Craig DiLouie’s My Ex, the Antichrist, continues his development of injecting horror right into a type of in style media. This time it’s rock music, the final two had been horror movies and actuality tv, respectively. It additionally occurs to be the third horror novel in a brief span of time I learn that mingles horror and rock music.
Love might be hell…
When a rock musician learns her ex-boyfriend is the Biblical Antichrist, she should discover a approach to cease him earlier than he grows highly effective sufficient to finish the world. Daisy Jones And The Six meets The Omen on this novel about music, free will, and the apocalypse.
“It’s a well-recognized story: the starry rise and tragic fall of a rock band. This isn’t that story. That is one you haven’t heard—a story of divine prophecy and a breakup. Oh, and the apocalypse…”
1998: Lily Lawlor and Drake Morgan type a punk band. Drake conjures up religion in some. Concern in others. Lily is a believer.
2010: On the peak of her stardom, Lily walks right into a police station and confesses to a homicide.
Now: The band has refused to speak to the press about their riotous previous, Lily’s confession, or anything. It’s been over a decade, however Lily has lastly agreed to an interview. And the band is following her lead.
What follows is a narrative of prophecy, demise, and apocalypse. A narrative about love discovered and love misplaced. A narrative concerning the antichrist. Possibly it’s all true. Possibly none whether it is.
Both method, that is their story. They usually’re sticking to it.
Informed as if we’re studying the transcript of an interview of the band the Shivers, DiLouie mixes the biblical apocalypse with exhausting rock/punk music. Lily Lawless is the guitar, Ramona, the drummer; Eric the keyboard participant; and Malcom the bassist and supervisor of the band. Main the band is Lily’s lover/boyfriend, the charismatic and persuasive Drake. The band doesn’t know one another earlier than their first band assembly, however the discover one thing sturdy of their music collectively. Drake is who holds them collectively, the driving power. Or so that they assume.
The exhibits the Shivers play in small native venues typically finish in chaos, with live performance patrons in a trance and injured. When Lily begins to not like who she is with Drake, his have an effect on on crowds and that he is perhaps the antichrist (he’s), their relationship ends. The remainder of the band convinces Lily that she ought to take over the lead singer position. Drake finally finds one other band; his band and The Shivers are on a collision course for Armageddon, a battle of the bands. I don’t assume it’s a coincidence that the novel is ready in and close to Bethlehem, PA. Factors to Dilouie on the analysis as a result of I’m pretty near Bethlehem, PA and the little bit I do know of the realm and its historical past felt fairly correct.
The Shivers had been enormously in style within the late 90s early 2000s, because of the Armageddon Battle of the Bands. From there, their course was set. What I discovered fascinating is how DiLouie largely glossed over the stardom portion of the Shivers historical past.
The intestine of the novel is who the band was earlier than they grew to become in style and the way Lily actually grew into an unimaginable lead singer. Every band member felt real, distinctive, and really actual. Whereas Lily was positively the lead character, due to the interview model, they remainder of the band didn’t really feel like simply supporting members of the band. To a reasonably vital diploma, they felt as in the event that they had been the protagonist of their very own tales. Seeing the place they ended up after their time with the band was very rewarding in every of their very own rights. For anyone who remembers the previous VH1 docuseries “Behind the Music,” numerous the novel will resonate, particularly when the unnamed interview talks with former membership house owners, rock journalists, and different bands who crossed paths with the Shivers.
As a fan of exhausting rock / heavy metallic music, you may say that My Ex, the Antichrist positively struck a chord with me.
The biblical apocalypse is ready to occur, although. Drake is certainly the antichrist and Lily appears to be the one one who can doubtlessly flip him from that endgame. The place DiLouie takes this story is enjoyable, fascinating, and an absolute blast. With three of Dilouie’s novels on my bookshelves, he’s grow to be a author who I can belief to inform an entertaining and uniquely horrific story.
My Ex, the Antichrist is the primary (or at the very least one of many first) title(s) in Orbit / Hachette’s “Run for It” Horror imprint. In trusting this launch to a author like DiLouie, the writer has proven numerous belief in DiLouie. I’d heartily say that belief is earned with this novel.
Extremely Beneficial m/ m/
© 2025 Rob H. Bedford
Commerce Paperback | July 2025
https://craigdilouie.com/
https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/orbit-books/excerpt-my-ex-the-antichrist-by-craid-dilouie/
Evaluation copy courtesy of the writer, Orbit / Run For It
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