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Wolf Worm
Not yet published
Expected 24 Mar 26Something darker than the devil stalks the North Carolina woods in Wolf Worm, a new gothic masterpiece from New York Times bestselling author T. Kingfisher.
The year is 1899 and Sonia Wilson is a scientific illustrator without work, prospects, or hope. When the reclusive Dr. Halder offers her a position illustrating his vast collection of insects, Sonia jumps at the chance to move to his North Carolina manor house and put her talents to use. But soon enough she finds that there are darker things at work than the Carolina woods. What happened to her predecessor, Halder’s wife? Why are animals acting so strangely, and what is behind the peculiar local whispers about “blood thiefs?”
With the aid of the housekeeper and a local healer, Sonia discovers that Halder’s entomological studies have taken him down a dark road full of parasitic maggots that burrow into human flesh, and that his monstrous experiments may grow to encompass his newest illustrator as well.
The year is 1899 and Sonia Wilson is a scientific illustrator without work, prospects, or hope. When the reclusive Dr. Halder offers her a position illustrating his vast collection of insects, Sonia jumps at the chance to move to his North Carolina manor house and put her talents to use. But soon enough she finds that there are darker things at work than the Carolina woods. What happened to her predecessor, Halder’s wife? Why are animals acting so strangely, and what is behind the peculiar local whispers about “blood thiefs?”
With the aid of the housekeeper and a local healer, Sonia discovers that Halder’s entomological studies have taken him down a dark road full of parasitic maggots that burrow into human flesh, and that his monstrous experiments may grow to encompass his newest illustrator as well.
288 pages, Hardcover
Expected publication March 24, 2026
150 people are currently reading
31375 people want to read
About the author
T. Kingfisher
56 books26.1k followersT. Kingfisher is the vaguely absurd pen-name of Ursula Vernon. In another life, she writes children's books and weird comics, and has won the Hugo, Sequoyah, and Ursa Major awards, as well as a half-dozen Junior Library Guild selections.
This is the name she uses when writing things for grown-ups.
When she is not writing, she is probably out in the garden, trying to make eye contact with butterflies.
This is the name she uses when writing things for grown-ups.
When she is not writing, she is probably out in the garden, trying to make eye contact with butterflies.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 722 reviews
December 4, 2025
Trigger warning: insects. So many insects. All the insects. And not cute insects like butterflies and ladybugs … we're talking screwworms and botflies here. I'm not generally scared of bugs and am very much a “catch and release” sort of person when it comes to creepy crawlies in the house, but even I was a little squicked out by this book.
Also, can we take a moment to marvel over what a prolific writer Kingfisher is? I'm pretty sure this is the third ARC of hers I've read this year, and I know there was at least one other ARC that I never requested due to a (admittedly very short-lived) NetGalley hiatus. She's one of my favorite authors, though, so I'm certainly not going to complain.
Anyway, Wolf Worm is a creepy story about parasitic insects and the lengths people will go to in the name of science. You may or may not find this book particularly scary depending on how you feel about insects, but there's definitely some body horror and several pretty gross scenes. I enjoyed it and was decently invested in the outcome, but I have to admit that this isn't one of my favorite Kingfishers. There's nothing particularly wrong with it, but body horror has just never been one of my preferred types of horror.
But, still, I mean, it's Kingfisher. This book is well written and suspenseful and kind of horrifying in parts. It's a slow burn, especially at the beginning, but I actually really enjoyed learning about all of the different insects. While I had some vague knowledge that botflies and their larvae existed before reading this novel, I am now absolutely terrified of encountering one in real life. Fortunately, I live in the northern US where such things are less common, but I'm probably going to wear a full beekeeping suit the next time I travel to Central or South America. Better safe than sorry, that's what I always say (especially when it comes to maggots that burrow around in your flesh).
3.7 stars, rounded up.
Many thanks to NetGalley and Tor Nightfire for providing me with an advanced copy of this book to review. Its expected publication date is March 24, 2026.
Also, can we take a moment to marvel over what a prolific writer Kingfisher is? I'm pretty sure this is the third ARC of hers I've read this year, and I know there was at least one other ARC that I never requested due to a (admittedly very short-lived) NetGalley hiatus. She's one of my favorite authors, though, so I'm certainly not going to complain.
Anyway, Wolf Worm is a creepy story about parasitic insects and the lengths people will go to in the name of science. You may or may not find this book particularly scary depending on how you feel about insects, but there's definitely some body horror and several pretty gross scenes. I enjoyed it and was decently invested in the outcome, but I have to admit that this isn't one of my favorite Kingfishers. There's nothing particularly wrong with it, but body horror has just never been one of my preferred types of horror.
But, still, I mean, it's Kingfisher. This book is well written and suspenseful and kind of horrifying in parts. It's a slow burn, especially at the beginning, but I actually really enjoyed learning about all of the different insects. While I had some vague knowledge that botflies and their larvae existed before reading this novel, I am now absolutely terrified of encountering one in real life. Fortunately, I live in the northern US where such things are less common, but I'm probably going to wear a full beekeeping suit the next time I travel to Central or South America. Better safe than sorry, that's what I always say (especially when it comes to maggots that burrow around in your flesh).
3.7 stars, rounded up.
Many thanks to NetGalley and Tor Nightfire for providing me with an advanced copy of this book to review. Its expected publication date is March 24, 2026.
December 9, 2025
4.5⭐️ oh how i love t. kingfisher
October 26, 2025
You know, I was just thinking that T. Kingfisher was missing some kind of bug/insect/vermin horror in her repertoire, and here it is. The book does take a while to really get going, though. At first we follow the scientific illustrator Sonia Wilson in 1899 as she comes to North Carolina to work for the bug specialist Dr. Halder. She is not looking forward to drawing all the insects that the doctor collects and studies, but she really needs the job and she just wants to do some good work. But already upon her arrival she hears something about the Devil living in the woods and about blood thieves mutilating bodies and Sonia might need to deal with more than she has signed up for. Her new employer also turns out to be a very rude man and the huge mansion he's living in is notably understaffed, so you can be sure that something sketchy is going on.
If you've read many other books by T. Kingfisher then chances are good that you stumbled upon the female-protagonist-goes-to-new-house-and-strange-things-start-to-happen formula before. I think I would be annoyed if any other author uses the same structure over and over again, but with her it just always works for me. The books are all different enough and they usually introduce cool, new concepts and intriguing plot elements. We've had curiosity shop dimension portals (The Hollow Places), weird bone animals (The Twisted Ones), underground rose children (A House with Good Bones), mean birds in the desert (Snake-Eater) and now we have different kinds of parasites in the woods. Kingfisher just always manages to hook me and she never fails to provide stories that I wouldn't get from anyone else. Her characters often have an unusual task to complete or they work an interesting job in general. Like, where else would I be able to read about a scientific illustrator making her way through a whole library of bugs? It was such an interesting mix of art and science, with Sonia being always close to an artistic crisis while also doing competent work although she doesn't have any deeper knowledge about bugs. The book was actually kind of informative in that regard. For one, I found out that wolf worms do exists and that it's another name for botflies. And if you know anything about them, then you can imagine that the book got bugs-under-the-skin gross and considering that that's the last place where bugs belong, it was disgusting. The YouTube algorithm decided once or twice before that I needed to see botfly removals and it was right, I needed to see that, but it also left me scarred and paranoid and with itchy skin. Same with this book.
