizens, their distant footfalls passing along corridors or descending staircases, their ghostly voices, the words indistinct, murmurs in low tones, whispers like the wheezing of a last breath, and the muffled wooden creaking of the Jacobean annexe as its ancient structure settled as uneasily as the bones of a dying patient turned over in a hospital bed.
September 19, 2022
Corre el año 1940, cuando Prior, nuestro protagonista, encuentra trabajo para Lady Degabaston en Thool Abbey como catalogador de la biblioteca. Sin embargo, nada más llegar se da cuenta del ambiente extraño que rige el lugar. Ni siquiera puede ver a Lady Degabaston por ahora. Cuando comienza su trabajo en la biblioteca se da cuenta de que sucede algo raro con los libros. Incluso descubre un conjunto de libros extrañisimos, el Kruptos de Thomas Ariel. Y así transcurre la vida de Prior en la abadía, entre sueños de pesadilla y el temor a las criaturas que rondan el exterior del lugar, donde parece que el tiempo sigue otros parámetros. Posteriormente, llega una visita, el Reverendo Winters, con intención de realizar un exorcismo, y la tensión irá en aumento hasta el final.
Excelente prosa la de Mark Samuels. Hasta ahora sólo había leído sus relatos, pero en la distancia larga también se mueve bien.
Excelente prosa la de Mark Samuels. Hasta ahora sólo había leído sus relatos, pero en la distancia larga también se mueve bien.
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January 28, 2021Chapter One
“My sole purpose, it seemed, was to hibernate until this outbreak of leprous ideologies had played itself out across the European continent.”
An engaging, often evocatively detailed, account of a narrator who is referred to, by other characters, as Mr Prior, and who refers to himself as a “half-cripple”, living during the Second World War, with the status of a guest, in a Cockney family, a London beset by air raids and nightly resorts to Anderson Shelters. Much to the sadness of his hosts, he is unexpectedly given a trial job — by dint of a previous position he once held — as a library cataloguer at Thool Abbey in Hertfordshire … and he travels there by train, an Abbey that sounds as if it had once too easily relinquished its Romishness to the sway of Henry VIII and that king’s scions.
nullimmortalis April 17, 2020 at 6:53 pm Edit
This is a hefty stylish book, 12 by 8 inches, with stiff luxurious white printed pages, interspersed with numerous black divider pages, some generously decorated, between each chapter. Some of these black pages bear quoted extracts from famous authors. My edition is numbered 50/199 and has around 190 pages.
My first gestalt real-time review in 2008 was of a Mark Samuels book. At my advanced age and in current times of Covfefe, I am determined not to finish my reading and review of this book until I am on the point of death.
“My sole purpose, it seemed, was to hibernate until this outbreak of leprous ideologies had played itself out across the European continent.”
An engaging, often evocatively detailed, account of a narrator who is referred to, by other characters, as Mr Prior, and who refers to himself as a “half-cripple”, living during the Second World War, with the status of a guest, in a Cockney family, a London beset by air raids and nightly resorts to Anderson Shelters. Much to the sadness of his hosts, he is unexpectedly given a trial job — by dint of a previous position he once held — as a library cataloguer at Thool Abbey in Hertfordshire … and he travels there by train, an Abbey that sounds as if it had once too easily relinquished its Romishness to the sway of Henry VIII and that king’s scions.
nullimmortalis April 17, 2020 at 6:53 pm Edit
This is a hefty stylish book, 12 by 8 inches, with stiff luxurious white printed pages, interspersed with numerous black divider pages, some generously decorated, between each chapter. Some of these black pages bear quoted extracts from famous authors. My edition is numbered 50/199 and has around 190 pages.
My first gestalt real-time review in 2008 was of a Mark Samuels book. At my advanced age and in current times of Covfefe, I am determined not to finish my reading and review of this book until I am on the point of death.
December 17, 2020
1942, and the war is raging in the skies over Britain when an archivist of antiquarian books gets the offer of a much-needed job. A letter from Lady Caroline Degabaston takes him to Thool Abbey, in Hertfordforshire, to catalogue the Abbey's library.
