Tag: Psychopomp & Circumstance

Review: Psychopomp & Circumstance by Eden Royce

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cover of Psychopomp & CircumstancePsychopomp & Circumstance by Eden Royce
Tordotcom (October 2025)
Reviewed by Rowan B. Minor

Eden Royce, a Shirley Jackson Award winner, is a writer and member of the Gullah-Geechee nation from Charleston, South Carolina, who is now living in Southeast England. Her work has appeared in numerous publications including: Nightmare, Strange Horizons, The Horn Book Magazine, Writer’s Digest, and Western Colorado University. Her debut middle grade novel, ROOT MAGIC, is a Walter Award honoree, a Nebula Award finalist, a Mythopoeic Fantasy Award winner, and an Ignyte award winner for outstanding children’s literature. In 2024, Royce was the joint winner of the Middle Grade Bram Stoker Award for her third YA book, The Creepening of Dogwood House. Her debut adult fiction horror novella, Psychopomp & Circumstance, was released in October 2025. Continue Reading

Review: ‘Psychopomp & Circumstance (Books of Nethermore #1)’ by Adrean Messmer

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psychopompPsychopomp & Circumstance (Books of Nethermore #1) by Adrean Messmer
A Murder of Storytellers (April 2016)
186 pages; $9.99 paperback; $2.99 e-book
Reviewed by Josh Black

Psychopomp & Circumstance, the first in a series of standalone books, is Adrean Messmer’s first novel.

It follows a group of friends and “frenemies” somewhere between the carefree world of high school and the uncertainty of what comes next. Unfortunately for them, what’s going on in the present—and whether they’ll even live long enough to see college or careers take off—is just as uncertain. After one of them posts a Facebook update she has no recollection of, things get weird. People are missing. People are dying. Lurking somewhere around the periphery of it all is the Sewercide Man, a mysterious figure glimpsed only occasionally, but whose mere presence seems to bring chaos and have a disconcerting effect on the recently deceased.Continue Reading