I do have to say that the actual plot unfolds very slowly, especially for such a short book. I found it to be dragging around the 30 to 40 % mark, because it was mostly Sonia all by herself just starting to notice weird things. I think that she was kinda missing a sidekick and constant ally. There often is an animal companion or a hot handyman neighbor in Kingfisher books and this time the main character felt more isolated. She was friendly with the housekeeper and her husband and the local healer, but they weren't as present in the book, at least not during all the important plot points. There are plenty of unanswered questions that kept me reading through these slower parts, like the mystery of Sonia's predecessor who drew the most gorgeous illustrations but who no one ever talks about or the question of what her employer is doing in the woods in the middle of the night. So I wasn't exactly bored, but all the exciting things sure happened in the second half of this book where the entire story got better in general. There are many genuinely creepy moments and enough gross scenes that this book can confidently be called bug horror. It was great how everything tied into some local history and, surprisingly, some known supernatural creatures. I also really liked the ending and, after that, the acknowledgments where Kingfisher explains which parts of the story are real and what personal experiences led to this story. Overall, this was a solid new addition to the author's horror line-up, even if it wasn't a new favorite for me.
Huge thanks to NetGalley and Pan Macmillan / Tor for providing a digital arc in exchange for an honest review.
------------------------------
Pre-read: Wolf Worm? Umm, ok ... everything for you, Miss T. Kingfisher.
If you've read many other books by T. Kingfisher then chances are good that you stumbled upon the female-protagonist-goes-to-new-house-and-strange-things-start-to-happen formula before. I think I would be annoyed if any other author uses the same structure over and over again, but with her it just always works for me. The books are all different enough and they usually introduce cool, new concepts and intriguing plot elements. We've had curiosity shop dimension portals (The Hollow Places), weird bone animals (The Twisted Ones), underground rose children (A House with Good Bones), mean birds in the desert (Snake-Eater) and now we have different kinds of parasites in the woods. Kingfisher just always manages to hook me and she never fails to provide stories that I wouldn't get from anyone else. Her characters often have an unusual task to complete or they work an interesting job in general. Like, where else would I be able to read about a scientific illustrator making her way through a whole library of bugs? It was such an interesting mix of art and science, with Sonia being always close to an artistic crisis while also doing competent work although she doesn't have any deeper knowledge about bugs. The book was actually kind of informative in that regard. For one, I found out that wolf worms do exists and that it's another name for botflies. And if you know anything about them, then you can imagine that the book got bugs-under-the-skin gross and considering that that's the last place where bugs belong, it was disgusting. The YouTube algorithm decided once or twice before that I needed to see botfly removals and it was right, I needed to see that, but it also left me scarred and paranoid and with itchy skin. Same with this book.
I do have to say that the actual plot unfolds very slowly, especially for such a short book. I found it to be dragging around the 30 to 40 % mark, because it was mostly Sonia all by herself just starting to notice weird things. I think that she was kinda missing a sidekick and constant ally. There often is an animal companion or a hot handyman neighbor in Kingfisher books and this time the main character felt more isolated. She was friendly with the housekeeper and her husband and the local healer, but they weren't as present in the book, at least not during all the important plot points. There are plenty of unanswered questions that kept me reading through these slower parts, like the mystery of Sonia's predecessor who drew the most gorgeous illustrations but who no one ever talks about or the question of what her employer is doing in the woods in the middle of the night. So I wasn't exactly bored, but all the exciting things sure happened in the second half of this book where the entire story got better in general. There are many genuinely creepy moments and enough gross scenes that this book can confidently be called bug horror. It was great how everything tied into some local history and, surprisingly, some known supernatural creatures. I also really liked the ending and, after that, the acknowledgments where Kingfisher explains which parts of the story are real and what personal experiences led to this story. Overall, this was a solid new addition to the author's horror line-up, even if it wasn't a new favorite for me.
Huge thanks to NetGalley and Pan Macmillan / Tor for providing a digital arc in exchange for an honest review.
------------------------------
Pre-read: Wolf Worm? Umm, ok ... everything for you, Miss T. Kingfisher.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
I went into this book blind. Knowing it was T. Kingfisher was enough for me, plus that cover is gorgeous.
I'm really glad I did not read the blurb beforehand because it took some unexpected and delightfuly horrific turns.
I loved the main character. She feels absolutely human and real. She's smart, very strong in her own way, and her inner dialogue is so funny, I would havebeen happy just to follow her day to day life.
I listened to the audiobook version and the narrator was absolute perfection. I really think this the best way to enjoy this story and it's characters.
Thank you so much Macmillan Audio for this ARC.
I'm really glad I did not read the blurb beforehand because it took some unexpected and delightfuly horrific turns.
I loved the main character. She feels absolutely human and real. She's smart, very strong in her own way, and her inner dialogue is so funny, I would havebeen happy just to follow her day to day life.
I listened to the audiobook version and the narrator was absolute perfection. I really think this the best way to enjoy this story and it's characters.
Thank you so much Macmillan Audio for this ARC.
January 10, 2026
Wolf Worm is the kind of book that creeps up on you slowly and then refuses to leave your thoughts. T. Kingfisher has a way of making horror feel intimate and personal, and this one settled under my skin in the quietest, most unsettling way.
We follow Sonia Wilson, a talented scientific illustrator living in 1899, whose entire career has been tied to her father’s reputation. After his death leaves her with nothing—no job, no security, no real future—she jumps at the chance to work for the reclusive Dr. Halder, illustrating his insect collection at his isolated North Carolina estate. It feels like a lifeline. It isn’t.
From the moment Sonia arrives, everything feels… off. The woods seem to breathe. Animals behave strangely. People avoid answering questions directly. And there’s the unsettling fact that someone held this job before Sonia—and no one wants to talk about what happened to her. Kingfisher builds dread in such a subtle way that you almost don’t notice it happening until your shoulders are tense and you’re holding your breath.
Sonia is such a strong, believable protagonist. She’s smart, anxious, observant, and painfully aware of how easily women—especially women in science—are dismissed during this time period. Her inner thoughts feel real and relatable, and they pull you deeper into the story. Seeing the horror unfold through her scientific and artistic lens makes everything feel more vivid… and more disturbing.
Fair warning: this book does not shy away from body horror, especially when it comes to insects. There were definitely moments that made me squirm. But it never feels gratuitous—it all serves the story and the themes of obsession, exploitation, and the terrifying cost of unchecked ambition.
The pacing is a slow, atmospheric burn, and while the final act moves faster than the buildup, the payoff is worth it. The tension tightens, the truth comes into focus, and suddenly everything clicks into place in a way that’s both horrifying and satisfying.
Overall, Wolf Worm is eerie, smart, and deeply unsettling in that uniquely T. Kingfisher way. It may not be my absolute favorite of her books, but it’s one that stayed with me long after I turned the last page. I’m happily giving it four stars and would absolutely recommend it to readers who enjoy gothic horror with substance and teeth.
Special thanks to NetGalley and Tor Publishing Group | Tor Nightfire for sharing another digital copy of this stunning horror novel by T. Kingfisher in exchange for my honest thoughts.
