Dove's Eyes by Kienn Nguyen

Queer horror in the style of House of Leaves and Cormac McCarthy. Hallucinatory. Hidden ciphers. No quotation marks. This is a challenging read. Proceed with caution. Consult sample chapters and content warnings. A disgraced detective is hired to investigate a ritualistic killing in an isolated prison town. Falls into the hands of a charming doctor on a crusade to cure mankind of sin. a queer gothic neo western horror novel, ergodic literature, psychological horror, religious trauma, lobotomies, m/m, trans, biromantic, ace, 70k Bentham, Wyoming. A deserted ghost town built upon abandoned coal mines. Once windtorn woodrot, now a private penitentiary set in a reformative community pledged to clinical testing. Neurosurgeon Dr. Wayne Sykkes truly believed he had found the cure for all sin. But one year into testing and Belle Rivera, twenty-four, was found dead. Bloodied in the underbrush. A sprig of hyssop pressed to her lips. Enter Corey Handler Delgado. Fallen angel scorned. Five years ago he was nothing more than a scruffy detective. For an act of brutal justice he was arrested in the attempted murder of an innocent man. One call and the charming doctor has convinced him to take a second chance. Insists that he can be saved. But something is wrong. Something is wrong with this town. Something is wrong with this body. Something is wrong with this cure. Cora isn't dead.

Adult • Westerns/Contemporary • Horror/Psychological • Diversity Representation/LGBTQ+/Own Voices • Science Fiction/Dystopian • Literary Fiction

Content Warning: Content Warnings: Non exhaustive. psychological horror, events and depictions ranging from real to hallucinated, hallucinations and memory disorders, grief and loss casual consumption of alcohol accidental and natural animal death, hunting and wounding of game animals natural disasters such as flooding and snow, fire caused by arson violence including murder and character death, physical assault, gun violence, knives, strangulation, manipulation, violence from an authority figure, blurred lines and manipulative behavior that includes one time unwanted physical contact that may trigger sexual harassment for some readers body horror and gore, regurgitation, cannibalism, parasitism, self mutilation of chest, face, and stomach, eye trauma, scarring, birthing imagery, surgical imagery, man described with female anatomy in the context of body horror, medical experimentation and malpractice discussion and parallels pertaining to conversion therapy, eugenics, lobotomies mental health hospitalization, incarceration christian religious imagery and religiously motivated self harm including self mortification, whipping, cutting, starvation, and immolation, cult behaviors, invocation of occult and cosmic horror implied verbal and internalized homophobia and transphobia Does not mention or explicitly depict SA, but some metaphorical descriptions may be triggering for some readers. May involve deaths of major characters.