BLURB
A secret organisation is losing the battle to maintain the empathy levels that sustain the planet’s protective barriers against the nightmare worlds.
A young aristocrat safeguards a terrible secret, sponsoring an archaeology graduate obsessed with biblical artifacts. An all-knowing orphan worshiped by a cult joins a textbook exemplar of toxic masculinity and an introverted librarian. Together with a retired demon hunter, they’ll face the apocalypse.
See Also:
Well, That Escalated Quickly • Debunking Time Team • Demons, Found Family and Nando’s
REVIEW
It’s the end of the world as we know it, and with Matthew Samuels, we’re in good hands.
Following normal blokes, Ben and Matt, we get swept up into a world of the supernatural where a secret agency is trying to save humanity from its own lack of empathy. As the world grows less empathetic, the barriers between our world and much scarier worlds becomes thinner as creatures from nightmares start seeping through, terrorizing humanity.
Ben is our main character, a nerdy adult that most of us can probably relate to. His best friend, Matt, is the kind of guy who used to be, and still kind of is, nerdy but as he’s grown up he grew away from things like D&D. They made me think of grown up Mike and Will from Stranger Things. Matt is constantly referencing Buffy the Vampire Slayer and this was a huge plus for me as that is my favorite show. (I’m actually rewatching it as I type this.)
The novel maintains a very quick pace with things getting crazy about halfway through and never really slowing down from there. We meet a few other characters, all of which have distinct personalities and feel like they’re coming to life off the page. There’s even a character with EDS and a parent to a child with EDS that made me very happy to see and my daughter was very excited to hear about it.
There are many action scenes and Samuels does an amazing job painting a picture of all the chaos that never felt difficult to follow. The magic is very loose and also well defined, never feeling confusing and it fit the world Samuels has crafted perfectly.
Wild Court is an epic urban fantasy, perfect for fans of shows like Buffy, Angel or the X-FIles and books like The Dresden FIles or Paternus. Full of laughs, magic, action and heart, Matthew Samuels says a lot about the state of our world but never forgets to have fun.
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