Books
‘A Game in Yellow’ Review – Hailey Piper’s Cosmic Horror Book Is Sensual and Immersive
The cover of Hailey Piper’s A Game in Yellow features a woman in profile from the chest up, bent over…and melting. It’s an apt visual for the cosmic horror contained within the pages of the prolific Bram Stoker award-winning author’s latest novel, which is all about the collapse of boundaries – both personal and textual.
The protagonist is Carmen, a middle-aged woman working a non-descript office job that she doesn’t care about. What she does care about is her girlfriend, Blanca, who she fears is drifting away because of their issues in the bedroom. Carmen is desperate to keep Blanca engaged and satisfied, which has led to the couple pushing the boundaries of their kink from mild S&M into increasingly explicit fantasy/roleplay territory.
One night Blanca takes Carmen to visit Smoke, a young, hot, enigmatic woman who offers Carmen a fleeting glimpse of a play called ‘The King In Yellow.’ Set in a mysterious fantasy-adjacent world during a masquerade ball, the play has an immediate visceral effect on Carmen, re-energizing her sex life with Blanca in exciting and satisfying ways.
Like all good horror stories, however, there are side effects and consequences. ‘The King In Yellow’ has both addictive and mind-altering qualities: Smoke warns that no one is ever permitted to read more than a passage because the text has been known to drive its readers insane. But its impact is so immediate that Carmen begins to rely on it like a drug; she begins to seek out opportunities to read it again in order to recreate its effects.
There’s also a mystery at hand, such as where did the original text come from? Why does Smoke only have Act II of the play? And are the vivid, often lucid hallucinations that begin to dominate Carmen’s life actually happening?
The more Carmen reads, the more she begins to lose her sense of what is real and what is fantasy. As her world and the narrative of the play begin to blur together, the threat to Carmen and the people in her life escalates dramatically. Consuming ‘The King in Yellow’ may cost Carmen everything, including her life and maybe even her world.
The single best thing about A Game in Yellow is Piper’s prose: it has an almost lyrical component that is incredibly rich and evocative. The book feels uncomfortably immersive (complimentary), almost as if the reader is drowning alongside Carmen as she becomes more and more unmoored.
It’s a testament to Piper’s writing that even when the narrative hits familiar beats, A Game in Yellow remains a compelling and propulsive read. At around 270 pages, it’s extremely well-paced – in no small part because once Carmen begins to read the play, the outcome feels inevitable, which gives the book a certain nihilistic tone.
Even if the ending feels unavoidable, however, Piper keeps us trapped within the maelstrom by making us complicit in Carmen’s actions. This is achieved by filling the text with whole passages of the actual text of ‘A King in Yellow.’ Some readers may struggle with the change in format, but as the book progresses, it becomes evident that these passages are instrumental for advancing the narrative.
And then there is the queerness. One of the most refreshing elements of the book, in addition to its gorgeous language, is how unapologetically queer it is. Carmen is a sexually active woman and the passages describing her sex with Blanca are frank and candid. Is it provocative and occasionally confronting? At times, yes, but Carmen’s sex life is interwoven into the fabric of her character, as well as the larger plot of the novel.
Like Clive Barker, whose six volume ‘Books of Blood’ feels like this book’s spiritual predecessor, Piper understands that sex is a vital part of adult life. Much like the excerpts from the play, A Game in Yellow uses sex to inform both character actions and advance the story. After all, sexuality is a driving factor in most, if not all, of Carmen’s motivations.
Ultimately Piper has crafted something that’s lyrical, sensual, and unsettling. A Game in Yellow has morally complex characters, as well as vivid (hallucinatory) body and cosmic horror. It’s bold and uncompromising, and also just a damn fine read, especially if – like me – you’ve been missing that old school Clive Barker prose.
A Game in Yellow is available August 12 from Saga Press.
Books
Urban Legends, Serial Killers, and Space Epics: 10 Horror Books We Can’t Wait to Read This June
We have entered summer reading season.
Schools are emptying, beaches are filling, and it’s a great time to pack a tote full of brand-new books and get some reading done in the shade. But even if the sun is bright, your fiction can still be dark, because June is absolutely packed with great new horror releases from rising stars and genre icons.
From a Psycho retelling to a dark twist on Peter Pan lore to a new book from a Pulitzer Prize winner, these are the horror titles we can’t wait to crack open this June.
The Children by Melissa Albert – June 2
A blend of dark fantasy, Gothic family saga, and horror novel that’s received rave reviews from Stephen King and more, The Children follows the adult children of a legendary fantasy author who died when a fire consumed their home. Now, living their own creative lives, Guinevere and Ennis must revisit the secrets from the night of the fire, the darkness surrounding Ennis’s new art installation, and the truth of their family legacy in both fact and fiction. It sounds like a wonderful twisted nest of secrets and magic, and I’m eager to dive in.
