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3.5 

The Luminous Dead

By Caitlin Starling
The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling digital book - Fable

Publisher Description

Bram Stoker Award nominee for Best First Novel!

"This claustrophobic, horror-leaning tour de force is highly recommended for fans of Jeff VanderMeer’s Annihilation and Andy Weir’s The Martian." -- Publishers Weekly (starred review)

The thrilling, atmospheric debut from the author of The Death of Jane Lawrence, a novel with the intensive drive of The Martian and Gravity and the creeping dread of Annihilation, in which a caver on a foreign planet finds herself on a terrifying psychological and emotional journey for survival.


When Gyre Price lied her way into this expedition, she thought she’d be mapping mineral deposits, and that her biggest problems would be cave collapses and gear malfunctions. She also thought that the fat paycheck—enough to get her off-planet and on the trail of her mother—meant she’d get a skilled surface team, monitoring her suit and environment, keeping her safe. Keeping her sane.

Instead, she got Em.

Em sees nothing wrong with controlling Gyre’s body with drugs or withholding critical information to “ensure the smooth operation” of her expedition. Em knows all about Gyre’s falsified credentials, and has no qualms using them as a leash—and a lash. And Em has secrets, too . . .

As Gyre descends, little inconsistencies—missing supplies, unexpected changes in the route, and, worst of all, shifts in Em’s motivations—drive her out of her depths. Lost and disoriented, Gyre finds her sense of control giving way to paranoia and anger. On her own in this mysterious, deadly place, surrounded by darkness and the unknown, Gyre must overcome more than just the dangerous terrain and the Tunneler which calls underground its home if she wants to make it out alive—she must confront the ghosts in her own head.

But how come she can’t shake the feeling she’s being followed?

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1475 Reviews

3.5
“i stared at the wall for five minutes after that ending. my god, what a horrific, incredibly claustrophobic detailing of how rotten it is to be human. "to be made of flesh was humiliating." indeed. this was unnerving. it was slow, and it was engulfing, and it was like a shock injection driven right into my bloodstream at a point in the story when i could swear i was almost indifferent to either of the characters' plights. i did not care about them, and then i did, all at once, and for that - i could not stop until something was resolved. i was desperate for that resolution, selfishly desperate. i did not know that it would leave me this hollow.”
“A sapphic horror novel (no spice !) about two women who both mourn the mothers they never could have. I really liked the unsettling ambience of this book. I read this hoping it would remind me of the movie “The Descent,” which it definitely didn’t have the same vibe. This book was good. I liked the writing, the horror, and the sci-fi aspects of the book. I wish I could have loved the characters more by the end.”

About Caitlin Starling

Caitlin Starling is the nationally bestselling author of The Death of Jane Lawrence and the Bram Stoker-nominated The Luminous Dead. Her newest novels, The Starving Saints and The Graceview Patient, epitomize her love of genre-hopping horror; her bibliography spans besieged castles, alien caves, and haunted hospitals. Her short fiction has been published by GrimDark Magazine and Neon Hemlock, and her nonfiction has appeared in Nightmare, Uncanny, and Nightfire. Caitlin also works in narrative design, and has been paid to invent body parts. She’s always on the lookout for new ways to inflict insomnia.

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