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Pieties: Expanded Edition
Wheaton, Illinois. 1981. After contracting a debilitating new mystery illness doctors are calling GRID, Andrew Fineman reluctantly bids farewell to his new life in NYC, returning to the uber-religious suburb where he was born-and the control of his estranged parents. Sick, destitute, a thousand miles from his West Village circle, Andrew finds himself trapped in a home overseen by his strict, domineering father. A man who believes Andrew's sickness may be a punishment from God.
While more sympathetic, his mother appears ill as well, sleepwalking the darkened halls, her body covered in unexplained sores and bruises. At night, his father disappears for hours into the secluded, picture-perfect Japanese garden behind the house, a strange obsession he's cultivated as long as Andrew can remember. And there's a horrible scratching in the walls that may or may not be rats... When he spies his father in the garden with a stranger, late at night and half hidden in the stands of bamboo, Andrew begins to investigate.
Before long, a series of ominous events convinces him there is something far more dangerous than mere adultery at play. Even worse, his mother may end up being the next victim...
Madness creeping around every corner, Andrew wonders if these incidents are merely symptoms of his illness, or does some terrible secret truly lurk between the black surface of the koi pond and his father's forbidden, walled-off groves of whispering bamboo?
“Pieties blends supernatural and real world horror in a way that is compelling and powerful.” - Mark Allan Gunnells, Author of Imposter Syndrome
While more sympathetic, his mother appears ill as well, sleepwalking the darkened halls, her body covered in unexplained sores and bruises. At night, his father disappears for hours into the secluded, picture-perfect Japanese garden behind the house, a strange obsession he's cultivated as long as Andrew can remember. And there's a horrible scratching in the walls that may or may not be rats... When he spies his father in the garden with a stranger, late at night and half hidden in the stands of bamboo, Andrew begins to investigate.
Before long, a series of ominous events convinces him there is something far more dangerous than mere adultery at play. Even worse, his mother may end up being the next victim...
Madness creeping around every corner, Andrew wonders if these incidents are merely symptoms of his illness, or does some terrible secret truly lurk between the black surface of the koi pond and his father's forbidden, walled-off groves of whispering bamboo?
“Pieties blends supernatural and real world horror in a way that is compelling and powerful.” - Mark Allan Gunnells, Author of Imposter Syndrome
146 pages, Paperback
Published April 12, 2026
17 people want to read
About the author
Marc Ruvolo
8 books30 followersMarc Ruvolo (he/him) is a queer writer and musician living in Portland, Oregon who once considered himself a punk. He founded the seminal Bucket O’ Blood book store in Chicago, and his poetry and fiction have appeared in Baffling Magazine (Neon Hemlock), Slay and Slay Again: A Queer Horror Anthology, and Cynthia Pelayo’s “Gothic Blue Book” series. He’s published three horror novellas, “SLOE,” in 2023 by Unnerving Books, “WASTE GROUND” by Slashic Horror Press in 2025, and “PIETIES: EXPANDED EDITION,” by Slashic Horror in April 26. Find him on Bluesky at @marcruvolo.bsky.social.
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Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
April 18, 2026
It's been some time since I read the first edition so I can't compare them in detail (Was the milk drinking always this horrific??), but the expanded edition is just as devastating.
My heart broke for Andrew. His body betrays him as his support system turns to ash. No amount of pretending normalcy can protect him from revelations that shake his sense of reality.
I'm so glad I picked up an ARC of the expanded edition. I'm leaving this review of my own accord.
My heart broke for Andrew. His body betrays him as his support system turns to ash. No amount of pretending normalcy can protect him from revelations that shake his sense of reality.
I'm so glad I picked up an ARC of the expanded edition. I'm leaving this review of my own accord.
April 17, 2026
The Cat Did Not Run Away
BWAF RECOMMENDED READ
BWAF Score: 7/10
TL;DR: Ruvolo writes about 1981 the way someone writes about a wound they cleaned themselves: carefully, without flinching, and with total knowledge of what the dirt looked like going in. Pieties is a queer horror novella built from fake pearls, dead cats, and one immaculate Japanese garden hiding something ancient and hungry beneath the lily pads. It will follow you home.
The town of Wheaton, Illinois, has more churches per capita than almost anywhere in the country. This is the kind of fact a place repeats about itself until it becomes a boast, a warning, and a structural wall all at once. Marc Ruvolo‘s Pieties opens in 1981 with Andrew Fineman leaving a doctor’s office at Mount Sinai, having just been told he has something called Gay-Related Immune Deficiency, which they are abbreviating GRID because the medical establishment has always preferred its horrors in acronym form. The doctor shakes his head. Andrew tracks the burst blood vessels in the man’s hideous potato nose and stops listening. By the time they agree on a follow-up date, Andrew has already decided not to show up.
He goes home instead. Not to the West Village apartment he has been living in, but home, the real one, the one you never stop owing rent on: Wheaton. Circle Avenue. Number 37, a pale blue Victorian with two chimneys and red maples twisting their branches into a canopy so dense the backyard might as well not exist. His mother Enid meets him at the door in heels and full makeup, a rope of fake pearls accenting a lavender jacket with outrageous shoulder pads and a cat she has named Patch the Pirate cradled in her arms. His father Dick has arranged a custodial job for him at the local college. Dick never allowed Enid to dress down, not even at home. The cat squirms, trying to get away.
