No Body, No Crime is a thriller about two reunited women battling a powerful family whilst rekindling the romance torn apart by the guy they killed aged sixteen. Mel is a private investigator whose latest job sees her tasked by the Harper family to hunt down their daughter, Chloe. The thing is, Chloe was Mel’s girlfriend back when they were teenagers, after they bonded killing Toby Dune at Chloe’s sixteenth birthday party, and Mel’s been battling internally for years after feeling left by Chloe disappearing. Chloe had her reasons, however, and those reasons are still out there: a powerful local family, after something that Toby had stolen from them.
This book sounded like an adult version of Sharpe’s novel The Girls I’ve Been, and that’s really what it is: a fun, queer thriller that makes for an escapist read. Even though the book does touch on some deeper topics, like Mel’s brother’s drug problems or her abusive dad, these tend to be more like texture in the story rather than anything that is really explored. The narrative is told from a variety of perspectives, mostly Mel and Chloe but not just them, and this works pretty well alongside the non-chronological structure to build up a picture of events slowly, so revelations come at the right time. However, I was expecting a few more twists at the end, as the conclusion was all a bit too neat and perfect for a book that seems messier.
You have to take this book like you would when approaching an action film: sure, it’s going to be a bit ridiculous at times, with the two protagonists being ridiculously good at fighting and survival, but that’s the kind of fun you signed up for. As a queer person who loves action films, I like what Tess Sharpe does in making action thriller-type stories which also feature queer romance.
These Mortal Bodies is a novel set at an elite university in which a young woman is drawn into the world of secret drinking societies and ancient power. Ivy grew up by the coast, but now she’s about to start at a prestigious university. Despite feeling like a outsider, she quickly finds intoxicating new friends and becomes intrigued by the drinking societies and the witchcraft-related history of her women-only college, but she has to decide how far she will go.
This is a dark academia novel that blends detail about Oxbridge with invented history of women accused of witchcraft, and blurs the lines between traditions and rituals, power and mysticism. The narrative focuses on Ivy and her friends’ first year at university, structured around each week of term, but it is more about small dramas and Ivy’s trajectory that big plot points, with the ending being more about characters coming into their own as ‘sisters’ at the college. For me, the ending felt more like a setup for a sequel than an actual ending, with lots of unexplored areas and unanswered questions.
The settings in the book are never specified, but the words used give it basically away, so the blurb I read specified that Ivy is from Scotland, but only particular terminology like Hogmanay’ made that clear, and the university is clearly Oxbridge (I assumed Cambridge as I was reading because it has a women’s college still and Oxford doesn’t, but given that it is fictional, it could be purposefully either). One downside of this is that I think anyone without a familiarity of the terminology used at Oxbridge may end up confused, trying to guess where it is set and unfamiliar with concepts like different colleges, drinking societies, and the short terms. As I am familiar with them, I liked the detail (and I like dark academia that manages to be realistic with the university detail of where it is set), and it did accurately explore the balance between academic work and other elements that becomes all the more apparent when terms are short and workloads are high.
The characters were intriguing but perhaps lacking in detail at times, even Ivy as the narrator (anyone else you could blame on Ivy’s perspective, as a lot of the side characters seemed to have no personality traits at al). Again, the blurb I read said Ivy is neurodivergent, but the book itself leaves that unspoken as far as I remember, and there are a lot of points like this where things are hazy and unspoken, but which perhaps actually needed to be spoken. Ivy’s obsession with binaries, which is foregrounded at certain points in the book, brought something interesting to what I was starting to think was a book obsessed with the difference between men and women, but again, it wasn’t really followed through on, not even with the one lesbian character or the one singular mention of the concept of non-binary people in the ‘dear’ part of a letter/email. I think it is a perspective on Oxbridge that often isn’t explored—how so much is set up as some kind of binary—so I would’ve liked more depth around it (particularly as a non-binary person who went to Oxbridge myself).
