Gay single mom Brigid always thought that cutting ties with her extremist Catholic family was the best thing she could have done for her daughter, Dylan—and for herself. But when Dylan starts having terrifying fits of unnatural violence, Brigid can’t shake her memories of a girl from her childhood who behaved the same way . . . until Brigid’s uncle, Father Angus, performed an exorcism.
Convinced that her daughter is suffering from demonic possession, Brigid does the thing she told herself she’d never do: she goes home. Father Angus is the worst person she knows, but he’s also the only person who can help her daughter.
But as Brigid starts to uncover secrets about Father Angus, that long-ago exorcism, and her family’s past, she realizes that she and Dylan have never been in more danger.
I don’t know what it really says about me that I grew up without any religion whatsoever, and yet I find religious/possession horror to be some of the absolute creepiest shit imaginable.
I touched on it briefly in my “essay” that I wrote for my review of WHY I LOVE HORROR, but as a kid, my next door neighbors were Born Again Christians. In addition to just feeling completely freaked out by the religious iconography in their house, the boy that lived there (I say “the boy” like he was some shadowy figure, as opposed to just our friend) would definitely exploit that fear in a way. I have a vivid memory of all us kids out playing one evening shortly after the death of my Great Grandfather. I believe I was in third grade at the time & while I wasn’t terribly close with my Great Grandfather, his death felt significant in a way & it was also the first funeral I had to go to (so far as I recall). Anyway, we’re all outside doing whatever kids in the late 80’s would do, when our friend looked skyward with wide open eyes & started telling my sister & I that he could see our Great Grandfather up there in heaven, rocking in his chair or some shit.
My sister & I fucking freaked out and ran home.
So religious trauma? No, not at all. But for sure I had some really unsettling feelings around religion & these thoughts of the afterlife being planted in my head by a friend.
/end long & relatively unrelated intro to the review
I was super impressed last year by Lindsay King-Miller’s queer zombie apocalypse novel THE Z WORD. It was raw & heartfelt & funny & 100% gnarly when it needed to be. So of course I was looking forward to her follow-up, THIS IS MY BODY. And this one really blew me away. It feels more personal than THE Z WORD, and the writing feels so much more self-assured. This is also a book with a highly addictive quality to it…I really struggled to put this one down at times, always craving one more chapter!
Brigid Byrne is a queer single mother living in a Colorado town called Bristlecone. She owns a metaphysical shop called Tenth Muse, selling crystals, tarot cards, candles, jewelry…Brigid isn’t much of a believer, though. In fact, her opening this store was, in many ways, her way of quietly revolting against her strict & traumatizing religious childhood.
Brigid grew up living with her Mom & her uncle, Father Angus. Not only was her upbringing excruciatingly strict (and ultimately homophobic), but Brigid bore witness to something that has haunted her into adulthood: her Uncle, performing an exorcism on a teenage girl, strapped to a bed in Brigid’s house.
When we meet Brigid, her own teenage daughter Dylan is having some…difficulties at school. Outbursts. Violent tendencies. Brigid makes some shocking discoveries in Dylan’s room that lead her to a line of thinking she doesn’t really want to consider: could Dylan be possessed?
This unfortunately leads Brigid back to her hometown, and into her Uncle Angus’s home. A place she never wanted to set foot in again.
This book is full of surprises & mysteries and as I mentioned before, it’s an absolute page-turner!
There’s also a bit of a second-chance romance subplot which I loved. Brigid gets the opportunity to reconnect with Zandy, a girl from her hometown. Zandy becomes a pretty key figure in the story, and we also get some incredible & painfully sweet flashbacks to when Brigid & Zandy first met as kids & began to have feelings for one another.
But make no mistake: romantic subplot or no, this is a full-throttle possession horror novel. Lindsay King-Miller can make your skin crawl & your stomach flip with the very best horror authors. There’s so much heart & subtle humor to her writing. And these characters are wildly complex & flawed.
Brigid, especially. Her love for Dylan is fierce & unflagging, but there are some super messy things about Brigid that can challenge the reader & make it hard to understand her motivations. Which just really underscores King-Miller’s willingness to give you a protagonist who is making it up as she goes (like all of us), and capable of doing some really problematic things.
This was so great. I think Lindsay King-Miller is an incredible writer & I’m so excited to see what she comes up with next! Many thanks to Quirk Books for sending this one my way!
Grimdark Dad 