Only the second Arkham Horror novel from Aconyte Books), S.A. Sidor’s The Last Ritual kicked off the more cosmic horror-esque side of the range (compared to the more ‘pulp adventure’ vibes of books like Wrath of N’Kai) with a tale of surrealist art and interdimensional darkness. It’s the story of an artist – Alden Oakes – in search of inspiration, which he finds once he returns to Arkham and takes up with a community of fellow artists, led by the charismatic Juan Hugo Balthazar. When decadent parties turn into ritualistic murders, however, Alden and his journalist partner Nina Tarrington begin to suspect something dark may lie behind Balthazar’s genius.

There’s a really interesting premise here in the blend of surrealist art and cosmic horror, and some good characters in Alden and Nina, and Alden’s old friend Preston. It’s a fun read, but the pacing is a little odd, and it takes a bit too long to get to what feels like the main body of the book – the commune, and all the creepiness it entails. I’d have preferred more time spent really digging into the darkness of the art and where that comes from, and showing just how awful Balthazar was. As it is, the horror feels like it’s coming at a slight remove, a feeling that’s emphasised by Alden never really seeming all that scared – or at least however scared he says he is, he still just walks headlong into the next misadventure. It’s still an entertaining read, and I liked the framing device of having a slightly older Alden relating his tale to a young journalist, but I’d have loved it to have just dug a little deeper into the weirdness and darkness.

My thanks to Aconyte Books for an advance review copy via NetGalley of ‘The Last Ritual: An Arkham Horror Novel’ by S A Sidor in exchange for an honest review. My apologies for the late feedback.

It was first published in November 2020 and its unabridged audiobook edition has just been released. As a result I did a combined read/listen for an immersive experience.

The Arkham Horror series of stand-alone historical horror mysteries is based on the popular Lovecraft-inspired tabletop game set in the late 1920s. In its opening chapter Andy Van Nortwick, an ambitious young reporter for the Arkham Advertiser, is interviewing artist Alden Oakes. The year before Oakes had survived a fire at the Silver Hotel.

The narrative then switches to Oakes’ account of the mysterious events that had led to the fire. The tale involves the celebrated Spanish surrealist, Juan Hugo Balthazarr, who has come to Arkham. Alden and others, who are part of a local art commune, quickly fall under Balthazarr’s charismatic spell.

Balthazarr throws a string of decadent parties for Arkham’s social elite, during which he conjures arcane illusions which blur the boundaries between nightmare and reality. Slowly Alden come to suspect that Balthazarr’s mock rituals are actually much more than theatre…. cue sinister music. No further details to avoid spoilers.

It is a fascinating story and the reader is placed in the position of Van Nortwick listening to Alden’s account, related with an increasing intensity, of his growing awareness of Balthazarr’s nefarious plans and his own entanglement in the same.

Balthazarr brought to mind Salvador Dali, though he was famous for his moustache rather than the forked beard that Balthazarr sports.

This was great fun with plenty of chilling moments. I felt that Sidor did well in evoking a sense of the historical period. As with ‘Cult of the Spider Queen’ I found it engaging and entertaining.

The Arkham House banner excels in attracting authors adept at embracing pulp horror fiction and an understanding of Lovecraft’s mythos that allows them to faithfully expand on it. All while retaining a sense of how gloriously over-the-top it all is.

On a side note, I loved the Art Deco cover design.

Great treat for fans of Lovecraft and period horror.

The Last Ritual

S.A. Sidor

Aconyte Books

With every title that they release, Aconyte Books – the publishing arm of Asmodee Entertainment – becomes more and more impressive and more and more accomplished as a publisher. They’ve released some fantastic books in their relatively short history, all based on the board games and RPG systems that their parent company are licensed to produce. From the light-hearted craziness of the sci-fi/fantasy mashup that is the KeyForge CCG (the Tales of the Crucible anthology) to the spirit-haunted lands of the Legend of the Five Rings setting (Curse of Honor) and the dark fantasy RPG Descent: Journeys in the Dark (The Doom of Fallowhearth), Aconyte have blended together exciting settings with some of the best scifi and fantasy authors in the genre to create memorable, engaging and hugely entertaining novels and anthologies. But out of all of the properties that they are leveraging, by far my favourite is the occult detective, Lovecraftian setting that is Arkham Horror. I have fond memories of playing games of Arkham Horror in the ever-increasing distance of my teenage years, and the Occult Detective/Lovecraftian genre is perhaps one of my most favourites to read and review. The first book in the revamped Arkham Horror series, Wrath of N’Kai, perfectly set the tone for the series, in my opinion; written by veteran occult detective and sci-fi author Josh Reynolds, it delivered atmosphere and sinister characters in spades, and deserved to take pride of place in anyone’s occult horror collection.

