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Wife Shaped Bodies: A Novel

Laura Cranehill

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Sorrowland meets Manhunt in this literary horror debut in which an isolated newlywed—covered in mushroom growths like all the other wives in her community—strikes a precarious balance between following her husband’s strict rules and pursuing an intense connection with a woman who makes her question everything.Forbidden from leaving her house from girlhood until marriage, Nicole has only her mother's lessons and what she can see from her bedroom window to draw on in forming her view of the world, and of herself. Taught that the mushrooms which cover the women in her village are repulsive and dangerous, she conforms to a rigid set of rules to protect herself and those around her. When her wedding day arrives, Nicole moves from one prison to another—an empty mansion on the very outskirts of town belonging to the husband she’s been promised to since birth. As she haunts the edges of Silas's unknowable life and decaying home, maintaining control over her own transforming body becomes increasingly impossible. And when another wife with rebellious tendencies pays Nicole an unexpected visit, something within her cracks open. Their furtive explorations yield confusing answers, unearthing the long-buried secrets of the generations of resentful brides that came before. Unmoored, angry, and at last awakened, Nicole must reckon with who she really is, and perhaps, give in to what she truly wants. Raw, visceral, and relentless, Wife Shaped Bodies is an exploration of gender, power, and community through the lens of mycological body horror and an ode to the unsettling beauty of the natural world.

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Bee's Books\ \ Bailee Russo\ \ • Jun 26

Wronggggggg.\ \ Now, we can have a conversation about how publishing house conglomerates and the trend-led mass-market led by an overwhelming white, straight, etc, majority creates a homogeneity of stories...sure. We can talk about that all day long.\ \ But if we do, we also need to talk about how consumers drive that market, and how our choices -- on social media feeds, on review platforms, at the bookstore -- make an impact on those publishing trends. That, I think, is a more interesting conversation.\ \ Because if we put in the effort to follow book reviewers from a diversity of perspectives, to support indie and underrepresented authors, to review the books we read with critical self-reflection, to support our local book vendors, libraries, etc...then we will find a huge, wide world of weird and wonderful literature just waiting for its audience. And in doing so, we can make an impact on publishing as a whole, too.\ \ So, here are a few unique books that I think you might love, featuring cannibalistic nuns, Faustian bargains, shape-shifting mermaids, talking animals, alternate futures, parasitic aliens, swampcore haunted cabins, cryptids, and more.\ \ Herculine by Grace Byron: an all Trans girls commune haunted by demons.\ \ The Reformatory by Tanarive Due: a segregated reform school and the evil inside.\ \ Wife Shaped Bodies by Laura Cranehill: the trad wives are sprouting mushrooms.\ \ A Dark and Drowning Tide by Allison Saft: a dark academia quest for a magic spring.\ \ Sky Full of Elephants by Cebo Campbell: a new world where all the white people have disappeared.\ \ The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones: A Blackfeet vampire seeking vengeance.\ \ The Starving Saints by Caitlin Starling: a medieval castle under siege and the cannibalistic fever dream that unfolds inside.\ \ What We Feed to the Manticore by Talia Lakshmi Kolluri: a collection of compelling short stories all told from the perspectives of animals.\ \ After Love by Tanya Byrne: a fantastical lesbian love story that literally transcends death itself.\ \ Green Fuse Burning by Tiffany Morris: a grief-stricken Indigenous artist who arrives at a cabin in a remote, swampy forest, before strange things start to happen.\ \ Fate's Bane by CL Clark: sword-wielding, star-crossed lovers from rival clans, inspired by Celtic folklore.\ \ As Many Souls as Stars by Natasha Siegel: a Faustian Bargain between a witch and a demon, and their game of cat-and-mouse that spans multiple lifetimes.\ \ A Feast for the Eyes by Alex Crespo: four teenagers hunting the local cryptic that feeds on secrets.\ \ They Bloom at Night by Trang Thanh Tran: a red algae bloom causes strange mutations in a small Louisiana town.\ \ The Seep by Chana Porter: a parasitic alien invasion that creates a strange utopia, and one woman's quest to stop its spread.\ \ The Gloaming by Kirsty Logan: a hungry sea, a family beset by grief, and a strange woman who climbs up from the water.\ \ Happy reading!\ \ -B

"Books are all the same now."

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Bee's Books\ \ Bailee Russo\ \ • Jun 1

Some unique books for your TBR stack #weirdlit #weirdbooks #uniquebooks #bookrecs #lgbtbooks

Some unique books for your TBR stack #weirdlit #weirdbooks #uniquebooks #bookrecs #lgbtbooks

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Bee's Books\ \ Bailee Russo\ \ • Jun 1

Get to know me through some of my favorite very specific sub-genres!\ \ Do we share any favorites?\ \ •Q

Get to know me through some of my favorite very specific sub-genres!

