One woman's deadly obsession with a haunted archival film precipitates her undoing in Black Flame, from Gretchen Felker-Martin author of the USA Today bestseller, Cuckoo.

Ellen, a deeply closeted lesbian spends all her time in solitude, restoring films at a failing archive in 1980s New York City.

When a group of German academics present her with a print of an infamous exploitation film believed to have been destroyed during the Holocaust, Ellen finds herself forced to confront her own repressed sexuality. And the more she works on the restoration, the more obsessed she becomes with its depictions of occult practices and queer debauchery.

She’s soon convinced that the depraved acts portrayed in the film are not fiction, but reality.

And that they’re happening to her.

Also by Gretchen Felker-Martin:

Manhunt

Cuckoo

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.



Praise for this book

Praise for Cuckoo

AN INSTANT USA TODAY BESTSELLER



"Cuckoo is, like Felker-Martin's previous novel Manhunt, absolutely masterful. It is gory and horrifying and brash. It is a parable slicked with blood and viscera. It is a condemnation of the ways the world tries to force queer people to become shadows of themselves by abandoning who they are. This book will leave you gasping and yearning, and it will stay on your mind long after you turn the last page."

—ROXANE GAY, New York Times bestselling author of The Bad Feminist

"Cuckoo is a breathtaking novel of body horror; a heartbreaking, angry, terrifying, unflinching indictment of Christian America's cruelty; and it's a soaring, boundless ode to queer survival. It's flat-out mesmerizing."

—PAUL TREMBLAY, author of The Pallbearers Club

"Cuckoo is a cry of grief and rage and, at its heart, a tribute to the queers who cup their hands around the guttering flame of hope and refuse to let it die. Brutal, relentless, terrifying, startlingly beautiful—I dare you to put this novel down.”

—CARMEN MARIA MACHADO, author of Her Body and Other Parties

"Beyond being just a really fucking good horror novel, Cuckoo is monumentally important. Felker-Martin wrote a gut-twisting banger of a book that makes fleshy the anti-trans movement."

—CHELSEA G. SUMMERS, author ofA Certain Hunger

“Tense and frighteningly visceral, Cuckoo is a masterwork of body horror thrumming with the high octane viciousness of a Richard Laymon novel while maintaining the literary sophistication of a piece penned by Clive Barker or Poppy Z. Brite.”

—ERIC LAROCCA, author of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke

“Vividly gruesome and carefully observed, Cuckoo will be splattered across the inside of your skull long after you’ve set it down. Beneath the viscera and relentless prose, a vital heart beats within.”

—ANDREW F. SULLIVAN, author of The Marigold

"An instantly absorbing battle cry. Felker-Martin nests seamless psychic links with Lisa Tuttle and Stephen King, forming her unique nightmarish bear trap and fighting it with sustained, justified rage. Through all of Cuckoo's visceral brutality, it's the moments of kindness and bravery that broke my heart."

—HAILEY PIPER, Bram Stoker Award-winning author ofQueen of Teeth

"Cuckoo is vile, repulsive, putrid, and utterly without restraint—a relentless assault on the senses. I devoured every word, and they devoured me. Filthy, degenerate art at its finest."

—HIRON ENNES, author of Leech

"This vivid, unsettling, character-rich novel grabs you by the throat and won't let go."

—LUCY A. SNYDER, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Sister, Maiden, Monster

"Cuckoo is a nest of guts so red and inviting you'll find yourself slurping out of it like pasta before you know what's in your mouth. No other author can make the beautiful so grotesque, nor the grotesque so beautiful."

—MEG ELISON, author of Number One Fan

“I’ve been waiting impatiently for Felker-Martin’s next book since the millisecond I put down Manhunt and I wasn’t disappointed. Cuckoo is equal parts intensely tender and turbulently gross. Well-observed, enthrallingly paced, and downright brutal exactly where it needs to be.”

—MATTIE LUBCHANSKY, author of Boys Weekend

"Cuckoo is the gory, gooey, visceral horror story our present moment demands. It's an exploration of survival and loss in the teeth of interlocking material systems of violence like transphobia, homophobia, and racism. And it's also a radically queer homage to—or reimagining of!—some much-beloved genre classics, likeInvasion of the Body Snatchers."

—LEE MANDELO, author of Summer Sons



Praise for Manhunt

#1 Best Book of 2022 (Vulture) • A Best Horror Novel of All Time (Cosmopolitan) • One of the Best Horror Novels of 2022 (Esquire, Library Journal, Paste, and CrimeReads) • A Top 10 Horror Debuts of 2022 (Booklist) • A Goodreads Choice Award nominee for Best Horror • A Best Book of 2022 (Reactor) • A Best SFF Book of 2022 (Gizmodo)




About the AuthorGRETCHEN FELKER-MARTIN is a Massachusetts-based bestselling horror author and film critic. Her debut novel, Manhunt, was named the #1 Best Book of 2022 by Vulture, and was one of the Best Horror Novels of 2022 by Esquire, Library Journal, and Paste. Her sophomore novel, Cuckoo, debuted on the USA Today bestseller list. You can read her fiction and film criticism on Patreon and in TIME, The Outline, Nylon, and more.
Title: Black Flame
Author(s): Gretchen Felker-Martin
ISBN: 9781250348029
Copyright 2025
Release Date: August 05, 2025
Publisher: Tor Publishing Group
Countries: United States, Canada | Learn more about available countries
Language: English
Format: None available | Learn More about our supported formats
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