Given how well the series had started, I was beyond eager to see how it would continue, and was deeply intrigued by S.A. Sidor’s upcoming The Last Ritual. The cover art is a lavish and detailed affair, illustrator John Coulthart perfectly bringing to life the Jazz Age decor of the Arkham Horror setting; and the back-cover blurb sounded hugely promising, mentioning surrealism, paintings that invoke occult rituals, and blurring the boundaries between nightmare and reality. Although I hadn’t heard of the author before now, his previous titles for Angry Robot had excellent reviews (and indeed The Institute for Singular Antiquities duology spoke so strongly to me that they’re now on my short-list to review later this year) which again pointed to Aconyte Books picking the cream of the crop when it came to this particular genre. All in all it seemed really exciting, and I couldn’t wait to dive in and get reading.

Our story’s protagonist is Alden Oakes, scion of one of the richest families in all of Arkham, and a man who has floated through life courtesy of the monies and luxuries provided by his parents and his family name. He is a talented artists, specialising in paintings, but has found himself struggling in the decadent, post-Great War years, unable to truly paint anything that seems memorable or truly talented. That all begins to change on the beaches of Cannes, when Alden suddenly finds himself confronted by Preston Fairmont, an old university friend and dilitante who unexpectedly invites Oakes back to Arkham, as a guest for Preston’s marriage to Oakes’ ex-fiancee. Oakes is surprised by the invitation, and even moreso by Preston’s bizarre and erratic behaviour, but agrees to travel back through Europe and then over the Atlantic, back to Arkham and his family and friends. His return journey takes him through isolated, rural towns and villages in Spain, and an attempt to tour through the crowded streets of Barcelona instead devolves into his attendance at a deeply unsettling and esoteric ceremony; he becomes enmeshed in a bizarre ritual involving strange, puppet-like figures, eerie chanting, and the presence of an intimidating figure with a forked beard that seems strangely familiar to Alden.

Making his escape after the end of the ritual and crossing the Atlantic, Alden returns to Arkham and his ancestral home, eventually joining up with Preston and his fiancée Minnie. But his friend’s behaviour becomes increasingly eccentric, worrying the painter, and to further compliance matters Alden becomes involved with Nina, a mysterious writer who wishes to investigate a series of accidents, suicides and murders involving artists that has suddenly occurred across the whole of Arkham. Slowly but surely drawn into a side of Arkham he had little awareness of, Alden is confronted by horrifying ritual murders, disappearing decapitated bodies, and inexplicable, inhuman monsters that pursue him across the murky backwaters of Arkham. Being invited to join the mysterious and secretive art commune known as the New Colony seems to be a huge break for Alden as an artist, inspiring him to great feats of painting, but his painting and the murders soon become inextricably twisted together in the New Colony. The arrival of the strange and highly charismatic surrealist artist Juan Hugo Balthazarr to the New Colony seems to promise new heights of pageantry and inspiration; but instead, Alden and Nina find themselves drawn into incomprehensible occult rituals, which begin to have terrifying implications for the residents of the New Colony, as well as all of Arkham.

Set in media res, Sidor opens the novel with Oakes a famous artist, returning to Arkham and the infamous Silver Gate Hotel to be interviewed by a young journalist. The newspaperman hopes to get a big story out of the painter, a man who seems to have aged far faster than his physical years, and who begins to describe the path that led him to fame and fortune. It’s a really effective framing device that neatly sets out the broad contours of the plot – surreal art, a strange fire, a reclusive and mysterious artist with a horrifying tale to tell – and irresistibly draws you into the rest of the story. Sidor has a way of writing prose that perfectly embodies the nightmarish and surreal themes of the Arkham Horror setting; throughout the novel, as the narrative deftly unwinds and hooks you in further, Sidor maintains an unsettling and even anxious atmosphere that greatly enhances a story brimming with unreal imagery and which forces the reader to question just which elements – if any – are real and actually occurring. His prose is superbly constructed, drawing you in without even realising it; I read the majority of The Last Ritual in the course of a single day, losing track of the hours as I turned the pages. That brilliant prose supports a deeply compelling narrative, one which develops quickly and effectively, always having a twist or turn to make you turn the page and begin the next chapter; you feel like you’ve been inducted into the ethereal world of the New Colony yourself, experiencing the frantic highs and terrifying lows of Alden’s investigation into the occult through his eyes.

The writing is superb, and the plot enthralling, but the characters are perhaps the finest part of The Last Ritual, and which for me elevated the book as one of the best Aconyte have published so far. It would have been so very easy for Sidor to fall into the clichés and tropes which litter the occult and Lovecraftian genres, and give us two-dimensional artistes who foolishly dabble with things they do not understand in the pursuit of their art. But instead, Sidor gives us some engaging and three-dimensional characters who always seem to act on their own initiative, and not just because the plot and page-count demand it. Alden is a detached and adrift protagonist, looking for meaning in his life, but importantly he is already a talented painter in his own right, even if looking for something to perfect his art; Sidor does not fall into the trap of giving us the generic ‘common-place artist desperate to be great’ protagonist so often seen in these sorts of tales. And Balthazarr makes for a memorable and delightfully bombastic antagonist, a wraithlike character who seems happy to taunt Alden and sting him with verbal barbs while turning the population of the New Colony into his willing puppets for his rituals and artworks. Indeed, all of the characters are fully fleshed-out and engaging – never a guarantee in the Lovecraftian genre, unfortunately – and Sidor also imbues them with this feeling of impermanence , a sort of semi-solidity that ties into the dream-like atmosphere of the novel as a whole. We’re never quite certain whether anything Alden is telling the journalist in the hotel room is real at all, or simply his own fevered and twisted imaginations, and the story is all the better for it. It creates a certain tension in the novel’s atmosphere, a certain expectation from the reader, which Sidor then deftly and unexpectedly shatters with an ending that I genuinely didn’t see coming. His knack for blending artist expression and Lovecraftian horrors really is the best that I’ve ever seen reading through the genre over the years, and is genuinely impressive.

