A Game in Yellow

The masterful latest queer horror novel from Bram Stoker Award winner Piper (All the Hearts You Eat) is a surreal and complex examination of desire and control. Kinky couple Carmen and Blanca have been struggling with their sex life due to Carmen’s recent lack of arousal even in response to the most intense of BDSM scenes. Then Blanca meets an alluring woman named Smoke, who offers to loan them her copy of a mysterious play titled The King in Yellow, which has mind-altering properties. It seems to solve their problem: if Carmen reads from the book—briefly—it induces a sort of euphoria that brings her back into her body and allows for a frenzy of lust and desire. But when the effects wear off, the play’s power is seductive and addictive. Carmen wants to read more, and more, and more—but, as Smoke warns, “These pages? They read you, too.” Piper has an impressive gift for dealing in repressed memories and heightened sensations, crafting a dreamlike but still utterly absorbing page-turner. Readers will become enamored with Carmen and Blanca and hope for their relationship to survive this supernatural roller coaster. There’s lots here to sink one’s teeth into. Agent: Lane Heymont, Tobias Literary. (Aug.)