Everyone in this novella is performing a devotion they do not fully believe in, which is the only kind of piety Ruvolo seems interested in. Enid performs maternal warmth with the frantic precision of a woman whose hands, we are told, flutter like two dying birds when she senses she has failed. Dick performs patriarchal authority with hedge clippers and church attendance and a Japanese garden he built after returning from World War Two, three terraced levels of manicured foliage surrounding a koi pond where green water lilies cover the surface like perfect umbrellas for the schools of ravenous carp lurking beneath. Andrew performs the role of dutiful, sexless son. His mother told the neighbors he went to college in Europe. He did not have the grades for Florence, Alabama, much less Florence, Italy. Christine, his best friend, performs the role of the woman who is fine, who can handle it, whose sister with muscular dystrophy and deadbeat father and two jobs and drinking are all just weather, nothing structural.
The performances are the book’s real horror. Everything underneath them is worse.
Ruvolo came to fiction through the Chicago punk scene, where he fronted No Empathy throughout the 1980s and 1990s and ran Johann’s Face Records, a label that introduced Smoking Popes and Alkaline Trio to anyone who was paying attention. He later founded Bucket O’ Blood Books in Logan Square, a genre bookshop specializing in horror, sci-fi, and the kind of strange paperbacks that smell like basements and bad decisions. He has since relocated to Portland and published two prior novellas, Sloe (Unnerving Books, 2023) and Waste Ground (Slashic Horror Press). Pieties was originally released in 2024 by Off Limits Press; this expanded edition comes courtesy of Slashic Horror. The acknowledgments reveal the book is dedicated to his first boyfriend, Dwight Glass, who died of HIV complications in 1994. This is not incidental information. It is the fire.
The prose has the texture of someone who learned to write by reading paperbacks in empty bookstores and listening to people talk in bars. It is plain, physical, and ruthlessly specific. Christine’s teeth are too small for her mouth, pale-yellow Chiclets set in bright pink gums. A cocktail is described as a hard pour, mostly cheap vodka, with hardly any cranberry to soften it up. Dick examines his well-oiled hedge clippers while telling Andrew to thank his mother for letting him come home. The sentences are short, declarative, and built to carry more weight than their grammar suggests. Ruvolo does not reach for lyricism. He reaches for the detail that is also an accusation.
Where the book is strongest, and it is very strong, is in the slow reveal that every safe harbor Andrew finds is not one. The town that raised him produces a drunk named Rory in a faded Led Zeppelin shirt who calls him a slur and then hits him. The gay social world Christine introduces him to, a pool party in Wilmette hosted by a man named Tonio with a Marine Corps tattoo and gin on his breath, turns predatory within an hour. His coworker Ellis, who plays guitar during lunch breaks and asks the kind of questions that feel like someone leaning closer, turns out to be another closet with sharper walls. Even Christine, his constant, his ride-or-die since high school in the Country Squire with its corny faux wooden side panels, is carrying a resentment Andrew cannot see. She has been performing the caretaker so long she has confused it for friendship, or maybe she hasn’t, and that is the meaner thought.
The supernatural element arrives through the garden. The cats keep disappearing. Patch turns up eyeless in the koi pond. The water bubbles at night with gold and silver fins churning in ways that should not be possible. Dick vanishes into the bamboo thickets after dark and comes back diminished, and what he is doing back there, what has been calling to him for forty years, is the book’s central revelation.
The novella’s proportions are its one real limitation. Ruvolo spends the first two-thirds building Andrew’s world with the patience and physical specificity of someone writing a full novel, and then the final act arrives at a sprint. The confrontation between Andrew and Dick, which the entire book has been angling toward, is powerful in its content, ugly and impossible to look away from, but the pacing compresses what should devastate into something closer to a series of events. The shift to Christine’s point of view near the end is a smart structural choice that reframes everything the reader thought they understood about loyalty, but it gets roughly ten pages to do work that wants twenty. Several reviewers have noted the book feels like it ends abruptly. They are not wrong. The trap snaps shut before you have finished admiring the mechanism.
Ruvolo has written a book about a man who is dying in a house where everyone is already dead in the ways that matter, and he has done it with the flat, physical precision of someone who is not interested in your sympathy. He wants your attention. The difference is that sympathy lets you feel good about yourself, and attention requires you to sit with what you have seen. Pieties requires you to sit with it. The door shuts, and you are still outside, and the clouds are coming.
BWAF RECOMMENDED READ
BWAF Score: 7/10
TL;DR: Ruvolo writes about 1981 the way someone writes about a wound they cleaned themselves: carefully, without flinching, and with total knowledge of what the dirt looked like going in. Pieties is a queer horror novella built from fake pearls, dead cats, and one immaculate Japanese garden hiding something ancient and hungry beneath the lily pads. It will follow you home.