Superbly written, deftly plotted, and imbued with Sidor’s absolutely phenomenal imagination and inherent understanding of the decaying, sumptuous décor of Jazz Age Arkham that hides a terrifying underside, The Last Ritual is one of the most enjoyable and memorable occult horror thrillers that I have read in a long time, and a fantastic addition to Aconyte’s Arkham Horror range. Sidor has delivered us a novel that perfectly embodies both Arkham Horror as a setting, and Lovecraftian Artistry as a concept, and I can only hope that editor Charlotte Llewelyn-Wells commissions further Arkham Horror books from him in the future. I would certainly pick them up and read them without hesitation, and I believe I would be far from the only one.

I thoroughly enjoyed this dark slice of Arkham! As a bookseller and firm fan of the game (I have every expansion of the base game and Elder Sign) I really appreciated all the little nods and cameos to the characters I know and love. That said, as with the first novel in the series, the book was not a slave to the source material and built a fascinating narrative all of it's own. It's a credit to the writer and the publisher just how good this series is turning out to be.

There were some genuine moments of horror in the novel, along with a dash of ghoulish glee at certain points too. I'd thoroughly recommend this book to fans of the games, but also to the wider mythos as well. A brilliant read.

The Arkham Horror series has very strong links to the works of H.P. Lovecraft, with much of the games and their lore being adapted from the stories produced by the horror writer, and subsequent others who've come along after and added to the Cthulhu lore. Because of this, you might be likely to come to a book like The Last Ritual with certain expectations, but I found that S.A. Sidor was able to subvert these expectations, and gave me a much different story to the one I was expecting.

I'm sure we've all seen stories based upon Lovecraft's work that use the horror elements, that push the otherworldly strangeness of creatures like Cthulhu and his fellow entities. I think that readers come to expect that these creatures will eventually take centre stage in these stories, even if they only appear right at the end as our hero faces off against some tentacled monstrosity that pushes the limits of their sanity. Whilst this book does feature Lovecraftian beasts, it's less of a psychological horror and more of a mystery; and that definitely makes it stand out.

The Last Ritual follows the character of Alden Oakes, a young socialite from Arkham who's travelling across Europe and living the rich playboy lifestyle when he runs into his old friend, Preston, in France. He discovers that Preston has just become engaged, to Alden's former girlfriend Minnie, and encourages Alden to return to Arkham to celebrate with them and attend their wedding. Alden agrees, but decides to spend some more time in Europe for a while. However, after finding himself in a small town in Spain weeks later, he gets caught up in a local festival that takes a turn for the sinister. The event leaves him slightly shaken, and encourages him to return to his home.

Back in Arkham, Alden learns that there have been several strange incidents across the city, including disappearances, killings, and strange accidents. When he goes to the scene of the latest accident he meets Nina, and is soon drawn to her not just because of her beauty, but because of her notion that some strange things are happening in the city. When he meets her again at Preston and Minnie's engagement party the two of them stumble across a grizzly murder. Now they find themselves as the centre of a mystery that has the whole of Arkham on edge, has cult like connections, and may involve a mysterious surrealist painter from Spain.

Straight away it's clear that there's something strange happening around Alden, even before we've managed to get to Arkham itself. Whether it's him seeing bizarre symbols being drawn in the sand on a French beach, or the almost nightmarish events of the Spanish festival, it really feels like something is zeroing in on our hero. This makes the narrative somewhat more interesting, as it gives you a sense that whatever he chooses to do he can't escape from what's to come.

Some mystery horror stories have protagonists that are drawn into the narrative, either by making a strange discovery themselves or being asked to investigate something, and it tends to be their own desire to find answers, or their unwillingness to back down that leads them to trouble. But with Alden it seems that even if he were to try to run away from the horrors to come it wouldn't make much of a difference, and that there's no escaping this.

This makes for a story that feels a lot more personal, even though it doesn't seem to involve the people he cares about. He's not connected to this through friends or loved ones being put in danger, but rather because someone or something has chosen to make him a part of it. This ties into the sense of powerlessness that a lot of Lovecraft's stories utilised; the idea that we are unable to alter our own fates, or that we cannot fight the forces that are controlling everything because they rival our powers and abilities in ways that we could never match.

