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Feral Bloom
“We pushed upriver into hell. We walked where nothing made sense. We lived a while in the company of madness.”
Centuries after civilisation collapses, survivors cling to the British coastline, trapped between the ocean and the Bloom, a parasitic and predatory flora that releases a mind-destroying toxin.
Surviving in the ruins, where packs of highly evolved dogs now dominate, scavenger Braska is captured and taken to the nearby stronghold of Crayport, where it is discovered that she has a dangerous secret. One that powerful matriarch Mother Cray is eager to exploit.
When Braska is sent back into the wastelands with a volatile crew of her own captors—including the tenacious Temlyn and the obdurate Faron—she must play an unwilling guide while fighting tooth and nail for survival. Something lies at the end of the trail, but will the answers prove to be worth the sacrifice?
Centuries after civilisation collapses, survivors cling to the British coastline, trapped between the ocean and the Bloom, a parasitic and predatory flora that releases a mind-destroying toxin.
Surviving in the ruins, where packs of highly evolved dogs now dominate, scavenger Braska is captured and taken to the nearby stronghold of Crayport, where it is discovered that she has a dangerous secret. One that powerful matriarch Mother Cray is eager to exploit.
When Braska is sent back into the wastelands with a volatile crew of her own captors—including the tenacious Temlyn and the obdurate Faron—she must play an unwilling guide while fighting tooth and nail for survival. Something lies at the end of the trail, but will the answers prove to be worth the sacrifice?
255 pages, Kindle Edition
Published January 5, 2026
About the author
H.M. Read
1 book12 followersHM Read is an English author of horror, science fiction, and thrillers that focus on the darker side of the human psyche.
His debut novel, Feral Bloom, co-written with his brother, imagines a reality-grounded apocalypse. Blending speculative fiction with philosophical horror, the novel explores survival, decay, and the fragility of the human condition.
Read’s writing is minimalist and deliberate, favouring subtlety over excess. When not writing, Read is a musician and artist
His debut novel, Feral Bloom, co-written with his brother, imagines a reality-grounded apocalypse. Blending speculative fiction with philosophical horror, the novel explores survival, decay, and the fragility of the human condition.
Read’s writing is minimalist and deliberate, favouring subtlety over excess. When not writing, Read is a musician and artist
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
May 2, 2026
Where do I start with this? Firstly I’m a slow reader, like to absorb everything as I go and with that being said this story took me to a place I found hard to let go.
Prose:
It took me a little while to get into it, not because it’s bad but because it was so mind blowingly different, beautiful, poetic that I had to take my time and really appreciate how each and every single word was chosen with such obvious love and care. Simply put it’s one of the most stunning pieces I’ve ever read.
Characters:
Each and every one of them, like the flowing prose was crafted which such care, they feel real, alive and distinct with one another. Loved Braska, Tem, Faron, the whole cast. Another fantastic achievement.
Story/world building:
This too, my God, was so unique, so intricate that I found it hard to rush through. You simply don’t know what’s going to happen next. The set pieces had my imagination FLARED. From slower moments to sweat inducing action, the blend here was perfect.
To sum up, Feral Bloom is something that everyone should read, learn from, it’s up there with The Road for me. Simply put, this is not a book but a piece of art.
Prose:
It took me a little while to get into it, not because it’s bad but because it was so mind blowingly different, beautiful, poetic that I had to take my time and really appreciate how each and every single word was chosen with such obvious love and care. Simply put it’s one of the most stunning pieces I’ve ever read.
Characters:
Each and every one of them, like the flowing prose was crafted which such care, they feel real, alive and distinct with one another. Loved Braska, Tem, Faron, the whole cast. Another fantastic achievement.
Story/world building:
This too, my God, was so unique, so intricate that I found it hard to rush through. You simply don’t know what’s going to happen next. The set pieces had my imagination FLARED. From slower moments to sweat inducing action, the blend here was perfect.
To sum up, Feral Bloom is something that everyone should read, learn from, it’s up there with The Road for me. Simply put, this is not a book but a piece of art.
June 28, 2026
28 Years Later X Roadside Picnic
This one had me turning pages every spare moment I had until the ending (which I'll talk about after the spoilers warning), and went immediately into contention for my 2026 Read of the Year.
