The Midnight Muse
by Jo Kaplan
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Pub Date Mar 10 2026 | Archive Date Aug 31 2025
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Description
When a metal band’s lead singer vanishes in the woods, the mushrooms in the forest might know more than they’re letting on in this mycelium-metal horror novel from Shirley Jackson Award-nominated author Jo Kaplan.
The dead collect in low places. That’s what Brynn Werner, lead singer of metal band Queen Carrion, wrote in her notebook before she vanished while staying at a cabin in Oregon’s Umpqua National Forest.
A year later, on the anniversary of her disappearance, the rest of her bandmates visit the cabin to remember her and find a way to move on. But tensions arise over who should be their new singer and who is responsible for Brynn’s disappearance—tensions that boil over as they realize not all is as it seems at Trail Creek Cabin.
Strange entries in the guestbook write about visions of a pale form that moves through the trees, figures wearing gas masks lurk in the distance, and there’s a strange fungus growing from the wall of a tunnel in the cabin’s basement. Then they hear Brynn’s voice echo impossibly through the forest—and the pale form that emerges from the trees is her perfect likeness. Is it her ghost…or something else?
Brynn knew there was a secret in these woods. It’s why she chased her muse here to finish her masterpiece. The Midnight Muse is an alluring and grotesque dissection of self and fungus. Kaplan delivers an ominous spiral of psychological torment as the members of Queen Carrion slip into a more natural skin.
Advance Praise
“Fetid, cosmic, and distinctly human, The Midnight Muse is a corpsepaint-daubed reimagining of the urge to create art as an infection. It asks what happens when those compelled by its charge are consumed by its creeping compulsion. A must-read.” —Zachary Ashford, author of Polyphemus
"One of the most effective and compelling marriages of natural and supernatural horror since Richard Matheson's Hell House, The Midnight Muse by Jo Kaplan is full of dazzling surprises and eerie plot twists that make it hard to stop turning pages. Kaplan's novel will connect with fans of recent works like Paul Tremblay's The Cabin at the End of the World or Cherie Priest's The Toll. At the same time, its meditations on the disturbingly porous veil dividing the living from the dead—and the human from the inhuman—may also put readers in mind of classic works of the uncanny like The Island of Doctor Moreau or even Fitz-James O'Brien's ‘What Was It?’ Though the terrors that beset her protagonists are deeply unnerving, Kaplan also manages to infuse The Midnight Muse with a rollicking sense of fun; you may grin or even giggle from time to time, even as the urge to hide under your blankets grows stronger and stronger. The Midnight Muse is thoroughly impressive horror storytelling, and an utter delight to read." —Scott Kenemore, author of Edge of the Wire and Lake of Darkness
"A pungent myco-psycho nightmare that will leave readers jonesing for Carrion Queen on ghost-white vinyl, The Midnight Muse pits inspiration against collaboration, individuality against uniformity, and want against need in a pagan-metal symphony of seductive survival horror." —Matthew R. Davis, Shirley Jackson Award-nominated author of Songs of Shadow, Words of Woe
Marketing Plan
- Readings planned for LA and Chicago metropolitan areas
- Promotions at events: AWP (2025 and 2026), Stoker Con (2026), Printers Row (2025)
- CLASH Books horror author reading in Chicago at Printers Row (2025)
- Online promotion centered around the fictional band in the book
Available Editions
| EDITION | Paperback |
| ISBN | 9781960988805 |
| PRICE | $21.95 (USD) |
| PAGES | 370 |
