Island of the Dying Goddess
a Horror Grimdark Fantasy Stand Alone
My second novel, this book features body horror, nightmarish atmosphere, and deep philosophical and moral dilemmas about what it means to offer mercy.
Island of the Dying Goddess Blurb:
On the island of eternal grief
Even the gods have died a thousand deaths
My name is Anawar, and I am an immortal explorer. A few days ago, I was stranded on Sawarrgh, an island where everything looks twisted and the air smells of mourning. The atmosphere has forced suppressed memories to resurface. I have to consciously keep them at bay, or I won’t be able to survive this island’s horrors.
There’s Ghaph, the mad warmongering god who mutilates his enemies and patches on their dismembered limbs. Then there’s Ndraja, the goddess who can enslave entire kingdoms with just her thoughts. But the worst is the nameless Goddess who created Sawarrgh a millennium ago, caging it in a barrier that reverses time, forcing the island to relive the same year over and over.
Sawarrgh is a nightmare come alive. Here, existence itself is a curse. The living are barely alive. The stranded, condemned.
I need to escape this island, and in doing so, free Sawarrgh from its perpetual punishment.
And the only way to do that is to kill the Goddess.
Elden Ring meets A Fistful of Dollars in this stand-alone horror grimdark fantasy
Cover Artist: ME!
I made the cover for Island of the Dying Goddess myself. Without AI! Click here to read how.
Praise for Island of the Dying Goddess
Paul G. Zareith
★★★★★
“… grief is omnipresent and presses down upon you, suffocating you, twisting and warping your mind in the most unexpected ways.”
Michael Delaney
★★★★★
“… an incredible fusion of a dark, near-horrific storyline with a strong, character-driven narrative.”
Lily Shadowlyn
★★★★★
“… this beautiful, dark, unforgettable story that will take root in your soul.”
Island of the Dying Goddess Inspirations
Like Abandoned by the Gods, Island of the Dying Goddess also takes aesthetic inspiration from Indian mythology and history.
However, the primary inspirations for this novel are both Japanese:
Elden Ring is one of the highest-rated games of all time. With good reason. I’m barely 30% into the game, and already it’s proving to be more complex, nuanced, and inspiring than most games I’ve played. The difficulty level doesn’t even make it to my top reasons for liking this game.
The aura and atmosphere of Elden Ring evoke a strong sense of pathos, coupled with longing and struggle. That was one of my primary inspirations.
Apart from aesthetics, this game has also influenced my narrative and characters. In fact, one character is directly, and two are indirectly inspired by Elden Ring’s bosses.
Yojimbo’s influence on cinema needs no introduction. From The Man With No Name, to Django, a lot of spaghetti westerns were inspired by Kurosawa’s ronin.
While my story doesn’t feature a lone ronin, the idea of an outsider entering a region of political stalemate and wreaking havoc served to be the perfect plot to explore the themes that I wanted to.
Yojimbo’s impact on my story is strictly for the narrative and treatment. In fact, the story itself is different enough that you might not even have guessed this if I hadn’t mentioned it here. However, I’m not one to shy away from admitting my influences, and so here it is.
Note: While Yojimbo was the direct inspiration, its unofficial remake, A Fistful of Dollars, is universally more popular (except maybe in Japan). To be fair, Sergio Leone’s western starring Clint Eastwood is a brilliant film in itself. For the sake of SEO and algorithm, I have chosen to include AFoD as a comp title instead of Yojimbo.
Behind the scenes of Island of the Dying Goddess
It’s time I spoke about a difficult time in my life. The year was 2023. At the beginning of June, my father had a brain stroke. What followed were some of the worst months of my life. I won’t go into specifics here, but for anyone who has dealt with an ailing loved one, you can probably imagine the toll it took on me, physically, emotionally, mentally, and philosophically. At the time of writing this, my father is alive and well. However, he is no longer the same man that I knew growing up, and accepting that has been very hard.
In November 2023, I participated in NaNoWriMo. This was the first and only NaNo that I failed to complete. My reason—I had my debut novel releasing on December 1st. I’ll admit, I bit more than I was able to chew. Besides, this was the first piece of work that I was 100% discovery writing. That means I had a harder time writing and editing this one than I had anticipated. While the plot and narrative changed significantly over the course of my writing journey, the themes and characters were strong and evident.
That novel—unwittingly, and subconsciously—ended up being my tool to cope with the traumas of my recent tragedy. There was a lot that I wasn’t able to wrap my head around. Many things were left unsaid, because I didn’t know how to say them.
Island of the Dying Goddess is that novel. It is what helped me finally embrace my situation. And for that reason, I have dedicated this book to my father. I speak more about it in the book’s preface, but this here’s the story in brief of how I came about writing Island of the Dying Goddess.
Island of the Dying Goddess is OUT NOW!
Also, check out my other books:
Lighthearted urban fantasy adventure with anxiety & mental health themes.
Indian Grimdark Fantasy anthology with social and political themes.
You can keep an eye on my Goodreads, Amazon, or StoryGraph pages.
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