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We follow Sonia Wilson, a talented scientific illustrator living in 1899, whose entire career has been tied to her father’s reputation. After his death leaves her with nothing—no job, no security, no real future—she jumps at the chance to work for the reclusive Dr. Halder, illustrating his insect collection at his isolated North Carolina estate. It feels like a lifeline. It isn’t.
From the moment Sonia arrives, everything feels… off. The woods seem to breathe. Animals behave strangely. People avoid answering questions directly. And there’s the unsettling fact that someone held this job before Sonia—and no one wants to talk about what happened to her. Kingfisher builds dread in such a subtle way that you almost don’t notice it happening until your shoulders are tense and you’re holding your breath.
Sonia is such a strong, believable protagonist. She’s smart, anxious, observant, and painfully aware of how easily women—especially women in science—are dismissed during this time period. Her inner thoughts feel real and relatable, and they pull you deeper into the story. Seeing the horror unfold through her scientific and artistic lens makes everything feel more vivid… and more disturbing.
Fair warning: this book does not shy away from body horror, especially when it comes to insects. There were definitely moments that made me squirm. But it never feels gratuitous—it all serves the story and the themes of obsession, exploitation, and the terrifying cost of unchecked ambition.
The pacing is a slow, atmospheric burn, and while the final act moves faster than the buildup, the payoff is worth it. The tension tightens, the truth comes into focus, and suddenly everything clicks into place in a way that’s both horrifying and satisfying.
Overall, Wolf Worm is eerie, smart, and deeply unsettling in that uniquely T. Kingfisher way. It may not be my absolute favorite of her books, but it’s one that stayed with me long after I turned the last page. I’m happily giving it four stars and would absolutely recommend it to readers who enjoy gothic horror with substance and teeth.
Special thanks to NetGalley and Tor Publishing Group | Tor Nightfire for sharing another digital copy of this stunning horror novel by T. Kingfisher in exchange for my honest thoughts.
Follow me on medium.com to read my articles about books, movies, streaming series, astrology:
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July 16, 2025do you SLEEP
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
T. Kingfisher is the queen of the slow burn. Her narratives creep up on you, slow and steady, building momentum until they smack you hard across the face.
Wolf Worm is no exception.
It starts innocuously enough. An unsuspecting historical fiction narrative about a scientific illustrator, her new employer and the manor house she’s come to live. There are dark woods to avoid, of course there are, woods should usually be avoided, that's where monsters lurk. But where is the doctor’s wife? And why is the shed locked? And why is that animal acting so strange? Before you know it you’re filled with dread, a creeping anxiety is rising in your chest. When did this book get so scary and why can’t you stop reading?! When the dread feels like it might consume you, when you’re not sure you can take anymore—WHACK—you’re smacked in the face with the reality of the situation. But T. Kingfisher isn’t done yet… No, not at all. Disoriented from the shocking reveal, she lands the final blow, one that leaves you staring blankly at the wall, contemplating everything you thought you understood about this story. And in a final parting gift, this book asks, what makes a monster?
Each time I read a new T. Kingfisher book I find myself in awe of her talent. Her prose never misses, her themes are thought-provoking, and her pacing, which usually feels bit slow at first, ALWAYS feels intentional. She knows how to build a story that will creep up on you, and most importantly a story that will stay with you.
This book fed my soul. Let it feed yours too. (aka go read this book)
Fun fact: parasitic worms gross me the f- out. When we covered parasites in my college biodiversity class I skipped the lecture on parasitic worms, failed that section on the exam too…I had originally planned to skip this read because of the parasitic maggots, but I told myself — I’ll enter the Goodreads giveaway and if I win I’ll give it a try. THANK YOU UNIVERSE for making me try this book. It was worth the mild discomfort. Actually the parasitic maggots weren’t as bad as I thought they’d be, my college textbook definitely grossed me out more. That said, this is still highly gross (though never gratuitously so), I’m comfortable with quite a bit of body horror and you should be too if you want to dive into this one. As always if you need additional details don’t hesitate to reach out to me, I’m happy to help a fellow reader consume with care!
OH! Do NOT skip the author's note it is fascinating.
Audio Narration: 5/5 Macmillan Audio is easily my favorite audiobook producers. Mary Robinette Kowal did a fantastic job. Each character had a distinct voice, her vocal range is stellar! The pacing & pausing were all perfect and the inflection and overall performance was one I will not soon forget. Highly recommend consuming Wolf Worm via audio!
| IG | TikTok |
Thank you Macmillian Audio for the gifted book. All opinions are my own.
Wolf Worm is no exception.
It starts innocuously enough. An unsuspecting historical fiction narrative about a scientific illustrator, her new employer and the manor house she’s come to live. There are dark woods to avoid, of course there are, woods should usually be avoided, that's where monsters lurk. But where is the doctor’s wife? And why is the shed locked? And why is that animal acting so strange? Before you know it you’re filled with dread, a creeping anxiety is rising in your chest. When did this book get so scary and why can’t you stop reading?! When the dread feels like it might consume you, when you’re not sure you can take anymore—WHACK—you’re smacked in the face with the reality of the situation. But T. Kingfisher isn’t done yet… No, not at all. Disoriented from the shocking reveal, she lands the final blow, one that leaves you staring blankly at the wall, contemplating everything you thought you understood about this story. And in a final parting gift, this book asks, what makes a monster?
Each time I read a new T. Kingfisher book I find myself in awe of her talent. Her prose never misses, her themes are thought-provoking, and her pacing, which usually feels bit slow at first, ALWAYS feels intentional. She knows how to build a story that will creep up on you, and most importantly a story that will stay with you.
This book fed my soul. Let it feed yours too. (aka go read this book)
Fun fact: parasitic worms gross me the f- out. When we covered parasites in my college biodiversity class I skipped the lecture on parasitic worms, failed that section on the exam too…I had originally planned to skip this read because of the parasitic maggots, but I told myself — I’ll enter the Goodreads giveaway and if I win I’ll give it a try. THANK YOU UNIVERSE for making me try this book. It was worth the mild discomfort. Actually the parasitic maggots weren’t as bad as I thought they’d be, my college textbook definitely grossed me out more. That said, this is still highly gross (though never gratuitously so), I’m comfortable with quite a bit of body horror and you should be too if you want to dive into this one. As always if you need additional details don’t hesitate to reach out to me, I’m happy to help a fellow reader consume with care!
OH! Do NOT skip the author's note it is fascinating.
Audio Narration: 5/5 Macmillan Audio is easily my favorite audiobook producers. Mary Robinette Kowal did a fantastic job. Each character had a distinct voice, her vocal range is stellar! The pacing & pausing were all perfect and the inflection and overall performance was one I will not soon forget. Highly recommend consuming Wolf Worm via audio!
| IG | TikTok |
Thank you Macmillian Audio for the gifted book. All opinions are my own.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
4.5 🌟
What a great way to start my 2026 reading!
This was deliciously thrilling and horrifying! I'm such a fan of Kingfisher's writing and storytelling. Every time I'm sucked into the story and get the chills. So now one with bugs?! Count me as completely disgusted. I loved it!
The beginning of the story was a bit slow, but the ending was everything!
What a great way to start my 2026 reading!