The toxic friendship and obsession stuff is enjoyable, reminding me of things like The Craft in which there’s a blurry line between this kind of obsessive female friendship and ideas of witchcraft. Oxbridge drinking societies do work quite nicely as a way to do dark academia (they are perhaps one of the most famous ‘dark’ aspects of the places) and the way they are worked into the characters’ dramas and relationships make them integral rather than background. I think the darkness and actual narrative drama could’ve gone further, as what actually happens in very tame (and I assumed things were setting up for darker plot points, but then didn’t). And once again with dark academia I feel that ideas around kinds of obsession and betrayal are so focused on female friendships and boys as the distraction from them that they don’t even explore the homoeroticism they contain, not even in this case where one of the friends is a lesbian (though she never really mentions this).
These Mortal Bodies is fun if you like dark academia vibes with an accurate (if trying to be non-specific) Oxbridge setting, but for me it lacked substance and the combination of darkness and charm that makes The Secret History continue to be a standout book amongst its many successors. It felt like the first half of something, without the ‘fall’ or fallout from events ever happening (I do find it hilarious that Ivy gets a first even when she constantly admits she doesn’t take her work as seriously as she should). However, I do appreciate when dark academia books do actually understand how to combine the academic setting with the ‘dark’ obsession side, and it was a good book to read in autumn with the new academic year feeling.
Moderation is a novel blending tech commentary and romance, as a content moderator gets a new job in VR. Girlie works as a content moderator for a social media company, and she’s good at it, allowing her to fund her large Filipino family’s life in Las Vegas. When the company buys out another and starts a new venture in virtual reality theme parks, she’s offered a new job, with better money, and a new boss, William. William’s best friend founded the VR company and Girlie is fascinated by him, even though their interactions are mostly in the VR world.
As someone interested in big tech, I’m always interested in literary fiction engaging with and critiquing it, so Moderation sounded fascinated. It turned out to not really be the book I was expecting, as despite the title and premise, it is only really half about the content moderation and VR side of things, and half about Girlie as a character and in particular builds towards her attraction to William, her new boss. The content moderation side is very prevalent at the start, with the novel slowing building up a picture of what it is like for Girlie and her colleagues alongside Girlie’s carefully constructed life. As the book goes on, the focus changes, and though the company itself stays relevant throughout, the content moderation doesn’t, and the tech side of things moves more towards big companies and the clash between different potential usages of virtual reality.
The first half of the novel feels entirely like setup, with not much happening, and then there’s a few major events in the second half, but actually the slow pace continues throughout, so it definitely isn’t a book for people who want fast-paced action. Instead, the book takes a more unexpected route, focusing on Girlie and William’s slow burn romance that is enjoyable to read, if not what I thought the book would be about. The ending is not where I thought the book would go, but actually I was invested in it and I liked the return to a human focus rather than the tech world. The novel has its ups and downs, not quite resolving any of the technological side, but overall I found it an enjoyable story about people, wrapped up in a story about tech.
Basilisk is a horror novel about an online game that leads two ethical hackers down a road towards a mysterious cyber weapon for targeting people, not technology. Alexandra Webster worked for a cybersecurity firm, and now we’re reading her story, written down to document what happened when her and her colleague Jay found the start of an online game created by ‘The Helmsman’ that rewarded participants with further “chapters” about a mysterious weapon. Jay disappeared, and Alex was still searching for what happened to him, and who the Helmsman was, whilst evading the strange smiling people trying to stop her.
This is a very distinctively-told horror novel, most easily summarised by saying it is like if you tried to do House of Leaves about a tech-focused ARG rather than a house. The actual writing is partly a narrative written by the ostensible protagonist, Alex, with added comments by someone else investigating the manuscript, and also the texts of the Helmsman’s chapters. On top of that, there’s links to articles, videos, and playlists, and a general expectation that you get drawn into the mystery enough to want to know what is going on. In that way, it makes you a player too, even if a passive one, and that is perhaps how it is most like an ARG as well as being about one: the meta- and intertextuality make it a horror novel with a ‘this is true document we found’ framing that actually has that creepy sense that could be true. Alex as a character isn’t particularly transparent—in her narrative she barely reveals anything about herself that isn’t part of what happened—but this works to allow the reader into the position of Alex, or to project their own things onto her. In a way, this is a book that is more about avatars than actual people.
