Herculine is Coming
Pre-order links, tour details, blurbs, and more.
So it begins. My debut novel Herculine is out in less than two months. I’m excited to share the pre-order link with you once again and let you know I may be in a city near you this fall. You can pre-order the book through Simon and Schuster, Bookshop, your local bookstore, or through one of the book tour stops below. Some press coverage has already started in order to frame the book, which is amazing. We got a rave, starred review from Publisher’s Weekly. There will probably be at least a few more events down the pipeline, but for now, save the date. More soon.
NYC, The Strand with Torrey Peters, October 6
NYC, Book Party, Details TBA, October 9
Philadelphia, Head House Books with Sophie Lewis, October 13
Providence, Riff Riff with Ivy Rockmore, October 22
Boston, Brookline with Gretchen Felker-Martin, October 23
Seattle, Elliot Bay with Jas Keimig, October 30
Portland, Bishop and Wilde with Lydia Kiesling, November 2
Oakland, Womb House Books with Hannah Zeavin, November 4
LA, Skylight with Sarah Rose Etter, November 6
San Diego, Book Catapult with Russell Sheaffer, November 7
Chicago, Pilsen with Kate Wagner, December 15
In case you want some of your favorite’s co-signs here are the blurbs:
"Truly wonderful. While the world falls apart, reading horror is like anti-venom, a small offering of poison to counteract a greater poison that seeks to destroy you.”
—Lilly Wachowski, co-creator of The Matrix and Sense8
"Visceral and hypnotic, a novel with stars in its guts. It takes place both in the wilderness and in the new future we are trying to build."
—Patricia Lockwood, author of Priestdaddy and No One Is Talking About This
"Punchy, strange, and sneakily poignant without trying to be overly ironic, Herculine doubles both as a novel and as trans literary criticism."
—Brandon Taylor, author of Real Life
"Wildly surprising, slyly funny, and in all ways an excellent novel. Whether or not you’ve ever made a compact with a demon for the thing you wanted most, Grace Byron’s Herculine is the real deal."
—Kelly Link, author of The Book of Love
"Byron's debut is a haunting portrait of disaffected, dysfunctional adulthood and the human devastation left behind by fundamentalist Christian upbringing. On its face, Herculine is an almost prototypical novel about a young trans woman trying to make it in New York, but with each new nasty revelation, Byron pulls you deeper into a world of paranoid, self-annihilating horror."
—Gretchen Felker-Martin, author of Manhunt and Cuckoo
"Beyond the lovebombing occultists, hobnobbing freelancers, and God-haunted transplants, Herculine is about the search for true belonging—to be accepted not for your identity or status, but for your scars. In Grace Byron's phenomenal novel of trauma, sex, and other night terrors, we see the blood price of utopia, and the sacrifices necessary for salvation."
—Tony Tulathimutte, author of Rejection
"Grace Byron's literally unforgettable Herculine pulses with surprise, intelligence, and tension. Here we have a novel of the mind and heart alike, a trans horror story of marooning and discovery that can make the reader both shudder and laugh out loud, and the arrival of a major new voice."
—Sarah Thankam Mathews, author of All This Could Be Different
"Provocative and poetic. Herculine evokes the tradition of grungy queer lit, decked out with infernal style and slick with the poison of isolation."
—Hailey Piper, author of A Game in Yellow
“I devoured Herculine—a sharp, fast-paced nightmare glittering with insight about desire, trauma, and the unique joys and disappointments of t4t intimacy. In a literary landscape long-plagued by bloodless depictions of contemporary transsexual life, Herculine splashes onto the scene sparkling red and wreathed in viscera.”
—Max Delsohn, author of Crawl
"Note perfect, not a line or scene out of place. Nothing belabored or overstated. Atmospherically dense and absorbing. Very funny. Hot. Terrifying, powerful."
—Anahid Nersessian, author of Keat's Odes: A Lover's Discourse
“A brilliant addition to the growing genre of trans horror…a piercing portrait of trans community and solidarity. The author brings enough humor to the proceedings to prevent the horror from becoming too all-consuming while keeping the pages flying with a thrilling plot and a moving examination of loneliness, desire, and hope in the wake of trauma. Byron proves an exciting new voice in horror fiction.”
—Publishers Weekly, starred review
On the new Patricia Lockwood for The New Republic.
For Paris Review on horseshoe crabs.
Princess Idiot, short story at R&R.