Fortunately, Alden isn't just content to be a pawn in someone's game, and actively goes about trying to get to the bottom of things alongside Nina. The two of them make for an engaging pair, and it's enjoyable to see them getting through their initial misgivings about the other to form a team; and eventually go on to become lovers. It's a pretty believable relationship, and it never once felt like it was being forced, and it was instead a natural progression of their journeys. The two of them are so isolated in a city where no one else wants to acknowledge that awful and bizarre things are happening, so of course they'll find strong affection for each other when they're the only person the other can turn to.

Despite the focus on Alden and Nina the book is filled with interesting characters, many of whom you'll end up wanting to learn more about and spend more time with. Whether it's Calvin, the dock worker who gets drawn into the mystery when his friend is killed, party animal Preston, who you're never quite sure is involved in the bigger mystery or not, or even Roland, Alden's butler and oldest friend; you end up wanting to learn more about the inhabitants of Arkham, and could easily see these characters going off and having their own strange stories in this cursed city.

The characters are definitely one of the strengths of Sidor's writing, and they really make the city come alive in interesting ways. It also helps a lot, as much of the book is focused on the mystery, rather than the horror elements of Arkham Horror. With the frightening moments being few and far between, though incredibly effective, it means that the mystery and the characters have to carry much of the book. With a lesser writer this could easily have fallen apart, but Sidor is able to make even the most mundane scenes interesting because you stop focusing on wanting answers to the mystery and just end up wanting to spend time with the characters instead.

The Last Ritual might not be the scariest story I've read, but it's one of the more interesting mysteries, with enjoyable characters, and a setting that felt completely alive. Whether this is your first introduction to the world of Arkham Horror or you're a long time fan I'm sure that it will keep you hooked right up to the end.

I'm not a big fan of Lovecraft and Arkham Horrors so I don't know what I expected really. To start with the few things I liked: the setting and the overall vibe of Art Decou were really interesting and it initially drew me into the story. And it is the story I had an issue with. It was kind of bland and didn't excite me enough to finish the book. "The Last Ritual" just wasn't a book for me and that's totally fine.

I was initially interested in The Last Ritual for two reasons. First, it was set in the Arkham Horror Universe. Anyone who knows me is aware I’m obsessed with Fantasy Flight’s Arkham Horror games.

Of course, a good setting and façade aren’t worth much without a solid story inside. Thankfully, S.A. Sidor delivers a fantastic yarn. The narrative follows Alden Oakes, a painter, as he teams with Nina Tarrington, a writer, to investigate a mysterious artist’s commune called the New Colony. The pair suspects the New Colony is behind a series of ritualistic murders taking place around Arkham. A famed surrealist painter named Juan Hugo Balthazarr leads the artist’s commune, and he starts to take an increasingly dangerous liking to both Alden and Nina. The story combines elements of the Cthulhu Mythos with the work of F. Scott Fitzgerald, whose story “The Rich Boy” is quoted in the opening pages of this novel.

Overall it was a really interesting take on the world.

Alden Oakes, a painter from Arkham’s upper crust, left the town and the country in search of the thing his paintings lack. The thing that leaves them incomplete. That separates them from even approaching the same greatness as the works of Juan Hugo Balthazarr, the deeply charismatic darling of the surrealist set. The same surrealist he will meet again and again as strange symbols and run-ins with horrifying creatures leave him searching for answers. Alden’s search will reveal a great many of Arkham’s horrors but will it be enough to prevent the destruction of the city and perhaps the world.

I have fewer words about S. A. Sidor’s The Last Ritual: An Arkham Horror Novel than I would have expected. And I have something of a hard time figuring out why that is. The novel is good all told. The use of setting is interesting and shows the reader a sort of seedy underside of Arkham that feels like it has a lot of potential. I just find myself uncertain that it lives up to that potential once everything has been said.

It feels as though my question of if The Last Ritual lives up to its potential could easily come from the framing of the narrative. The entirety of the story is the protagonist, Alden Oakes, recounting what happened to a reporter a year after the fact. It takes a lot of the punch out of the horror of the story, knowing for certain that nothing too bad can happen to Alden. It makes the danger feel much more distant which staunches the build of any kind of tension. The lack of danger can also have the side effect of making the various threats feel a little silly, the terrifying monster can frighten Alden and leave cryptic messages but there is little else it can do.  

Of course, part of this might also tie into Alden himself. He can feel more like a character that things happen to rather than the protagonist of the story. I kept finding myself wishing we were following Nina, the firebrand love interest, or Calvin, the dock worker who clearly knows more than he lets anyone know, because they both felt like they were being more active in the mystery of what was going on than Alden. A passive protagonist is not necessarily a bad thing, the hero of a story can be someone else, but with the framing device it feels a little flat here. The combination also leaves the ending feeling more than a little unearned.

This may make it sound like I did not enjoy The Last Ritual, I did. That potential I mentioned before is all over the book.  Sidor does a fantastic job of painting Alden as helpless in the face of both the actual monsters he faces as well as the sheer weight of Juan Hugo Balthazarr’s charisma. The helplessness does tie into how passive Alden can feel but it can also work towards showing just how desperately impressive the antagonist is meant to be.  The secondary characters, when they show up, are well crafted and feel quite interesting. The New Colonists are fascinating in concept and I would have loved to see more of them and the upper crust set represented by Alden’s old friends.  I feel like the sense of being thrown off kilter, of things suddenly being just that side of wrong, was well done and could have been used more.

