SPOILER WARNING: This review contains a mild spoiler for the ending of Fierce Queen Slay.
Mitchell Stevens wanted a quiet vacation. Books, some TV to binge, air conditioning and a little emotional stability, nothing more.
His best friend Kacey had other plans, dragging him to Blossom Way, a secluded “vacation community” in Florida, in J.M. Lamp’s new queer horror novel Fierce Queen Slay.
Blossom Way comes with impossibly attractive couples, suspiciously colourful houses and pool parties that feel less like a getaway and more like the pilot episode of a very spicy reality show, according to the book’s own blurb.
At first glance it is all beautiful men, flowing drinks and more sexual tension than a Pride afterparty. But Mitchell quickly clocks things that nobody else at Blossom Way seems bothered by.
There is a strange church sitting in the middle of the property. The couples all dress alike and somehow talk as though they have wandered in from another decade. The couple cosplaying as brothers… killed me. And then there is Kyle, the smug, controlling host who clearly believes he is the main character, and who Mitchell becomes convinced wants him dead.
While Kacey is busy living his best life, possibly his last, Mitchell cannot shake the feeling that something at Blossom Way is very, very wrong.
I loved this one. It is dark and properly camp, campy and absurd, and I would not have it any other way.
There is a strong Ready or Not energy running through the back half of the book too. Mild spoiler: I imagined in the final build up, Mitchell lights a cigarette in a burst of flames. Yes, this book is exactly as dramatic as it sounds.
It is a trippy read from start to finish. Every character at Blossom Way weirded me out in their own specific way, but they all felt like people I have met a hundred times before.
Fierce Queen Slay is Lamp’s second standalone novel, following All the Things We Left in Loving, and sits alongside the four-book Less Is More series in the author’s catalogue. I need to read more of Lamp’s books. Goodreads reviews have had plenty of time to roll in for Fierce Queen Slay, and they are a genuinely mixed bag: five-star raves about the camp factor sitting next to one-star complaints about typos and clunky prose.
But for me, it’s up there. There were no typos for me, just pure fun as it leans into the all-out gay-chaos.
If you are after a fast, ridiculous, deeply queer read for a flight or a beach day, Fierce Queen Slay delivers exactly what it promises: beautiful men, a cult-adjacent holiday compound and a body count.
Fierce Queen Slay by J.M. Lamp is available now via Amazon Australia.
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