Needless to say, things don't go the way he expects. He becomes nauseous on sight of the Abbey, his watch stops, he is left alone for many hours having gained entrance, her Ladyship is unavailable to meet him. Up until this stage, 40 pages in perhaps, nothing is particularly out of the ordinary, but rest assured, as the archivist begins his work, that is about to change.
Samuels writes in the style of gothic horror in its halcyon days, the thirty years either or so side of the turn of the century (1900). If at any stage the horror is of less interest, then the period details are.
It is an intelligent and highly atmospheric piece of writing that suits a dark stormy winter night, a comfy chair in front of a roaring fire, and a genrously poured Talisker..
Needless to say, things don't go the way he expects. He becomes nauseous on sight of the Abbey, his watch stops, he is left alone for many hours having gained entrance, her Ladyship is unavailable to meet him. Up until this stage, 40 pages in perhaps, nothing is particularly out of the ordinary, but rest assured, as the archivist begins his work, that is about to change.
Samuels writes in the style of gothic horror in its halcyon days, the thirty years either or so side of the turn of the century (1900). If at any stage the horror is of less interest, then the period details are.
It is an intelligent and highly atmospheric piece of writing that suits a dark stormy winter night, a comfy chair in front of a roaring fire, and a genrously poured Talisker..
December 29, 2021
Another novel I read recently in ebook format was this harrowing tale by Mark Samuels. A cult name among horror fans this was the first time I've tried anything by him.
I was pleasantly surprised, this tale builds in momentum and horror becoming a truly weird and uniquely gothic tale of vampirism, in the vein of Lovecraft, M.R. James and Machen but potent with its own strangeness and originality.
Recommended to fans of Sheridan Le Fanu's 'Carmilla', as well as classic horror writers such as Blackwood, Poe etc.
Looking forward to trying more of Samuels writing.
I was pleasantly surprised, this tale builds in momentum and horror becoming a truly weird and uniquely gothic tale of vampirism, in the vein of Lovecraft, M.R. James and Machen but potent with its own strangeness and originality.
Recommended to fans of Sheridan Le Fanu's 'Carmilla', as well as classic horror writers such as Blackwood, Poe etc.
Looking forward to trying more of Samuels writing.
October 25, 2020
Samuels' third novel (after The Face of Twilight and Pilgrim Stranger) is a deliriously morbid gothic masterpiece. It contains references to some of Samuels' fine short stories (such as "The White Hands", "The Search for Kruptos," and several others) creating something of a "Samuels Mythos" but would stand on its own just fine. There are decadent passages that practically ooze off the page. Death, decay, and cruel privation reign over all. And yet, Samuels holds it all together with his crystal clear, urbane prose, which here purposefully takes on a Lovecraftian character without feeling stodgy.
Highly recommended for the horror/weird connoisseur, though if you are new to Samuels, perhaps read his White Hands short fiction collection before his. (Other excellent collections I've read by him include The Man Who Collected Machen, Written in Darkness, and Prozess Manifestations).
Highly recommended for the horror/weird connoisseur, though if you are new to Samuels, perhaps read his White Hands short fiction collection before his. (Other excellent collections I've read by him include The Man Who Collected Machen, Written in Darkness, and Prozess Manifestations).
February 12, 2021
Atmospheric and genuinely scary, in the tradition of Lovecraft, as far as vocabulary and prose are concerned. Not spectacular plot-wise; despite some classic Samuelisms (concerning texts, books, and language) this is a Gothic story of diabolism and witchcraft with clearly defined aspects of good and evil.
July 8, 2022
The first novel I have read by this author who is, to the best of my knowledge, better known for his short story collections.
This is a gothic horror piece awash with influences from an array of classic authors in the genre. It is verbose, with little dialogue and lots of florid exposition that will jar with some modern readers but enjoyed by those who are fans of the same classics that Samuels clearly is.
A bleak tale that only gets darker as one reads on. Quite effective as a piece of gothic horror although maybe could have been a little shorter?
