Prickle

by Erin K. Larson-Burnett

“I devoured this story. Larson-Burnett’s visceral body horror conjures nameless dread and unease that unsettle in the best possible way.” – Max Francis, author of Honor & Heresy

Duscha tattoos the strange and the sacred in a cramped studio off Tverskaya Street, guided by a magic she barely understands. The ink—chudo-kraska, her babushka calls it—has always lived in her blood. But lately, it’s been acting on its own.

Clients come in asking for wolves, saints, symbols. They leave with something else entirely. Designs that twist. Changes that burrow deep. Duscha tries to control it, to cleanse the space, to carry on. But the hunger is growing—hers, and the ink’s. And the bodies it marks are no longer just canvases.

They’re doors.

Genres: Horror, Fiction

130 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 4, 2025

About the author

Erin K. Larson-Burnett is an avid ink drinker who lives and breathes books. A professional copyeditor and proofreader since 2018, she has worked with authors across genres to polish their stories and help them shine.

Larson-Burnett's award-winning novels include the mythological fantasy The Bear & the Rose; the first book in a gaslamp fantasy duology, A Madness Unmade; and body-horror novella, Prickle. Her work blends whimsy and wonder with realistic depictions of mental illness, inspired equally by the writers she works with and the books she devours in her free time.

A proud homebody, Erin lives in Katy with her husband—yes, the gamer to her reader—and their two rescued furbabies, plus one very entitled tortoise. She comes from a big Texas family and never tires of playing board games or building Lego sets.

Reviews

[Erin Larson-Burnett]

Prickle began as something I had to write; I didn't plan it at all, but it poured out of me in a cathartic two-month-long plunge into the things that live in us without our permission, the way pain and expectation pass through blood like language. It’s an exploration of inherited wounds as much as it is of societal expectations.

The body horror aspect grew from that. Transformation of any kind isn’t gentle—it’s tearing, surrender, a feverish rending. Real, bone-deep change hurts. In Prickle, the grotesque isn’t spectacle, but confession, wherein the body speaks truths the mind isn’t ready to accept.

At its heart, this is a story about refusal. About the guilt of choosing yourself when everything you know to be true insists you serve something else. About love that fails, family that feeds on you, and the strange, bitter freedom of shedding that soft skin of duty—and letting yourself hunger.

[Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oooo this was CREEPY in the best way possible! Review to come! 💉

(FINAL REVIEW:)

I wanted to preface this that I got an eARC in thanks for my participation in helping reveal the cover for this book with Colored Pages Book Tours and am good acquaintances with the author, but these things in no way influenced my thoughts on the novella. Now on to the review! ☺️

I’m getting to the point in reading where (body/graphic) horror isn’t phasing me as much as I thought it would. This novella is definitely not for the weak of heart and it would be well advised to look into the author’s trigger warnings before diving into this. But I on the other hand thought the body horror element made this novella what it is and I wish I had read it on Halloween because man is it spooky. 😨

The story follows Duscha, a timid tattooist in Moscow with a loving partner and a cold domineering grandmother. I liked Duscha for the growth that she goes through in this and really rooted for her to just go all out crazy. I personally think she could’ve stood up a bit more to her grandmother, but thats a personal thought. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Her relationship with her partner is endearing, but I do wish Victoria fought a little harder to keep Duscha. I also am VERY intrigued with the budding chemistry between Duscha and Alisa, but that’s what novellas are for: keeping you wondering past the ending. 🧐

The folk elements of this were fantastic and if anyone knows anything about Slavic folklore, is that it can get creepy real quick. I do hope we get more Slavic inspired folk stories in the future! 🤞🏼

All in all, a solid spooky novella that had me questioning a lot after finishing it (in a good way) and I can’t wait to see what Larson-Burnett has in store for the future! ❤️

Overall: 4.5/5 ⭐️

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

A uniquely lyrical and eerie novella, Prickle was completely unlike anything I’ve ever read in the best possible way. The writing is lyrical, but never so stylized that it becomes confusing; instead, it enhances the strange beauty of the story. The plot itself feels wholly original, unlike anything I’ve come across before, and I especially appreciated the thoughtful LGBTQ+ representation woven throughout.

I was initially nervous about the body-horror elements, unsure if they’d be too intense for me, but the author strikes an impressive balance. The imagery is definitely eerie and unsettling, yet it never becomes overwhelming or gratuitous. And for the record, it hasn’t deterred me from getting more tattoos in the future!

Overall, Prickle was a fantastic addition to my spooky-season reading—unusual, atmospheric, and thoroughly memorable. A great pick if you want something chilling but not overpowering.

