Since childhood, Margaret and Charity have been inseparable. When Charity goes missing and no one seems to care, a mysterious package arrives on Margaret’s front step. Inside is an iPhone with a text that upends Margaret’s world and provides insight into Charity’s whereabouts and perhaps who she’s been all along.

Set just outside Niagara Falls in author Nick Cutter’s hometown of St. Catherine’s Ontario, THE QUEEN is yet another unsettling, graphic, body-horror classic from the Canadian writer. Between the covers, this book goes to some truly wild places asking very little of the reader other than to sit back and marvel at the depravity of a horror writer at the top of his game. Cutter’s prose can sometimes feel like a gore-splattered car crash you just can’t turn your head from; you want to avert your eyes, but the true nature of human curiosity won’t let you. While I don’t think anything here is quite on the same level as the turtle scene in The Troop, it’s a different kind of horror that at times still left me reeling, audibly gasping “oh God”.

Although the book deals with some pretty intricate science surrounding gene manipulation, I never felt truly lost or overwhelmed by the amount of jargon (thanks to a few great analogies like you may find on the r/ELI5 subreddit). That said, it isn’t entirely four-hundred pages of carnage and sci-fi, there is also a tender coming-of-age novel in here about the power of friendship and young adults yearning for connection and understanding. People often dismiss genre-fiction, especially horror, believing that it doesn’t have anything important to say, but I would argue that those novels can be where authors can get the most introspective. Cutter does a wonderful job here digging into the awkwardness of youth, sex and the perils of personal growth.

I absolutely loved this book. Once I hit the halfway point, I powered through in a single afternoon to get to the end. If you’re a fan of Stephen King’s CARRIE, Cutter once again finds inspiration in King’s usage of mixed media much like he did with THE TROOP, expanding the scope of the novel’s true horror beyond Magaret’s POV.

Nick Cutter (or Craig Davidson) rarely disappoints me and THE QUEEN is certainly no exception.