Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of The Queen.

I've read a book by the author before and though I like his premises, the execution leaves something to be desired, in my opinion.

If you have entomophobia, the fear of insects, DO NOT read this book.

This is bug and body horror at its finest; its gross, it's gut churning, it's body splitting, it's all that and more.

Sadly, I didn't enjoy this book for the following:

1. The narrative reads like it starts in the middle, when stuff has already happened; kids are missing, and Maggie finds herself in the middle of the a fast moving plot.

2. Lack of character development. Who is Margaret? And Charity? Why should I care about these people? I didn't realize how young they were until Maggie mentioned high school was still in session.

Charity and Margaret's tight friendship is mentioned throughout the narrative but since Charity isn't there, there's nothing to validate their bond. Sure, there are flashbacks, etc, but talking about it doesn't make it genuine.

3. Rudyard Crane is a perv with serious Freudian unresolved issues with his deceased sister. I'm not a fan of pervy bad guys.

4. What's the point of the story; the author wanted to write a feminist retelling of "The Fly?"

Another big problem, Project Athena is hard to suspend disbelief for. A megalomaniac billionaire is nothing new, but I couldn't believe in his mutant creations and paying handlers to take care of them, etc. "The Fly's" sci-fi premise was more believable.

5. The narrative is chock full of background, flashbacks, and exposition, not to mention gross and frightening descriptions of the results of Project Athena, bugs flying everywhere, etc, etc, but I still didn't understand the point of the story.

The pacing dragged at times, and it didn't help that I didn't care about anyone nor what was happening.

The premise had great potential if more attention had been paid to character development and the plot went in a different direction.

I'm torn between 3 and 4 stars on this one. Most of it is fun, strange, and gross, and Cutter does a good job of intertwining the horror and the adolescent anxiety. There are some slow sections, though, and the in media res opening only sort of works. I'm not entirely sold on one of the character's motivation, which seems a little forced (even if the bizarreness is part of the horror), and I go back and forth on whether or not the alternate voicing of the epilogue works or is a disappointing shift.

If you're looking for a weird, page-turner horror book, this one will suit, but I feel like it could have been strengthened in ways that did affect my enjoyment (and not just possible formalist interests).

The Queen by Nick Cutter follows Maragaret, whose best friend Charity has been missing for over a month; one morning Margaret wakes up to find an iPhone on her doorstep that leads her on a scavenger hunt of sorts around their small town, providing clues as to Charity’s whereabouts since she went missing.
I really enjoyed this book, as much as one can enjoy a book that involves a lot of insects. It did come off, at times, a little bit YA, I think because most of our main characters were high school students, but it was still an excellently creepy story.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of The Queen in exchange for my honest review.

Review: The Queen by Nick Cutter
June 3, 2024
Rating: 8/10

In October 2022, I made my humble debut on bookstagram. My inaugural post was a very short and objectively poor review of Nick Cutter’s “The Troop,” a book which rekindled my love of horror. Now here I am, 100 or so instagram posts later, coming at you with a far longer, and subjectively adequate ARC review of Cutter’s latest nightmare-inducer “The Queen.” This is kind of a full circle moment for me, and whilst my gratitude to publishers is always sincere, when I say thank you Gallery Books for the ARC… I mean it, it comes out October 29th 2024.

Nick Cutter, the Hyde to Craig Davidson’s Jekyll, has struck yet again with another icky, itchy and insect-swathed odyssey that pulls you in and spits you back out with a thoroughly churned stomach, and hurt feelings. We have the utter displeasure of following multi-billionaire, tech-wizard and certified arse Rudyard Crate, and his sadistic brainchild “Project Athena.” Fuelled by an admittedly devastating childhood trauma, Crate seeks to do something completely unprecedented, that no respectable person has ever attempted before… perhaps for good reason. We also follow Margaret, a teenage girl broken by the inexplicable disappearance of her best friend Charity. Her life, which has already been flip-turned upside-down, becomes even more complicated when she begins receiving text messages from a phone that appears upon her doorstep, messages that could only have been sent by her missing friend. These messages lure her and her “friend,” (wink wink) Harry down a bizarre rabbit hole- where they are subjected to everything from monsters in the wardrobe to a particularly vicious food-fight.

