Review by Booklist Review
In the debut novel from the creative force behind the humorous Midnight Pals social-media account, Sarah, a trans woman, grows mushrooms and likes to party hard. From friend Madeleine she finds out about a potent drug called the King's Breakfast that can bend realities and reveal otherworldly beings. Unfortunately, this fungus only grows in one dangerous Northern California forest where multiple people have disappeared and rumors of creatures abound. Sarah has to team up with a ragtag band of companions, including Andy, who knows the forest very well. When Sarah learns about a mercurial figure, the Green Lady, with a strange following, things intensify. Karella seamlessly blends dark humor, heist elements, and frightening bits of horror. The novel refreshingly explores Sarah's transness, her complex desires, and her resilience. Plenty of dangers lie in wait for Sarah and the unique cast of supporting characters who, as tensions mount, turn on one other. Although the plot lags in some places, Moonflow is an intensely entertaining novel that fans of mushroom horror will gobble up.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Karella debuts with a hilarious psychedelic orgy of a novel that drips with the kind of pulp nastiness that makes the cheap horror paperbacks of the past so memorable, but updates the aesthetic with a refreshing heroine and a powerful exploration of transmisogyny within queer spaces. Sarah is a broke trans woman growing and selling shrooms to pay her rent. A wealthy client pays her to go into the notoriously dangerous Pamogo Woods to hunt down the King's Breakfast, a powerful hallucinogenic that, when Sarah tries it, gives her visions of a goddess she immediately yearns to meet. But when Sarah and her irritatingly earnest guide venture into the darkened woods, they discover something far more sinister than fungi waiting for them. Karella makes the duo's journey gory and weird enough to satisfy any horror fan, but the real triumph of the book is its wonderfully realized trans heroine. Sarah is smart, funny, and flawed, allowing Karella to organically explore larger ideas about gender and sexuality without losing the irreverent and often comic tone. The result is a strange, sublime truffle that will delight any discerning appetite. Agent: John Baker, Bell Lomax Moreton. (Sept.)
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
