SkywardStorytelling
Skye - she/they đ©·đđ I'm just a girl who likes reading about fictional horrors to escape the real ones đ
281 points
0% overlap
My Taste
Reading...
SkywardStorytelling wants to read...
1h
You Weren't Meant to Be Human
Andrew Joseph White
Alien meets Midsommar in this chilling debut adult novel from award-winning author Andrew Joseph White about identity, survival, and transformation amidst an alien invasion in rural West Virginia.
Festering masses of worms and flies have taken root in dark corners across Appalachia. In exchange for unwavering loyalty and fresh corpses, these hives offer a few struggling humans salvation. A fresh start. Itâs an offer that none refuse.
Crane is grateful. Among his hiveâs followers, Crane has found a chance to transition, to never speak again, to live a life that wonât destroy him. He even met Levi: a handsome ex-Marine and brutal killer who treats him like a real man, mostly. But when Levi gets Crane pregnantâand the hive demands the childâs birth, no matter the costâCraneâs desperation to make it stop will drive the community that saved him into a devastating spiral that can only end in blood.
You Werenât Meant to Be Human is a deeply personal horror; a visceral statement about the lives of marginalized people in a hostile world, echoing the works of Stephen Graham Jones and Eric LaRocca.
0
0Reply
Post from the Queer Horror forum
1h
Yeehaw! Let's go!
I've had a ton of these on my tbr for AGES, so now I have an excuse to prioritize them! What's everyone starting with? I think my first pick is The Salt Grows Heavy!
8
4Reply
SkywardStorytelling wants to read...
3h
Iron Widow (Iron Widow, #1)
Xiran Jay Zhao
The boys of Huaxia dream of pairing up with girls to pilot Chrysalises, giant transforming robots that can battle the mecha aliens that lurk beyond the Great Wall. It doesn't matter that the girls often die from the mental strain.
When 18-year-old Zetian offers herself up as a concubine-pilot, it's to assassinate the ace male pilot responsible for her sister's death. But she gets her vengeance in a way nobody expectedâshe kills him through the psychic link between pilots and emerges from the cockpit unscathed. She is labeled an Iron Widow, a much-feared and much-silenced kind of female pilot who can sacrifice boys to power up Chrysalises instead.â
To tame her unnerving yet invaluable mental strength, she is paired up with Li Shimin, the strongest and most controversial male pilot in Huaxiaâ. But now that Zetian has had a taste of power, she will not cower so easily. She will miss no opportunity to leverage their combined might and infamy to survive attempt after attempt on her life, until she can figure out exactly why the pilot system works in its misogynist wayâand stop more girls from being sacrificed.
0
0Reply
SkywardStorytelling wants to read...
3h
Natural Beauty
Ling Ling Huang
Sly, surprising, and razor-sharp, Natural Beauty follows a young musician into an elite, beauty-obsessed world where perfection comes at a staggering cost.
Our narrator produces a sound from the piano no one else at the Conservatory can. She employs a technique she learned from her parentsâalso talented musiciansâwho fled China in the wake of the Cultural Revolution. But when an accident leaves her parents debilitated, she abandons her future for a job at a high-end beauty and wellness store in New York City.
Holistik is known for its remarkable products and proceduresâfrom remoras that suck out cheap Botox to eyelash extensions made of spider silkâand her new job affords her entry into a world of privilege and a long-awaited sense of belonging. She becomes transfixed by Helen, the niece of Holistikâs charismatic owner, and the two strike up a friendship that hazily veers into more. All the while, our narrator is plied with products that slim her thighs, smooth her skin, and lighten her hair. But beneath these creams and tinctures lies something sinister.
A piercing, darkly funny debut, Natural Beauty explores questions of consumerism, self-worth, race, and identityâand leaves readers with a shocking and unsettling truth.
0
0Reply
SkywardStorytelling wants to read...
3h
Lucy Undying
Kiersten White
In this epic and seductive gothic fantasy, a vampire escapes the thrall of Dracula and embarks on her own search for self-discovery and true love.