Do we share any favorites?

•Queer body horror: Sorrowland by Rivers Solomon Hell Followed With Us by Andrew Joseph White Wife Shaped Bodies by Laura Cranehill What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher Providence Girls by Morgan Dante •vengeful vampire romantics: Hungerstone by Kat Dunn Thirst by Marina Yuszczuk Immortal Dark by Tigest Girma A Dowry of Blood by S.T. Gibson Interview with the Vampire TV series A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night film •radical hopefulness The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers The Parable of the Sower & The Parable of the Talents by Octavia Butler The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin A Psalm for the Wild-Built & A Prayer for the Crown-Shy by Becky Chambers •very niche non-fiction Gathering Moss by Robin Wall Kimmerer Queer Palestine and the Empire of Critique by Sa’ed Atshan Plucked by Rebecca Herzig Abolish Rent by Tracy Rosenthal and Leonardo Vilchis Black in Blues by Imani Perry Rogue Sexuality in Early Modern English Literature by Ari Friedlander •weird genre-benders The Seep by Chana Porter Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield Severance by Ling Ma Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi

#gettoknowme #booktaste #bookrecs #readmorebooks #readingispower

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Posts about this book from across Bindery

Bee's Books\ \ Bailee Russo\ \ • Jun 26

"Books are all the same now."

15 books

2

Sunny's Book Truck\ \ CJ\ \ • Jun 21

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[Hi nerds,\ \ Last night we held our recurring event, Sunny's Salon. This month the prompt was to come prepared to talk about your favorite queer read for Pride month. Below you will find 20ish book recommendations gathered from the Yuma community.\ \ \ \

What our community is reading for Pride

🌈🌈🌈

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Bee's Books\ \ Bailee Russo\ \ • Jun 1

Some unique books for your TBR stack #weirdlit #weirdbooks #uniquebooks #bookrecs #lgbtbooks

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Bee's Books\ \ Bailee Russo\ \ • Jun 1

Get to know me through some of my favorite very specific sub-genres!

Do we share any favorites?

#gettoknowme #booktaste #bookrecs #readmorebooks #readingispower

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Fat Forward Books\ \ Samantha Puc\ \ • May 7

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\ \ Join for free or login](https://fatfwdbooks.binderybooks.com/item/zLMnPNfXDNSd9wpYYjwk/)

1 Year of Fat Forward Books 🎂

What's in a year? Lessons learned and plans for the future on Fat Forward Books' first anniversary.

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Tattooed Bibliophiles\ \ Zee\ \ • Apr 14