[Melinda · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am so incredibly grateful for the opportunity to have received an advanced copy of Prickle from the author! 🫶

It is time for me to give a standing ovation to Prickle because this story is truly unlike any book I have ever read in my life! 🥹🖤 It’s eerie, spooky, unhinged, and truly a horror book lover’s dream book! 🫶

I made the mistake of starting this during my lunch break because it immediately drew me in and I did not want to put it down. I then couldn’t stop thinking about this book all day and when I went home I read the rest of it in one sitting. I truly think the reader should go in blind when it comes to this book because I think it will enhance the reading experience. I will say though that I love that this felt like solving a puzzle because it had me thinking what is going on and had me coming up with so many theories! 🤔🧩 My theories were all wrong and I didn’t see anything coming so this was a wild rollercoaster ride! 😱🤯🙊🙀

If you love folk horror, questionable sanity, tattoos, cursed inheritance, and a book that is perfect for spooky season then this is the book for you! 🫶

[Donald Armfield · Rating 4 out of 5]

Derived from the meaning magic-paint E.K. Larson inks a story that sinks into our skin, gritty and swollen with body horror. A demonic creature that hides in the prickle of gooseflesh, that feeling we get when someone, or something is watching us.

…”but she’d made another monster today, smelled that centuries-old rot and heard that desperate scratching… a reminder of the raw pulp of something recently torn apart… tangled sinew and soft tissue”

Just a small spotted quote from the ink of Ms. Larson that will prickle and tattoo the darkness around you.
Looking forward to reading more from this author. Highly Recommend!

[T.M. Ghent · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh my gosh, wow. You know how much I gush over EKLB's writing and it delivers again.

My own skin is prickling. This was utterly fantastic and I can't get over the creep that's slithering along in my mind.

A story putting societal views relationships under a microscope in a way that'll leave you breathless.

[Beth Linnett · Rating 5 out of 5]

First thoughts:

Larson-Burnett is such a stunning writer, and I’m so thrilled to see her hand turned towards body horror!! As soon as I started reading I was taken back to the beautiful prose of The Bear and the Rose, but with a new, deliciously sharp twist.

I can see a ton of different interpretations in this already, but for me Prickle is a short but meaty story of limbs cracking and eyes bursting, of the shapes we are forced into and how unrecognisable our own flesh and minds can be.

Duscha is stifled by the wants of those around and inside her, making herself smaller to give over to their expectations. Again and again she’s lured in by the temptation of apparent belonging, as her art gives way to rended sinews, bubbling skin, and gaping maws. I’ll give no spoilers, but this book is spitting bile, gore under your fingernails, and fighting to find something that resembles yourself in the push and pull of identify.

It was a beautiful, violent treat.

[Megan · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a strange, wonderful, horrifying, beautiful story. The lyrical prose was just delicious as was the twisty journey it takes you on.

Thank you so much for letting me read this stunning story early. 💜

[S · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s not often I finish a book cherishing a sense of unease, but Prickle is that sort of read. Set in a Russia both hygienically modern yet murkily ancient, it focuses on tattoo artist Duscha and her feelings both towards the art she practices and the demons within. Her allies (her girlfriend Valentina and her babushka) are diametrically at odds with each other, leaving confusion about their knowledge and agendas, as well the nature of the truth itself.

Duscha’s demons, or chudo-kraska, become more ravenous throughout, and the initial revulsion to their violent transformative actions changes as the atmosphere of the text becomes more cloying and suffocating. Is the hunger felt by Duscha a weakness to be fought, or an inevitable process of some unknown nature? And is the grisly black ichor seeping into the veins of hosts making them better or only ‘better’?

What I didn’t expect is how skillfully the text turns what starts as initially a straightforward moral choice that any hero could feel into something more ambiguous and seductive. The irrationally tempting desire to drop polite conventions for the unapologetic confrontation of being outside the norm. That ‘letting go’ or submitting to the truth about ourselves is presented as defiantly alluring here, the willingness to be inked presenting us with the delicious prize of no longer caring how we’re seen by others, glittering just out of reach.

So if the lure of the forbidden and unacceptable side of ourselves has ever felt compelling, if the pull of the dark has ever tugged upon your soul, this book might be a good fit for you. If I have one criticism it is that the pace is very swift throughout, and the airlessness of the text isn’t given enough time to become truly suffocating. However it also feels like there are more stories to tell about this protagonist and situation in future, so this could easily be the start of a series about the chudo-kraska. That is unless the author hasn’t developed a similar devotion to unholy ink that overrides her benevolent impulses too. Should we check her shelves for a copy of the Necronomicon?

[Birch · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The beauty of becoming."