Her name was written in the pages of someone else's story: Lucy Westenra was one of Dracula's first victims.
But her death was only the beginning. Lucy rose from the grave a vampire, and has spent her immortal life trying to escape from Dracula's clutches--and trying to discover who she really is and what she truly wants.
Her undead life takes an unexpected turn when, in twenty-first-century London, she meets another woman who is also yearning to break free from her past. Irisâs family has built a health empire based on a sinister secret, and theyâll do anything to stay in power.
Lucy has long believed she would never love again. But she finds herself compelled by the charming Iris, while Iris is mesmerized by the confident and glamorous Lucy. But their intense connection and blossoming love is threatened by forces from without. Iris's mother won't let go of her without a fight, and Lucy's past still has fangs: Dracula is on the prowl again.
Lucy Westenra has been a tragically murdered teen, a lonesome adventurer, and a fearsome hunter, but happiness always eluded her. Can she find the strength to destroy Dracula once and for all, or will her heart once again be her undoing?
0
0Reply
SkywardStorytelling wants to read...
3h
David Bowie Made Me Gay: 100 Years of LGBT Music
Darryl W. Bullock
LGBT musicians have shaped the development of music over the last century, with a sexually progressive soundtrack in the background of the gay communityâs struggle for acceptance. With the advent of recording technology, LGBT messages were for the first time brought to the forefront of popular music. David Bowie Made Me Gay is the first book to cover the breadth of history of recorded music by and for the LGBT community and how those records influenced the evolution of the music we listen to today.
David Bowie Made Me Gay uncovers the lives of the people who made these records, and offers a lively canter through the scarcely documented history of LGBT music-makers. Darryl W. Bullock discusses how gay, lesbian, and bisexual performers influenced Jazz and Blues; examines the almost forgotten Pansy Craze in the years between the two World Wars (when many LGBT performers were feted by royalty and Hollywood alike); chronicles the dark years after the depression when gay life was driven deep underground; celebrates the re-emergence of LGBT performers in the post-Stonewall years; and highlights todayâs most legendary out-gay pop stars: Elton John, Boy George, Freddie Mercury, and George Michael.Â
0
0Reply
SkywardStorytelling wants to read...
3h
How Far the Light Reaches: A Life in Ten Sea Creatures
Sabrina Imbler
A queer, mixed race writer working in a largely white, male field, science and conservation journalist Sabrina Imbler has always been drawn to the mystery of life in the sea, and particularly to creatures living in hostile or remote environments. Each essay in their debut collection profiles one such creature: the mother octopus who starves herself while watching over her eggs, the Chinese sturgeon whose migration route has been decimated by pollution and dams, the bizarre Bobbitt worm (named after Lorena), and other uncanny creatures lurking in the deep ocean, far below where the light reaches. Imbler discovers that some of the most radical models of family, community, and care can be found in the sea, from gelatinous chains that are both individual organisms and colonies of clones to deep-sea crabs that have no need for the sun, nourished instead by the chemicals and heat throbbing from the core of the Earth. Exploring themes of adaptation, survival, sexuality, and care, and weaving the wonders of marine biology with stories of their own family, relationships, and coming of age, How Far the Light Reaches is a book that invites us to envision wilder, grander, and more abundant possibilities for the way we live.
0
0Reply
SkywardStorytelling wants to read...
3h
Herculine
Grace Byron
Manhunt meets Lord of the Flies in this blistering horror debut following a young trans woman after she arrives at the all-trans girl commune founded by her toxic ex-girlfriend, only to discover that demons, both literal and figurative, haunt her fellow comradesâand she's their next prey!
