A Book of Tongues Volume 1 of the Hexslinger Series

Two years after the Civil War, Pinkerton agent Ed Morrow has gone undercoverwith one of the weird West's most dangerous outlaw gangs the troop ledby ""Reverend"" Asher Rook, ex-Confederate chaplain turned ""hexslinger,"" and hisnotorious lieutenant (and lover) Chess Pargeter. Morrow's task: get close enoughto map the extent of Rook's power, then bring that knowledge back to helpProfessor Joachim Asbury unlock the secrets of magic itself. Caught between apassle of dead gods and monsters, hexes galore, Rook's witchery, and theruthless calculations of his own masters, Morrow's only real hope of survivallies with the man without whom Rook cannot succeed: Chess Pargeter himself! ButMorrow and Chess will have to literally ride through Hell before the truth ofChess's fate comes clear the doom written for him, and the entire world,in A Book of Tongues.

From Publishers Weekly

A Pinkerton detective infiltrates a Wild West gang led by a spell-casting preacher in this boundary-busting horror–fantasy debut. Agent Ed Morrow is dispatched by a professor of magical research to evaluate the hexslinging abilities of Rev. Asher Rook, a renegade chaplain who survived his own hanging, and his lover, the prickly sharpshooter Chess Pargeter. As Morrow becomes part of the gang, the Aztec goddess Ixchel slowly seduces Rook into a bloody ritual marriage that endangers Pargeter and leads their followers down a road to hell. Files smoothly weaves an unusual magic system, Aztec mythology, and a raunchily explicit gay love story into a classic western tale of outlaws and revenge. Though it grows somewhat cumbersome in the leadup to a cliffhanger that demands resolution in the planned sequel, this promising debut fully delivers both sizzling passions and dark chills. (May) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Laird Barron

“Experimental Film is sensational. When we speak of the best in contemporary horror and weird fiction, we must speak of Gemma Files.”

Jeff VanderMeer

“Gemma Files has one of the great dark imaginations in fiction―visionary, transgressive, and totally original. With this new novel [Experimental Film], Files explores the world of film and horror in a way that will leave you reeling. A smart, sharp page-turner with heart and depth.”

Mike Allen

“Gemma’s been producing top-notch horror stories for years, and her weird Western Hexslinger trilogy is chock full of hellish horrors.”

A Dab of Darkness (audiobook review)

“I am surely addicted, and this new addiction has a name–Gemma Files. We had company over the weekend, company I adore and hadn’t seen in a year, and I still snuck in bits of this audio book. The author spins together imagery that is breath-taking in both beauty and terror.”

About the Author

Gemma Files is the winner of the International Horror Guild Award and the Black Quill Award. She has been nominated for the Lambda, the Stoker, and the Shirley Jackson Awards.

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