More is, ultimately, what I find myself thinking The Last Ritual could use in several places. It has a ton of potential and does a lot of things well, but it tends to feel like Sidor pulls back on things where he could have pushed them just a little further and had something fantastic.  More places where Alden is pulled along on Nina’s investigations so the reader could see more of what was happening with Balthazarr’s plans, something to build onto his personal mystery and to give the reader more space to dig into the question of how he was accomplishing everything.

The Last Ritual is a good book and one that certainly leaves me planning to read more of S. A. Sidor’s work. Despite its framing device there is a lot to enjoy here, and there are several scenes that do a fantastic job of balancing tension with an almost dreamlike quality of unreality. I give it a four out of five.

I'm a huge fan of H.P. Lovecraft, which is the main reason why this book and it's synopsis intrigued me so much. I love cosmic horror and the idea of a cult-like society of artists set in 1920s America, led by an enigmatic surrealist named Balthazarr sounded like a fantastic idea.

The book starts out like many stories of cosmic horror. With ordinary people living their lives and the horror slowly starting to creep in to the point were the protagonist and the reader alike are experiencing constant feelings of dread and unease.

I'm not gonna say too much about the book because, in my opinion, with stories like that it is always better to not know too much.

I found Alden to be a likable protagonist, caught in his desire to create art but also being trapped in the state of his own mediocrity. But things changed for him with his return to his home in Arkham and I have to admit that I couldn't wait for the outerwordly creatures to emerge, for a Cthulhu-like entity to make it's entrance. And I have to say, without spoiling anything, that I really liked the elements of cosmic horror in this book. They were a lot like something out of a Lovecraftian tale, something that Junji Ito could perfectly draw and Guillermo del Toro illustrate. I really enjoyed where this book was taking me. I just wish the pacing in the middle of the storry wouldn't have felt so slow for me.

Maybe it was just me but in the beginning there were so many new people and locations, so many things that were keeping me interested and the middle part juft fell a little flat for me at times. There were great scenes strewn in, with great horror elements, but in between I felt a little unmotivated to keep reading. Which is also why I'm not giving it 5 stars. But then again, towards the last third the pacing kept getting better again and culminated in a grand (and great) finale.

In the end I would give this book 3.5 to 4 stars.

I have been provided with an advance copy of the new Arkham Horror book The Last Ritual by S. A Sidor, published by Aconyte Books, so here is the honest review I promised in exchange for the book.

So here is an important disclaimer which is always important to put out there first. I have a casual work contact with Asmodee to demonstrate board games for them in stores and at conventions. Asmodee being the parent company of Aconyte the publisher.

I am going to try my best to not let that cloud my judgement in this review, but I accept that subconsciously it might.

What is Arkham Horror
Anyway that put to one side, let’s look at this book, by first looking at the game Arkham Horror which is a cooperative game, originally designed by Richard Launius, and is now in its third edition which was released in 2019.

It’s published by Fantasy Flight Games, a subsidiary of Asmodee, and is set in 1926 in the town of Arkham, Massachusetts. Each player takes on the role of an investigator, who are working to stop the Ancient Ones, eldritch horrors which lurk in the void beyond space and time.

It’s a 1-6 player game and you work together to gather clues and defeat the evil of the Ancient Ones and save the world.

As I said I haven’t actually played Arkham Horror but I do own its spin off Elder Sign the cooperative dice game.

The Story
It’s a 1920s novel as an aspiring artist in the town of Arkham as he tried to piece together the puzzle of several very odd occurrences along with his love interest a talented young writer.

Like the previous novel Wrath of N'kai, which I reviewed earlier this year, it has a very rich setting, and there are subtle crossovers as characters common to the setting get a mention.

But we run across bootleggers, odd job men, butlers, privileged rich kids and impoverished artists, as well as the main antagonist, a renowned Spanish surrealists who wishes to open the gate.

On Goodreads I saw an excellent comment by Taylor Hanson, this book is "Lovecraft meets The Great Gatsby", and that is as good a term I can think of.

The story is told retrospectively as Alden, our protagonist recites the tale to a young reporter, so there is a lot of foreshadowing to a disaster that left him disfigured and scarred.

The book is much slower and quietier than Wrath oif N'kai, but its suitably unsettling, there is an almost blurring of the lines between the possible, and the impossible, between dreams and waking. The creeping dread of the story is very tangible and when finished with it after a session, I felt a discomfort in my mind.

Conclusion
Personally I really enjoyed the book, it was a creepy, yet enjoyable story which whilst grounded in the Cthulhu mythos, like the Wrath of N'kai did not delve into it too deeply, nor did it require me to have more than passing knowledge.

Normally, I don't go for horror, and this one nicely doesn't dwell too much on gore, but its absolutely there but mostly happens off screen.

The conclusion felt like it came too quickly, and I did find his efforts to find a missing person in the last couple of chapters, a little lacklustre considering what they meant to Alden.

