Moonflow

Karella debuts with a hilarious psychedelic orgy of a novel that drips with the kind of pulp nastiness that makes the cheap horror paperbacks of the past so memorable, but updates the aesthetic with a refreshing heroine and a powerful exploration of transmisogyny within queer spaces. Sarah is a broke trans woman growing and selling shrooms to pay her rent. A wealthy client pays her to go into the notoriously dangerous Pamogo Woods to hunt down the King’s Breakfast, a powerful hallucinogenic that, when Sarah tries it, gives her visions of a goddess she immediately yearns to meet. But when Sarah and her irritatingly earnest guide venture into the darkened woods, they discover something far more sinister than fungi waiting for them. Karella makes the duo’s journey gory and weird enough to satisfy any horror fan, but the real triumph of the book is its wonderfully realized trans heroine. Sarah is smart, funny, and flawed, allowing Karella to organically explore larger ideas about gender and sexuality without losing the irreverent and often comic tone. The result is a strange, sublime truffle that will delight any discerning appetite. Agent: John Baker, Bell Lomax Moreton. (Sept.)