fpcat99 's review for:

Black Flame by Gretchen Felker-Martin
3.75
challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes
Thank you to Tor Publishing Group for the Advanced Reader Copy of Black Flame.

I highly encourage readers to check trigger warnings before diving into this novel. Black Flame is unapologetically disturbing, visceral, and violent, and portrays one woman's journey into obsession and psychological decay for those willing to brave it.

Gretchen Felker-Martin’s novel pulls readers into the crumbling world of Ellen, a closeted lesbian and film restorer at the struggling Path Foundation. When a group of German academics brings Ellen a film previously lost and damaged during the Holocaust, Ellen’s life begins to disintegrate at the edges. As she restores the film and witnesses its graphic depictions of occult rituals and queer debauchery, the line between fiction and her reality blurs, as something monstrous is unleashed within and around her.

Felker-Martin pulls no punches with this novel. The body horror is graphic and relentless and the psychological horror will have you checking the corners of your room. Ellen herself is a brilliantly messy and deeply human protagonist, and her desires, fears, shame, and impulses are portrayed unflinchingly. 

I appreciate Felker-Martin’s explicit pro-Palestine stance in her acknowledgments; it serves as a reminder that horror, and all literature, does not exist in a vacuum. Felker-Martin’s work here is deeply political in many ways both overt and subtle, and her solidarity with many marginalized groups shines through.

Black Flame is a raw, graphic, and haunting exploration of repression, queerness, and horror at its most visceral. If you can stomach it, Black Flame is unforgettable, it will crawl under your skin and stay there.


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