Dawn of The Serpent Girl

The Labyrinth #3

by S.C. Mendes

Everyone’s hell is different, yet they all burn.

At the height of the gold rush, the Order of Eternal Sleep founded the town of Lagos deep in the Sonoran Desert. Beneath the façade of a mining operation, they unearthed more than precious metals—and buried a safeguard.

When their work was complete, the Order vanished, leaving the arcane structures behind, waiting patiently to serve again.

Now, after the fall of the Hollywood temple, the surviving members must return to Lagos. With time slipping away and a rare planetary alignment nearing its end, the cult must awaken the town’s buried power—their final chance to perform the rites of eternal sleep.

Journey to the desert in the third book of The Labyrinth series.

Meet the Supreme Council of the Mara.
Sift through the wreckage to uncover Max’s fate.
And discover the origin of Ming’s deadly work for Shin Sho.

377 pages, Paperback

Published June 23, 2025

About the author

S.C. Mendes is the co-owner of Blood Bound Books—an independent publisher whose mission is to spreading hope through dark fiction.

Find more about the mission at www.BloodGutsAndStory.com

Mendes has published dark fiction under various pen names since 2009. The Dawn of the Serpent Girl, the final book in The City series is slated for a Dec. 2024 release. His collaborations with Nikki Noir can be found in the New Adult Occult series.

Reviews

[Ky · Rating 5 out of 5]

The sun is scorching, the land destitute … and something is stirring underneath of it.

Dawn Of The Serpent Girl is book 3 of the Labyrinth series. It’s an imaginative, tense and terrifying addition to the story, building tension and mystery to bring us into the finale in book 4!

This series is a fascinating mix of crime noir, wild wild west, horror, fantasy and sci fi. It sounds like a mixed bag of themes but S.C. Mendes is an absolute master of blending genres together seamlessly.

I don’t want to give much away about the story itself, but I will say that the slow burn style of this novel is so fitting, set in Lagos under the hot desert sun, where the days drag by and the horrors slowly unravel.

I’m so excited for a book 4, and if you haven’t read The City yet- you are so missing out!!

Thank you so much to Blood Bound Books and S.C. Mendes for the review copy!

[Kimberly Spookybookwurm · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like the setting of the town of Lagos. The ghost town aspect had me excited and I liked the descriptions of the area. I enjoyed reading about the legends of the town from the residents of Buscaré, their recollections had me curious about what was really happening in the town. The scenes with Dunham and Christianson were the hardest for me to read. These made me the most emotional. I felt sad and angry for all the residents of Buscaré, and I felt myself rooting for them. I felt worried for all these characters and anyone else these two would encounter. I felt wary of a lot of the characters in Part I. I wasn't sure how I felt about any of them when I finished here. I could see how bleak their environment was with the work they were doing and their location. It was interesting to see how it affected each of them differently. After making it through a ⅓ of the way, I was excited to see how everything from the last two books would tie in together. 
Later in the story, I found several characters I ended up liking. I enjoyed reading about Ming and the Golden Palace.  I did have quite a few characters in Lagos that made me anxious every time they popped up. I liked the surprise in the train car, it got me excited. I wasn't expecting that with everything else going on, that character slipped my mind, so that made me happy. The end had me feeling hopeful and I wasn't ready for it to finish yet. 

[Robin Fuchs Brumfield · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you haven't read The City and The Order Of Eternal Sleep then I suggest you read them before this book. This book was exactly my kind of strange. Dawn of the Serpent Girl is like stepping into a nightmare version of the Wild West. It was full of cults, rituals, and creepy desert vibes that stick with you long after you finish. S.C. Mendes has such a cool way of blending horror, mythology, and mystery.

You can feel the heat, the dust, the quiet dread of something ancient waking up under the surface. Every chapter had this tension humming through it, like something bad was coming but you just didn’t know when. You didn't know who to trust.

There’s a lot of payoff here if you’ve been following the story. Some super satisfying moments, and a few twists that genuinely surprised me. I felt like it built perfectly on the other two books.

If you’re into occult mysteries, cursed desert towns, and stories that take their time creeping under your skin, I definitely recommend this one. Mendes is doing something unique here. It feels like horror, noir, and weird fiction all shaken up together.

[Dion Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

This series is a gradual mix of horror, crime noir, fantasy and wild west. And when I say it like that It doesn’t sound like it would work, but it does, and just when you think you know what is going to happen, something changes.

This is a slow burn style story, with a complex characters and plot, the only thing that bugs me about this book is that now I have to wait for the fourth and final book in the series to come out, because I want to read it now.

So if you like a good crime noir story with elements of horror and fantasy, then you are going to love this.

[Dawn · Rating 5 out of 5]

🐍🐍Review of Dawn of the Serpent Girl by S.C. Mendes🐍🐍

This is the 3rd book in The Labyrinth Series. We pick up the story after the collapse of the Hollywood Temple. When it crashes and burns, we are left with we don’t know the fate of McCloud, Ming, and Max Elliott. I wonder if my favourite character, Max, survives.

The Order of Eternal Sleep didn’t manage to do the rites of passage ceremony, but they have a fail safe a little town in the Sonoran Desert called Lagos under the deceiving of a mining operation. So the survivors head for the town, but in the darkest depths of the mining tunnels is dark evil waiting to be unleashed on the unsuspecting people of the town.

There are strange and horrific events that start happening, mutilation of cattle and disappearing people in horrible ways. There are unknown forces working beneath the deadly tunnels underground. In Lagos, there are two Marshalls that turn up with a strange and weirdly hooded man that is beholden for crimes committed? We end up finding a world of demons and supernatural entities starting to cause mayhem in the little town.

What have the Mara and the Order of External Sleep got in store for the world? You need to read to find out, you don’t want to miss it!!!! There is a group called “The Engineers of Light” which is an organisation that is there to oppose all the evil that Mara is planning to do to the world!!

👿👿Spoilers - below👿👿

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Sophie is helping Ming to try and find out if Max survived. She is part of TEOL. Sophie said, “that our eyes are the windows to our souls”. Also, Sophie said “Dreams are a bridge between the world and the next”. Which I loved!!!

There is a scene where Darby’s crotch is getting ripped out and ruptured with talons entering it, and tore away with a squish, YUCK WHERE IS THE SICK BUCKET, ARGHHH!! It's very disturbingly graphic.

This book gripped me in a vice hold, I couldn’t put it down. As I was sitting there finishing the last pages, I was gutted that the story had ended!! But guess what? Pheweee, sign with relief there is going to be a book 4, yay!!! So, I’ll be able to have my fix of the memorising world again. Fantastic read, I absolutely loved it ❤️

Naughty author, you had me shouting at the book OMG. You can’t leave it there tut … tut …. Tut, you have gone and done it again with a mahoosive cliff hanger, bloody hell. Looks like I’ll have to be patient. Tappity tap, patiently waiting now, hurry up, please!!
👿👿👿👿🫢🫨🫨😱😱🤯🤯

[doowopapocalypse · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you to S.C. Mendes/Blood Bound Books for the ARC.

Mendes leads his story into ever weirder territory, reveling in oppressive, stifling paranoia. Who will survive? What will be left of them?