Although it is billed as "Book Two of the Lord of Nightmares Trilogy," Lies of Solace has a different author and no shared characters or continuity of events with Book One (Dance of the Damned). Both are set in the Arkham Horror milieu, and the prospect of a third volume, co-written by the initially independent authors of the first two, suggests that there will be a convergence of the plot lines begun separately. In any case, there is no reason to prefer reading these two in either sequence, or to think that either will illuminate the other as it stands.

Of the five Arkham Horror novels I've read, this one has the least familiar characters with respect to the gaming materials. It is also, I think, the grisliest. There's something particularly cinematic about the horror here, although it's not restricted to a visual channel. While set in the 1920s Arkham milieu, the story uses tropes developed in horror more recent than that of the pulp era. None of the characters seemed terrifically easy to sympathize with, but their nightmare experiences are vividly drawn.