Review - The Alignments by E. H. Lupton

The Alignments

by E. H. Lupton

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Volume 4.5 of Wisconsin Gothic

Tags: Paranormal Mystery

Posted in Book Reviews on 13 May, 2026

Ulysses and Sam travel to Brittany to get a break from things in Madison, and as a sort of honeymoon. They’re staying at an apartment in Carnac that’s been in Ulysses’ family for many years. Unfortunately, the mood of their first night in town is ruined a bit when they meet a colleague of Ulysses who seems to go out of her way to cast doubt on the theories forming a cornerstone of his doctoral thesis, which won him a prestigious award. Things get even darker when Ulysses discovers the woman dead in the apartment next door and the police seem to suspect him.

“The Alignments” is a short, novella-length installment in the Wisconsin Gothic series. It’s more of an interlude that doesn’t advance the main overall plot of the series. You could, in theory, read this story without having read all of the other books, but you should have read at least the first book, Dionysus in Wisconsin, to know Sam’s unusual back-story and the alternate universe in which the books are set.

The narration alternates between Sam and Ulysses. Sam still struggles with his past as the destined vessel for the god Dionysus. He worries that the remnants of the god’s presence still influences him and those around him. Does it, perhaps, have anything to do with the death, which appears to be the result of a magic ritual gone wrong?

Ulysses remains the same character we’ve come to know through the stories. He’s a man determined to fix things regardless of the personal cost. Ulysses’ insistence on looking into the death once again puts him in a situation where he feels the need put himself at risk to put things right.

“The Alignments” is available from Smashwords or see Bookshop.org to purchase from an independent bookseller.