Tag Archives: Body Horror

Kingdom of the Wicked by Kerri Maniscalco 

Kingdom of the Wicked by Kerri Maniscalco

Emilia and her twin sister Vittoria are streghe – witches who live secretly among humans, avoiding notice and persecution. One night, Vittoria misses dinner service at the family’s renowned Sicilian restaurant. Emilia soon finds the body of her beloved twin…desecrated beyond belief. Devastated, Emilia sets out to find her sister’s killer and to seek vengeance at any cost-even if it means using dark magic that’s been long forbidden.

Then Emilia meets Wrath, one of the Wicked-princes of Hell she has been warned against in tales since she was a child. Wrath claims to be on Emilia’s side, tasked by his master with solving the series of women’s murders on the island. But when it comes to the Wicked, nothing is as it seems… 

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Slavery
  • Hate crime
  • Self harm
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Body horror
  • Emesis
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a sister
  • Murder
  • Torture
  • Stalking

A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers

A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers

Lovelace was once merely a ship’s artificial intelligence. When she wakes up in a new body, following a total system shut-down and reboot, she has no memory of what came before. As Lovelace learns to negotiate the universe and discover who she is, she makes friends with Pepper, an excitable engineer, who’s determined to help her learn and grow. Together, Pepper and Lovey will discover that no matter how vast space is, two people can fill it together.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Slavery
  • Child abuse
  • Anxiety & panic attacks
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Blood & injury depiction including body horror & amputation
  • Murder
  • Gun violence
  • Death of a child
  • Kidnapping
  • Animal death & hunting

Deadhouse Gates by Steven Erikson

Deadhouse Gates by Steven Erikson

In the vast dominion of Seven Cities, in the Holy Desert Raraku, the seer Sha’ik and her followers prepare for the long-prophesied uprising known as the Whirlwind. Unprecedented in size and savagery, this maelstrom of fanaticism and bloodlust will embroil the Malazan Empire in one of the bloodiest conflicts it has ever known, shaping destinies and giving birth to legends.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Graphic rape
  • Drug use
  • Graphic body horror
  • Torture
  • War theme
  • Animal death
  • Animal abuse

My Best Friend’s Exorcism by Grady Hendrix

My Best Friend’s Exorcism by Grady Hendrix

Abby and Gretchen have been best friends since fifth grade, when they bonded over a shared love of E.T., roller-skating parties, and scratch-and-sniff stickers. But when they arrive at high school, things change. Gretchen begins to act….different. And as the strange coincidences and bizarre behaviour start to pile up, Abby realizes there’s only one possible explanation: Gretchen, her favourite person in the world, has a demon living inside her. And Abby is not about to let anyone or anything come between her and her best friend. With help from some unlikely allies, Abby embarks on a quest to save Gretchen. But is their friendship powerful enough to beat the devil?

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Ableist language
  • Date rape mentioned
  • Attempted suicide
  • Body horror
  • Emesis
  • Death of a baby
  • Animal death (dog)
  • Kidnapping

The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix

The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix

Patricia Campbell had always planned for a big life, but after giving up her career as a nurse to marry an ambitious doctor and become a mother, Patricia’s life has never felt smaller. The days are long, her kids are ungrateful, her husband is distant, and her to-do list is never really done. The one thing she has to look forward to is her book club, a group of Charleston mothers united only by their love for true crime and suspenseful fiction. In these meetings, they’re more likely to discuss the FBI’s recent siege of Waco as much as the ups and downs of marriage and motherhood.

But when an artistic and sensitive stranger moves into the neighbourhood, the book club’s meetings turn into speculation about the newcomer… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Misogyny
  • Classism
  • Victim blaming
  • Graphic rape
  • Cheating
  • Domestic violence
  • Suicide & attempted suicide
  • Drug use
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Body horror & eyeball trauma
  • Nonconsensual psychiatric hospitalisation
  • Death of a child
  • Death of a spouse
  • Lynching mentioned
  • Home invasion
  • Animal death

Tender Is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica

Tender Is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica

His wife has left him, his father is sinking into dementia, and Marcos tries not to think too hard about how he makes a living. After all, it happened so quickly. First, it was reported that an infectious virus has made all animal meat poisonous to humans. Then governments initiated the “Transition.” Now, eating human meat—“special meat”—is legal. Marcos tries to stick to numbers, consignments, processing.