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\ \ Welcome to New Release Tuesday, where I round up the sci-fi releases dropping this week that I think you should know about. I'm Zee, I'm a Tattooed Bibliophile, and if you are here I you probably are too, and my whole thing is diversity in sci-fi — meaning if it's queer, BIPOC-authored, indie, or just something the Big 5 didn't bother to tell you about, it belongs here. While sci-fi isn't the "it girl" right now, it's far from a dying genre. It may make it hard to find new releases, but that's what I'm here for, because I don't want you to miss a thing! So what's new?\ \ \ \ First Mage on the Moon by Cameron Johnston (Angry Robot) Space Fantasy with a disabled wheelchair-using skymage who wants to fly to the moon to stop a war -gasps a deep breath- described as Gideon the Ninth meets The Expanse? Well, I haven't read The Expanse but you know if someone tells me it's like Gideon the Ninth I'm either out to devour it or hate read it just to tell you they are wrong, because nobody writes like my corpuscular Queen Tamsyn. And Angry Robot is an indie press so you know I love to support them...Although what does a girl have to do to get on their ARC list? I've been trying, I promise, because I want to read as many sci-fi books as possible to tell you if they're good or if they're shit!!! (I actually am 25% of the way into this audiobook and it's absolutely nothing like Gideon the Ninth, but it does have big Blood Over Bright Haven vibes, so I am moderately, but not entirely, really juuuuust barely, mollified.)\ \ \ \ Last week I somehow missed the release of The Bloody and the Damned by Becca Coffindaffer (Macmillan) but it's a dystopian climate fantasy with an enby assassin who is trying to save their siblings and a thief as a love interest, AND they mention it's "perfect for fans of Iron Widow" so...I couldn't just not tell you! I love a villain story. And it's standalone, which is kind of an anomoly in the sci-fi and fantasy world. Or at least it used to be? I feel like? Someone argue with me with some stats, I am unconvinced of my own opinion on this. But I am picking this up next either way.\ \ \ \ The Weathering by Artem Chapeye(Penguin RH) is a a post-apocalyptic climate (I think?) dystopia about a couple who returns to Ukraine only to find that the world as they once knew it no longer exists, and they have to partner with other survivors to form a new society, where "erosion floats in on a breeze..." I mean who writes these book descriptions? Erosion cannot, by definition, float in on anything, and the book description is so vague that I'm not sure if that's meant as a metaphor? Like they take a vacation into the mountains and then come back to the city and it's different, but they didn't know? Idk. If the book is anything like the blurb, I don't think this one is for me. Maybe it's translation error?\ \ \ \ Wife Shaped Bodies by Laura Cranehill (Simon & Schuster) Ok first I just want to say that I don't love when authors seem to have book naming trends, or cover design trends. It's art, be yourself, ya know? But whomever is in charge of this kind of cover? I'm low key obsessed. These are so pretty and haunting and would make gorgeous tattoos. Ok, on to the actual book. This is a sci-fi women's lit horror mashup. Or you could just say thriller, you do you. All the women in the village are covered in mushroom growths, told those are repulsive, and sheltered into their homes until they are married and moved from one prison to the next. Then she meets another rebellious girl and gae things happen. And can we all just say a collective "YAY!"\ \ \ \ The Infinite Sadness of Small Appliances by Glenn Dixon (Simon & Schuster) Tell me why my kitchen hood has wifi? And for what purpose does AI in a toaster have? In the (pretty near TBH) future where even the smallest of appliances are sentient, a young Roomba vacuum (after listeing to her human, Harold, read To Kill a Mockingbird to his dying wife) sets out to save the humans of her house from the omnipresent and always listening city AI Grid, who seeks to remove them from the home. Now, time for the tea! I went to scope out Glenn Dixon's IG, and he has AI generated images of him he posted for fun. Which is entirely counter to this satire he wrote about the danger of AI. We all contain multitudes, but it reeks of hypocrisy, and I was totally into the book before seeing that. Should I, or should I not, leave him a comment asking about it? Shall I or Shall I Not, start shit?\ \ \ \ The Faith of Beasts by James S.A. Corey (Hachette) — Book 2 of The Captive's War from the duo behind The Expanse. Thought I'd tell you about it...too many diverse reads to get to to have picked this one up. Worth it or no, let me know in the comments.\ \ Listen, romantasy may be the current pick me girl in Big 5 publishing (I mean come on, Goldsboro just changed their GSFF subscription to the "Fellowship" sci-fi is so unpopular,) (because who doesn't need a little escapism in late stage capitalism?) But sci-fi is a reflection of our hope for the future (or currently just a hope that there will be a future.) And HOPE IS RESISTANCE! So go forth and read some sci-fi and RESIST!\ \ See you next week. You know, if we're not in a nuclear winter.\ \ — Zee\ \

4/14/26 - New Sci-fi Titles This Week

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Two Stories Bookshop\ \ Queer-Owned Shelves🌈\ \ • Apr 14

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[I wanted to highlight some April 14 releases we're excited for!\ \

April 14 Releases!

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Boozhoo Books\ \ Naomi\ \ • Jan 31

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[Hi Friends, \ \ Back with another 10 more horror books written by women that I can't wait for this year! There are way too many books coming out this year, I have no idea how I'm going to read them all. Have you heard of any of these?\ \