Prickle balances weariness with wonder, feeling out of sync physically and mentally. Something transformative has happened, her body resists, but her mind is already moving forward. It reads like the moment before revelation or action, maybe a realization of a change.
I was holding my breath at a few points, wondering where Erin was taking us, rapidly page turning and still shocked at the end. Shivers. I feel like I just took a masterclass in societal views, relationships and self reflection.
I 💚🖤💚 this novella.

"SURVIVING."

Deep dive into the cost of survival, it isn’t passive adaptation but an active, even painful, reshaping. For Duscha, an act of violence, against herself, and potentially against others. The cost is not just labor, but self-erasure, ethical compromise, and normalization of pain. Duscha is a complex figure, not saintly, not monstrous, but human in the most raw and conflicted sense. She is both victim and offender. Take what you must, fit where you can, endure at any cost.

"She screams again, this time from the brutal, white-hot exertion of surviving."

Body horror novella
Paranormal
Single POV
Transformation
Tattoo Magic
Sapphic
Loss of Identity

Thank you Erin K. Larson-Burnett for this ARC.
I received an advanced reader copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

[Donna Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a story!!

This story is a truly unique a concept ... Restless Tattoo Ink Spirits... I haven't seen before but loved it all the same

The traditions and how they affect the people around them was really well done

Babulya's character had me torn as I wasn't sure if I liked her 🤣 One minute I did then she'd do or say something that would have me back tracking 😅

I loved Deda so much 🥹

Val and Lis had me torn a little but I can't say why without spoiling anything.

Duscha was such a strong FMC who knew what she wanted but her struggle felt real!

I loved the writing style and the little bits of Russian was a lovely touch

It's a gory suspense filled story that has your own skin prickling while reading!

Also ... the tf was that ending 👀👀

[Brooke Winters · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was so weird (in a good way) and exceptionally written. The descriptions were chilling and so immersive! Can’t wait to read more work from the author soon, the writing was amazing!

Thank you E.K. Larson-Burnett for the eARC!

[The Blog Without a Face · Rating 4 out of 5]

BWAF Score: 7/10

TL;DR: Queer Moscow tattooist plus ancestral witchcraft plus feral ink that literally eats people equals a fucked up, heartfelt body horror novella about art, consent, and what we owe our monsters. It is stylish, surprisingly tender, and nasty in the right ways, and absolutely something you recommend to friends who like their horror weird and bloody.

E.K. Larson-Burnett does not come in with a “look at me” author’s note or a giant back catalogue to position this book. What you get instead is the sense of someone who has spent a long time thinking about bodies, craft, and generational superstition, then compressed all of that into one tight story about a girl, her needles, and the shit that lives in her blood. It reads like the work of a horror nerd who has sat with folklore and piercer forums, then asked, “OK, but what if the ink really was hungry.”

Our POV is Duscha, a Moscow tattoo artist living in a cramped apartment above her studio with her formidable Babulya and juggling work, rent, and her girlfriend Valentina. Duscha uses an inherited magical ink, the chudo-kraska, that sometimes wakes up and hijacks her hand. Once it does, clients do not walk away with the wolves or ornamental designs they asked for. They get something older, bony, and wrong that rewrites their bodies from the inside out. One boy from Kursk, then a girl named Max, and then more. As hospitals fill and the authorities start sniffing around, Duscha has to decide whether she is going to close the door, keep feeding the thing that wants through, or admit that some part of her likes watching people turn into monsters.

The horror is about wanting it. Max’s transformation is horrific, all cracked skin and parasite vibes, but her friend Alisa is still like, “Please, fuck my shit up next.” Duscha herself is terrified and aroused by what she is doing. The book keeps circling that itch: what if the monster you summoned is the truest version of someone, and what if you are the one who finally let it out. There is a great sequence where Duscha watches video of the aftermath and has to admit there is a kind of awful beauty there, even as she is puking in the sink. The scene with Sparrow, the client whose back tattoo becomes a living shadow that heaves itself off the chair and pins her to the floor, is especially strong. It sells both the physical threat and the religious awe of realizing you have just midwifed something that does not belong in this century.

Larson-Burnett rides a tight third person that basically glues you to Duscha’s nervous system. The prose is sensory as hell: rot, pine, bleach, metal, vodka, all rendered with that scratchy-needle-in-skin precision. Short chapters keep the momentum up, but there is room for domestic beats, like Valentina making vegan pelmeni while Duscha tries not to hallucinate guts in her salad. The dialogue feels lived in and occasionally very funny, which helps when the text is otherwise showing you liquefying armpits and ribcage topography you do not want. The magic is handled with a nice mix of concrete and opaque. We get talismans of bark and bone, bread and salt set out like offerings, but never a big lore dump that kills the mood. It feels like one little corner of a larger occult world, which is exactly what you want.

