Sister, Maiden, Monster

Written by Lucy A. Snyder

Narrated by Arielle DeLisle, Katherine Littrell and Lindsey Dorcus

“Absolutely recommended for readers of the cosmic and gloriously horrific.” ―Seanan McGuire, New York Times bestselling author

"Snyder’s story follows three infected women; each is given a unique voice and perspective thanks to the vocal talents of Arielle DeLisle, Katherine Littrell, and Lindsey Dorcus."- Library Journal

Sister, Maiden, Monster is a visceral story set in the aftermath of our planet’s disastrous transformation and told through the eyes of three women trying to survive the nightmare, from Bram Stoker Award-winning author Lucy A. Snyder.

A virus tears across the globe, transforming its victims in nightmarish ways. As the world collapses, dark forces pull a small group of women together.

Erin, once quiet and closeted, acquires an appetite for a woman and her brain. Why does forbidden fruit taste so good?

Savannah, a professional BDSM switch, discovers a new turn-on: committing brutal murders for her eldritch masters.

Mareva, plagued with chronic tumors, is too horrified to acknowledge her divine role in the coming apocalypse, and as her growths multiply, so too does her desperation.

Inspired by her Bram Stoker Award-winning story “Magdala Amygdala,” Lucy A. Snyder delivers a cosmic tale about the planet’s disastrous transformation ... and what we become after.

A Macmillan Audio production from Tor Nightfire.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Macmillan Audio
• Release date: Feb 21, 2023
• ISBN: 9781250882790

Lucy A. Snyder

LUCY A. SNYDER is the five-time Bram Stoker Award-winning and Shirley Jackson Award-nominated author of 15 books and over 100 published short stories. Her most recent titles are the collections Halloween Season and Exposed Nerves. She lives near Columbus, Ohio with a jungle of plants and an assortment of pet cats, crustaceans, fish, and turtles. You can learn more about her at lucysnyder.com and you can follow her on Twitter at @LucyASnyder.

Reviews for Sister, Maiden, Monster

[Millsy · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is truly bizarre but really quite enjoyable.
I'm lukewarm on liking the main characters, but the story itself, which is definitely inspired by covid, is so captivating. It inspires a morbid feeling but so easy to keep listening. I really recommend this quite bizarre story.

To be clear, this is 3 related but individual stories, the second starting at chapter 16.
Chapter 17 ends with me thinking OHHo WoW, ok....lol this is certainly nothing like ive ever listened to or read before. From my point of view, its very entertaining.

4 stars for the narrator too, it's not the best I've heard but it's still very good.

[iam · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This was not what I expected or wanted it to be.
When I got this I went in with expectations (based on the blurb) of an apocalypse with body horror and cosmic eldritch horror. What I got was a long winded tale about an ordinary woman in an ordinary world where a new pandemic spreads, and as she gets infected her rights to data privacy are taken away. Which, to be fair, is fairly apocalyptic, but not really what I imagine when I hear that word.

It starts out pretty long winded, with things progressing slowly, and told in a retrospective fashion that I am personally not a fan of. Things do begin to ramp up, but slowly, and I am not sure why but despite the subject matter being quite horrifying due to the changes an infection does to the body, it still felt... ordinary.
Then all of a sudden and out of nowhere there's massive skips ahead and a very intense escalation that feel like a fever dream to both reader and protagonist.

Then the POV changes and a new character is introduced. From here on out, things progress a lot faster, though there is still a lot of retrospection and ordinary-ness.
Only when the POV switches again do things become truly apocalyptic, and even then it's all held very local and we hear nothing about a global scale or pretty much anything about the world outside the house where the main character is kept. And it wasn't even done in an intention mystery "what really happened with the world?!" kind of way.

The cosmic horror part also left much to be desired. There were some incoherent dreams that tied back to the passages of Stoker's Magdala Amygdala, but to be honest the meaning was lost of me (and to be fair, I'm really bad with poems and deeper meaning.) As each protagonist gets infected and changes, there is mentions of old gods, and in the third act quite some grand scheme things happen, but ultimately is was pretty in the background, with the three women's personal fates being the center.

And those fates features a lot of body horror, so I guess the book lived up to that expectation. Overall it felt much more like it had an almost fetishistic focus on grotesque changes to women's bodies, with themes of violations of privacy and loss of bodily autonomy. Which, eh.

What I did like was how interconnected the three arcs and the three protagonists were on a personal level. Despite them all having very little in common personally, there were so many small and seemingly random connections which I really enjoyed. It all tied together so nicely and in ways that seem inconsequential but were still present.

Lastly, the ending felt weird to me too. Whole new concepts were introduced while other seemingly important plot threats that came up again and again were abandoned. Nothing was explained. I am not sure if part of this was that the author seems to have written in this universe before (there seems to be a short story connected to this novel?) but I would have appreciated at least some closure. I am aware this is a horror novel so I didn't expect a happy ending, but the ending was very unsatisfying and, to me, a let down.

[Rachel · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I have no idea what just happened, but it was amazing ? The narrators all did an incredible job and really brought life to the story!! I’d highly recommend the audiobook.