The town of Wheaton, Illinois, has more churches per capita than almost anywhere in the country. This is the kind of fact a place repeats about itself until it becomes a boast, a warning, and a structural wall all at once. Marc Ruvolo‘s Pieties opens in 1981 with Andrew Fineman leaving a doctor’s office at Mount Sinai, having just been told he has something called Gay-Related Immune Deficiency, which they are abbreviating GRID because the medical establishment has always preferred its horrors in acronym form. The doctor shakes his head. Andrew tracks the burst blood vessels in the man’s hideous potato nose and stops listening. By the time they agree on a follow-up date, Andrew has already decided not to show up.
He goes home instead. Not to the West Village apartment he has been living in, but home, the real one, the one you never stop owing rent on: Wheaton. Circle Avenue. Number 37, a pale blue Victorian with two chimneys and red maples twisting their branches into a canopy so dense the backyard might as well not exist. His mother Enid meets him at the door in heels and full makeup, a rope of fake pearls accenting a lavender jacket with outrageous shoulder pads and a cat she has named Patch the Pirate cradled in her arms. His father Dick has arranged a custodial job for him at the local college. Dick never allowed Enid to dress down, not even at home. The cat squirms, trying to get away.
Everyone in this novella is performing a devotion they do not fully believe in, which is the only kind of piety Ruvolo seems interested in. Enid performs maternal warmth with the frantic precision of a woman whose hands, we are told, flutter like two dying birds when she senses she has failed. Dick performs patriarchal authority with hedge clippers and church attendance and a Japanese garden he built after returning from World War Two, three terraced levels of manicured foliage surrounding a koi pond where green water lilies cover the surface like perfect umbrellas for the schools of ravenous carp lurking beneath. Andrew performs the role of dutiful, sexless son. His mother told the neighbors he went to college in Europe. He did not have the grades for Florence, Alabama, much less Florence, Italy. Christine, his best friend, performs the role of the woman who is fine, who can handle it, whose sister with muscular dystrophy and deadbeat father and two jobs and drinking are all just weather, nothing structural.
The performances are the book’s real horror. Everything underneath them is worse.
Ruvolo came to fiction through the Chicago punk scene, where he fronted No Empathy throughout the 1980s and 1990s and ran Johann’s Face Records, a label that introduced Smoking Popes and Alkaline Trio to anyone who was paying attention. He later founded Bucket O’ Blood Books in Logan Square, a genre bookshop specializing in horror, sci-fi, and the kind of strange paperbacks that smell like basements and bad decisions. He has since relocated to Portland and published two prior novellas, Sloe (Unnerving Books, 2023) and Waste Ground (Slashic Horror Press). Pieties was originally released in 2024 by Off Limits Press; this expanded edition comes courtesy of Slashic Horror. The acknowledgments reveal the book is dedicated to his first boyfriend, Dwight Glass, who died of HIV complications in 1994. This is not incidental information. It is the fire.
The prose has the texture of someone who learned to write by reading paperbacks in empty bookstores and listening to people talk in bars. It is plain, physical, and ruthlessly specific. Christine’s teeth are too small for her mouth, pale-yellow Chiclets set in bright pink gums. A cocktail is described as a hard pour, mostly cheap vodka, with hardly any cranberry to soften it up. Dick examines his well-oiled hedge clippers while telling Andrew to thank his mother for letting him come home. The sentences are short, declarative, and built to carry more weight than their grammar suggests. Ruvolo does not reach for lyricism. He reaches for the detail that is also an accusation.
Where the book is strongest, and it is very strong, is in the slow reveal that every safe harbor Andrew finds is not one. The town that raised him produces a drunk named Rory in a faded Led Zeppelin shirt who calls him a slur and then hits him. The gay social world Christine introduces him to, a pool party in Wilmette hosted by a man named Tonio with a Marine Corps tattoo and gin on his breath, turns predatory within an hour. His coworker Ellis, who plays guitar during lunch breaks and asks the kind of questions that feel like someone leaning closer, turns out to be another closet with sharper walls. Even Christine, his constant, his ride-or-die since high school in the Country Squire with its corny faux wooden side panels, is carrying a resentment Andrew cannot see. She has been performing the caretaker so long she has confused it for friendship, or maybe she hasn’t, and that is the meaner thought.
The supernatural element arrives through the garden. The cats keep disappearing. Patch turns up eyeless in the koi pond. The water bubbles at night with gold and silver fins churning in ways that should not be possible. Dick vanishes into the bamboo thickets after dark and comes back diminished, and what he is doing back there, what has been calling to him for forty years, is the book’s central revelation.
The novella’s proportions are its one real limitation. Ruvolo spends the first two-thirds building Andrew’s world with the patience and physical specificity of someone writing a full novel, and then the final act arrives at a sprint. The confrontation between Andrew and Dick, which the entire book has been angling toward, is powerful in its content, ugly and impossible to look away from, but the pacing compresses what should devastate into something closer to a series of events. The shift to Christine’s point of view near the end is a smart structural choice that reframes everything the reader thought they understood about loyalty, but it gets roughly ten pages to do work that wants twenty. Several reviewers have noted the book feels like it ends abruptly. They are not wrong. The trap snaps shut before you have finished admiring the mechanism.