Nick Cutter, hit it out of the ballpark with “The Troop.” The story was a modern day ‘Lord of the Flies’ combined with a slasher movie’s gore. The pacing was fast, the characters solid, and the story immersive. It was spectacular. “The Deep” was another classic Cutter.

As a result, I was highly anticipating this new novel, as the summary it read like an 80’s horror trope. However, this novel, is nothing like the description, as a matter of fact I’m not sure what this novel is regarding genre; science Fiction? Horror? Truthfully, with full transparency, it wasn’t worth my time to think about it or decide.

I could not get into this book. The story was all over the place, lacked any semblance of character development or continuity of story. It was rather confusing actually. I had to work to hard, and was getting no enjoyment from it. I skimmed to the end, and the end was even more disappointing and confusing than the meat of the story.

Thank you NetGalley and the Publisher for an eARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Thank you to Gallery books and NetGalley for a copy of this book!

I LOVED The Deep and The Troop. However, with this book, I just could not get into it. I found it confusing and odd and I raced to get to the end just to see what happened. When I got there, I still didn't know. I wish I could recommend this but I was just not a fan.

This book was crazy good and scary as hell! I will never look at a bug the same way again, that's for sure. Cutter is a genius when it comes to horror. His books just ooze with disgusting imagery and terror-filled scenarios that one could only fathom in his/her worst nightmares. His words have a profound effect on your way of thinking, too. Like you know what you're reading isn't real, but holy shit! This or something like this could really happen. I'm actually a little blown away right now. The book starts out with an intense situation, then backtracks to the events leading up to it. I loved every minute of it! I couldn't read fast enough but then I reached part four and lost my momentum. These final chapters detail the aftermath and persons responsible for the chaos. I felt some of the details were necessary, but it got kind of boring here. The epilogue was surreal though and a great way to end the story. I really enjoyed this book and would definitely recommend to all fans of horror and science fiction!

Thank you to the author, Gallery Books, and NetGalley for granting me early access in exchange for my honest review!

This book gave me nightmares about being chased by flying insects, so thank you for that, Nick Cutter. If you have an insect phobia, you should definitely not even think about picking up this novel. Trust me, you'll regret it.

But, anyway. I can't say that The Queen is anything like I thought it was going to be. There's some horror and Cutter certainly knows how to write gory scenes, but this book is much more science fiction-y than I expected. I guess I should have figured it out based on the talk of “gene manipulation” and “gene sequencing” in the blurb, but in the words of the great philosopher Forrest Gump, “I am not a smart (wo)man.” There's not a ton of scientific detail, but the entire premise of the novel revolves around a tech mogul's science experiment gone wrong (right?), so … yeah.

There are parts of this book that I mostly enjoyed. The flashbacks to Rudyard Crate's childhood are fantastic, and they are by far the most terrifying parts of the story. I've always been a big fan of ants, but I'll stick to our docile, non-flesh-eating northern climate ants, thank you very much. I also found Rudyard's bug fetish to be disturbingly entertaining, even if there are some serious WTF moments to be had. Rudyard's undoubtedly the villain of this book, but he's an interesting villain with a crazy origin story. I liked Harry as a character, too, and I absolutely did not see that twist (you'll know it when you get to it) coming.

There's also not as much animal cruelty in this one as in Cutter's other books, so it has that going for it. There's a few dead wasps but that's about it.

The sci-fi bits, though? Not my thing. I don't feel like I can say much without spoiling things, but just … no. It's a ridiculous premise and I still don't quite get the “why” or the “how” and it's probably one of the oddest things I've ever read. I also didn't buy Margaret and Charity's supposed friendship – they're best friends who love each other so much, yet Charity spends the entire novel basically torturing Margaret. I mean, I know it's (view spoiler) and bloody hell I don't even understand this book at all.