Marion by Leah Rowan – June 2
Just when you thought we’d run out of interesting ways to riff on Robert Bloch and Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, Leah Rowan comes along with Marion. As the title suggests, it’s the story of the Bates Motel’s most famous victim, but this time, she doesn’t die in the shower. She takes control of the knife and the narrative in this daring retelling of a proto-slasher classic. The story we know is just the beginning, and I can’t wait to find out the end.
Headlights by CJ Leede – June 9
Through her first two novels, Maeve Fly and American Rapture, CJ Leede emerged as one of the most exciting new horror voices of the 2020s, and she’s just getting warmed up. Leede’s third novel follows an FBI agent on the brink of retirement, running from his past and from the unsolved case that haunts him most, as he’s slowly pulled back into a gruesome serial killer narrative. Victims start turning up again, wearing someone else’s skin like a cape, with no memory of how they got that way, or how they got a lone strand of unidentified hair tied around their tongue. Both a riff on The Shining and a journey into the dark Colorado night, Headlights is one of the year’s most exciting horror lit events.
It Came From Neverland by Cynthia Pelayo – June 9
Cynthia Pelayo‘s novels have always felt like dark fairy tales, and with her latest, she’s taking things into the realm of one of the most famous children’s stories ever. It Came From Neverland follows a version of Wendy Darling who, while working as a schoolteacher and as an aid to rehabilitate World War I soldiers, finds old fears returning when a student goes missing. It seems that an entity Wendy knows only as “Peter Pan” is back on the prowl, and unlocking her memories might be the only way to stop it. That’s right, it’s a dark Peter Pan retelling as only Pelayo can do it, and you know you want a piece of that.
The Other by Annie Neugebauer – June 9
Annie Neugebauer’s The Extra ranks as one of the most clever and frightening horror novellas in recent memory, but that was only the beginning. This June, Neugebauer returns with the next book in what’s been dubbed “The Outsiders Sequence.” This time, Neugebauer’s strange world of doppelgangers and mimics turns to a couple on a hike who run into their exact duplicates, setting off a chain of events that will test their understanding of each other in terrifying ways. Neugebauer’s one of horror’s finest rising stars right now, so if you haven’t jumped on board The Outsiders Sequence yet, pick up The Extra and get ready for The Other.
Marla by Jonathan Janz – August 18 (Editor’s update: Release has now shifted from initial June 23 publication date)
Speaking of rising stars in the horror world, we’ve got Jonathan Janz, whose work has hit another level in recent years thanks to work like Children of the Dark and Veil. Now he’s back with Marla, the story of a local woman surrounded by urban legend, and her possible connection to a string of crimes in the community of King’s Branch. Is Marla a witch, a killer, a victim, a helpless child? We’ll have to read and find out in what feels like a perfect jumping-on point for new Janz readers.
The Sixth Nik by Daniel Kraus – June 23
Daniel Kraus has long been a favorite among genre readers, but thanks to his recent Pulitzer Prize win for his brilliant novel Angel Down, he’s more visible than ever, and all that visibility comes as he’s about to unleash a space epic with all the hallmarks of epic sci-fi and horror alike. The Sixth Nik promises everything from a sentient spaceship to a rogue planet full of plague to a nine-year-old “cultist” with an enhanced brain. This is Kraus playing in a brand-new sandbox, and genre readers everywhere won’t want to miss that.
Slasher Summer by E.L. Chen – June 23
E.L. Chen‘s latest novel is described as a love letter to ’80s slasher films, and anyone who’s taken a dive into the meta-horror of Scream or My Heart is a Chainsaw will want to sit up and take notice. The book follows a group of friends who grew up in a town famous as the location of a slasher movie, where they frequently played the characters during midnight shows. As adults, they return to their hometown, and to the location of the slasher movie, only to find that someone’s out to get them, someone wearing a very familiar mask. This sounds like a blast, and the latest in an ever-growing strand of slasher novels reinventing the genre on the page.
Dead But Dreaming of Electric Sheep by Paul Tremblay – June 30
Modern horror master Paul Tremblay‘s latest novel sounds like his most ambitious yet, and that’s really saying something. Dead But Dreaming of Electric Sheep follows Julia, a former pro gamer who gets an offer she can’t refuse: For a hefty payday, she must pilot a man named “Bernie” across the country for her mother’s tech company. The catch? Bernie’s in a vegetative state, and his mobility comes from the AI chip in his head. As Julia moves Bernie’s body, Bernie’s mind moves through an unfathomable nightmare world, but where are they heading, and what’s Bernie really meant to find? Every new Paul Tremblay book is an event, and this one feels particularly special.
Red X by David Demchuk – June 30
This one’s technically a reprint, but David Demchuk’s Red X is so revered among the horror community, and particularly other horror authors, that it feels worth highlighting, especially during Pride Month. Complex and metatextual, Red X is about a series of disappearances and a demonic entity plaguing the gay community of Toronto, but it’s also an autobiographical sketch of an author navigating death, survival, queer culture, horror as a means of expression, and more. In short, it’s an essential, and this new edition, complete with fresh writing by Gretchen Felker-Martin and Anthony Oliveira, is a must-have.
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