I would recommend this book, its certainly an entertaining read and does get the heart pumping.

Disclaimer: I was so excited to receive this book for review! I’d seen the new Arkham Horror series as Coming Soon for most of the year, and given the popularity of Lovecraft-inspired fiction happening right now (almost as if the world’s gone mad), I was hopeful that such a dedicated selection of books from proven writers would be both true to the Mythos and also original for the 21st Century.

I’m glad to report that this book hits it out of the park on both fronts.

The story is narrated by famed artist Alden Oakes, and while we are told he is revealing horrific events from his youth, he seems at first to be more of a rich old man simply reminiscing. But soon you’re (appropriately) sucked into the tale and the momentum begins to rise…

We travel from the Old Ways of Europe to the newer – and stranger – happenings in Arkham itself. The town is as much a character as any of the humans, and it’s fascinating to see that while it’s comparatively forward-thinking (particularly with regard to women and people of colour), it’s built on a truly ancient foundation.

It’s difficult to speak about the plot without giving anything away, but suffice to say that the tale is the best sort of rollercoaster matinee adventure. By spending time with the protagonists, we become invested and genuinely caring for their wellbeing in a way that Lovecraft never really had time for. I was also relieved that the author has far more liberal views than HP himself – no racism, sexism or xenophobia here.

Initially, I felt that the book could be shorter, but I quickly realized that it’s precisely as long as it needs to be. While Alden can seem a little Wooster-like with his rank and privilege, he realizes it and tries to use it to help those other than himself. He’s a silly young man, who is forced to grow up and face the very real dangers of his home town (hopefully without pranging Father’s Rolls).

The 1920s setting is both well-researched and appropriate. Prohibition is something that everyone kind of works around; the recent war was its own kind of madness. Arkham is almost an island, tangentially affected by the wider movements of America at large but also looking far beyond, to the stars and the deepest seas, where the mysteries are strangely hypnotic, even attractive.

The characters are so well-drawn that I was casting them in my head (and missing Christopher Lee for one crucial baddie!). This would make a wonderful TV serial, akin to the recent ‘Lovecraft Country’.

I enjoyed my time in this strange land immensely, and am looking forward very much to the next titles in the series. Absolutely recommended.

As expected, SA Sidor creates a strange and surreal story that has your head in a spin, in the best way! Art deco, great gatsby lifestyles, and occult secrets. A really great read, and a fantastic cover!

The Last Ritual by SA Sidor is Aconyte’s second novel set in the world of Arkham Horror. Much like The Wrath of N’kai, the last Ritual follows an already-familiar pattern: a brand-new protagonist, inhabiting a familiar setting, and running into well-established Arkham characters, who will play a greater or lesser role in the proceedings.

It’s worth noting from the outset, what a beautifully-crafted piece of work The Last Ritual is, in all senses. As a man with far too little shelf-space left in his house, I tend to read mostly on Kindle these days, but am seriously tempted to add a physical copy of this one to my shelves, for the gorgeous Art-Deco cover. Fortunately the craftsmanship doesn’t stop with the cover either: As with Wrath of N’Kai, the cover sets the tone for the book as a whole. Where Wrath was visceral, a struggle against a terrifying monster, The Last Ritual is a far more subtle, cerebral affair. The writer consistently undercuts the voice of the narrator until neither you nor he can be entirely sure about the events he has described for you, and something as major as the very existence of a prominent character can be called into question.

The Last Ritual begins and ends with another story, a short framing device set in an Arkham hotel, one year after the conclusion of the events in the main narrative. This framing story depicts the meeting of a young journalist, and the man who is to be our narrator, one Alden Oakes. Oakes’ comments to the reporter make it clear from the outset that there will be some kind of horrific conflagration at the hotel, from which Alden himself will emerge – prematurely aged and weakened – but which will claim the lives of many others.

So who is Alden Oakes? the protagonist of The Last Ritual is a young artist, born into idle wealth amongst the upper echelons of Arkham society. When the novel begins, he is sauntering his way fairly pointlessly around the south of France and the north of Spain, on a hunt for the artistic inspiration that is so far eluding him. Sidor’s depiction of an anglophone outsider travelling Mediterranean Europe captures the feel brilliantly, and put me at least as much in mind of Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia as it did the horrors of Arkham.

Things start to change for Alden encounters his old friend Preston Fairmont one day in the South of France, and is summoned back to Arkham to act as best-man at his wedding (to Alden’s own former fiancée of all people): this invitation from Preston sets Alden on a journey which seems destined to provide him with the artistic inspiration that he has sought for so long, but which may well come at the cost of his own sanity – and possibly the end of the world, but maybe that’s just his imagination?


I don’t want to spoil too much about the identity of the female lead in The Last Ritual, as the mystery which surrounds her is a key part of the unfolding narrative. Alden’s undulating course of doubt, realisation and confusion allows Sidor to portray a character who is strong and engaging, whilst keeping you slightly off-balance. I enjoyed the complexity of her character, and thought that the strength of her character was well-executed, the ultimate conclusion to her arc a satisfying, if deliberately ambiguous one. Virtually the last thing that Alden says about her will be an unanswered question.