This is also a solid example of body horror that is not just “oops, my skin fell off.” The horror mechanics keep tying back to identity. Tattoos here are literally doors; they open into the clients’ buried selves and let something crawl out. Sometimes that is liberation, sometimes it is a slow-motion dismemberment of a life that could have gone on pretending. The way the story handles Duscha’s queerness and her relationship with Valentina is crucial. Valentina’s Etsy dreamcatcher spirituality bumps up against Babulya’s older, harsher magic, and Duscha sits in the middle, trying to draw lines around what is protective and what is predatory. It’s bittersweet. You close the book feeling like you watched a curse unfold that is also a kind of calling. It leaves you with the uncomfortable question of which parts of yourself you would let the chudo-kraska etch into reality if you had the chance.

Prickle sits comfortably with the current wave of queer, folklore flavored novellas that treat body horror as a tool to talk about labor, family, and selfhood instead of just shock value. It feels smaller in scope than some cosmic door-kickers, but in a good way. Everything is constrained to this little upstairs-downstairs world of studio and apartment, where every new client is another potential breach. Since I read its synopsis earlier this year, it has been absolutely burning in my “you should read this” list.

Strong, sharp, beautifully sick work that knows exactly what kind of monster it wants to be, and mostly sticks the needle.

Read if you are a sucker for stories about artists making fucked up bargains with their materials.

Skip if hospital imagery, infection vibes, and corporeal distortion are hard limits rather than fun-time nausea.

[Mara Osowiecki · Rating 4 out of 5]

I entered the giveaway because I thought the description sounded like something my partner would like. I don't read horror, aside from some classic Gothic, and I don't read body horror. But, I was a little curious, and then my curiosity got the better of me (funny how that works when you know you should be doing something else) and so in the midst of my end-of-semester crunch for grad school, I gave in.

As someone who doesn't *enjoy* squick, I let Diablo IV memories guide the visuals, and didn't let myself think too long about the physics and biology of any of it, and I surprised myself with how well I did. Because the *story* pulled me in regardless. I had to keep reading, because I needed to *know*.

To put it another way, to state a fact purely devoid of emotion, I am smart. I am incredibly good at figuring out story plots and twists and work to figure things out when I read. EXCEPT. I didn't even think about that with this story. I just let it unfold, without the constant gears clicking behind the scenes, and just let myself *experience* it.

I dislike endings that are vague and open to interpretation. Not because they are bad - they are good! But because I like answers. I like knowing things. I *need* to know things. This didn't leave me knowing things.

Beyond that, I can't really share about details. It feels like doing so would spoil something that was sacred. Like I could only talk about the book with someone else who had also read the book. The writing was beautiful and terrible. Yes, terror--because as much as this book is about horror, the fear of what is, in the present, that you are experiencing now (yes, I took a whole class on the Gothic Novel in undergrad; yes, I am appeasing the questions that would come regarding my word choice were I discussing this in that class. And yes, it was a long time ago, shush)--the writing carried with it the fear of what could be, what might be. It is the fear of the unknown, and the fear of the expectation.

All of that to say, I didn't think this would be for me. But I came for the sapphic, and stayed for the sapphic + the rest. Full disclosure, this hasn't made me rethink body horror as a genre. Some things just transcend labels.

[Chie | The Review Nook · Rating 3 out of 5]

Actual rating: 3.5

Tattoos are stories, and bodies are the journals. Tattoos tell tales — funny, scary, or even life-changing ones. But what if tattoos started to come to life, transforming into something grotesque? Something that forces the body to become disturbingly unrecognizable?

This novella has a fascinating concept. I think it’s the first time I’ve encountered something like this. I also appreciated the themes of breaking the cycle of generational curses and the painful yet rewarding journey of becoming your true self instead of what others expect you to be. However, I found it difficult to visualize what the “creatures” in the story actually looked like and where they truly came from.

Overall, this is a book you just have to dive into blindly and enjoy as the story unravels.

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

[Nirav · Rating 5 out of 5]

Erin has crafted a beautiful story about relationships and self reflection in the most unexpected setting, a body horror, paranormal thriller. I was pulled into this world from the first scene, which makes me wonder if I was under an ink spell by the author, of course I was.

This is one of those unique experiences that doesn't mind leaving questions unanswered, and then leaving clues for the readers to fill in those gaps rather than handing over the answers, I always love that choice in any story.

I wish I could say more, but there is a lot of suspense and some scary moments in this that I would hate to spoil, so if you are ok to get a bit scared and have enjoyed movies like Hereditary and Heratic, this should be a fun journey!! Definitely check it out.

[Asia Matelli · Rating 4 out of 5]

Prickle will do just that, prickle your skin. Mouth dropping descriptions, gruesome metaphors, and the ending is unpredictable. The main character is a BA tattoo artist but brings to life so much more than beautiful body art...