This was deliciously thrilling and horrifying! I'm such a fan of Kingfisher's writing and storytelling. Every time I'm sucked into the story and get the chills. So now one with bugs?! Count me as completely disgusted. I loved it!
The beginning of the story was a bit slow, but the ending was everything!
November 17, 2025
Book Stats:
📖: 288 pages
Genre: horror
Publisher: Tor
Format: eARC
Series: STANDALONE
General Thoughts:
Can I give a book more than five stars? Because this book deserves more than that. This book is horrific, suspense filled, and absolutely mind bending. The claustrophobia you feel, and the inherent dread that creeps across your skin throughout the duration of this book is unmatched.
If creepy crawly creatures give you issue then you definitely don't wanna pick this book up. But if you can stand some insect based body horror, you're definitely gonna love this. The story and characters were solid and even though you have an idea of what could possibly be happening throughout the story, it doesn't match up with how absolutely horrific and detailed the story actually is.
I can't even tell you the amount of dread and anxiety I felt reading this book. But in a good way that kept me entertained and reading quickly. This is absolutely a gut punch that you can't miss if you like Kingfisher.
Disclaimer: I read this book as a physical ARC from the publisher. All opinions are my own. This is my honest and voluntary review.
📖: 288 pages
Genre: horror
Publisher: Tor
Format: eARC
Series: STANDALONE
General Thoughts:
Can I give a book more than five stars? Because this book deserves more than that. This book is horrific, suspense filled, and absolutely mind bending. The claustrophobia you feel, and the inherent dread that creeps across your skin throughout the duration of this book is unmatched.
If creepy crawly creatures give you issue then you definitely don't wanna pick this book up. But if you can stand some insect based body horror, you're definitely gonna love this. The story and characters were solid and even though you have an idea of what could possibly be happening throughout the story, it doesn't match up with how absolutely horrific and detailed the story actually is.
I can't even tell you the amount of dread and anxiety I felt reading this book. But in a good way that kept me entertained and reading quickly. This is absolutely a gut punch that you can't miss if you like Kingfisher.
Disclaimer: I read this book as a physical ARC from the publisher. All opinions are my own. This is my honest and voluntary review.
December 28, 2025
Wolf Worm is a creepy, bug-filled horror thriller that leans hard into atmosphere. The mystery stays thick and unsettling for a long time—and I loved not knowing exactly what was happening. The disgusting details only made it scarier and edgier. Another excellent, eerie win from an author I love.
Out in March.
Read as an ARC
⭐️ 5 out of 5 ⭐️
Out in March.
Read as an ARC
⭐️ 5 out of 5 ⭐️
Read
January 30, 20265/5
This was super, super, disgustingly gross... and I loved it! Probably my favourite of the recent books Ursula Vernon has written. Perhaps this was just a great intersection of my interests (from watercolor to nature to [spoilers]), but this book worked extremely well for me.
The Writing:
I really like the way that Vernon used humor here. It's definitely one of the main characteristics of her writing, but sometimes I find in her horror that it can be overused and conflict with the overall tone of the book. But much like A Sorceress Comes to Call, she struck a great balance between the characters and horrors and humor.
Audiobook Notes:
The narrator did a fantastic job with the material and employed a different number of accents and voices for the characters that made it come alive quite vividly for me. I honestly forgot it was a narration and not a film for most of the time, which is a truly exceptional talent.
But I do have to emphasize again: really, really, TRULY gross.
Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for providing me with an ALC. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
This was super, super, disgustingly gross... and I loved it! Probably my favourite of the recent books Ursula Vernon has written. Perhaps this was just a great intersection of my interests (from watercolor to nature to [spoilers]), but this book worked extremely well for me.
The Writing:
I really like the way that Vernon used humor here. It's definitely one of the main characteristics of her writing, but sometimes I find in her horror that it can be overused and conflict with the overall tone of the book. But much like A Sorceress Comes to Call, she struck a great balance between the characters and horrors and humor.
Audiobook Notes:
The narrator did a fantastic job with the material and employed a different number of accents and voices for the characters that made it come alive quite vividly for me. I honestly forgot it was a narration and not a film for most of the time, which is a truly exceptional talent.
But I do have to emphasize again: really, really, TRULY gross.
Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for providing me with an ALC. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
November 29, 2025
The next time I see a big fly or a raccoon, I will scream.
Sonia is a thirty year old scientific illustrator who gets a job with a grumpy, reclusive naturalist. She spends her days painting bugs in an immense house that is only staffed by three and has only two residents. There are rumours about the devil living in the woods.
Sonia is anxious and tends to catastrophise.
This entire book is you questioning Sonia’s questioning as reader and heroine loses grip on reality.
Some thoughts burrow into your mind as thoroughly as a wasp larva burrows into an unsuspecting caterpillar. The trick, which I am still learning, is how to live without being devoured by them.
Like all of her books, T Kingfisher excels at creating a small, supportive community where the heroine can find solace.
There’s a cat and lots of yucky, creepy bugs.
This is probably the most body horror I have read from her, specifically in the last 35%. It is gross and I could hear the scenes.
I appreciated the vivid descriptions of water colours, even if sometimes it felt like an artistic exercise of Kingfisher as an ex-children’s illustrator.
The plot felt meandering and the horror felt quite contained. Whilst predictable, T Kingfisher had my attention with her writing.
Physical arc gifted by Tor.
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Sonia is a thirty year old scientific illustrator who gets a job with a grumpy, reclusive naturalist. She spends her days painting bugs in an immense house that is only staffed by three and has only two residents. There are rumours about the devil living in the woods.
Sonia is anxious and tends to catastrophise.
This entire book is you questioning Sonia’s questioning as reader and heroine loses grip on reality.
Some thoughts burrow into your mind as thoroughly as a wasp larva burrows into an unsuspecting caterpillar. The trick, which I am still learning, is how to live without being devoured by them.
Like all of her books, T Kingfisher excels at creating a small, supportive community where the heroine can find solace.
There’s a cat and lots of yucky, creepy bugs.
This is probably the most body horror I have read from her, specifically in the last 35%. It is gross and I could hear the scenes.
I appreciated the vivid descriptions of water colours, even if sometimes it felt like an artistic exercise of Kingfisher as an ex-children’s illustrator.
The plot felt meandering and the horror felt quite contained. Whilst predictable, T Kingfisher had my attention with her writing.
Physical arc gifted by Tor.
Bookstagram
Tiktok
January 5, 2026
Starred review in the January 2026 issue of Library Journal
Three Words That Describe This Book: Bug-Body Horror combo, Gothic with teeth, strong sense of place
Draft Review: Sonia has struggled since her naturalist father’s passing. As his assistant, and illustrator, she was able to move throughout scientific circles in ways normally unreachable for women in the late 1800s. When Halder, a reclusive and wealthy expert on parasitic and necrophagic bugs invites her to his home in the North Carolina woods to be the illustrator on his magnum opus, Sonia jumps at the chance. But of course, there is more to Halder's work and those woods than Sonia could have imagined. Kingfisher takes her time allowing the story to unfold realistically as Sonia settles into her job, works on her craft painting insects, and gets to know the house staff. But as odd things start compounding– stories of the area’s blood letting monsters, oddly behaving small mammals, a padlocked shed in the woods, and all of those flesh eating bugs– even a serious scientist like Sonia get in over her head. Not for the squeamish, this is an exceptional Gothic, with real bite, a story where every detail (from the most grisly to small asides) matters and the monsters are not always what they appear to be.