Think 28 Years Later meets Roadside Picnic/STALKER: the plants are trying to kill us, the dogs have unionised and are hunting people in huge packs, and there's a fog in the air that knows your name. We're deep in the post-post-apocalypse where literacy is a rare skill and the coast is the only safe place, where people are marked for what job they are assigned (and breeder is one of them). It's a bleak setting, with a simple story: take this girl who can read into the heart of a ruined London and bring back information on what actually happened to the world.
The prose is purposeful and sharp, sparse and efficient, violent where it has to be and rhythmic when it matters. The dialect adds a nice bit of seasoning. Maybe the landscape is described as basins and rises a little too often, but it works. There was one scenario I struggled to visualise, but after learning about [SPOILERS] I have a sense that this was very deliberate.
The characters were a little thin at first (literally, everyone is kinda starving), but the cast came together with brilliant chemistry by the 25% mark. Temlyn, Braska and Faron in particular. Easy to root for despite being fairly unpleasant people - the world does not allow much in the way of niceness.
There's a lot of implications left to the imagination, be it in setting, character, or the mystery at the heart of the story - and just enough breadcrumbs that I'd managed to put together a fairly accurate sense of what happened to the world by the time the ending came. Solving that mystery myself was the precursor to the ending, which is unusual in that it's essentially a lore-dump of what our protagonists actually learned, put together in the style of a scientific report, but boy howdy was that well earned and much needed after the rip-roaring tension and pace of the story that precedes it.
Thematically tight, brutal and merciless, psychedelic and dreamlike in just the right amount. Honestly, if you liked my Interloper trilogy or Paul Jameson's Nightjar/Life of Maggot then you'll probably love this.
5 stars, I couldn't put it down. An epistemological apocalypse that doesn't flinch away from our nature, extremely fresh and original.
This one had me turning pages every spare moment I had until the ending (which I'll talk about after the spoilers warning), and went immediately into contention for my 2026 Read of the Year.
Think 28 Years Later meets Roadside Picnic/STALKER: the plants are trying to kill us, the dogs have unionised and are hunting people in huge packs, and there's a fog in the air that knows your name. We're deep in the post-post-apocalypse where literacy is a rare skill and the coast is the only safe place, where people are marked for what job they are assigned (and breeder is one of them). It's a bleak setting, with a simple story: take this girl who can read into the heart of a ruined London and bring back information on what actually happened to the world.
The prose is purposeful and sharp, sparse and efficient, violent where it has to be and rhythmic when it matters. The dialect adds a nice bit of seasoning. Maybe the landscape is described as basins and rises a little too often, but it works. There was one scenario I struggled to visualise, but after learning about [SPOILERS] I have a sense that this was very deliberate.
The characters were a little thin at first (literally, everyone is kinda starving), but the cast came together with brilliant chemistry by the 25% mark. Temlyn, Braska and Faron in particular. Easy to root for despite being fairly unpleasant people - the world does not allow much in the way of niceness.
There's a lot of implications left to the imagination, be it in setting, character, or the mystery at the heart of the story - and just enough breadcrumbs that I'd managed to put together a fairly accurate sense of what happened to the world by the time the ending came. Solving that mystery myself was the precursor to the ending, which is unusual in that it's essentially a lore-dump of what our protagonists actually learned, put together in the style of a scientific report, but boy howdy was that well earned and much needed after the rip-roaring tension and pace of the story that precedes it.
Thematically tight, brutal and merciless, psychedelic and dreamlike in just the right amount. Honestly, if you liked my Interloper trilogy or Paul Jameson's Nightjar/Life of Maggot then you'll probably love this.
5 stars, I couldn't put it down. An epistemological apocalypse that doesn't flinch away from our nature, extremely fresh and original.
April 5, 2026
In Feral Bloom, the old world is long gone. A parasitic flora dominates the planet - it destroys the mind using its toxins, and if that doesn't kill you, the splintered groups of remaining humans and wild dogs will!
This book has such a fascinating premise, and the authors execute this with skill and unbelievable intelligence. The way this tale is woven is sublime.
What I loved most about this book is the ambiguity. The reader is left with just enough breadcrumbs to hook you in. The book is set on the coast of the United Kingdom. Centuries have passed since this apocalyptic event, and as I stated previously, humanity is splintered. As the reader, we are intentionally kept in the dark about a lot of things - What type of technology does humanity have access to? How are the other countries across the globe faring? How can humanity combat the toxin?
