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Hailey Piper
Hailey Piper writes horror fiction, often with a focus on body horror and queer themes. Her works include the novels Queen of Teeth and The Worm and His Kings, as well as the collection All the Hearts You Eat.
The Worm and His Kings
Synopsis
New York, 1990. Monique is homeless, sheltering in the subway tunnels, and desperate: her girlfriend, Donna, has vanished without a trace. When a monstrous figure with silver claws passes through the dark one night, Monique senses it is connected to Donna's disappearance and follows it down—into a subterranean world of impossible creatures and a cult of the forgotten who labor to bring about the return of their god, the Worm.
Hailey Piper's The Worm and His Kings is a cosmic horror novella that flips the genre's usual gaze: here the Other is the heroine, and the real monsters wear familiar faces. Threaded through with queerness, worship, and the fierce love that drives Monique downward, it is a tender, grotesque, and genuinely unsettling descent into the dark beneath the city.
Genres
Characters
MoniqueProtagonist
A homeless woman descending beneath New York to find her vanished girlfriend.
DonnaSupporting
Monique's girlfriend, whose disappearance drives the descent.