Ruvolo has written a book about a man who is dying in a house where everyone is already dead in the ways that matter, and he has done it with the flat, physical precision of someone who is not interested in your sympathy. He wants your attention. The difference is that sympathy lets you feel good about yourself, and attention requires you to sit with what you have seen. Pieties requires you to sit with it. The door shuts, and you are still outside, and the clouds are coming.
March 5, 2026
ARC Review
“The kiss sent tiny electric shocks through Andrew’s body. It seemed years since another man had innocently touched him like that. It hadn’t been that long, of course, and in the end, it was just a peck, a crumb of affection, but even a crumb could be spun into a feast when your future promises famine, or even nothing at all.”
This book has a high creep-factor, especially if religious horror in realistic situations is your thing. There’s a slow burn discomfort, especially given Andrew isn’t particularly likable IMO, but you still root for him regardless. Despite the slow pace, the story flows well. I don’t know what the previous version was like but this one is well written with infuriatingly believable characters.
The overall vibe of this story isn’t ’fun.’ It’s disturbing and morose, given Andrew’s predicament and the attitudes of the people around him, but there’s no downtime or boring moments. I felt bad for Andrew but was also so angry at him for getting into situations he shouldn’t and making the wrong choices time and again. But that only proves how human he is, how good Ruvolo’s writing is, and how messed up the conclusion to this story is.
Definitely give this story a read if you’re looking for something dark and uncomfortable.
Stars: 4.75 (rounded to 5)
“The kiss sent tiny electric shocks through Andrew’s body. It seemed years since another man had innocently touched him like that. It hadn’t been that long, of course, and in the end, it was just a peck, a crumb of affection, but even a crumb could be spun into a feast when your future promises famine, or even nothing at all.”
This book has a high creep-factor, especially if religious horror in realistic situations is your thing. There’s a slow burn discomfort, especially given Andrew isn’t particularly likable IMO, but you still root for him regardless. Despite the slow pace, the story flows well. I don’t know what the previous version was like but this one is well written with infuriatingly believable characters.
The overall vibe of this story isn’t ’fun.’ It’s disturbing and morose, given Andrew’s predicament and the attitudes of the people around him, but there’s no downtime or boring moments. I felt bad for Andrew but was also so angry at him for getting into situations he shouldn’t and making the wrong choices time and again. But that only proves how human he is, how good Ruvolo’s writing is, and how messed up the conclusion to this story is.
Definitely give this story a read if you’re looking for something dark and uncomfortable.
Stars: 4.75 (rounded to 5)
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
What a ride.
This story builds slowly but is not boring, it layers small hints and unsettling details that keep you wanting to keep reading.
Andrew’s experiences takes you along at a pace that feels both steady and interesting, making it a surprisingly fast read despite the slow-burn structure.
The characters are well written, the world is vivid, and the relationships feel authentic within the story.
It’s a short read, but absolutely worth it.
Set in the early 80s, the book includes period-accurate homophobia and limited understanding of mental health. Whilst the portrayal of chronic and incurable illness are handled with care, showing not only the toll on the person living with the condition but also the emotional strain on those around them
These elements are handled respectfully and realistically, grounding the story in its time without feeling gratuitous.
Your taken along with Andrew, whilst he tries to understand what his father is really doing in the garden.
Then when we finally find out, bam — like a slap in the face — delivering both the truth you’ve been waiting for and an ending that leaves you wanting more without feeling lost or cheated.
The horror elements sit in the background and are not used for shock value. Instead, they creep forward quietly as the story progresses.
Making for an interesting read.
Thank you to the publisher and author for the opportunity to read this as an ARC. As always, I only choose ARCs I would pick up in a store or library — life’s too short to read bad books. This review reflects my own honest opinion.
I did really enjoy this book and picked it but because of the blurb.
This story builds slowly but is not boring, it layers small hints and unsettling details that keep you wanting to keep reading.
Andrew’s experiences takes you along at a pace that feels both steady and interesting, making it a surprisingly fast read despite the slow-burn structure.
The characters are well written, the world is vivid, and the relationships feel authentic within the story.
It’s a short read, but absolutely worth it.
Set in the early 80s, the book includes period-accurate homophobia and limited understanding of mental health. Whilst the portrayal of chronic and incurable illness are handled with care, showing not only the toll on the person living with the condition but also the emotional strain on those around them
These elements are handled respectfully and realistically, grounding the story in its time without feeling gratuitous.
Your taken along with Andrew, whilst he tries to understand what his father is really doing in the garden.
Then when we finally find out, bam — like a slap in the face — delivering both the truth you’ve been waiting for and an ending that leaves you wanting more without feeling lost or cheated.
The horror elements sit in the background and are not used for shock value. Instead, they creep forward quietly as the story progresses.
Making for an interesting read.
Thank you to the publisher and author for the opportunity to read this as an ARC. As always, I only choose ARCs I would pick up in a store or library — life’s too short to read bad books. This review reflects my own honest opinion.
I did really enjoy this book and picked it but because of the blurb.