Despite not being a hacker or a cybersecurity person, I’m otherwise perhaps the target audience for this novel: I love horror and internet horror, I find the concept of ARGs fascinating, I work close enough to tech-y stuff that I can recognise some of the tech terminology and don’t find the rest of it intimidating if I don’t understand it (and, I love mentioning ‘The Game’ as an example of a game). Like House of Leaves, there is a lot contained within this novel (or linked from it), including the hacker stuff, but also Old English, The Matrix, cryptic crosswords, philosophy, creepypastas, and other things that all feel part of a certain milieu. However, if you’re not really engaged with those as potential ideas that might fit together in some kind of weird way, this book might feel off-putting, rather than a fun sort of rabbit hole. For me, it was the latter, a story packed with references to things I knew a bit about and an atmospheric sense of dread as it slowly unfolds through Alex’s narrative.
There’s something about modern day fears captured in Basilisk even though it might appear to be a fairly silly horror concept, from the idea that there’s some kind of cyber weapon that could actually cause people to go insane as in the book, to other technological thought experiments and conspiracy theories that can cause people to extreme actions. The book itself has sections in The Helmsman’s chapters that discuss some of these things, such as Roko’s Basilisk and Slender Man, and being aware of some of the very real possible consequences of online ideas makes Basilisk even scarier in some ways. Again, this does require some knowledge of these things already (for example, I think the Zizian cult stuff around Roko’s Basilisk is too recent to even be mentioned in the discussion of Roko’s Basilisk in this novel), but even just knowing that ideas on the internet can become something more primes you. In this way, the book is also similar to something like Alison Rumfitt’s Brainwyrms, another horror novel that takes the internet seriously.
From seeing some early reviews before I started reading, I expected Basilisk to be difficult to read and impenetrable (ironic given that Alex and Jay are penetration testers), but it turned out to be a readable, slow burn descent into what is apparently a purposeful madness. Maybe I’m just really the right person for this book, but I had a great time with it, and if you have any interest in the intersection between horror and technology, especially in terms of the transmission of the horror ‘threat’, then Basilisk is fun, dark, and has a satisfying enough ending despite feeling like a book that could perhaps never end in a way that really brings it all together.
Thirst Trap is a novel about three friends in Belfast turning thirty in the wake of their friend’s death and facing up to the reality of their lives. Maggie, Harley, and Róise live together in a crumbling rented house, with one room still empty after their friend Lydia’s death. They’ve all been coping in different ways, still clinging on to the drinking and nights out of their twenties, and not talking about the events before Lydia’s death. As things start to unravel, they must see if their friendship can survive into the next decade.
Moving focus between all three of the friends, this book does very well to tell the story of their friendship at this moment and in the past, not making any of them seem like the protagonist. This energy stops the book from being similar to other ‘young millennial women falling apart’ novels that become a depressing spiral without saying much, because instead it can focus on friendship and grief and not very healthy relationships both with people and with drugs and alcohol, as seen through the lens of three different people. There’s not a huge amount of plot in terms of dramatic events (other than some collapsing stairs), but the story follows them facing up to the fact that they might not all want the exact same thing at that moment, but are also united in their friendship. At times, you can hardly see why they are friends, but that is also what it is about: turning thirty and seeing how different people can be, but also who you still want to be close to regardless.
I liked that the characters weren’t all straight and looking for a settled down relationship with a man, but instead didn’t have much direction and were looking for the smaller things that would give them purpose (especially against the backdrop of people from school and uni all with babies). Maggie, who is a lesbian, gets a few elements of queer girl problems, like knowing most of the people on dating apps already, and these kinds of details made it feel more real, rather than about unrealistic young women as some of these books can be.
Overall, Thirst Trap is a sad and funny look at people who are on the brink of realising they need to grow up a bit, but also are trapped with each other and their shared grief. It feels like the sort of book people might say is for fans of Sally Rooney, but is actually for people who wish Sally Rooney’s books were a bit more realistic and messy.
