It’s Not a Cult with Joey Batey, in conversation with Natasha Pulley
Fri 24 Oct 2025
7:00pm at St. Swithins Church, The Paragon, Bath BA1 5LY
Book + Ticket gives you a free ticket with a copy of the book, all tickets include 15% off any books purchased on the night, and author talk, and signing.
Other ways to book:
Email books@mrbsemporium.com, call 01225 331155 or pop into the shop at 14-15 John Street, Bath. BA1 2JL.
We couldn’t be more excited to welcome actor and musician, Joey Batey, to Bath to discuss his debut novel, It’s Not a Cult.
You may well recognise Joey Batey from his role as Jaskier the bard in the hit Netflix TV Show, The Witcher, where he sang Toss a Coin to Your Witcher, becoming an instant viral hit. No stranger to music, Joey also produces with his alt-folk group The Amazing Devil, who released their third studio album in 2021.
It’s Not a Cult is a darkly comic Northumbrian folk horror novel where a band accidentally starts a death cult. Think Daisy Jones and the Six meets Yellowjackets in a folk horror fever dream.
Joey will be in conversation with Natasha Pulley, bestselling novelist of many Mr B’s faves including The Watchmaker of Filigree Street, The Mars House, and her latest novel, The Hymn to Dionysus.
**Joey will be signing books after the event**
About the book:
Callum, Melusine and Al play in a band with no name, baffling audiences in terrible pubs across the north-east of England with their ‘sound’. Their songs tell the stories of the Solkats: fictional northern gods of small things, of mishap and mayhem. Absolutely no one knows what they’re on about. But they believe in their music, and in each other. And they’re happy.
That is, until an act of violence at a pub gig goes viral, they catch the eye of a disillusioned influencer and suddenly go from having a cult following to having a cult, following.
All the Solkats want, Callum insists, is to have effect on the world. But as fans from LA to Australia flock to Northumberland, and each gig becomes larger and more lawless than the last, this effect starts to feel scarily. real. Which poses the question: if the Solkats really do exist, which is it more dangerous to anger: a wayward group of elder gods, or your biggest fans?
Because gods and cults both demand sacrifices. And one way or another they’re going to get one.