Aside from Alden and his leading lady the other major character who drives much of the action of The Last Ritual, is Balthazarr. More fully, Juan Hugo Balthazzar, “the most shocking living painter in the world” and a self-declared genius. Balthazzar is a Spaniard whose work Alden has long admired from afar, and with whom he seems to repeatedly almost cross paths until he finally comes to Arkham, and becomes the defacto leader of an artists’ collective there. Whilst we see plenty of Balthazarr as the book continues, and he is clearly an imperious figure, clear on his own goals and methods, the unreliability of Alden’s own senses make it unclear whether he is the villain of the piece, or simply a charismatic figure whose image our narrator projects onto darker forces and those he cannot explain. Again, I was impressed by how skilfully Sidor walked this tightrope, portraying such a forceful character, at the same time as obfuscating his exact role in the grand design. The reader is kept constantly guessing for a long time, and only gradually is the truth allowed to become clear when the protagonists are in so deep that they see their doom rushing towards them with a crushing inevitability.

At the risk of a slight tangent, one element of The Last Ritual that I found a bit unusual (this may sound familiar to those who read my previous review of Wrath of N’Kai) was the way that existing Arkham Horror investigators are used. There is a fun little cameo at a party which felt nicely executed, but the two investigators who play bigger roles felt a little strange, especially Preston Fairmont. As people already familiar with him from FFG’s board and card games will know, Preston’s subtitle is “the Millionaire” and he has usually functioned in games by either

Paying other people to do things for him,
Being very influential (due to being loaded), or
Using his many material possessions to steady his mind after witnessing the horrors of the Mythos.
So far, so good. The thing I found weird about his appearance here though, was his apparent ignorance of the Mythos. Where we’re used to seeing Investigators crop up to butt heads with the machinations of the mythos, Preston here seems entirely oblivious to Eldritch Forces around him, focused more on his upcoming nuptials, and his patronage of a famous artist who has recently moved to Arkham. It’s a relatively minor issue, but part of me feels like an original character here rather than Preston would have served better: it would have made him more mysterious as a character and probably made me think differently about their probable fate (based on prior novels and my own assumptions, I don’t envisage any of Fantasy Flight’s 58 Investigators actually dying in any of this tie-in fiction). That said, if you have less of an obsessive relationship with the backstory of the various Arkham Files investigators, it’s unlikely to bother you and, ultimately, it is a minor quibble.

The Last Ritual wouldn’t really be an Arkham novel if events didn’t reach a suitably dramatic climax, and the readers are promised a mighty conflagration early on, which is duly delivered. Despite all this though, the story remains so much more than simply plot-driven, with Sidor’s characters all complex and engaging enough to drive the reader’s interest through the novel.

Overall, I thought The Last Ritual was a great read. Alden is an interesting, if somewhat aimless protagonist, and he provides a fascinating window into Eldritch activities that grow from unsettling to truly horrifying. Sidor deserves particular credit for this, as stories set in the Mythos can easily fall into an all-too-black-and-white situation where the reader knows that the mythos creatures and activities are real whilst the characters remain in “rational” denial. The Last Ritual achieves a lot in making things greyer for reader and characters alike. The characters are interesting, and the conclusion even manages to offer a resolution that is at least bittersweet, rather than as utterly calamitous for Alden as it seems likely to be.

I tried so hard to enjoy this book but i had to stop reading after six chapters, and after looking at other reviews it seems this book is very much like Marmite and has split readers across the board. It was extremely difficult to get into this book, despite it's subject matter being something I would normally enjoy. It has a fantastic styling of the Art Deco era but unfortunately the writing just did not grab me. I was bored and just could not pick it back up, deciding instead to read another book.

Thank you to NetGalley and Aconyte Books for providing me with an e-arc of this book in exchange for an honest review.

4/5 Stars!

As a fan of Lovecraft and Arkham Horror games and stories, this book did not let me down! I didn't realize this book was part of a series until after I'd finished the book, so this can be read as stand-alone, even if you have never read the series, Lovecraft, or had any interaction with Arkham Horror. This book was definitely more mystery than cosmic horror, but that didn't harm the story at all. All through the book, you will feel the sense of impending dread that comes along with Alden trying to discover exactly what was going on with the ritual in the artists' community.

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Unfortunately, I was unable to finish this book. I laboured through to a point, but I found it to be slow to the point of having no real pacing. It became a chore to read.

Combining the life and pluck of a Jazz Age still shadowed by the table-rapping spiritists of the Victorian Age, The Last Ritual reads like a story born of those times would, a sort of blend of Lovecraft meets the Great Gatsby. Sidor brings us into a world like but unlike our own, where things may be a dream or not, where we may be slipping into madness...or being hunted by madness. This book has all the elements that I associate with Lovecraftian fantasy/horror: including abrupt changes in pace and setting, strange insights and even more strange occurrences, demon (or alien-ish) rituals, black outs, strange visions, mysterious disappearances, dead bodies, shadowy monsters, horned Gods, and more - all against a cosmic/bigger picture backdrop.

