THIS BOOK IS EVERYTHING . . . an ode to Tod Brownings Freaks, Kathryn Dunns Geek Love, and Ray Bradburys Something Wicked This Way Comes . . . Grotesque, creepy, and celebratory, Freakslaw is sure to be one biggest books of the year (and possibly, one of the defining novels of the century). CrimeReads
An LGBTQ Reads Most Anticipated 2025 A CrimeReads and Goodreads Most Anticipated Horror Novel of 2025 A Storizen and Read Jump Scares Best Horror Book of April 2025 An Autostraddle Most Anticipated Queer Book of April 2025
In this riotous horror debut, a traveling carnival of troublemakers arrive in a small Scottish town and perform their favorite pastime: revenge.
It is the summer of 97 and the repressed Scottish town of Pitlaw is itching for change.
Enter the Freakslawa travelling carnival of deviant queers and architects of mayhem. Theres Gloria, fortune teller and worm charmer; her daughter Nancy, a contortionist witch; big-hearted tightrope walker, Werewolf Louie; not to mention illusionists and conjoined twins, Cass and Henry, and tattooed human pincushion, the Pin Gal. Against Pitlaws miserably grey landscape, the carnival shines electric and bright, and it doesnt take long for the towns teenagers to be seduced by its neon charms and the possibility of escape.
But beneath it all, these newcomers are harboring a darker desire: revenge. Revenge for being cast out, never allowed to settle, punished for purely existing. And as tensions reach fever pitch between the stoic, unwelcoming locals and the dazzling intruders, a violence that has been bubbling for centuries is about to be unleashed . . .
Katherine Dunns Geek Love meets Angela Carters Nights at the Circus in this sizzling debut by a writer as captivating as she is incisive, as wild as she is precise. Read this and try not to run away with the Freakslaw. Go on. We dare you.