This is a gothic horror piece awash with influences from an array of classic authors in the genre. It is verbose, with little dialogue and lots of florid exposition that will jar with some modern readers but enjoyed by those who are fans of the same classics that Samuels clearly is.
A bleak tale that only gets darker as one reads on. Quite effective as a piece of gothic horror although maybe could have been a little shorter?
December 15, 2023
Una novela de terror con un sabor clásico a lo Poe, Lovecraft y Machen que me ha gustado muchísimo.
Lamentable perdida la de este autor fallecido recientemente y que ha sido capaz de revitalizar el cuento gótico de terror junto a otros autores de la camada actual como Ligotti, Padgett, Reggie Oliver o Laird Barron.
En esta novela se nos narra como a un joven se le ofrece un trabajo de archivador en una recóndita mansión. El protagonista acudirá allí y será recibido por unos extraños personajes quedando prisionero sin poder salir de la zona de la mansión donde siempre es de noche y con la tarea de analizar oscuros grimorios. La llegada de un extraño exorcista desembocará un final sorprendente y macabro. Con ganas de leer mucho más de Mark Samuels , ahora que he terminado con todo lo de Ligotti creo que va a coger el testigo como autor de cabecera. No me extraña nada que Valdemar lo haya elegido como nuevo integrante de su colección gótica porque se ajusta perfectamente a su colección.
Lamentable perdida la de este autor fallecido recientemente y que ha sido capaz de revitalizar el cuento gótico de terror junto a otros autores de la camada actual como Ligotti, Padgett, Reggie Oliver o Laird Barron.
En esta novela se nos narra como a un joven se le ofrece un trabajo de archivador en una recóndita mansión. El protagonista acudirá allí y será recibido por unos extraños personajes quedando prisionero sin poder salir de la zona de la mansión donde siempre es de noche y con la tarea de analizar oscuros grimorios. La llegada de un extraño exorcista desembocará un final sorprendente y macabro. Con ganas de leer mucho más de Mark Samuels , ahora que he terminado con todo lo de Ligotti creo que va a coger el testigo como autor de cabecera. No me extraña nada que Valdemar lo haya elegido como nuevo integrante de su colección gótica porque se ajusta perfectamente a su colección.
January 15, 2021
I adored this. This novella was swamped in gothic imagery, a world steeped in the colors of black and red. The abbey is deliciously macabre, and the library is a library of surreal madness(where books write the author rather than the other way around). I could not get enough, I wish it was longer.
October 26, 2022
So grim I was tempted to watch a Hallmark movie.
January 30, 2022
I had very high hopes for this book, so I was very frustrated as I plodded along the first half of it without much enthusiasm wondering what all the fuss was about. Somewhere in the second half, the pace picked up and things started to come together in a delightfully twisted way! In the end, I enjoyed the experience, but I took off one star because I was so close to quitting halfway.
December 13, 2021
Old-fashioned in pace, oppressively atmospheric, Lovecraftian-tinged, unendingly haunting, deliciously gothic ... I loved every sentence.
March 13, 2024
A true ghostly delirium in which Samuels tries us in a dreamlike atmosphere where the limits between the real and the spectral are blurred. It has a final twist that frankly exceeded my expectations, and you can feel in his prose that he has drunk from the glory of masters like Poe, Stoker or Machen. A difficult novel with strong and shocking descriptions, a delight of classic gothic horror.
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March 5, 2025If Lovecraft had been born in the 1960s and had been raised on a diet of pulp horror, this is the novel he would write.
