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Chimera
Not yet published
Expected 16 Feb 27A powerful family’s terrible secrets threaten to consume them in Chimera, a visceral body horror novel from Gretchen Felker-Martin, the author of Manhunt and Cuckoo.
Centuries ago, in the dark of the woods, a pact was made. A gift was given. And the costs have echoed down the bloodlines.
The clans of Skin Dancers—humans able to shapeshift into the form of any animal they've eaten—rule the 1980s New England crime scene. A late summer wedding between two families is meant to usher in a new era of peace between households, and stifle the brewing tensions that threaten to boil over into war.
But something is lurking in the forest outside the family compound. Something ancient, angry...and starving.
Also by Gretchen Felker-Martin:
Manhunt
Cuckoo
Black Flame
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
Centuries ago, in the dark of the woods, a pact was made. A gift was given. And the costs have echoed down the bloodlines.
The clans of Skin Dancers—humans able to shapeshift into the form of any animal they've eaten—rule the 1980s New England crime scene. A late summer wedding between two families is meant to usher in a new era of peace between households, and stifle the brewing tensions that threaten to boil over into war.
But something is lurking in the forest outside the family compound. Something ancient, angry...and starving.
Also by Gretchen Felker-Martin:
Manhunt
Cuckoo
Black Flame
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
Kindle Edition
Expected publication February 16, 2027
About the author
Gretchen Felker-Martin
20 books1,725 followersGRETCHEN FELKER-MARTIN is a Massachusetts-based horror author and film critic. Her debut novel, Manhunt, was named the #1 Best Book of 2022 by Vulture, and one of the Best Horror Novels of 2022 by Esquire, Library Journal, and Paste. You can follow her work on Twitter and read her fiction and film criticism on Patreon and in TIME, The Outline, Nylon, Polygon, and more.
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Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
CHIMERA is Animorphs meets New England mob-family Gothic with a little bit of werewolf on the side. That's the elevator pitch. Parts of it really worked for me (I enjoyed the fucked up incestuous Varger family dynamics) and parts of it really didn't (by the end, I had no emotional investment in any of the characters and the body horror I started off loving started to grate). A mixed bag for me, which is to say: pretty standard for a Felker-Martin novel.
Told from the POVs of four Varger women (Rina, her mother Marguerite, Marguerite’s mother Marian, and Antoinette who I…. think…? is Marguerite’s MIL? or maybe Marian’s mother??), Chimera is at its best in the beginning when you're getting to know its world. It started slipping after the first third for me, and by the final third (a long string of emotionally-numbing splatterpunk battles that felt like they were just happening to happen) I was bored. Head hopping can be a very effective narrative technique, but in this case I think it prevented me from sinking into any one character's POV and establishing emotional stakes. I felt the most connected to Marguerite's chapters, a character who has some truly gut-wrenching scenes with her mother, sister, and daughter. I wanted to spend more time with her perspective.
I think this might have worked better for me on paper, as there was an absolutely enormous cast of characters introduced very quickly from multiple points of view, all with very similar looking and sounding names, and frankly they started running together (see above re: Antoinette’s relation to the rest of the POV characters). Still, I did really like the dark, rotting stink of the Varger family and would recommend this novel to anyone who wanted their Animorphs to be evil and about three hundred times more fucked up.
Out 2/16/27. Thanks to NetGalley and Tor Nightfire for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Told from the POVs of four Varger women (Rina, her mother Marguerite, Marguerite’s mother Marian, and Antoinette who I…. think…? is Marguerite’s MIL? or maybe Marian’s mother??), Chimera is at its best in the beginning when you're getting to know its world. It started slipping after the first third for me, and by the final third (a long string of emotionally-numbing splatterpunk battles that felt like they were just happening to happen) I was bored. Head hopping can be a very effective narrative technique, but in this case I think it prevented me from sinking into any one character's POV and establishing emotional stakes. I felt the most connected to Marguerite's chapters, a character who has some truly gut-wrenching scenes with her mother, sister, and daughter. I wanted to spend more time with her perspective.
I think this might have worked better for me on paper, as there was an absolutely enormous cast of characters introduced very quickly from multiple points of view, all with very similar looking and sounding names, and frankly they started running together (see above re: Antoinette’s relation to the rest of the POV characters). Still, I did really like the dark, rotting stink of the Varger family and would recommend this novel to anyone who wanted their Animorphs to be evil and about three hundred times more fucked up.
Out 2/16/27. Thanks to NetGalley and Tor Nightfire for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Displaying 1 of 1 review