This one was a tough one for me. I wanted to like it but like all Tremblay books, I find myself not enjoying it as much as others seem to. The very first chapter I even struggled to get into. The writing itself is rich & capable but I think perhaps this author just isn’t for me, I never seem to connect.

However he gets many good reviews so I say try him for yourself! You may connect better than me.

This was some amazing canadian horror!!
main character margaret carpenter, cherry, has had some rough days since the disapperence of her best friend charity atwater, plum, now presumed dead
one day a new iphone arrives at her front door with texts from charity that send margaret on a wild goose chase to find her best friend
but when the high school boys start going missing, margaret and her friends think there is something alot more sinister happening then what with charity
in this gorey, paranormal, murderous mystery, nick cutter keeps you in suspense and you never know when the story will end!
Perfect for stephan king fans!

Thank you Netgalley for giving me the opportunity to read and review this book. These opinions are completely my own.

My favorite type of movie in book form. I love thrillers/horrors with unlikely villain and this fits the bill. Fun read that I couldn't put down.

The Queen was a unique, gruesome type of creature horror with an interesting main character named Margaret and a great secondary cast including her best friend Charity whose fate is a mystery for most of the story. Rudyard Crate was also a complicated secondary character with a dark backstory that played into the plotting well. The strings connecting these characters were intriguing as was the terrifying truth they stemmed from. Fans of unique, gory, horror will enjoy this book.

The Queen is everything I anticipate and want in a Nick Cutter book.
It’s gross, entertaining, -and exciting.

With themes of classism woven throughout and a look at how intense love between best friends in your teens can lead to jealousy and/or co-dependency. How devastating it is to know you’re growing apart..that it won’t be the same when high school ends. This story is more than just a horror romp, it’s got real heart.

anyway, eat the rich.

If you’re looking to add some fresh new horror to your spooky season, or if you enjoy body horror reads year-round, look no further. The Queen was the perfect kick off to October for me. Nick Cutter has delivered again with his remarkable ability to make me cringe, grimace and look away a little bit as I’m sucked into his creepy, visceral writing.

Set in St.Catherine’s, Ontario and dripping with Canadiana, this story centres around Charity and Margaret; two young girls who grow up together but drift apart after a startling incident at a high school party. The thing is there’s so much more going on under the surface than even the girls know. The reasons for the incident aren’t what everyone thinks, and the person behind it all is a greater villain with a wilder back story than they ever could have imagined.

The author’s inspirations for this story came bleeding between the lines – it was fun to spot all the connections between The Queen and other works already published. I picked up on similarities from Thirteen Reasons Why in the veritable treasure hunt our main character was lead on, though this was via iPhone instead of cassette tapes. There were also mentions of brutal murders in the immediate area, unrelated to the Queen herself – and any true crime buff could see the parallels with Paul Bernardo’s victims. I also felt a bit of a Jurassic Park vibe with its sci-fi leanings and scientific reasoning. There were several other nods to the author’s inspirations, but I’ll let you find those on your own.

Along with his talent for writing body horror, the author kept up a good pace throughout the novel. The chapters were short and interspersed with text messages, newspaper and magazine articles. The mixed-media approach kept me up past my bedtime, excitedly turning pages. I felt myself relating to Margaret and her memories of her friendship with Charity. I was once a teenage girl, navigating the world of high school, boys, best friends and toeing that line into adulthood. Finding the balance of it all, and looking into the future was daunting and scary at times – I thought Nick Cutter did a remarkable job writing the individual and distinct voices of two teenaged girls.

Thank you Netgalley, Simon and Schuster and Nick Cutter for this eARC in exchange for my honest review.

I enjoyed parts of the book, like the beginning and the end. The middle just was confusing and a little all over the place. I think though, that Cutter and I just don’t mesh. I’ve yet to throughly enjoy his books and this one is my 3rd. I did love the sci-fi bits!

Was this my favourite Nick Cutter book? No. But there were still aspects of the book that I loved. Nick Cutter has such a way with gory details that you don't often get from other horror authors. This book did not lack in that. However I found myself actually a little bit bored for the majority of the book. The prologue was fantastic. It hooks you in instantly. Then I was bored for the next chunk of the book. The last 30% was great - filled with true horror and gore that you really expect from Nick Cutter. It also ends, in my opinion, PERFECTLY. Nobody really likes insects, but I have to admit I was left particularly freaked out by them all after reading this book! I also really enjoyed that the book was based in St. Catharines, where I live. It was a pleasant surprise. There were a lot of descriptors, street names and places that I recognized that added an extra element of enjoyment to the reading experience.

This was one really out there kind of book, but in a really good way, and if you have any sort of phobia about ants or wasps, you may want to skip it, otherwise it is a very good and interesting read, the author has put a lot of research into this to make it believable. Margaret is a young teenage girl living in a smallish town, she gets up one morning and discovers a cell phone that was not hers, but she turns it on and is taken aback to find a message from her girlfriend, Charity, who has been missing for over a month. Charity asks her to go to various locations through the messages, and tells what happened to her through the locations Margaret is taken to. In another time line, Rudyard Crate, a billionaire many times over, is trying to come up with something involving wasps, he is manipulating their gene and dna structure to make them into something that you'll find out more about later on. Rudyard's sister was killed while they were on a trip with their father, a large (like zillions) of ants were disturbed by activity and swarmed out of the earth and began eating everything in their path, which happened to include Rudyard's sister, and almost him, he was left with skin damage and a fascination with insects in general, he carries around a variety of them and allows to them to roam over his skin, biting him, very weird. Margaret eventually ends up at a golf club where a fancy event is going on, and things from there become really over the top and at times graphic. Overall a really good book, we are in the midst of a wasp season where there has been more than usual, so this hit close to home for me. I would recommend. Thanks to #Netgalley and #Gallery Books for the ARC.