Herculineâs narrator has demons. Sure, her life includes several hallmarks of the typical trans girl sob storyâconversion therapy, a string of shitty low-paying jobs, and even shittier exesâbut she also regularly debates sleep paralysis demons that turn to mist soon after she wakes and carries vials of holy oil in her purse. Nothing, though, prepares her for the new malevolent force stalking her through the streets of New York City, more powerful than any sheâs ever encountered. Desperate to escape this ancient evil, she flees to rural Indiana, where her ex-girlfriend started an all-trans girl commune in the middle of the woods.
The secluded camp, named after 19th-century intersex memoirist Herculine Barbin, is a scrappy operation, but the shared sense of community among the girls is a welcome balm to the narratorâs growing isolation and paranoia. Still, something isnât quite right at Herculine. Girls stop talking as soon as she enters the room, everyone seems to share a common secret, and the books lining the walls of the library harbor strange cryptograms. Soon what once looked like an escape becomes a trap all its own.
While trying to untangle the communeâs many mysteries, the narrator contends with disemboweled pigs, cultlike psychosexual rituals, and the horrors of communal breakfast. And before long, she discovers that her demons have followed her. And this time, they wonât be letting her go.
0
0Reply
SkywardStorytelling wants to read...
3h
Be Gay, Do Crime
Molly Llewellyn
A follow-up to their runaway success Peach Pit: Sixteen Stories of Unsavory Women, editors Molly Llewellyn and Kristel Buckley return with Be Gay, Do Crime, a celebration of queer chaos from an all-queer author lineup featuring Myriam Gurba, Emily Austin, Alissa Nutting, and Francesca Ekwuyasi
A trans woman makes increasingly frequent hoax calls to a business where she's had a negative experience, watching the consequences with perverse joy. A group of aging queers turns to bank robbery to stop the sale of their bungalow complex to a development company. As the president prepares to give a speech, two women lurk among the journalists, ready to shoot him. And an aspiring author takes to stealing items from strangersâ homes in a kind of cosmic redistribution each time one of her relationships fail.
In sixteen brilliant, wild-eyed stories, Be Gay, Do Crime delivers a celebration and reckoning of why queer people turn to crimeâ be it unintentionally, as a means of survival, as protest, as rescue, or to right injustices big and small.
0
0Reply
SkywardStorytelling wants to read...
3h
The House Across the Lake
Riley Sager
The New York Times best-selling author of Final Girls and Survive the Night is back with his most unexpected thriller yet.
Casey Fletcher, a recently widowed actress trying to escape a streak of bad press, has retreated to the peace and quiet of her familyâs lake house in Vermont. Armed with a pair of binoculars and several bottles of liquor, she passes the time watching Tom and Katherine Royce, the glamorous couple who live in the house across the lake. They make for good viewingâa tech innovator, Tom is rich; and a former model, Katherine is gorgeous.
One day on the lake, Casey saves Katherine from drowning, and the two strike up a budding friendship. But the more they get to know each otherâand the longer Casey watchesâit becomes clear that Katherine and Tomâs marriage is not as perfect and placid as it appears. When Katherine suddenly vanishes, Casey becomes consumed with finding out what happened to her. In the process, she uncovers eerie, darker truths that turn a tale of voyeurism and suspicion into a story of guilt, obsession and how looks can be very deceiving.
With his trademark blend of sharp characters, psychological suspense, and gasp-worthy surprises, Riley Sagerâs The House Across the Lake unveils more than one twist that will shock readers until the very last page.
0
0Reply
SkywardStorytelling wants to read...
3h
Mad Sisters of Esi
Tashan Mehta
Myung and Laleh are keepers of the whale of babel. They roam within its cosmic chambers, speak folktales of themselves, and pray to an enigmatic figure they know only as 'Great Wisa'. To Laleh, this is everything. For Myung, it is not enough.
When Myung flees the whale, she stumbles into a new universe where shapeshifting islands and ancient maps hold sway. There, she sets off on an adventure that is both tragic and transformative, for her and Laleh. For at the heart of her quest lies a mystery that has confounded scholars for centuries: the truth about the mad sisters of Esi.