Great Black Hope is a novel about a well-off Black man living in New York City who is arrested for possessing cocaine in the aftermath of his roommate’s death. Smith is always looking for the next party, previously with his friend Elle whose recent death has shocked him and their circle of friends and acquaintances. When he’s arrested in the Hamptons, he suddenly sees a different side to the system, as well as the position he holds as a Black man who is also a graduate and from a well-off family.
This book dives deep into the world of the protagonist, Smith, and his life as a young queer Black man in New York City, surrounded by the potential for downward spiral amongst the great expectations for his life, and others living in similar circumstances. At a simple level, it explores race and class, and how they both impact each other when it comes to how people are treated and exist in the world. There’s also New York City nightlife and the stark reality of the court system in the US, there’s addiction and sobriety and what we do and don’t do for our friends. I liked how Franklin builds up this picture of Smith’s social circle, feeling like an updated version of 80s and 90s stories centred around New York City parties and restaurants, but also people and communities outside of this, and how Smith’s world in New York is only one snapshot.
There’s not that much of a narrative to this book, despite elements of mystery and investigations, and it feels far more focused on character and vibe, which is does well. Great Black Hope is an updated version of the New York City party novel, in which intersections of race and class are explored to consider who can progress up and who can be in a downward spiral.
Immaculate Conception is a novel about envy, connection, and art, as two friends end up with a new way to share traumatic experiences. Enka is an art student looking for original ideas, and Mathilde is the bright star in the class, already with art world buzz around her. They become close friends, but as Mathilde gets more famous and Enka falls behind thanks to an AI tool disrupting their art school’s work, their friendship feels different to Enka, more desperate. And then, as she marries and has access to her billionaire husband’s company and their futuristic technology, there’s a way for Enka to inhabit Mathilde’s mind, absorbing her trauma but also creating work as her.
The follow-up to Natural Beauty, Immaculate Conception is a novel similarly weaving together horror with dystopian technological elements and ideas about humanity and self, but this time, Huang focuses on the art world and what authorship and originality mean. The novel is told in different sections, with the first section moving between the past and present, and it actually spans longer than I expected, not telling the reader everything (especially as it is from Enka’s perspective).
There’s a lot of technological ideas in there, not only the mind-sharing technology that forms some of the main plot and also ideas about cloning, but also the AI art generator that is the catalyst for a lot of Enka’s feelings and desperation. I like how Huang takes ideas about AI art and uses these to think about the human side, particularly in terms of artists looking to find work that still has value and the messy feelings of jealousy when someone else has that. Generally, this focus on the impact on individual characters of the technology in the novel makes it feel more than a story about dystopian technological change, and that makes it more engaging in my opinion.
Though the book has been described as horror, it much less horror-like than Huang’s previous novel Natural Beauty, and is more of a sci-fi-tinged exploration of art and envy that doesn’t go as dark as Natural Beauty. I like how it addresses AI generation and human-technology integration whilst also telling a story about a woman making questionable choices due to her own insecurities and fears.
Carnivore is a book about a desperate plot by a New York restauranteur to make the money he owes, by catering for an elite dining club looking for something unprecedented. Kash’s exotic meat restaurant caused him to become embroiled with loan shark Boris and now Kash needs to pay up. When he has the chance to impress uber rich Victor, who happens to be part of a secret billionaire dining club, Kash formulates a plan to offer Victor something to impress his billionaire club, taking gruesome inspiration.
This thriller isn’t for the squeamish, but for those who aren’t, it’s a fun take on the ‘character in debt has to go to extreme lengths to escape a loan shark’ story that also plays with ideas of fine dining and the New York restaurant scene. Despite being a thriller, the book has a fairly slow pace, with a lot of flashbacks to Kash growing up in Bangladesh, and it explores the world of immigrants in the USA as well as the main thriller plotline. The ending is much faster, perhaps a bit too fast and without fully addressing all of the threat and tension that came before, but regardless it does follow through on what it sets up as the main narrative. One interesting point is that, in my (vegetarian) opinion, the descriptions of the meat aren’t quite as luscious and visceral as some other novels centred around food, which means the reader isn’t quite as drawn into the meal and its “unprecedented” conclusion (which may be a good or a bad thing).
