The Queen by Nick Cutter

The cover and book are beautiful, masking the grotesquely brilliantly written story within. Select pages adorned with imagery and filled with words that will continue to haunt me for a very long time. Reading the hard cover, the sleeve is multi-dimensional, giving that gritty feeling to my fingertips that make me shiver – alluding to the plot that is gruesome and striking.

Beautifully written, Cutter was able to put together a plot that made me wish no one ever thought of such a thing and hopefully is not inspired to. The prologue brings the reader immediately into a situation of nightmares, filling a mind with fantastic scenarios one would want to immediately pinch themselves awake from. Starting in the future, and then followed by chapter several hours in the past was a clever tactic. Reminiscent of 13 Reasons Why, as acknowledged in the back of the book, Cutter’s main character, Cherry, is pulled out of her misery by a strange delivery and even more bizarre text.

Cutter was able to put together a plot that made me wish no one ever thought of such a thing and hopefully is not inspired to.

If you are having a bad day, one chapter of this novel will change your perspective and ensure you realize whatever you’re going through could be a hell of a lot worse.

Seventeen-year-old Cherry has been missing a lot of school, life and more as she mourns the alleged loss of her friend who she trusts is only missing. Grief is a strange monster in itself, high school a beast of thing to get through and, she soon learns, the monster in her bed is the worst creature of all. An adventure of epic hauntings, the reader is thrust into possibilities no one should ever even dip their toes into while being wrapped in everyday chaos of high school years, popularity contests and that horrible idea that a person’s value is based on their financial worth.

If you are having a bad day, one chapter of this novel will change your perspective and ensure you realize whatever you’re going through could be a hell of a lot worse.

Will I read another book by Nick Cutter – heck yes. Will I clench my jaw and white-knuckle my way through it – hell yes!

Nick Cutter is the author of the critically acclaimed national bestseller The Troop (which is currently being developed for film with producer James Wan), The Deep, Little Heaven, The Queen, and The Handyman Method, cowritten with Andrew F. Sullivan. Nick Cutter is the pseudonym for Craig Davidson, whose much-lauded literary fiction includes Rust and Bone, The Saturday Night Ghost Club, and, most recently, the short story collection Cascade. His story “Medium Tough” was selected by author Jennifer Egan for The Best American Short Stories 2014. He lives in Toronto, Canada.

Publisher: Gallery Books (October 29, 2024)
Hardcover: 9″ x 6″ | 384 pages
ISBN: 9781668020975

Sarah Butland

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I am a struggling artist, a challenging and challenged mother who always thinks she is failing, an emerging freelance writer and reporter, an author with my name on several books crossing genres and always hoping to find more readers who enjoy them.

I am also a successful artist, a wonderful and thriving mother of one, a reacher towards both people and dreams despite all of the turned backs and obstacles in my way. I am a thriving freelance writer and reporter, an author loved by enough readers to make it worthwhile and a discombobulated conundrum who loves to hear new music, tell new tales and meet new authors. And I’m doing something I always dreamed of doing – reviewing books to support others as well as myself and my family.