And while the plot is interesting in that strange meandering sort of dreamy/nightmarish way, the scary high stakes moment that should have been a major wow/scare moment instead sort of flattens under the weight of a more cosmic crescendo: a statement/quest to the truth of reality and art (yes it's a "look at all the strange little things, but don't miss the big picture kind of story"). Overall it's Sidor's writing and actual descriptions that really stood out to me:

"Not that Minnie herself was obscene. See, she was like a piece of broken mirror. Small and shiny, and if you weren't careful she'd leave you bleeding. She reflected back places in yourself that were better left unexamined."

and on the main character summing up his recent paintings: "While they were good, they lacked something almost palpable, as if the real subject had wandered away just before I started to paint. Haunted by absences. I put them away."

or describing one of our Arkham-esque horrors: "The net blob hitched itself along, hauling forth its girth with maximum effort. It shambled onto the bridge. How sluggish it was, but how impressively persistent....A halo of flies buzzed around it, ignoring the cold to feast on morsels hidden in its collapsing chambers - it's honeycomb of well-aged slimes...Inside the rats tumbled round as if they were spinning on a wheel. Somehow I knew the swirling energy of their lifeforces fed and propelled this monster. The motion of their rat bodies animated its horror. If the blob were to consume me, then I would power it like the rats did."

and probably my favorite line from the book:

"I never want this woman angry at me, I thought. She's the kind of lady who might stab you with a pair of scissors if she figured you deserved it. Or she might die for you. It all depended."

A definite read for fans of the genre, Lovecraft, Arkham Horror, or those who like an elegant writing style that is both creatively observant AND creatively expressive.

I will be keeping a close eye on Arkham Horror from now on.

The Last Ritual: An Arkham Horror Novel is the latest work from SA Sidor the mastermind author of The Institute for Singular Antiquities series. As a big fan of the series I knew straight away that I needed to get my hands on a copy of The Last Ritual and I was extremely fortunate to be approved for a eARC. I will note that this in no way swayed my review and I will not allow my love for Fury of from the Tomb to cloud my judgement. That being said The Last Ritual is a brilliantly eerie and well executed read.

This book was instantly recognisable as being written by SA Sidor. Sidor's style shines with this book and the prose are familiar yet original so don't fret that you will not get a unique story. You certainly will be.

I would like to point out that I had never heard of Arkham Horror prior to this read and I can certainly say I will be keeping an eye out for more in the future. Think 1920's detective looking into the strange goings on in a classic American setting. Arkham Horror is specifically set in Lovecraft's fictional Massachusetts town of Arkham in the 1920's.

“Depends what you mean by strange. Arkham’s no stranger to strangeness, is it?”

This read was incredibly enjoyable albeit slightly mind boggling at times. I often found myself in as much as a spin as our protagonist, Alden Oakes, as he makes his way around the city trying to puzzle together the odd occurrences that he happens across. This is all good however and it all adds to the mystery, placing us right in the middle of the action.

“Yet, even abject terror in the face of monsters reaches a lull over time. You manage somehow to get past it. The panic fades to background terror, a jumpiness. But it’s no less a threat once it gets behind you than it was when you faced it head-on. The lingering sense of the monstrous becomes worse than its actual presence. It surrounds you, and fills you with an inescapable pressure that builds and wrecks you inside and out. It’s personal, an invisible invader who might manifest at any moment. Expectation of evil is your new sickness. The worrying eats at you like acid. You and the monster become one thing, and that feels like the dirtiest trick of them all.”
Sidor's use of 1920's slang and terminology really helps build the world up around us and not for a second did I feel I like I was anywhere else but 1920's Arkham. The world building is just where it needs to be. Sidor hit the fine balance between over saturating the read with descriptions and leaving us needing more.

The Last Ritual has opened up a whole new genre for me and I can't wait to explore further. I fear that a lot of TBR piles will be growing to the point of tipping if readers pick up a copy. However you will not regret it if you do so.

If you are a fan of The Institute of Singular Antiquities as I am then you will love Sidor's latest novel. You would be forgiven for thinking that this was another adventure with Rom Hardy and the gang as it feels so familiar as previously stated. If you are already well established within Arkham Horror then I am sure you will enjoy this read. The Last Ritual is Book Vagabond Recommended, you will enjoy this book.

The second book in the new Arkham Horror series and another fun read!
Whereas Wrath of N’kai is a non-stop action romp, The Last Ritual has many more quiet moments- there aren't as many Mythos references or monsters. It delves into the realm of artists, as we know from other Lovecraft stories that artists seem to have a special sensitivity to Mythos influences. I always enjoy returning to this familiar setting with its memorable characters.

Each book in this new series by Aconyte Books is a standalone, so you can pick and choose whichever one sounds most interesting to you.
If a moody, end-of-year-seasonal Mythos story is what you’re looking for, then you should check out The Last Ritual.

This was a solid creeping read for an evening, and set the scene well. It captured the language and nuance of the settings time period better than most, but did have a bit of a sloppy introduction to the actual action. You have two or three actual scene setting starts before you really get into the meat of the action.