Fables, dreams and myths come together in this masterful work of fantasy by acclaimed author Tashan Mehta, sweeping across three landscapes, and featuring a museum of collective memory and a festival of madness. At its core, it asks: In the devastating chaos of this world, where all is in flux and the truth ever-changing, what will you choose to hold on to?
0
0Reply
SkywardStorytelling commented on a post
3h
SkywardStorytelling joined a quest
4h
Queer Horror đ»đđłïžâđ
đ // 222 joined
Not Joined
From psychedelic fever dreams to things that go bump in the night: all things queer and scary.
0
0Reply
SkywardStorytelling wants to read...
4h
Meddling Kids
Edgar Cantero
1990. The teen detectives once known as the Blyton Summer Detective Club (of Blyton Hills, a small mining town in the Zoinx River Valley in Oregon) are all grown up and haven't seen each other since their fateful, final case in 1977. Andy, the tomboy, is twenty-five and on the run, wanted in at least two states. Kerri, one-time kid genius and budding biologist, is bartending in New York, working on a serious drinking problem. At least she's got Tim, an excitable Weimaraner descended from the original canine member of the team. Nate, the horror nerd, has spent the last thirteen years in and out of mental health institutions, and currently resides in an asylum in Arkham, Massachusetts. The only friend he still sees is Peter, the handsome jock turned movie star. The problem is, Peter's been dead for years.
The time has come to uncover the source of their nightmares and return to where it all began in 1977. This time, it better not be a man in a mask. The real monsters are waiting.
0
0Reply
SkywardStorytelling wants to read...
4h
Walking Practice
Dolki Min
Squid Game meets The Left Hand of Darkness meets Under the Skin in this radical literary sensation from South Korea about an alien's hunt for food that transforms into an existential crisis about what it means to be human.
After crashing their spacecraft in the middle of nowhere, a shapeshifting alien find themself stranded on an unfamiliar planet and disabled by Earth's gravity. To survive, they will need to practice walking. And what better way than to hunt for food? As they discover, humans are delicious.
Intelligent, clever, and adaptable, the alien shift their gender, appearance, and conduct to suit a prey's sexual preference, then attack at the pivotal moment of their encounter. They use a variety of hunting tools, including a popular dating app, to target the juiciest prey and carry a backpack filled with torturous instruments and cleaning equipment. But the alien's existence begins to unravel one night when they fail to kill their latest meal.
Thrust into an ill-fated chase across the city, the alien is confronted with the psychological and physical tolls their experience on Earth has taken. Questioning what they must do to sustain their own survival, they begin to understand why humans also fight to live. But their hunger is insatiable, and the alien once again targets a new prey, not knowing what awaits. . . .
Dolki Min's haunting debut novel is part psychological thriller, part searing critique of the social structures that marginalize those who are different--the disabled, queer, and nonconformist. Walking Practice uncovers humanity in who we consider to be alien, and illuminates how alienation can shape the human experience.
Walking Practice features 21 black-and-white line drawings throughout.
Translated from the Korean by Victoria Caudle
0
0Reply
SkywardStorytelling wants to read...
4h
The Scourge Between Stars
Ness Brown
Ness Brown's The Scourge Between Stars is a tense, claustrophobic sci-fi/horror blend set aboard a doomed generation ship harboring something terrible within its walls. As acting captain of the starship Calypso, Jacklyn Albright is responsible for keeping the last of humanity alive as they limp back to Earth from their forebearsâ failed colony on a distant planet.Faced with constant threats of starvation and destruction in the treacherous minefield of interstellar space, Jacklyn's crew has reached their breaking point. As unrest begins to spread throughout the shipâs Wards, a new threat emerges, picking off crew members in grim, bloody fashion.Jacklyn and her team must hunt down the shipâs unknown intruder if they have any hope of making it back to their solar system alive.
0
0Reply
SkywardStorytelling wants to read...