My overall rating: 2.55 stars, rounded up. If you enjoy sci-fi/horror novels of the “science experiment gone wrong” variety, however, don't let my low rating deter you from reading The Queen since you'll probably enjoy it a lot more than I did. The other early reviews on Goodreads are mostly positive.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Gallery Books for providing me with an advance copy of this book to review. Its expected publication date is October 29, 2024.

Nick Cutter is just not for the faint of heart. From the cover, and the first few pages, you know you are in for a ride of terror!

In The Queen, we follow Margaret Carpenter as she winds her way through a series of clues to locate her best friend Charity. As she gets closer, the body horror, genetic manipulation and outright genius thrills grow. Without giving you clues, I can assure you that this book will never leave you and you will never look at insects the same. Be sure to have the windows shut and the door locked tight!
#gallerybooks #nickcutter #thequeen

This was my first Nick Cutter book and after hearing all the hype about his other work, I was so excited to be approved for this.

At the start of the book I wasn’t exactly sure what I was getting into. We follow two POVs. One of a high school girl and one of a middle aged scientist/billionaire. The POV from Mag’s perspective was my favorite. I loved her inner thoughts and could appreciate her anxieties. Rudy’s POV just pissed me off, which I think was the objective, but also at times left me confused.

As someone who is not an expert on insects, some of the story was hard to follow. But by the second half of the story, I was hooked and had to see how it played out. After finishing and reflecting, I can truly see the beautiful puzzle Cutter crafted and I think the longer I think about this book, the more of that puzzle I’ll decipher.

This story was terrifying, heartbreaking, and oddly relatable. I promise you’ll never look at an insect the same.

Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher, and the author for an ARC of this book.

This was my first Nick Cutter book, an author I've had my eye on for some time. I'm a bit all over the place with my response. On the one hand, it wasn't really my jam. I love horror, I'm okay with some body horror, but I steer away from any sci-fi horror. This is firmly in the two latter categories, so not really my wheelhouse. I also worried--at first--that this was going to be a YA or New Adult read.

However . . . I think the author did a really effective job writing a teenage character who is both believable and not inane. The writing often veered into lovely turns of phrase and intense philosophical meanderings. And probably the most effective narrative came from the antagonist, especially in his flashbacks. He was a really fascinating character. I have to admit that while not my cup of tea, I kept turning the pages to see what would happen next.

So overall, my personal response was probably about 3 stars but that's with the caveat that it is due entirely to my interest level. If you're into this genre, I think you'll really enjoy this story and the book deserves at least 4 stars for how well written it is. Oh--and the cover art is awesome.

Huge fan of Nick Cutter ( Craig Davidson). I had a really good time reading this book and I can't wait to listen to the audiobook version later down the line. Thank you Netgalley.

Did you know that I wanted to see Nick Cutters film based on audiobook THE BREACH so bad that I emailed EVERYONE I could to see when it was coming out. I even emailed the distributor and I got an answer. Finally it came out that summer. But there was 0 information online about it at the time and it was SUPPOSED to come out the previous fall. So like hello, I'm Ali. I'm kind of a fan.

Thank You Netgalley and Nick Cutter for the chance to read this ARC.
This book was so good. A bit scary at parts. I enjoyed it. Nick Cutter ( Craig Davidson ) never does me wrong. This was one of my MUST reads of the year and I can't wait to get the physical copy in October and put it on my shelf.

Whether Nick Cutter chooses to write horror under this pseudonym or contemporary fiction under his own name, Craig Davidson, both have equally impressive back catalogues. Cutter was born back in 2014 and is probably still best known for his debut The Troop, which won the short lived James Herbert Award. Whilst The Troop is his novel which attracts most attention, I much preferred The Deep (2015) and Little Heaven (2017), the latter of which flies seriously under the radar, attracts little praise, but if you enjoy novels about cults this book is essential reading.