I had fun with this novel, which you can easily imagine adapted into a film, and the current interest in media around restaurants and high end food hopefully means that the right audience will find it. If you like crime thrillers that are a bit deeper and with a satirical side, Carnivore is an enjoyable ride.
Sunstruck is a novel about class, race, and power, as a young man enters the world of a privileged family. Our unnamed narrator, of mixed White British and Black Caribbean heritage, goes to stay in France with his White friend from university, Lily, and her family, including her enticing brother Felix. Whilst there, he grows closer to Felix, and his desire seems to be reciprocated, as the family gears up for a big party. And then, months later in London, he tries to navigate his new relationship with Felix and with others in his life, pulled in different directions and by different allegiances.
This debut novel takes the ‘outsider enters the world of a privileged family’ novel and explores some of the power dynamics within it, particularly around race and sexuality as well as money and connections. The first half of the novel is set in a big French house where the unnamed narrator visits the family, and contains a lot of what you’d expect: simmering desire, secrets, and the narrator not necessarily understanding everything going on. Then, the book suddenly moves to part two, which is set in London and follows him as he and Felix navigate having a half-secret relationship with increasing arguments and tension. Alongside this, there’s his increasingly ill grandmother back in Bury and feeling torn between one White posh family and his Black friends and their activism and art.
There’s a lot packed in—there’s also a Black Conservative MP who keeps popping up, the narrator’s childhood with a mentally ill mother, and the side characters all have plotlines as well—making it feel rich and varied, though a few elements don’t necessarily get enough space (for example, there’s multiple examples of the narrator not being able to support people after sexual assault and not knowing what to do, which could’ve been explored a bit more). Overall, this is a gripping novel perfect if you enjoy this kind of ‘outsider in a privileged world’ story.
Vanishing World is the new novel by Sayaka Murata, exploring a world in which family, love, sex, and parenting have changed. Amane grows up feeling like an outsider because her parents actually fell in love and conceived her, rather than everyone else who were conceived by artificial insemination and brought up by parents in “clean” marriages that made them a family. Romantic love is for outside of the family, either with real life people or fictional characters, and sex becomes less and less common. Amane grows up, has both real life and character lovers, and finds a husband in the societally acceptable way, but then her husband wants to move to Experiment City, where they are trialling a new utopian idea where all children are raised equally and people are inseminated simultaneously, so that he might carry a child using a new artificial womb.
After Earthlings, it isn’t surprising that this book is weird, pushing different ideas about love, sex, and family to various limits to explore convention and how easily things can change. The story itself is simple, following Amane as she grows up, tests what love and sex mean to her, and then ultimately ends up in Experiment City seeing a very different version of society. There’s a lot of interesting things about the world Murata has created (indeed, both worlds), from the obsession with the heterosexual nuclear family and the “uncleanliness” of sex going hand in hand in the ordinary world to the extreme off getting rid of family as well, but still revering the idea of bearing children. Fears about birth rates mix with conservative ideas around sex, showing how these things come into conflict even in a space in which people want to believe both, and generally this book feels like it might read quite different in and outside of Japan.
I’d say the start and the end are perhaps most impactful, and also the parts most likely to put people off, with the middle being slower and more conventional. Like with Earthlings, the ending ramps up the weirdness, pushing some its ideas to the limits whilst not coming to any kinds of conclusions. Vanishing World is the sort of book that throws a lot of ideas at you, and I think for some people those ideas might unsettle, for others they won’t really go far enough to say anything, and then there’s people who already live outside of some of the conventions explored through these ideas, for whom it can feel like a quaint novelty (such as queer people, who are explicitly not part of the world of the novel in which marriage still must be between a man and a woman even when artificial insemination is the norm). The novel itself was a gripping read, but I think ideas-wise it sometimes gets lost, almost encouraging people to have the kinds of disgust that also seem to be satirised through the characters.
Fiendfully Reading 
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