Verdict: Kingfisher, who rarely misses, has out done herself here. For fans of mad scientist horror like The Daughter of Doctor Moreau by Silvia Moreno-Garcia or Her Wicked Roots by Tanya Pell who also crave visceral details like those expertly applied by Nick Cutter.
Other words receiving votes: visceral, slow burn (but needs it to be 5 Stars), great details about being an illustrator by an illustrator, awesome protagonist with a perfect POV. Blood-letting monsters (referred to at the start and their possible existence-- if they have been eradicated etc-- is a level un unease that oversews and permeates the entire book-- not a spoiler)
Look Kingfisher is good. Nothing she writes is bad, but some are better than others and this one....wow!
I want to address a few people on her with early reviews who said that this one had too low a burn. I completely disagree. The pacing is what this story needs and in fact Kingfish makes a funny comment about it in the story itself. I'll get to that but first, Sonia is a young, awkward socially, female scientist and illustrator in the 1880s. She has spent her life studying flora mostly (but some fauna) with her father. She was his assistant. She lived this life. But when he died, Sonia was left high and dry. 1880s-- woman cannot just be scientists and scientific illustrators without a man to back them.
When Halder-- a reclusive, rich bug scientist needs an illustrator for his Magnus opus about necrotic parasites-- Sonia takes the job.
She is a city girl from the coast, moving sight unseen to the middle of the NC woods, to take a job where she knows no one and nothing. She lives there. She arrives and hears stories about the blood letting monsters in the woods. Is told to never go to alone, her room was clearly vacated by someone else who was the former illustrator quickly but also it's been a year etc....
If Sonia came in and started figuring everything out quickly, this book would have been terrible. If she was more than the awkward illustrator than she is, this book would have been terrible. She is nervous and at first obsessed with doing a good job so the book is all about learning about the people she lives with and her new boss and learning a bout bugs etc... all necessary. She is not a confident person to begin with so, when things start happening that are weird-- and they start just odd and get WEIRD-- she doesn't know what to do.
This leads to what I said about a small comment by Kingfisher that makes it clear she knows things are not moving super fast. Sonia gets to a shed in the woods that she knows hides some kind of secret and sees the lock. She actually comments on how she is not like one of those plucky heroines in a gothic novel and has no idea how to pick a lock. LOL. Reader-- it is not going to be easy for you or her.
When she does finally get in there-- WOW. What a discovery. And it is one of those discoveries that makes every detail Kingfisher carefully (but entertainingly) laid out in the story we read PAY OFF. Original and gross and so believable. There are human monsters here yes, but the supernatural ones are the ones that you are going to keep thinking about. These blood letters are not what you think they are.
Again every detail matters. If it went faster the book would fail. It is in the build up of the place and Sonia as a fully fleshed human where this book excels.
Sonia is a Gothic heroine, one who has to grow in confidence to save the day, but she NEVER uses skills others than those she has. And that is what makes it 5 stars. Feminist for sure, but not without bending to the restrictions of the time period.
The details about the bugs was great. Also, since Kingfisher is also an Illustrator, I loved that we saw her perspective on the job. Details about color and painting and caturing nature on the page. FASCINATING.
And of course-- these are parasitic necrosis bugs so we get the pay off-- it is gross and body horror and you will squirm and itch. Visceral in all the great ways.
It is Gothic in writing style and historical placement, but with the Kingfisher bite. There is so much I want to shout about that is great this book but I cannot because of spoilers.
For fans of mad scientist horror like Daughter of Doctor Moreau by SMG or Her Wicked Roots by Tanya Pell but with the visceral details found in the novels of of Nick Cutter (The Queen is bugs, but even The Troop works here).
Three Words That Describe This Book: Bug-Body Horror combo, Gothic with teeth, strong sense of place
Draft Review: Sonia has struggled since her naturalist father’s passing. As his assistant, and illustrator, she was able to move throughout scientific circles in ways normally unreachable for women in the late 1800s. When Halder, a reclusive and wealthy expert on parasitic and necrophagic bugs invites her to his home in the North Carolina woods to be the illustrator on his magnum opus, Sonia jumps at the chance. But of course, there is more to Halder's work and those woods than Sonia could have imagined. Kingfisher takes her time allowing the story to unfold realistically as Sonia settles into her job, works on her craft painting insects, and gets to know the house staff. But as odd things start compounding– stories of the area’s blood letting monsters, oddly behaving small mammals, a padlocked shed in the woods, and all of those flesh eating bugs– even a serious scientist like Sonia get in over her head. Not for the squeamish, this is an exceptional Gothic, with real bite, a story where every detail (from the most grisly to small asides) matters and the monsters are not always what they appear to be.
Verdict: Kingfisher, who rarely misses, has out done herself here. For fans of mad scientist horror like The Daughter of Doctor Moreau by Silvia Moreno-Garcia or Her Wicked Roots by Tanya Pell who also crave visceral details like those expertly applied by Nick Cutter.
Other words receiving votes: visceral, slow burn (but needs it to be 5 Stars), great details about being an illustrator by an illustrator, awesome protagonist with a perfect POV. Blood-letting monsters (referred to at the start and their possible existence-- if they have been eradicated etc-- is a level un unease that oversews and permeates the entire book-- not a spoiler)
Look Kingfisher is good. Nothing she writes is bad, but some are better than others and this one....wow!
I want to address a few people on her with early reviews who said that this one had too low a burn. I completely disagree. The pacing is what this story needs and in fact Kingfish makes a funny comment about it in the story itself. I'll get to that but first, Sonia is a young, awkward socially, female scientist and illustrator in the 1880s. She has spent her life studying flora mostly (but some fauna) with her father. She was his assistant. She lived this life. But when he died, Sonia was left high and dry. 1880s-- woman cannot just be scientists and scientific illustrators without a man to back them.
When Halder-- a reclusive, rich bug scientist needs an illustrator for his Magnus opus about necrotic parasites-- Sonia takes the job.
She is a city girl from the coast, moving sight unseen to the middle of the NC woods, to take a job where she knows no one and nothing. She lives there. She arrives and hears stories about the blood letting monsters in the woods. Is told to never go to alone, her room was clearly vacated by someone else who was the former illustrator quickly but also it's been a year etc....
If Sonia came in and started figuring everything out quickly, this book would have been terrible. If she was more than the awkward illustrator than she is, this book would have been terrible. She is nervous and at first obsessed with doing a good job so the book is all about learning about the people she lives with and her new boss and learning a bout bugs etc... all necessary. She is not a confident person to begin with so, when things start happening that are weird-- and they start just odd and get WEIRD-- she doesn't know what to do.
This leads to what I said about a small comment by Kingfisher that makes it clear she knows things are not moving super fast. Sonia gets to a shed in the woods that she knows hides some kind of secret and sees the lock. She actually comments on how she is not like one of those plucky heroines in a gothic novel and has no idea how to pick a lock. LOL. Reader-- it is not going to be easy for you or her.
When she does finally get in there-- WOW. What a discovery. And it is one of those discoveries that makes every detail Kingfisher carefully (but entertainingly) laid out in the story we read PAY OFF. Original and gross and so believable. There are human monsters here yes, but the supernatural ones are the ones that you are going to keep thinking about. These blood letters are not what you think they are.