  1. I Love You Don't Die by Jade Song (3/17) This one is for the weird girls. \ \ \ \ For as far back as she can remember, Vicky has been fascinated and obsessed with death as the only inevitable thing in life. From living above a Chinatown funeral parlor to working at a celebrity start-up for bespoke urns, she has surrounded herself with death—in her home, in her work, and in her ever-growing collection of zhizha, paper creations meant to be burned for the dead, adorning the walls of her apartment. Yet, though living in Manhattan and working her dream job is all she ever wanted, she still struggles to have meaningful connections—or find any meaning at all—in her life. Too often she spends the day in bed, only drawn out from time to time by her best (and only) friend, Jen.\ \ \ \ That changes when a dating app leads her into a throuple with an artist and a labor organizer, who offer exactly the kind of love she needs. For some time, it’s perfect, but no one understands better than Vicky that all things must end. As doubts grow over the love in her life, her friendship with Jen, and her professional success, the oddly comforting abstraction of death starts becoming something else altogether. With everything beginning to feel hollow and temporary, Vicky must decide how to keep moving forward. To try and hold on to what she has, or to once again do what she does best: destroy.\ \
  2. Afterbirth: Novel by Emma Cleary (3/24) An unsettling, hypnotic descent into the visceral heart of “mommy horror,” Afterbirth is a story of fractured sisterhood, aching hunger, and irrevocable transformation—reverberating with the echoes of classic horror cinema.\ \
  3. Wayward Souls by Susan J Morris ( 3/17) gothic sequel to Strange Beasts, a delicious gothic suspense following the daughter of Dracula's killer and the daughter of criminal mastermind Moriarty. \ \
  4. Indigent by Briana Cox (3/20)\ \ \ LEIGH PIERCE ESTATES is home to a diverse array of tenants: families, immigrants, students, the forgotten elderly. All working poor, and all in danger.\ \ Because the tenants of Leigh Pierce are disappearing.\ \ Live-in handyman Xavier seems to be the only one who notices. Or cares. After a chance encounter with the culprit leaves him infected with something horrifying, Xavier is thrust into a surreal nightmare of starvation and consumption all too familiar to his gentrifying Atlanta neighborhood.\ \ Succumbing to his infection, Xavier is drawn into the cobbled-together family squatting in Leigh Pierce's basement. People who, through a myriad of doomed roads, fell into the same self-destructive cycle of indigency, harboring dark secrets... and darker appetites. Trapped in a dynamic of codependency and complicity, Xavier and his family- new and old- are forced to confront the cost of survival in a world that has disregarded them\ \
  5. Hex House by Amy Jane Stewart (4/28) A feverishly told, dark and unsettling Scotland-set fairy-tale about a safe haven for women which transforms them into vessels of revenge, perfect for fans of T. Kingfisher, A. G Slatter and Julia Armfield\ \
  6. The Lady in Chains by Bonnie Quinn (4/28)\ \ \ Every year, campground manager Kate sends out a pamphlet titled “How to Survive Your Camping Experience.” It includes a list of rules to help campers have an enjoyable experience and hopefully survive any encounters with the campgrounds other…inhabitants.\ \ With the campground in the throes of a bad year, it will take more than a list of rules to keep everyone safe. Monsters that were previously lying dormant are starting to stir and they’re waking up hungry. Among them is the Lady in Chains, a creature feared by both human and inhuman things alike.\ \ Her reappearance creates an upheaval in the balance of power in the campground by renewing an old grudge with the harvesters, who are willing to sacrifice anyone they get their hands on in order to gain an advantage. On top of all this, the man with the skull cap has started taking an unusual interest in Kate. But with the harvesters on the prowl, the Lady in Chains hunting her down, and a sinister spider infestation, Kate is going to need all the allies she can get, even if those allies aren’t actually…human.\ \
  7. Wife Shaped Bodies by Lauren Cranehill (4/14) Sorrowland meets Manhunt in this literary horror debut in which an isolated newlywed—covered in mushroom growths like all the other wives in her community—strikes a precarious balance between following her husband’s strict rules and pursuing an intense connection with a woman who makes her question everything.\ \
  8. Japanese Gothic by Kylie Lee Baker (4/21) I n this lyrical, wildly inventive horror novel interwoven with Japanese mythology, two people living centuries apart discover a door between their worlds.\ \
  9. Molka by Monica Kim (4/30) Dahye can't believe her luck when she finds herself in a whirlwind romance with handsome, charismatic Hyukjoon, the heir to a multi-million dollar fortune. But then a shocking revelation threatens everything: the couple has been caught on a spycam amid Korea's growing molka epidemic, and the video is all over the internet.\ \
  10. Dark is When the Devil Comes by Daisy Pearce The woods are known as the place to avoid. What goes in, doesn’t come out.\ \ Hazel has been gone from her small hometown of Idless in the English countryside for years. Now returned in the wake of a traumatic divorce and crumbling personal life, her simple plans are to lay low at her parents’ vacated house, reconnect with her prickly sister Cathy, and slowly get back on her feet.\ \ \ \ Cathy is surprised when Hazel doesn’t show. Their relationship strained from a fallout half a decade ago, she didn’t expect them to get back into a sisterly rhythm…though she hadn’t counted on Hazel bailing, either. \ \ \ \ But something isn’t adding up. Other people in town whisper of a threat that can’t be shaken. The woods are known for being restless. And Cathy knows the old saying.\ \ \ \ If you go looking for trouble, you just might find it.\ \ \ Which ones are you preordering? Which ones are you adding to your TBR? \ \ I want to read ALL of these and I want to read them RIGHT NOW!](https://boozhoo.binderybooks.com/item/LbkeMBWpt5oFTNa2iUFl/)

On Your Radar: Women in Horror 2026

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