May 6, 2022
Pretty satisfying cliché-storm of every gothic fiction impulse imaginable - sprawling haunted architecture, libraries full of dusty old tomes, the undead, vampirism, aristocracy, witchcraft [duh], and prose that's flowery in the extreme [gotta love the amount of counterintuitive big words here]. Stylish - pretty much all style, and that's not a negative - and overall just fun and breezy to read, with a relatively fast pace that nevertheless doesn't sacrifice some pretty impressive scene-setting and ominous atmosphere. Couldn't help but notice a weird thread of conservatism throughout while reading this, but this very much concerns itself with the pomposity of British aristocrat culture and a heaping of superstitious Catholic fanaticism, and this is very obviously riffing on the problematic impulses of goth and weird fiction's forefathers seeing as it's a very blatant pastiche of the style, so maybe there's something more worth mining under the surface. There's a pretty interesting thread of space-time screwery throughout that makes this compelling and also gotta love a book that's about books [especially weird, impossible ones]. Cover goes dummy hard as well and shout out to the phrase "malefic reordering of existence". Would recommend this to anyone who doesn't mind style and atmosphere over narrative and character, but I'd imagine you'd have to have a taste for that anyway if you've stumbled upon this novel in the first place.
February 13, 2022
[....]All writers worthy of the name present you with a world, or rather a vision of one, that lingers in the mind. The power of that vision is not dependent on whether you find it sympathetic, but on the imaginative skill of the artist and the depth of their intellect.
Reggie Oliver (2014) introduction to Written in Darkness
* * *
"Witch-Cult Abbey" is a superb story of rites, secret inheritances, macabre lineages and sorcerous continuities.
It begins in a wonderfully observed blitzed 1940 London. It progresses forward in time back to the 1600s. The abbey itself, like a planet orbiting a Christopher Nolan black hole, compresses time. Among other things.
This being a Mark Samuels story, the hero experiences leeches, lost teeth, bad food, nasty drinking water, and enforced book cataloguing.
Jay
13 February 2022
Reggie Oliver (2014) introduction to Written in Darkness
* * *
"Witch-Cult Abbey" is a superb story of rites, secret inheritances, macabre lineages and sorcerous continuities.
It begins in a wonderfully observed blitzed 1940 London. It progresses forward in time back to the 1600s. The abbey itself, like a planet orbiting a Christopher Nolan black hole, compresses time. Among other things.
This being a Mark Samuels story, the hero experiences leeches, lost teeth, bad food, nasty drinking water, and enforced book cataloguing.
Jay
13 February 2022
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 9, 2026
This was damn good. Like it’s spooky, has a bunch of connections to other stuff that this author has written- but one does not need to have read the rest to understand this! It’s totally rad. The setting is great, the voice is perfect. This authors work reminds me of HPLs stuff, but all round better. Spooky church, shifting grounds, ancient legacy, weirdo cults, strange books, time-effery, I really liked this. Though the ending confused me a bit. Heck yeah.
September 20, 2026
We get another piece of the Thool Valley puzzle in this wild ride of a gothic novel! Witch-Cult Abbey relates to Mark Samuels's body of work as The Croning relates to Laird Barron's body of work, in that, through a wonderfully weird and horrifying novel, it reveals crucial history and background that informs the mythos behind so many of his short stories. Expect necromancy, cursed books, cults, labyrinthine prisons, weirdness, and the dreaming dead.
November 16, 2022
The Gothic diction and imagery of this novel deserves 4 stars alone, and my goodness the bleakness of that ending! If Poe or Machen were alive today, they also would be churning out visions like this for a small publisher somewhere without much relative attention. The nightmare logic of this novel’s plot is very jarring, but if you love flowery Gothic prose then Samuels is your monk…
November 9, 2022
An occult and gothic horror mash up!!
3 1/2 stars. It was a good book. I just don’t think it was my kind of book.
3 1/2 stars. It was a good book. I just don’t think it was my kind of book.
June 16, 2024
There was a lot to like about this book, but I felt it became overly wordy after the reverend showed up.
November 12, 2024
I’ve never read a book before where I simultaneously wanted the author to just put down the damn thesaurus already but also please try using some different words.
May 27, 2025
Intriguing start but it never got anywhere. It would have benefited from actually revealing more about the “evil” characters earlier or having them be a little more interesting.
July 15, 2026
Samuels was a master of the weird short story. Unfortunately, this book collapses in on itself under the weight of his purple, pretentious prose. Yikes. Small doses are best.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews