As soon as I saw the cover and heard the premise of Sister, Maiden, Monster, I immediately knew I wanted to read it. Queer eldritch horror is one of my new favourite things lately and this novel definitely hits that mark—and then some. If I reviewed this book based on how fast I devoured it (pun fully intended) and how much it gripped me, it would be an easy five stars. But as it sat with me, there are some elements I felt could have been handled better and thus impacted my rating.

Sister, Maiden, Monster follows the journey of three different women—Erin, Savannah, and Mareva—as a new and deadly virus ravages the globe. To say much more than that would get into spoiler territory and I do think this is a novel best experienced as it unfolds.

To start with what I loved… Holy crap, was this a cosmic horror, splatterpunk, body horror but make it really terrifying experience. It’s one of the most disturbing (positive) horror books I’ve read so far and I loved it for that. It was electrifyingly paced, so once I picked it up, I didn’t put it back down all day until I had finished it. Structurally, the novel flowed incredibly well too.

The unbridled, raw, and powerful queer lust and hunger in this novel was definitely a selling point as well. It’s been a rarity in my experience to see women featuring in horror, particularly queer horror. Erin, Savannah, and Mareva all feel distinct even as their paths intertwine in horrifying, blood-and-brain-drenched threads.

What gives me pause in this novel has a lot to do with some of the clumsiness around representation. I’m a firm believer that horror can be thrilling and awful without necessarily needing to lean on the real-life awfulness many queer and trans folks face, particularly with a premise like this novel’s that relies heavily on elements of otherworldly cosmic horror to move its plot forward.

Foremost and most glaring in my readership was the treatment of the novel’s single confirmed trans/gender diverse (their identity is not labeled) character. The revelation of this character’s gender diversity is revealed as a twist for shock value which treads dangerously close to problematic concepts of trans panic; in addition, this character also suffers abuse that is implied to be because of their gender expression. They then die violently shortly thereafter. Were there other trans and/or nonbinary characters present within the novel, maybe this wouldn’t have stuck out on my radar so much, but to have exactly one and for them to be handled in this way left a bad taste in my mouth.

There were other matters of sensitivity I think could have been handled better, horror novel or no. Despite a few fleeting references to the existence of nonbinary folks in this near-future world, the prose uses binary pairs of ‘him or her’ to refer to people when the singular ‘they’ is right there. There’s another moment where one character asks another if they’re “an” ace. Adding articles before marginalized identities seems a pretty standard practice thing to avoid, but alas; maybe it will be changed in the final copy. Finally, there’s a shockingly explicit reference to one of Jeffrey Dahmer’s real-life minor victims that I felt was both unnecessary in the context of the story/novel and in poor taste.

Overall, there’s no denying that Sister, Maiden, Monster was a gripping, disgusting, captivating scream of a splatterpunk novel. I would still recommend interested readers who are ready for some truly bizarre and horrifying stuff and who enjoy eldritch cosmic horror give this one a chance, with the caveat that some matters of sensitivity could have been handled better in my opinion regardless of all the blood, sex, guts, and plagues.

Thank you to Tor Nightfire and NetGalley for an advance review copy. All opinions are my own.