May 2, 2026
I am reviewing this as an ARC team member for the expanded edition of Pieties.
Difficult in a way that is hard to describe, but written in a way that grips you to the very end, Pieties tore many emotions from me throughout this whole reading.
It is very clear, at least, the paralleling to HIV, and the complexities that come with being gay in a heavily religious (in this case, Christian) community and household.
The horror is ever-looming in so very many ways throughout this book; from realistic pains that strain the heart, to the more supernatural that egg you on to wonder how it all came to be. Even more so, to wonder what comes next.
Though I hadn't read the original edition of Pieties, the expanded edition has been an absolute wonder to read.
I would fully recommend this book to others interested in LGBT+ horror media, and find myself drawn to wondering what may lay thereafter for Andrew in the end.
4.5* Official rating, but the 5 is deserved to be rounded up.
Difficult in a way that is hard to describe, but written in a way that grips you to the very end, Pieties tore many emotions from me throughout this whole reading.
It is very clear, at least, the paralleling to HIV, and the complexities that come with being gay in a heavily religious (in this case, Christian) community and household.
The horror is ever-looming in so very many ways throughout this book; from realistic pains that strain the heart, to the more supernatural that egg you on to wonder how it all came to be. Even more so, to wonder what comes next.
Though I hadn't read the original edition of Pieties, the expanded edition has been an absolute wonder to read.
I would fully recommend this book to others interested in LGBT+ horror media, and find myself drawn to wondering what may lay thereafter for Andrew in the end.
4.5* Official rating, but the 5 is deserved to be rounded up.
April 10, 2026
Andrew is gay and his dad condemns him for it everyday of his life. He left home and moved to New York but has to come home due to an unknown illness. From the beginning I felt so bad for Andrew. His father is an old mean ass bigot and his mother is old and feeble and doesn’t go against his father. Andrew starts to have vivid dreams, his mom is getting sicker every day and his dad is up to something. What’s going on in his house? What is happening to himself and his parents? This book was creepy. It was also heartbreaking. All Andrew wants is love and acceptance. Will he find it? Will his father ever stop hating him?
April 15, 2026
Set in 1981, Pieties tells the story of a young gay man, Andrew who has contracted a disease and returns to his family home for support only to find out that things have changed drastically since he had left it years ago. Both parents are sick and not from something natural.
The journey that Andrew faces is a struggle, being set in the 80s, bigotry is a big thing here and his sexuality is frowned upon. That doubled with the disease that continues to get worse and being unfairly fired from his job paints a bleak picture. Not only that but he has to live with parents that aren't the most supportive, especially his father whose behaviour is increasingly strange.
The story hits a good balance between the struggle Andrew faces with his christian parents, their friends and their beliefs, the disease he is carrying and the rekindling of his relationship with his friend who he hasn't seen since he left his family home. As such, the pacing is deliberately slow, building up the events until they culminate in a crazy conclusion that was definitely unexpected.
This novella packs a lot into its short length and I found myself racing through its pages, needing to find out where it was heading. A very worthy read.
The journey that Andrew faces is a struggle, being set in the 80s, bigotry is a big thing here and his sexuality is frowned upon. That doubled with the disease that continues to get worse and being unfairly fired from his job paints a bleak picture. Not only that but he has to live with parents that aren't the most supportive, especially his father whose behaviour is increasingly strange.
The story hits a good balance between the struggle Andrew faces with his christian parents, their friends and their beliefs, the disease he is carrying and the rekindling of his relationship with his friend who he hasn't seen since he left his family home. As such, the pacing is deliberately slow, building up the events until they culminate in a crazy conclusion that was definitely unexpected.
This novella packs a lot into its short length and I found myself racing through its pages, needing to find out where it was heading. A very worthy read.
April 23, 2026
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily. Enjoyable creepy read. I t makes you think and come to your own conclusions.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
"Pieties" spends some time telling one story while building another in the background. Hints of the latter keep dropping throughout, but it's only when the main tale finally stumbles upon the hidden one that those hints actually pay off, in a major, explosive way. The main tale is the story of Andrew, a gay young man in the '80s, who, having just discovered he's carrying a new illness, one that's been appearing more and more often among gay men, returns home to his parents to recover. The progress of the disease is told like a process of discovery: noone at that point in time knows what the sore throat, the bruises and the rashes imply; much less Andrew, who accidentally spreads the disease around.
Ruvolo captures the reader's attention by repeatedly putting Andrew on the spot, often in contrast with the way of life of his Christian, homophobic parents. Andrew's small town experiences made me feel for him: he's not strong but appears quite persistent, and he wisely avoids facing bigotry and narrowmindedness head on. The real issues, however, are happening right under his nose, and it'll take a lot till he catches on what's going on: is his parents' house haunted? Is someone visiting his father's Japanese garden at night? And what about all the missing cats?
The climactic ending is literally chaos! So much horror seemingly out of nowhere (almost like pulling rabbits out of a hat!). I was so desperate to know how things would turn out, I couldn’t stop reading. Among the last scenes ("Corrupted" - wow chills all over!), there was a sense of true malevolence! The epilogue provides a sort of closure, a much needed chance to breathe after all the darkness. There's also a palpable sense of foreboding, so I'm not sure what kind of closure this is supposed to be. Either way, highly recommend!