I want to thank Netgally for this early ARC in exchange for my honest review. [Pub Date: October 29, 2024]

If creepy crawlies send shivers down your spine, you might want to skip this one. But if you’re ready to face your fears then buckle up. What starts as a simple cell phone left on a porch quickly unravels into a relentless, bug-infested nightmare. Nick Cutter crafts a world so disturbingly vivid that your skin won’t just crawl—it’ll practically leap off your bones.

Yet, this story is more than just an onslaught of horrors. Beneath the layers of insect-filled dread lies a haunting tale of lost friendships, the brutal reality of growing up as an outcast, and the desperate search for belonging. It explores the deep-seated need to fit in, the heartache of feeling unloved, and the painful journey of finding where you truly belong in a world that doesn’t seem to care.

Despite the relentless terror, there's an unexpected sweetness woven into the narrative—Cutter masterfully blends horror with a touch of heart, leaving you both unsettled and strangely moved.

Teenagers Margaret and Charity have been best friends since childhood. But after an incident at a party, Charity disappears. Margaret is devastated and becomes a virtual shut-in. Then one day she finds a cellphone on her doorstep with messages from Charity.
The story takes place over one day, in which Margaret is trying to discover where Charity is and what happened to her.

A mystery full of body horror, I found myself cringing at some of the scenes! (Anyone who's read the Deep by Cutter will know what I'm talking about) Although this isn't the usual type of horror that I read, I was totally invested in the characters.
At its heart it's a story of childhood friendships that grow apart as you become older, finding yourselves on different trajectories.

I recommend this to anyone who enjoys body horror.
Also, if you have a bug phobia then you might want to skip this one.

I have loved every novel written by Nick Cutter, and this one is no exception. He is my go-to author for horror recommendations that are deep, engaging, and genuinely creepy in an existential manner.
I can't wait until this comes out and will definitely be purchasing a hard copy for my own collection.

Thank you to the publisher and to NetGalley for the advance copy to read and review.

Since childhood, Margaret and Charity have been inseparable. When Charity goes missing and no one seems to care, a mysterious package arrives on Margaret’s front step. Inside is an iPhone with a text that upends Margaret's world and provides insight into Charity’s whereabouts and perhaps who she’s been all along.

Set just outside Niagara Falls in author Nick Cutter’s hometown of St. Catherine’s Ontario, THE QUEEN is yet another unsettling, graphic, body-horror classic from the Canadian writer. Between the covers, this book goes to some truly wild places asking very little of the reader other than to sit back and marvel at the depravity of a horror writer at the top of his game. Cutter’s prose can sometimes feel like a gore-splattered car crash you just can’t turn your head from; you want to avert your eyes, but the true nature of human curiosity won’t let you. While I don’t think anything here is quite on the same level as the turtle scene in The Troop, it’s a different kind of horror that at times still left me reeling, audibly gasping “oh God”.

Although the book deals with some pretty intricate science surrounding gene manipulation, I never felt truly lost or overwhelmed by the amount of jargon (thanks to a few great analogies like you may find on the r/ELI5 subreddit). That said, it isn’t entirely four-hundred pages of carnage and sci-fi, there is also a tender coming-of-age novel in here about the power of friendship and young adults yearning for connection and understanding. People often dismiss genre-fiction, especially horror, believing that it doesn’t have anything important to say, but I would argue that those novels can be where authors can get the most introspective. Cutter does a wonderful job here digging into the awkwardness of youth, sex and the perils of personal growth.

I absolutely loved this book. Once I hit the halfway point, I powered through in a single afternoon to get to the end. If you’re a fan of Stephen King’s CARRIE, Cutter once again finds inspiration in King’s usage of mixed media much like he did with THE TROOP, expanding the scope of the novel’s true horror beyond Margaret's POV.

Nick Cutter (or Craig Davidson) rarely disappoints me and THE QUEEN is certainly no exception.

The Queen by Nick Cutter grabbed my attention right away. The story follows Margaret, a teen whose friend has gone missing without a trace. Then, out of nowhere, a mysterious phone shows up at her door, kicking off a wild scavenger hunt to uncover the truth. What happens next is beyond anything she could have predicted, forcing her to confront things about her friend that no one should ever have to deal with. By the end, you’re left with a chilling question: If you found out your friend was a monster, could you still love them?

I ended up loving this book way more than I expected, especially since I am absolutely horrified of wasps. I’ll tell you, I have never read through squinted eyes before, but The Queen made me do just that. I couldn’t put it down—I NEEDED to know what was next—but I also couldn’t handle what was coming next at the same time. Squinted eyes clearly became my only option.

If you’re a fan of Stephen King or Joe Hill—someone who doesn’t need extreme horror but loves a story that’ll keep you up at night—then this book is for you. Also, if you grew up reading Goosebumps or watching Are You Afraid of the Dark?, you’ll appreciate this grown-up version of those kinds of tales.

This is the first Nick Cutter book I’ve read, and I absolutely loved his writing style, especially how he used text messages and .wav files sent to Margaret to tell Charity’s side of the story. I also really enjoyed how he wrapped up the story by closing it out with magazine articles, letters, etc. looking back on the situation—just brilliant. I’m giving The Queen a solid 4.5 out of 5 stars (rounded up to 5 out of 5 stars), and I’ve already ordered Nick Cutter’s other books.

Trigger warning: Beware if you absolutely cannot handle bugs.

While the two books are quite different, the insect motif and body horror had me fondly recalling the Ian Banks classic, "The Wasp Factory" Once again, Cutter does a fantastic job crafting a creepy (crawly) under your skin discomfort from start to finish. A great addition to the author's body of work.