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by Bitter Karella
Annihilation meets Manhunt in three-time Hugo Award nominee Bitter Karella's debut horror novel—a gloriously queer and irreverent psychedelic trip into the heart of an eldritch wood and the horrors of (cis)terhood.
I see something out there, in the woods. It does not have a face.
They call it the King's Breakfast. One bite and you can understand the full scope of the universe; one bite and you can commune with forgotten gods beyond human comprehension. And it only grows deep in the Pamogo forest, where the trees crowd so tight that the forest floor is pitch black day and night, where rumors of disappearing hikers and strange cults that worship the divine feminine abound.
Sarah is a trans woman who makes her living growing mushrooms. When a bad harvest leaves her in a desperate fix, the lure of the King's Breakfast has her journeying into those vast uncharted woods. But as she descends deeper, she realizes she's not alone. Something in the forest is waking up. It's hungry—and it wants her.
"Karella makes the duo's journey gory and weird enough to satisfy any horror fan, but the real triumph of the book is its wonderfully realized trans heroine. Sarah is smart, funny, and flawed, allowing Karella to organically explore larger ideas about gender and sexuality without losing the irreverent and often comic tone. The result is a strange, sublime truffle that will delight any discerning appetite." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"As humorous and heartwarming as it is horrific. Fans of Gretchen Felker-Martin's Manhunt and Alison Rumfit's Brainwyrms will love this rollicking, trippy ride." ―Library Journal
"Karella seamlessly blends dark humor, heist elements, and frightening bits of horror. Moonflow is an intensely entertaining novel that fans of mushroom horror will gobble up." ―Booklist
"Startlingly empathetic and deeply strange, Bitter Karella's psychedelic horror novel Moonflow will fill the reader with both wonder and disgust on every page. Moonflow emerges as one of the most exciting horror debuts of the year...a story you won't soon forget." ―BookPage
"A bizarre and fiercely original splatterpunk phantasmagoria of queerness, Moonflow is like a gay Jodorowsky film from Hell. Deranged and gleefully weird as fuck, this is an impressive debut from a singular literary talent." ―Eric LaRocca, author of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke
"Luminous, trippy and an immensely satisfying read, Karella's Moonflow establishes her as a bona fide horror fiction maestro of the most accomplished order." ―Gemma Amor, Bram Stoker and British Fantasy Award-nominated author of Itch!
This information about Moonflow was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Bitter Karella is the writer and horror aficionado behind the twice Hugo-nominated microfiction comedy account @Midnight_pals, which asks what if all your favorite horror writers gathered around the campfire to tell scary stories. His work has appeared in Seize the Press, Tenebrous Press's Your Body in Not Your Body, and Ghoulish Books' Bound in Flesh. She also dabbles in cartooning and text game design.
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