[Shaun · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Starts off on scientific angle but rapidly devolves into nonsense. Too many genres stitched together. Needed to pick a camp.

[Philip Rau · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Cosmic horror meets zombie erotica in the setting of a pandemic-ridden, capitalist millennial hellscape. Very fun, very cool.

[Kisha West · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Great storytelling but I'm calling it quits at chapter 14. It is beyond my gorge capacity.

[Billie · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Sister, Maiden, Monster
by Lucy A. Snyder
Horror Short Story
Everand (Scribd) Audio
18+

On her engagement night, Erin gets sick, throwing up her insides, and waking up in the hospital. To see what her stomach would allow her to eat, she finds that her tastes have turned.

Working in a now legal brothel, Savannah is good at her job, but when a repeat customer arrives unannounced, she discovers there is a pleasure she never knew she could have, and now she's done it, she'll keep doing it.

Misdiagnosed as a child, Mareva had a bad self-image, but when the truth of her health issue was brought to life, she still couldn't forget her childhood nightmares. But they were nothing to what those growths would do when the apocalypse claimed her.


Since this is a short story, I can't say too much about this without giving out spoilers, but I can say that I didn't enjoy it a lot. Sure there was some grossness and creepyness, but for me, it was kind of blah. It started out interesting but fizzled out when the second character was added. The third character almost brought it back but she wasn't introduced properly.

If a few more words were added to the descriptions, especially about Baby Gregory, that would've given more life to the characters and to the apocalypse. I also think more of a backstory about Mareva would've made readers empathize with her even more, thus making her destiny even more tragic.

There were some very violent acts in this, and of course some porn had to be added, so it is NOT suitable for readers under 18.

2 Stars

[AliveInBooks · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This pulled me out of a book slump. Never have I repeated WTF so many times in my life. This is the Eldrich terror I've been looking for. Filled with gruesome scenes, depraved acts, and pure insanity I was sucked in until the end. Just pure nightmare fuel in the best of ways. It's Clive Baker meets H.P Lovecraft but make it queer. This is everything my dark little heart could ask for. 10/10 will reread it.

[Angela Shockley · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book was a very fast and enjoyable listen! It is different than most, but in a good way, so if you love the sy-fy genre, you will love this one! Narration was supberb as well. I will
definitely read more by this author!

[Oso Isko · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is the most disturbingly Lovecraftian thing I've read so far. Snyder is mos def a contender to Cosmic Horror's throne.

[Nicholas Allan · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I read and watch a lot of horror and was pleasantly surprised by this book. Highly original and exciting to listen to. Great narrators. Loved the queer content too. Super book!

[Claire · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Tbh, I don't know how to review this one. This was a mind fuck! I gave it 5 stars as it was such a unique and intriguing story, and I've honestly never read ANYTHING like it! The different stories of the 3 women were all good in their own way, and I liked how all the stories came together at the end. It was absolutely horrorfying and disturbing. Some parts made me feel sick, and the sexual references were very explicit. Check trigger warnings for this one!

[Nina Quartuccio · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Great horror and narration. Loved this audiobook with narrator being the perfect choice making it intense and suspenseful. This is a real page turner, constantly evolving.
Big time sex, violence and gore, not for those not into that but a great choice for those that are.
Some sarcastic and dark humor sprinkled threw out, adding to the great writing from this author. It has it all for those like me, always searching for great horror...well, here is one of them. Enjoy!

[M Mueller · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Avid horror reader: Some excellent yuk factors but a bit off the deep end at the end. Cramming too much of side threads in the last few chapters to make this a solid satisfying listen.

[Slickem · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Well…that was weird…did not really care for how it ended.

[Gigi · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

3.5 stars

Loved the first 40%, didn’t love where the last 60% of the story went. There were too many topics explored and felt forced into the story. Many might not be bothered by it, but for me it was unnecessary to mention the name of Dahmer’s victim who was a minor and compare the situation to what was happening in that part of the story.

Otherwise, it was entertaining and a quick read. I enjoyed the cast of characters & POV’s. I would have preferred the POV’s to be labelled with that character’s name for easier distinction. I liked all the PVG & mutation bits. Just wish the author had stuck with the pandemic & virus portions.

[Nichole Callagee · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is such a fantastic read. It's creepy and gives you quite the scare. I enjoyed it very much.

[marissa2fallon · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Wow. Only read this if you love weird fiction and don’t mind some, I mean a lot, of gore. This went in a totally different direction than I thought. I’m so glad I stuck through part 1 because that’s when it really takes a turn

[PyraPoison · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I'm not someone who's generally bothered by body horror, but I guess there's a first for everything. If you're at all squeamish, I recommend looking up content warnings. There's a lot of gore, a lot of body horror, and a forced pregnancy/ brood mother scenario, which would have had me putting aside this book had it happened any earlier.

I really enjoyed this book up until the midway point, when it became more and more obvious it was about awful things happening to women who went on to do awful things with limited to no agency of their own. Not my cup of tea, but I can't say I knew where this was heading, and it's definitely a book that's going to stay with me for a while.