Then one day he’s given a gift: a live specimen of the finest quality. Though he’s aware that any form of personal contact is forbidden on pain of death, little by little he starts to treat her like a human being. And soon, he becomes tortured by what has been lost—and what might still be saved.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Sexual assault
  • Estrangement
  • Grey-area cheating
  • Childbirth
  • Dead bodies & body parts
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Physical injuries & wounds
  • Body horror
  • Cannibalism (theme)
  • Dismemberment
  • Involuntary pregnancy
  • Infertility themes
  • Death of a child
  • Death of a parent
  • Imprisonment
  • Torture
  • Animal cruelty & abuse

Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke by Eric LaRocca

Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke by Eric LaRocca

Sadomasochism. Obsession. Death. A whirlpool of darkness churns at the heart of a macabre ballet between two lonely young women in an internet chat room in the early 2000s—a darkness that threatens to forever transform them once they finally succumb to their most horrific desires. What have you done today to deserve your eyes?

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Homomisia
  • Parental abandonment & disownment
  • Child abuse recounted
  • Domestic abuse
  • Abusive dom-sub relationship
  • Psychosis
  • Suicidal ideation
  • Attempted suicide
  • Graphic self-harm
  • Pregnancy
  • Blood & gore depiction
  • Body horror
  • Death of an infant
  • Animal death & cruelty

When I Arrived at the Castle by Emily Carroll

When I Arrived at the Castle by Emily Carroll

When I Arrived at the Castle by Emily Carroll

“A castle, a killer, and prey all bound and blurred by lust and blood.”

Like many before her that have never come back, she’s made it to the Countess’ castle determined to snuff out the horror, but she could never be prepared for what hides within its turrets; what unfurls under its fluttering flags. Emily Carroll has fashioned a rich gothic horror charged with eroticism that doesn’t just make your skin crawl, it crawls into it.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Graphic body horror & blood depiction
  • Kidnapping
  • Knife violence
  • Suicide mentioned

InSEXts Vol 1: Chrysalis by Marguerite Bennett

InSEXts Vol 1: Chrysalis by Marguerite Bennett

InSEXts Vol 1: Chrysalis by Marguerite Bennett

Collecting the first seven issues of the hit series INSEXTS, from writer Marguerite Bennett and artist Ariela Kristantina. At the dusk of a century, a pair of vengeful Victorian vixens discover a horrifying power that transforms them into rich and strange new creatures. Armed with their dark, evolving forms, they descend into a world of the cultured and occult, with new senses and new sensuality, to forge a life for themselves and the child of their love

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Sexism
  • Racism
  • Sexual assault, implied
  • Body horror & gore
  • Torture

Cursed by Marie O’Regan and Paul Kane

Cursed: A Wish is a Terrible Thing edited by Marie O’Regan and Paul Kane

with contributions from Angela Slatter, Neil Gaiman, Alison Littlewood, James Brogden, Tim Lebbon, Charle Jane Anders, Christina Henry, Christopher Golden, Catriona Ward, Lilith Saintcrow, Margo Lanagan, Maura McHugh, Jen Williams, Jane Yolen, Christopher Fowler, M.R. Carey, Karen Joy Fowler, Adam Stemple, and Michael Marshall Smith

This is the story of a serial killer. A stolen child. Revenge. Death. And an ordinary house at the end of an ordinary street.

All these things are true. And yet they are all lies…

You think you know what’s inside the last house on Needless Street. You think you’ve read this story before. That’s where you’re wrong.

In the dark forest at the end of Needless Street, lies something buried. But it’s not what you think…

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger & Content Warnings:

  • Self-multionation
  • Body horror
  • Death of an infant & child