Ruvolo captures the reader's attention by repeatedly putting Andrew on the spot, often in contrast with the way of life of his Christian, homophobic parents. Andrew's small town experiences made me feel for him: he's not strong but appears quite persistent, and he wisely avoids facing bigotry and narrowmindedness head on. The real issues, however, are happening right under his nose, and it'll take a lot till he catches on what's going on: is his parents' house haunted? Is someone visiting his father's Japanese garden at night? And what about all the missing cats?
The climactic ending is literally chaos! So much horror seemingly out of nowhere (almost like pulling rabbits out of a hat!). I was so desperate to know how things would turn out, I couldn’t stop reading. Among the last scenes ("Corrupted" - wow chills all over!), there was a sense of true malevolence! The epilogue provides a sort of closure, a much needed chance to breathe after all the darkness. There's also a palpable sense of foreboding, so I'm not sure what kind of closure this is supposed to be. Either way, highly recommend!
Read
April 14, 2026Honestly, Pieties: Expanded Edition really stuck with me. It’s set in 1981 and follows Andrew, a gay man who gets diagnosed with GRID (back when that’s what they called AIDS before anyone really understood it) and has to pack up his NYC life to move back in with his super religious parents in suburban Illinois. From page one, the whole thing just feels incredibly claustrophobic. You’re trapped in this house with him while his dad treats his illness like divine punishment, his mom is sleepwalking and covered in weird bruises, and there’s this constant scratching in the walls that never quite lets up.
The atmosphere is easily the best part. Ruvolo does such a good job making you feel like you’re sitting right there in the sickroom with Andrew. Half the time I couldn’t tell if the creepy stuff was actually happening or just his fever and paranoia bleeding together. The expanded edition adds some extra scenes and notes that really deepen the characters and flesh out the emotional landscape.
I will say the pacing is pretty slow. Like, really slow. But I think that’s kind of the point? It matches the creeping dread and the way a mystery illness just drags everything out. There are a couple stretches where it drags a little too long for my personal taste, and if you’re the type of reader who needs fast plot turns or tidy answers by the end, this likely won't suit you. But if you like quiet, character-driven horror that lingers in your head, it’s totally worth sitting with.
It’s heavy and somewhat uncomfortable at times, but in a really intentional way. I’d easily pass this to anyone who likes slow-burn gothic thrillers or queer historical fiction that doesn’t flinch from the messy, painful stuff.
Just a quick note: I received a free advance copy, but all opinions here are 100% my own.
The atmosphere is easily the best part. Ruvolo does such a good job making you feel like you’re sitting right there in the sickroom with Andrew. Half the time I couldn’t tell if the creepy stuff was actually happening or just his fever and paranoia bleeding together. The expanded edition adds some extra scenes and notes that really deepen the characters and flesh out the emotional landscape.
I will say the pacing is pretty slow. Like, really slow. But I think that’s kind of the point? It matches the creeping dread and the way a mystery illness just drags everything out. There are a couple stretches where it drags a little too long for my personal taste, and if you’re the type of reader who needs fast plot turns or tidy answers by the end, this likely won't suit you. But if you like quiet, character-driven horror that lingers in your head, it’s totally worth sitting with.
It’s heavy and somewhat uncomfortable at times, but in a really intentional way. I’d easily pass this to anyone who likes slow-burn gothic thrillers or queer historical fiction that doesn’t flinch from the messy, painful stuff.
Just a quick note: I received a free advance copy, but all opinions here are 100% my own.
May 9, 2026
Lol what the f** !
I've never read a horror thriller before or an LGBTQ book so best believe I was excited to read this. This was more comedy to me in the beginning and I think it was the writer's choice of words and writing style. He seems to have a sense of humor especially with the use of light swear words and the dialogue.
As for the book, lord have mercy. So it's April 1981 & Andrew is a gay man living in New York City who has just been told by his doctor that he has GRID (Gay Related Immune Deficiency, which is what they were calling what we now know as HIV/AIDS.) Shortly after, his family calls and tells him it's time to come home to Wheaton, Illinois, a deeply religious, deeply conservative suburb of Chicago that he has no interest in returning to. His best friend Christine picks him up from O'Hare in her old station wagon and drives him back.
The house he grew up in is controlled by Dick Fineman, and yes his name is Dick, which is very intentional. Dick is cold & weirdly obsessed with a Japanese bamboo garden he's built in the backyard. Whatever is in that garden, I will let the readers find out for themselves!
What a disturbing read. Well written, four stars.
I've never read a horror thriller before or an LGBTQ book so best believe I was excited to read this. This was more comedy to me in the beginning and I think it was the writer's choice of words and writing style. He seems to have a sense of humor especially with the use of light swear words and the dialogue.