Again every detail matters. If it went faster the book would fail. It is in the build up of the place and Sonia as a fully fleshed human where this book excels.
Sonia is a Gothic heroine, one who has to grow in confidence to save the day, but she NEVER uses skills others than those she has. And that is what makes it 5 stars. Feminist for sure, but not without bending to the restrictions of the time period.
The details about the bugs was great. Also, since Kingfisher is also an Illustrator, I loved that we saw her perspective on the job. Details about color and painting and caturing nature on the page. FASCINATING.
And of course-- these are parasitic necrosis bugs so we get the pay off-- it is gross and body horror and you will squirm and itch. Visceral in all the great ways.
It is Gothic in writing style and historical placement, but with the Kingfisher bite. There is so much I want to shout about that is great this book but I cannot because of spoilers.
For fans of mad scientist horror like Daughter of Doctor Moreau by SMG or Her Wicked Roots by Tanya Pell but with the visceral details found in the novels of of Nick Cutter (The Queen is bugs, but even The Troop works here).
Want to read
July 17, 2025More T. Kingfisher horror 🤭
February 6, 2026
Wolf Worm is soaked in creeping dread from the first pages. The atmosphere does so much of the work here, pressing in slowly, making isolation feel like a living thing that shapes every choice and every silence. The tension builds quietly, never rushing, and that restraint makes the horror land harder. In a deceptively simple setup, Kingfisher blends folklore, medical dread, and psychological unease into something both intimate and deeply unsettling. The pacing is sharp and economical, proving (yet again) how devastating Kingfisher can be with a novella-length canvas.
What I loved most is how character driven the story is without making it feel inward or small. The plot advances through moments of realization, hesitation, and resolve, rather than big shocks. The narration feels grounded and human, which makes the horror hit harder, this doesn’t feel like something happening to a “character,” but to a real person whose rational explanations slowly fail them.
Kindness and resilience matter in this world, even when they are overlooked or exploited. As always with Kingfisher, the real horror is human. The systems that dismiss, control, and harm are far more frightening than anything lurking in the dark.
This isn’t flashy or over-the-top horror; it’s smart, restrained, and brutally effective. If you enjoy folklore-infused body horror, medical creepiness, or stories that trust the reader to connect the dots, Wolf Worm is an absolute must-read.
What I loved most is how character driven the story is without making it feel inward or small. The plot advances through moments of realization, hesitation, and resolve, rather than big shocks. The narration feels grounded and human, which makes the horror hit harder, this doesn’t feel like something happening to a “character,” but to a real person whose rational explanations slowly fail them.
Kindness and resilience matter in this world, even when they are overlooked or exploited. As always with Kingfisher, the real horror is human. The systems that dismiss, control, and harm are far more frightening than anything lurking in the dark.
This isn’t flashy or over-the-top horror; it’s smart, restrained, and brutally effective. If you enjoy folklore-infused body horror, medical creepiness, or stories that trust the reader to connect the dots, Wolf Worm is an absolute must-read.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
Wolf Worm is a Southern Gothic horror novel blending historical fiction with (insect infested) body horror.
T.Kingfisher is one of my auto buy authors, so I'm not surprised I flew through this! Their writing always draws me in and makes me reluctant to put the book down. Not only that, but they also write the best fully fleshed characters. Main characters you'll root for, villains you want to find out more about and side characters who feel like they have their own rich background stories.
And this book is obviously no different. It's creepy and tense with excellent body horror that keeps you squirming while wanting to find out what happens next. There's some clever twists, and for a while, you won't really know where the story is going.
The only reason I'm rating it 4 stars is because it read a little too similar to Snakeeater. We have a weird little town full of secrets which the FMC is slowly uncovering. Here it's just insects instead of the snakeeater.
Still definitely recommend this one to all fans of gothic horror and T.Kingfisher's writing. Just be careful if you're squeamish when it comes to insects.
T.Kingfisher is one of my auto buy authors, so I'm not surprised I flew through this! Their writing always draws me in and makes me reluctant to put the book down. Not only that, but they also write the best fully fleshed characters. Main characters you'll root for, villains you want to find out more about and side characters who feel like they have their own rich background stories.
And this book is obviously no different. It's creepy and tense with excellent body horror that keeps you squirming while wanting to find out what happens next. There's some clever twists, and for a while, you won't really know where the story is going.
The only reason I'm rating it 4 stars is because it read a little too similar to Snakeeater. We have a weird little town full of secrets which the FMC is slowly uncovering. Here it's just insects instead of the snakeeater.
Still definitely recommend this one to all fans of gothic horror and T.Kingfisher's writing. Just be careful if you're squeamish when it comes to insects.
December 7, 2025
brother….ew.
this was nearly as disgusting as nick cutter’s troop.
ngl i was skeptical about this because the last few t. kingfisher books i’ve read haven’t really been the best. but this one? blew me away. the body horror literally made my skin crawl (reading about being trapped in that fucking shed in the dark gave me hives) and i flew through the pages, the story was pretty damn fascinating.
thanking the publishers & netgalley for the ARC.
this was nearly as disgusting as nick cutter’s troop.
ngl i was skeptical about this because the last few t. kingfisher books i’ve read haven’t really been the best. but this one? blew me away. the body horror literally made my skin crawl (reading about being trapped in that fucking shed in the dark gave me hives) and i flew through the pages, the story was pretty damn fascinating.
thanking the publishers & netgalley for the ARC.
November 9, 2025
Wolf Worm is a historical gothic novella that follows Sonia Wilson in her new position as a scientific illustrator. Her days consist of observing and drawing insects for her strange and secretive employer, but things take a dark turn when she discovers that his fascination with parasitic maggots hides something far more unsettling.
What I really like about Wolf Worm is the balance between grotesque scenes paired with humor. The writing is very descriptive, and since the main focus is insects, larvae and such, it makes for some very squeamish scenes. Additionally, most of the characters are quite likable and the story has some nice twists.
But the reason why I couldn't give it a higher rating is because the first half felt really slow. I had to push through repetitive scenes and monologues where Sonia just theorizes what's going on, sketches, and theorizes again. It's not until the halfway point that the story actually begins to move. For such a short novella, the pacing made it feel longer than it should have. I wouldn't have minded so much if the first half was at least filled with more interesting nature or insect descriptions, considering that we're following naturalists.
But with all said, T. Kingfisher continues being one of my favorite authors, so I'll always be excited to read her latest horror releases. Many thanks to NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review. 3.5 ⭑.ᐟ
What I really like about Wolf Worm is the balance between grotesque scenes paired with humor. The writing is very descriptive, and since the main focus is insects, larvae and such, it makes for some very squeamish scenes. Additionally, most of the characters are quite likable and the story has some nice twists.
But the reason why I couldn't give it a higher rating is because the first half felt really slow. I had to push through repetitive scenes and monologues where Sonia just theorizes what's going on, sketches, and theorizes again. It's not until the halfway point that the story actually begins to move. For such a short novella, the pacing made it feel longer than it should have. I wouldn't have minded so much if the first half was at least filled with more interesting nature or insect descriptions, considering that we're following naturalists.