Versatility is undoubtedly a great strength of Cutter/Davidson and his novels are always highly imaginative, with the horror elements usually widely different from its predecessor. Although The Queen was a solid page-turner it failed to grab me like some of his earlier books, playing out as a mixture of thriller, teen drama and eventually blending elements of science fiction and body horror. Some of the plot tested my patience and once the cat was out of the bag, in regard to the big reveal (which was no surprise), the story lost momentum and, even though it was not a big book, took way too long to finish.

Set in a small Canadian town, Margaret Carpenter wakes up to find a new iPhone on her doorstep. She switches it on to find a text from her best friend, Charity Atwater. This mystery element to the story eats into a big chunk of pages, as Charity's been missing for over a month and the majority of people think she's dead. Whoever is sending the messages knows private details about Margaret and so she believes her friend to be alive and much of the plot revolves around what happened to Charity. The story takes place over one day, Margaret follows a series of obscure breadcrumbs as she forges deeper into the mystery of her best friend, taking in aspects of their messy friendship.

The relationship between the two girls was one of the strongest aspects of the story, along with Margaret’s laidback on/off romantic interest who helps her out at certain points of the narrative. The Queen is also seen from Rudyard’s point of view, a tech billionaire who has an unhealthy interest in insects and family trauma in his past which eventually connects to the main story, but to say more about it would head into spoiler territory.

Even though the latter parts of The Queen have a fair bit of body horror and death I found the whole experience rather unmoving and lacking in both tension and atmosphere.

Terrifying. Couldn’t put it down. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this ARC!

Nick never fails me as a reader...I have yet to read anything I haven't obsessed over so when I say I ate up this book....I ATE IT UP. I started this the second it hit my kindle and I devoured it page by page, it pulls you in and spits you out at the end. Nick's writing always gives me the hair standing up on the back of my neck and chills feeling. This read is one that will always be in the back of my head and I cannot shout praise loud enough. If you are in the market for a book that will hold you in it's grasp from the very first page, give you the eerie creepy vibes/atmosphere, plot driven with great characters and fantastic storyline then this will be for you!

Thank you @netgalley , @gallerybooks and author for the arc in exchange for my honest review.

Well written, a bit bizarre, with a Thirteen Reasons Why horror version vibe. I enjoyed this for the most part, although I felt as if it went on a little too long in certain chapters and found it hard to concentrate and give it my all. I do normally enjoy learning the odd facts while reading fiction, but I felt this was a bit much at times. However, it was still interesting and entertaining with a dark atmosphere. If you are fearful of any type of insect, this will be your worst nightmare come true. As a lover of this author, this was good, just not one of my favorites from him. Three and a half stars.

Thank you, Netgalley, and Gallery Books for this ARC.

I did enjoy this book, although I felt like it jumped around a lot and was a bit hard to follow. It was a great story, I just found myself getting confused and losing interest a few times. I rate it a 3/5 because I did not love it but I did not hate it. It seems like it should be right in the middle for me.

There are so many great elements brought together in The Queen: a close but messy friendship between two teenage girls, a trail of clues to follow, science gone wrong, and so so so many ants and wasps.

Nick Cutter has such a talent for writing body horror and gore, making me feel all kinds of squeamish and uncomfortable, without ever actually pushing me past the limit. Things definitely get a bit weird by the end, so I can see this story not being for everyone, but I had such a fun time going on this intense journey of discovery with Margaret.

4 stars
Why oh why didn’t they add a horror tag on this one?

Doesn’t matter as I love horror and knew the author already. I was expecting more thriller though.
However if you’re familiar with Cutter (not that other name he writes under 😄), you kind of already know what to expect. This was awesome! The story as usual was well thought out and had me hooked. I could do without some of the gore (that’s just me, my stomach is getting weaker by the book, not stronger as advertised).
Cutter writes gore not to shock but because it is part of the story and his style. I would definitely rank this among his best books.