These questions allowed my imagination to run wild with the premise. I just have to commend the skill this takes to do as a writer.
The book also has some beautiful passages in terms of the prose. The authors create this kind of ethereal/mystical atmosphere that compelled me to read on. This book is so satisfying once you reach the end. I must say bravo on how this all pieced together.
Feral Bloom is a book I will remember for a long time. This truly deserves to be read by more readers.
I look forward to whatever is conjured up next!
This book has such a fascinating premise, and the authors execute this with skill and unbelievable intelligence. The way this tale is woven is sublime.
What I loved most about this book is the ambiguity. The reader is left with just enough breadcrumbs to hook you in. The book is set on the coast of the United Kingdom. Centuries have passed since this apocalyptic event, and as I stated previously, humanity is splintered. As the reader, we are intentionally kept in the dark about a lot of things - What type of technology does humanity have access to? How are the other countries across the globe faring? How can humanity combat the toxin?
These questions allowed my imagination to run wild with the premise. I just have to commend the skill this takes to do as a writer.
The book also has some beautiful passages in terms of the prose. The authors create this kind of ethereal/mystical atmosphere that compelled me to read on. This book is so satisfying once you reach the end. I must say bravo on how this all pieced together.
Feral Bloom is a book I will remember for a long time. This truly deserves to be read by more readers.
I look forward to whatever is conjured up next!
Review of advance copy received from Author
This dystopian thriller sci-fi is absolutely a one of a kind! It's one of the most unique and layered stories I've read this year! There's really a lot to appreciate here.
February 8, 2026
This is a remarkable book that sets a very high bar for whatever else I read this year. Part work of genius, part work of art, it lays out a post-apocalyptic Britain that you can feel in your very bones. The prose is terse but never dense and is perfect for the sprawling, dark, and enigmatic terrain that the characters inhabit. Prepare to be frightened, intrigued, and hugely rewarded for following a complex and ragtag crew through a terrifying world that somehow offers glimmers of hope and celebration of the human spirit. Can’t recommend it highly enough.
December 1, 2025
FERAL BLOOM is like reading epic poetry injected into prose, but, while the Bloom is purple, the prose are not. This post-apocalyptic journey is couched in a mesmerizing argot, which, while initially hard to follow, takes on an almost intuitive rhythm and sucks the reader in through a holistic grasp. The characters are both despicable and sympathetic, creating in the reader the same dynamic that characterizes their world in regards to never really knowing who stands where. This is a story of trust in a world where there is little (in which people have become "feral"), relations between incompatible mindsets and different species (particularly canids), and the place knowledge has in the human world. Though the story can be enjoyed without any further explanation, the epilogue, which reads like something from the SCP Foundation, elucidates how the human world ended and why the wolves are instrumental to the narrative. FERAL BLOOM stands in its own league. Do not expect anything ordinary here, but do expect an exciting challenge.
April 22, 2026
Feral Bloom is an extraordinary book: sensory-rich, brutal, beautiful, layered, and textured. We’ve had more than our fair share of post-apocalyptic worlds, but none like this. It’s a story as much about language, memory, symbolism, and storytelling as it is about survival. The epilogue alone is worth the cover price.
There’s a poetry to the prose that casts a kind of magic spell on you. I’ve rarely been as immersed in a book as this one. We are foreign travellers here, piecing things together along the way, allowed to speculate and imagine as the mystery unfolds.
I could wax lyrical about Feral Bloom forever, but honestly, if you're reading this review, my advice is just to pick it up and read it. You’ll be transported to a world created with almost obsessive attention to detail, yet so smoothly written you’ll never get bogged down. I love fiction that leaves me in awe, that engraves scenes and lines on my consciousness. Feral Bloom does exactly that.
A genuine masterpiece.
There’s a poetry to the prose that casts a kind of magic spell on you. I’ve rarely been as immersed in a book as this one. We are foreign travellers here, piecing things together along the way, allowed to speculate and imagine as the mystery unfolds.
I could wax lyrical about Feral Bloom forever, but honestly, if you're reading this review, my advice is just to pick it up and read it. You’ll be transported to a world created with almost obsessive attention to detail, yet so smoothly written you’ll never get bogged down. I love fiction that leaves me in awe, that engraves scenes and lines on my consciousness. Feral Bloom does exactly that.
A genuine masterpiece.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews