October is here at last, and with it comes my annual dive into spooky reads. It doesn’t quite feel like fall in South Texas yet—the summer heat still hasn’t gotten the memo—but I’m determined to will the season into existence. Horror is a genre I enjoy all year, but when October arrives, my reading appetite shifts into overdrive. That’s why I was thrilled when the kind folks at Macmillan Audio sent me a copy of Sarah Gailey’s latest novel, Spread Me. It turned out to be the perfect book to kick off my spooky season.
Kinsey has been content leading a team of researchers at a remote desert outpost, far removed from the pull of civilization. For her, isolation is freedom, a life stripped of distraction and temptation. But everything changes when the team uncovers a strange specimen buried beneath the sand. Against protocol, Kinsey breaks quarantine to bring it into the facility. From that moment on, her carefully ordered world begins to fracture. The specimen exerts a pull she can’t explain, and the temptations she thought she’d left behind return with a force that can’t be ignored.
Spread Me finds Sarah Gailey leaning into body horror, temptation, and a strain of strange eroticism. At times, it reminded me of the film Splice, where a scientist develops an unhealthy attachment to their creation. The story can be cringe-inducing, silly, and even a bit over the top—but I couldn’t stop listening. Gailey writes with an urgency as infectious as the viral specimen at the heart of the novel. Is this highbrow, intellectual horror? Not at all. But it never pretends to be. Spread Me is pulpy, B-movie–esque horror that managed to both entertain and repulse me, which feels like the perfect way to kick off a month of spooky reads.
For more information, visit the author's website, Amazon, and Goodreads.
(2025, 76)
Entertained and repulsed is really wild emotions to have in one book. Sounds interesting.
ReplyDeleteRight? It's pure, B-movie material, and that's totally okay with me.
DeletePulpy bhorror. Sure why not. It is October after all
ReplyDeleteWhen in Rome...or October haha
DeleteHappy spooky season! I'm a big body horror fan. I've been collecting body horror for my PhD proposal, actually, so might need to check this one out...
ReplyDeleteThat's a great PhD subject! Definitely check out Girl in the Creek, too.
DeleteIt is a good book for October. Probably a little too repulsive for me, though I do always enjoy some good horror stories this time of year. And also haunted houses and ghosts. :D
ReplyDeleteThis one definitely 'goes there' in multiple ways, so I'd be careful with it.
DeleteThis does sound like a B-movie type of horror story, but those can be a lot of fun! Hope you get some cooler fall-like weather your way!
ReplyDeleteIt's still much too hot here, but I'm reading all the spooky books that I can!
DeleteI'll probably skip this one but I hear you about the weather. October used to mean hoodie weather, but we are still in the 80s. Not even cool enough in the evenings for hoodies. Ugh.
ReplyDeleteI'd kill for the 80s! Its upper 90s still here
DeleteI just learned a new thing - body horror. Glad you are finding great reads for spooky month.
ReplyDeleteIt's one of the more unappealing subgenres, in my opinion.
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