As for the book, lord have mercy. So it's April 1981 & Andrew is a gay man living in New York City who has just been told by his doctor that he has GRID (Gay Related Immune Deficiency, which is what they were calling what we now know as HIV/AIDS.) Shortly after, his family calls and tells him it's time to come home to Wheaton, Illinois, a deeply religious, deeply conservative suburb of Chicago that he has no interest in returning to. His best friend Christine picks him up from O'Hare in her old station wagon and drives him back.
The house he grew up in is controlled by Dick Fineman, and yes his name is Dick, which is very intentional. Dick is cold & weirdly obsessed with a Japanese bamboo garden he's built in the backyard. Whatever is in that garden, I will let the readers find out for themselves!
What a disturbing read. Well written, four stars.
Review of advance copy received from Author
Thank you to BookSirens and the author for the ARC opportunity!
The plot centers on Andrew in the early 1980s, a young man who leaves his vibrant life in New York to move back in with his estranged, overbearing parents after falling ill. As his homophobic father insists his sickness is a punishment from God, Andrew starts uncovering incredibly sinister events taking place in the family's backyard.
This is a very dark and surreal read that tackles heavy topics wrapped up in a hallucinatory horror package. I did find the narrative a little hard to follow in places because it leans so heavily into metaphor, but the creeping tension kept me completely hooked. The pacing does a great job of making you feel just as trapped and paranoid in that house as Andrew does. If you want a horror story that makes you think and leaves you feeling thoroughly uncomfortable long after you finish the last page, this novella is definitely worth picking up.
The plot centers on Andrew in the early 1980s, a young man who leaves his vibrant life in New York to move back in with his estranged, overbearing parents after falling ill. As his homophobic father insists his sickness is a punishment from God, Andrew starts uncovering incredibly sinister events taking place in the family's backyard.
This is a very dark and surreal read that tackles heavy topics wrapped up in a hallucinatory horror package. I did find the narrative a little hard to follow in places because it leans so heavily into metaphor, but the creeping tension kept me completely hooked. The pacing does a great job of making you feel just as trapped and paranoid in that house as Andrew does. If you want a horror story that makes you think and leaves you feeling thoroughly uncomfortable long after you finish the last page, this novella is definitely worth picking up.
Review of advance copy
There’s initially a good blend of the mystical and the mundane horror in this story. Our MMC is recently moved back home and newly sick with a new disease known only as GRID, his parents are religious ( disapproving and hypochondriacal respectively) and it’s a messy enough situation without mysterious noises and the shadow of someone moving around the garden at night. However, the pacing felt choppy in sections with the horror taking mostly a backseat for the stark realities of being gay in a small conservative town during the start of the AIDs crisis. The characters are all troubled and messy to an extent, but some sections, like the party, felt unneeded when the space could’ve been used to build up the horror instead of the messiness.
Thank you to the author and BookSirens for the ARC.
Thank you to the author and BookSirens for the ARC.
Review of advance copy received from Author
I am glad that I got a chance to read this expanded edition. My original review still stands.
A slow burn that takes you from the horror of living in a homophobic town with a mystery disease, to a supernatural horror. You can't help but fall in love with the main character Andrew. I wanted to wrap him up in a big hug and not let go. Ruvolo really immerses you in his story with his smooth writing and amazing character building.
Taking place in 1981 when the AIDS epidemic was beginning, you're really brought back in time. As a Gen-X I very much enjoyed the nostalgia aspect. You really can't go wrong with a book set in the 80s.
The dynamic between Andrew and his supposed best friend Christine was so complex and real.
The addition of the epilogue was a great move on the author's part. Ruvolo is a wonderful writer and I was so happy to revisit Andrew's story.
A slow burn that takes you from the horror of living in a homophobic town with a mystery disease, to a supernatural horror. You can't help but fall in love with the main character Andrew. I wanted to wrap him up in a big hug and not let go. Ruvolo really immerses you in his story with his smooth writing and amazing character building.
Taking place in 1981 when the AIDS epidemic was beginning, you're really brought back in time. As a Gen-X I very much enjoyed the nostalgia aspect. You really can't go wrong with a book set in the 80s.
The dynamic between Andrew and his supposed best friend Christine was so complex and real.
The addition of the epilogue was a great move on the author's part. Ruvolo is a wonderful writer and I was so happy to revisit Andrew's story.
Review of advance copy received from Author
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
Thank you to Marc Ruvolo and the BookSirens team for providing me with an advance copy of Pieties.
The novella touches on themes of faith, identity, and the hardships faced by queer individuals within certain social and religious environments. The build-up of the story was engaging and created a dark, unsettling atmosphere.
However, the storytelling felt somewhat uneven at times, and a few of the themes introduced in the narrative did not feel fully explored. Because of this, the overall impact of the story did not resonate with me as strongly as I had hoped.
Overall, Pieties presents an interesting premise and atmosphere, even if the execution may not work equally well for every reader.
Thank you to Marc Ruvolo and the BookSirens team for providing me with an advance copy of Pieties.
The novella touches on themes of faith, identity, and the hardships faced by queer individuals within certain social and religious environments. The build-up of the story was engaging and created a dark, unsettling atmosphere.