4h
The Church of the Mountain of Flesh
Kyle Wakefield
THE CHURCH OF THE MOUNTAIN OF FLESH is a cosmic horror novel about mad artists, bodies spiralling out of control, and a trans man's merciless desperation.
Sole De Gasinis drowns his grief in wine and buries his hatred of his body in twisted sculptures. When, one drunken night on the beach, God orders him to rebuild his village's church, he knows he wasn't chosen for his piety.
Instead, he and God make a deal. If Sole rebuilds the church, God will give him the body of a man.
As Sole works in a frenzy for salvation, lifelong friendships decay, a village united to tear down its church fractures into pariahs and zealots, and power and grief reshape the prophet into a tyrant. Grief for a boy he fell in love with ten years ago, who claimed to be a virgin birth, who died in agony in the church crypt when the God inside him wanted out -- and whose monstrous remnant Sole must commune with for every piece of his prize.
0
0Reply
SkywardStorytelling wants to read...
4h
The Cabin at the End of the World
Paul Tremblay
Seven-year-old Wen and her parents, Eric and Andrew, are vacationing at a remote cabin on a quiet New Hampshire lake. Their closest neighbors are more than two miles in either direction along a rutted dirt road.
One afternoon, as Wen catches grasshoppers in the front yard, a stranger unexpectedly appears in the driveway. Leonard is the largest man Wen has ever seen but he is young, friendly, and he wins her over almost instantly. Leonard and Wen talk and play until Leonard abruptly apologizes and tells Wen, "None of whatâs going to happen is your fault". Three more strangers then arrive at the cabin carrying unidentifiable, menacing objects. As Wen sprints inside to warn her parents, Leonard calls out: "Your dads wonât want to let us in, Wen. But they have to. We need your help to save the world."
0
0Reply
SkywardStorytelling finished reading and left a rating...
11h
SkywardStorytelling
Oct 31, 2025
Oct 31, 2025
4.0
Enjoyment: 4.0Quality: 4.5Characters: 3.0Plot: 3.0
đš
đ°
đȘ
Buckle up, babes - this one is a SAGA.
I'm really curious how long it took Caroline Fraser to write this - not only is it a whopping 16 hour audiobook, but the level of detail included on all three subjects is astonishing.
Murderland is best described as three connected stories braided together around a single thesis - that the absolutely bonkers levels of heavy metals and toxins pumped into the environment by the smelting industry is a distinct but underexplored factor in the development of history's most recognizable serial killers and contributed to a higher rate of violent crime in the US in general during the period between the 1920s and the phasing out of leaded gasoline in 1992. The third story is Fraser's own biography and her experiences living through the height of the serial killer era, particularly when Ted Bundy is killing women basically in her backyard.
I will admit that it took me a long time to "get" this book - if you aren't paying attention (which I was trying really hard to do but audiobooks are hard for my brain sometimes) it can seem like an endless slog through the lurid details of the 70s serial killer craze and the violence of the times - rapes, domestic violence, endless horrific car accidents. It's rough, I'm not going to lie to you. But Fraser is using the horrors to push us toward her ultimate point - corporations don't care about us, and they have been allowed to flood our world with poison and build projects that are proven to be violently unsafe (looking at you, Mercer Island Bridge đ) with impunity for decades and these societal issues are partially the consequences of this disgusting level of indifference to human life and health.
The thing that I appreciated the most was Fraser's consistent acknowledgement of nuance - she doesn't claim that heavy metals are the ONLY factor that led to these monstrous crimes, nor does she imply that this factor allows perpetrators to escape accountability. I had mixed feelings about how much the book lingers on Ted Bundy (haven't we talked about this dickhead enough??) but he is a really good example of what Caroline is talking about, and his crimes are enmeshed in the history of true crime that she follows to make her point.
Overall, this was a really interesting entry in the "environmental true crime" (thank you person who commented on my last update for this term and also for the shrimp trauma đŠ) genre, but it's by no means light reading.
0
0Reply
SkywardStorytelling commented on a post
17h
© 2025 Pagebound