But with all said, T. Kingfisher continues being one of my favorite authors, so I'll always be excited to read her latest horror releases. Many thanks to NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review. 3.5 ⭑.ᐟ
November 11, 2025
Thank you to the publisher (via Edelweiss) for an ARC! I’ve read and enjoyed many a T. Kingfisher book before, and this was probably the most graphic of her horror’s so far. I don’t say that as a negative but certainly heavy on the trigger warnings for body and bug horror! Did I love it? Yes. Was it absolutely disturbing and gross? Also yessss.
Wolf Worm takes place in central NC a few decades after the Civil War. As someone who was born and raised in the area, the description of the setting was extremely accurate and perhaps a little too real, considering how the story progressed. Kingfisher does not shy away from heavier themes and balances the real-life evils of racism alongside a not-so-real buggy horror. I think there’s a lot of parallels here that a literary studies student would absolutely eat up, but getting into all that involves spoilers, so I’ll just say that I appreciated the balance of horrors both real and fictional with the charm and wit and sarcasm of our main character, Sonia Wilson.
Sonia is a wonderful lead for a horror - she’s smart but anxious, studious but a bit naive. Strong willed but a people pleaser. And educated enough to dismiss all the strange, not quite believable events until the truth sets in. She’s practical and her ability to explain away the odd things keeps you in constant suspense of “is it really something bad or just…really odd coincidences?”
To sum it all up, if you can’t do creepy bugs, this one really isn’t for you. I loved it and probably will never be able to read it again because it made my skin crawl. Literally. But for horror, that’s the point, right??
Wolf Worm takes place in central NC a few decades after the Civil War. As someone who was born and raised in the area, the description of the setting was extremely accurate and perhaps a little too real, considering how the story progressed. Kingfisher does not shy away from heavier themes and balances the real-life evils of racism alongside a not-so-real buggy horror. I think there’s a lot of parallels here that a literary studies student would absolutely eat up, but getting into all that involves spoilers, so I’ll just say that I appreciated the balance of horrors both real and fictional with the charm and wit and sarcasm of our main character, Sonia Wilson.
Sonia is a wonderful lead for a horror - she’s smart but anxious, studious but a bit naive. Strong willed but a people pleaser. And educated enough to dismiss all the strange, not quite believable events until the truth sets in. She’s practical and her ability to explain away the odd things keeps you in constant suspense of “is it really something bad or just…really odd coincidences?”
To sum it all up, if you can’t do creepy bugs, this one really isn’t for you. I loved it and probably will never be able to read it again because it made my skin crawl. Literally. But for horror, that’s the point, right??
January 15, 2026
I didn’t love this as much as snake eater, but it was still a v good book.
there’s something about kingfisher and how she can write a book filled with creepy crawlers and historical horrors and still make it relatable and close. realistically I shouldn’t be able to relate to the characters and yet often I do.
I thought this had a very interesting plot, it was kind of like what moves the dead with elements of you weren’t meant to be human. when we discover that the true horrors of the world are ones which are handmade and the ghosts stories we tell at night aren’t the ones we should be focussing on, it’s the person telling them.
I very much enjoyed this, as usually it was fast paced and dove straight into the world immersing you in this weird horror gore book.
there’s something about kingfisher and how she can write a book filled with creepy crawlers and historical horrors and still make it relatable and close. realistically I shouldn’t be able to relate to the characters and yet often I do.
I thought this had a very interesting plot, it was kind of like what moves the dead with elements of you weren’t meant to be human. when we discover that the true horrors of the world are ones which are handmade and the ghosts stories we tell at night aren’t the ones we should be focussing on, it’s the person telling them.
I very much enjoyed this, as usually it was fast paced and dove straight into the world immersing you in this weird horror gore book.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Holy hell what a wild ride. I write this review after finishing it at 2 am and wow it was touch and go for a while as I questioned reading the climax of this book during a howling wind storm in the middle of the night but ultimately the atmosphere only heightened how rivetingly tense this book was.
Kingfisher did it again and wrote a horror novel so gripping I am sure I won't be able to get it out of my brain (ew in context) for quite some time.
I can't recommend this book enough and also I find it impossible to summarize what I like about it without spoiling it. So just trust me on this one.
Thanks to Netgalley for the advanced copy and letting me read this book during said howling wind.
Kingfisher did it again and wrote a horror novel so gripping I am sure I won't be able to get it out of my brain (ew in context) for quite some time.
I can't recommend this book enough and also I find it impossible to summarize what I like about it without spoiling it. So just trust me on this one.
Thanks to Netgalley for the advanced copy and letting me read this book during said howling wind.
Want to read
April 21, 2025MORE T. KINGFISHER
this time with creepy crawlies? We love a woman in STEM.
this time with creepy crawlies? We love a woman in STEM.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
If Kingfisher writes it, I want to read it. I need to know nothing else to know that I will like it. Sonia is a scientific illustrator in 1899 and gets hired to work with the reclusive Dr. Halder, who works with insects. Upon arrival, everything just seems off. The woods, the local stories of "blood thieves", the mystery of what happened to his wife, who was her predecessor. It's definitely a slow-building, dread-inducing horror. Kingfisher is a master of mounting dread. It is atmospheric and with a creeping chill that you know is building to something. That build and mounting dread is so expertly done. It's hard to talk about because I do not want to give it away. Expect gross bugs and body horror. Expect some of it to be based in actual reality. Expect to have nightmares of things burrowing into your skin. It was fucking great. Kingfisher never fails.
Thank you to NetGalley and Tor Nightfire for the ARC! Book releases 3/24/26.
Thank you to NetGalley and Tor Nightfire for the ARC! Book releases 3/24/26.
Want to read
January 17, 2026My Queen is feeding us multiple releases this year <3
Want to read
October 16, 2025pre-release:
another release due on my birthday? this is about to be so peak 🥹🫶🏻💞
another release due on my birthday? this is about to be so peak 🥹🫶🏻💞
February 9, 2026
I can’t talk about the book without hinting at things so POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD and DO NOT CHECK MY TAGS! I’m serious. It’s for my shelves but it’s a MAJOR SPOILER.
Damn that was good. It’s always good with T. Kingfisher but this was my first horror novel from her and I was a little scared. I was properly grossed out several times but always entertained. As usual, it’s wonderfully written and I really liked that the main character felt like a side character in a romantasy book ? Like. A tiny window opening into a completely different world.
It doesn’t make sense, that’s normal, read it and you’ll understand (hopefully).
I want to read more about *that* and I hope she makes it happen!!!
Damn that was good. It’s always good with T. Kingfisher but this was my first horror novel from her and I was a little scared. I was properly grossed out several times but always entertained. As usual, it’s wonderfully written and I really liked that the main character felt like a side character in a romantasy book ? Like. A tiny window opening into a completely different world.
It doesn’t make sense, that’s normal, read it and you’ll understand (hopefully).
I want to read more about *that* and I hope she makes it happen!!!
February 7, 2026
Had to pause reading because at some point I could not stop from gagging (the possum if ykyk) and not in a slay way. This book is incredible. It really made me have a physical reaction. I absolutely adored the main character, her anxiety and her natural curiosity. And her inquiring determination to find the answers to her question. But omg, the bugs. The insects. So descriptive and informative that you can almost feel it crawl down your skin. T. Kingfisher is a genius.