However, the storytelling felt somewhat uneven at times, and a few of the themes introduced in the narrative did not feel fully explored. Because of this, the overall impact of the story did not resonate with me as strongly as I had hoped.
Overall, Pieties presents an interesting premise and atmosphere, even if the execution may not work equally well for every reader.
Review of advance copy received from Author
Andrew Fineman leaves his life in NYC to go back home to the Midwest after being diagnosed with GRID, with the hopes of getting better.
At first, things appear to be the same as they always were, but soon Andrew notices his father seems to be sneaking around the house, and his mother seems to be getting sicker every day. It’s up to Andrew to figure it out.
Pieties by Marc Ruvolo was a really great read! I loved that there was a supernatural element that was completely unexpected and so dark. Adding a layer of real-life horror that the protagonist is facing to the supernatural made the story feel even creepier. I thoroughly enjoyed this story and give it 4.5 stars.
Thank you to Marc Ruvolo for the ARC!l
At first, things appear to be the same as they always were, but soon Andrew notices his father seems to be sneaking around the house, and his mother seems to be getting sicker every day. It’s up to Andrew to figure it out.
Pieties by Marc Ruvolo was a really great read! I loved that there was a supernatural element that was completely unexpected and so dark. Adding a layer of real-life horror that the protagonist is facing to the supernatural made the story feel even creepier. I thoroughly enjoyed this story and give it 4.5 stars.
Thank you to Marc Ruvolo for the ARC!l
Review of advance copy received from Author
I love stories that so perfectly blend the horrors of reality and the supernatural. This one is a tad of a slow burn but it never drags. The weirdness slowly grows until the bloody chaotic ending you will not see coming! The MC Andrew isn't always likable, but that makes him feel all the more real and relatable.
Ruvolo dug deep to share the isolation, shame, fear, and uncertainty too many gay men faced in the 1980s. While it may be difficult to read, these stories need to be told and remembered.
I am so grateful for the opportunity to read an early review copy of this book from the author. I look forward to reading more from them.
Ruvolo dug deep to share the isolation, shame, fear, and uncertainty too many gay men faced in the 1980s. While it may be difficult to read, these stories need to be told and remembered.
I am so grateful for the opportunity to read an early review copy of this book from the author. I look forward to reading more from them.
Review of advance copy received from Author
3.5** The story is about Andrew, a gay young man in the '80s, who, discovers he's carrying an illness, one that's appearing more and more among gay men, returns home to his parents to recover. This is the first book I've read by this author, and it left me confused. Well written but I couldn't figure out if it was actually a supernatural story about possession or if it was the delirium of a man with a debilitating disease & this was where his mind went. I kinda think it was up to the reader's interpretation. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am aleaving this review voluntarily.
Review of advance copy received from Author
My review: I think I might have found my new favourite genre. I loved the parallels between the the demon in the fish and the 'demon' of Andrew's illness. The real demon was loneliness, a sickness that permeated through each and every character. Ultimately it's loneliness that compels Andrew to make the decisions he does, and even more so in the end, with Enid and Christine and their denial of everything that happens. All in all an excellent novella that feels deeply personal. I'm definitely going to be reading more from Ruvolo in the future.
Review of advance copy received from Author
PIETIES is a very personal book to me. It's dedicated to my first (high school) boyfriend who passed from complications of HIV in 1993. The first version was published by the wonderful Off Limits Press, who sadly stop operation in 2024. Thank you do David-Jack and Slashic Horror Press for believing in this strange story and offering to bring it back into print. With this expanded edition, I've added an epilogue, which offers a glimpse of what happened after the climactic event described in the main book. I hope that it you enjoy it.
Review of advance copy
This uses the mystery illness in a perfect way of the horror genre, I was invested in what was happening during this tense atmosphere. It uses the storyline perfectly and I cared about the characters and enjoyed the realistic element to this. Marc Ruvolo has a great writing style and thought taking a real event that happened and make it into an extreme horror novella was perfect. I liked that it was expanded on and hope to read more from Marc Ruvolo.
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
Review of advance copy received from Author
This was one of those horror books that you don't realize was horror until the end and then it just hits you. If you take out the horror elements at the end you get a gripping story where you just feel for the main character and all he is going through. The book felt so much in the time frame it is sent, which made it feel all the more real. I sat down and devoured this book.
I was given a free copy from the author in exchange for an honest review.
I was given a free copy from the author in exchange for an honest review.
Review of advance copy
Very creepy and very clever. I was worried it was going to get creepy enough to give me nightmares, lol, but it stops just short of that. I like the ending. While it doesn’t tie up nicely with a bow, it ends in an interesting way. Leaving you curious, but also somewhat satisfied. It’s a novella, so short and sweet. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
Review of advance copy received from Author
I really enjoyed this story. It’s written in a good, easy to read style. The plot is intriguing and carried by well-written and believable characters. Nicely paced too.
Review of advance copy received from Author
I didn't mind this story. I just felt like it went on longer than It needed to. I liked the main character and the ways his illness was portrayed. The isolation of the main character was well done aslo. The one thing I didn't like about him was that he was such a little snitch. I also wished that there was some sort of conclusion to the story.
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