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A Hemorrhage of Us
By Roslyn Reed
A Hemorrhage of Us is a unique horrormance featuring Indigenous Eldritch gods, the Appalachian wilderness and a small town where something isn’t right.
This is a villain origin story, full of spice and blood and HEART.
Reed has a rare disease, Epidermolysis Bullosa, which she shares with her FMC, Rayne. This is a very honest account of how carefully affected people have to live, how the simplest things can result in a horrible blistering and bandaging process and nasty scars. She goes into daily pain level on good days vs bad and the dysmorphia about the permanent scarring — and the way other people act like you’re contagious and avoid you or bully you.
To add to this, our FMC is an Indigenous and Black woman in a predominantly white town. She has always been alone, othered, even by those who should love her most like her own family.
It shouldn’t be surprising, then, that when she finds love and friendship in the form of Hawthorne, a vaguely wolfish shadow monster/God, she leaps at the chance to finally be understood.
This is a book told in three parts, each more compelling than the last. Rayne and Hawthorne’s adventures are strange, bloody, and often murderous, yet somehow despite it all you find yourself rooting for them anyway.
I LOVED how part three got into the lore about the gods and spirits and took us on a completely otherworldly adventure I didn’t see coming.
I also thought the epilogue was the perfect touch.
This book is honest, horrifying, and strangely beautiful. Reed’s descriptions were often so real I felt like I was there alongside the characters, wincing along with their pain and awestruck by it all.
I still have questions about the house, though!
A Hemorrhage of Us is not for the squeamish, but if you like Indigenous or folk horror and dark paranormal romance, I definitely recommend it.
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A Hemorrhage of Us is available in ebook or paperback on Amazon/Kindle.
The Midnight Review 