Thank you to NetGalley and publisher to send me an ARC. All opinions are my own.
Thank you to NetGalley and publisher to send me an ARC. All opinions are my own.
Review of advance copy received from Goodreads Giveaways
Was thrilled to receive this ARC! It's classic Kingfisher: a lovable cast of quirky characters overlaid on a dark, gritty backdrop. The mystery made this a real page turner and the ending was satisfying. Fair warning though - it is not for the squeamish!
February 1, 2026
Absolutely wild book. I will definitely be reading more T. Kingfisher. Note: this book is not for the squeamish. Wolf worms are disgusting.
Review to come upon release.
Review to come upon release.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
‘The flowers are deep, dark burgundy and they smell like nothing else in the world. If you’ve smelled them, then you know exactly what I mean. If you haven’t, then the best that I can say is that they smell like how berries and cream tastes.’
My love for T. Kingfisher is deeper than the deepest ocean. In the past few months, I’ve boinged between Kingfisher’s brand of fairytale (‘Hemlock & Silver’ last summer), her brand of Edgar-Allen-Poe-haunted mystery (‘What Stalks the Deep’ in September), to concurrently reading her Fantasy-Horror (‘Snake-eater’ from November) and this Gothic Horror.
You’d expect you’d tire of so much from just one author, but no – one of the (many) outstanding things about Kingfisher’s style is the sureness with which she formulates character voices exceptional enough as to be completely diversified within her oeuvre. Kingfisher’s protagonists are technicolour-realistic; she uses ALL of the crayons in the box to colour her main characters and her narrators. Some of the Kingfishery material I love best is when she just waffles on inside her protagonist’s mind, and most of ‘Wolf Worm’ comprises really verveful monologue in the main character's head.
Even more so than in ‘Hemlock and Silver’, a novel where Kingfisher maximises space given over to Anya’s wisecracking cogitations, for instance, ‘Wolf Worm’ – in my estimation – must be about 80% Sonia talking to herself, trying to make logical sense of bonkers circumstances. Yet, take any two voices from any Kingfisher books and you’ll find them entirely individual and unique. Remarkable! (Especially given what Kingfisher says about every novel she writes having to be wrestled back into line from trying to bend into her first Horror novel, ‘The Twisted Ones’.)
However, besides Kingfisher’s irresistible character voices and her very idiosyncratic humour, we mustn’t overlook the fact that there is great, great finesse and élan to Kingfisher’s writing. Her imagery in ‘Wolf Worm’ is extraordinary, the sense of sight occupying most of her figurative language (there’s something Bridget-Collins-y in certain passages):
‘The sky overhead was a blue watercolour wash, the clouds picked out in white gouache against it. Some skies look hard, but a Southern sky is unusually soft, almost thready. If you pressed against it, you’d expect it to yield like cloth, or a soft network of roots.’Given that our protagonist, Sonia, is a botanical/scientific illustrator, we get treated to vivid flamboyance, scenically: ‘Seated at the table, all I could see were tree branches and a sea of leaves, which rustled and sighed and shifted like women rearranging green petticoats.’
The natural world, as painted by Sonia, is delicately rendered (so unlike the loud colours and abstract strokes with which Kingfisher composes the desert in ‘Snake-eater’): ‘Coral is a marvellous color in nature and a damnably difficult one to render on the page. You need red and pink and orange in the right proportions, all in washes thin enough for the white of the page to shine through and keep it bright.’
However, this is not a ‘delicate’ book. It’s written with delicacy, yes, but there are scenes in ‘Wolf Worm’ that clock in as the most extreme body horror I’ve read. And I do read body horror! Please, please, please do not be eating whilst reading this novel!
I’m just going to say that if you think you can’t deal with parasitic mind-controlling fly larvae jacked-up on vampire blood burrowing between skull and skin that can’t be scrubbed off or scalded away, then do not read past the possessed raccoon scene! The terror is real (I’m never visiting the Carolinas!). The tension, the suspense, the tightening-up of focus, the unstoppable crystallisation of the horrific truth at the centre of the ‘Wolf Worm’ plot – Kingfisher kicks up a momentum after this scene that (if you can get to the end without squealing and throwing up) pays off tremendously.
Even so, lots of reviewers are saying this is too slow a creep, but that’s the Kingfisher way! The same as with ‘Snake-eater’, and exactly in the manner by which she established her methodology in that first horror book, ‘The Twisted Ones’, she lulls you gently for a good two-thirds of a novel. Then, you’ll reach a certain moment in her books when the lullaby’s over. In that moment, Kingfisher slams you up against the grotesque in some enormous slip-slide from normality to absurdity, and there is NO TURNING BACK. I’ve said before in reviews that I love this wacky sleight-of-hand that typifies her novels, and it gets sweeter each time it happens.
Of course, I’m chuffed to say all-hail the return of the subterfugey-vampire-novel trope, where an author pretends that they’re not writing about vampires (wink wink) – like ‘This Vicious Hunger’ by Francesca May. I love this sneak; I love it being performed on me, and it’s never not gone down well. Try Laura Elliott’s debut, ‘Awakened’. Hence, deceptively refined cover art and intriguing title for ‘Wolf Worm’, when it really should be titled ‘Blood Thieves’ and have that suppurating raccoon or a revoltingly blood-swollen grub on the cover.
There was a year when I seemed to read all the Mushroom Horror (including – you guessed it – T. Kingfisher’s blockbuster ‘What Moves the Dead’), and it became a ‘thing’. Is 2026 going to be the year of Bug Horror? Really, this isn’t just bugs, though. I know I’m kind of making light of it because the scenes where insects meet flesh are so deeply disturbing, but Kingfisher does script for us in this novel some commendable articulation of the silencing of women in science up to the 1900s.
I was also especially interested to read Kingfisher’s Acknowledgements about the genesis of ‘Wolf Worm’, where she writes: ‘in my blazing need to finish the book before I started chemo, let me tell you, I had a lot of thoughts about alien invaders inside your flesh’, and elaborates (forgive me for the bitty paragraph quotation):
‘It’s rare that you can trace the exact origins of a book, but in this case, I think I can put my finger on it. When I moved to North Carolina […] the squirrels had giant freaky lumps on them. It was squirrel botflies […]. I was fascinated and horrified. […] Over a decade later, when I was thinking about horror plots, I remembered the visceral squick of the botflies and thought, “Huh. What would happen if one of those latched onto a vampire?” […] I’d wanted to do a historical novel about a scientific illustrator for ages, because I used to be an illustrator myself and it’s always nice to be able to vent about the difficulties of watercolour.’
Compare wondrous descriptions from ‘Wolf Worm’ like: ‘Hooker’s green, I thought, studying the trees. Sap green too. Flicks of gamboge yellow for the light, and a wash of Prussian blue through the shadows. But mostly green, in all the shades that I can mix. Though I’d have to do something to keep the pink for the redbuds from mixing in with the rest.’
Honestly – my adoration of T. Kingfisher just grows with every read. It’s downright ridiculous what she’s done to me in the past year with book after book after book after book, and I can hardly credit how lucky I am to have gotten the last four through NetGalley; enormous thanks to Pan Macmillan for granting me a review copy of ‘Wolf Worm’.
Please note: I’ve taken citations from the eARC, and so text might have changed in final publication.
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