Freakslaw - by Jane Flett (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

USA TODAY BESTSELLER!

Named A Best Book of the Year by Men's Health and Booklist - A Storizen Best Horror Book of April 2025 - An LGBTQ Reads, CrimeReads, Goodreads, and Autostraddle Most Anticipated Book of 2025

In this riotous horror debut, a traveling carnival of troublemakers arrive in a small Scottish town and perform their favorite pastime: revenge.

It is the summer of '97 and the repressed Scottish town of Pitlaw is itching for change.

Enter the Freakslaw--a travelling carnival of deviant queers and architects of mayhem. There's Gloria, fortune teller and worm charmer; her daughter Nancy, a contortionist witch; big-hearted tightrope walker, Werewolf Louie; not to mention illusionists and conjoined twins, Cass and Henry, and tattooed human pincushion, the Pin Gal. Against Pitlaw's miserably grey landscape, the carnival shines electric and bright, and it doesn't take long for the town's teenagers to be seduced by its neon charms and the possibility of escape.

But beneath it all, these newcomers are harboring a darker desire: revenge. Revenge for being cast out, never allowed to settle, punished for purely existing. And as tensions reach fever pitch between the stoic, unwelcoming locals and the dazzling intruders, a violence that has been bubbling for centuries is about to be unleashed . . .

Katherine Dunn's Geek Love meets Angela Carter's Nights at the Circus in this sizzling debut by a writer as captivating as she is incisive, as wild as she is precise. Read this and try not to run away with the Freakslaw. Go on. We dare you.

"THIS BOOK IS EVERYTHING . . . an ode to Tod Browning's Freaks, Kathryn Dunn's Geek Love, and Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes . . . Grotesque, creepy, and celebratory, Freakslaw is sure to be one biggest books of the year (and possibly, one of the defining novels of the century)." --CrimeReads

Review Quotes

USA TODAY BESTSELLER!

Named A Best Book of the Year by Men's Health and Booklist - A Storizen Best Horror Book of April 2025 - An LGBTQ Reads, CrimeReads, Goodreads, and Autostraddle Most Anticipated Book of 2025

"Blending supernatural horror, queer fiction, and magical realism, Flett's debut showcases an eclectic cast of characters both beautifully bizarre and emotionally real. Fans of Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes will love the carnival atmosphere, but Flett's striking story is less about good versus evil and more about the predictable comfort of conformity versus the desire to be one's true self." ―Booklist (starred review)

"Funny and strange, you're going to want to get your claws on this one." ―Autostraddle

"Holy hell, I loved this book. A carnivalesque tale spun in luscious, crackling prose, Freakslaw is the glittery punk offspring of Katherine Dunn's Geek Love and Angela Carter's Nights at the Circus. You know those books you want to roll around in, rub on your skin, and clasp to your heart? Freakslaw is one." ―Chelsea G. Summers, author of A Certain Hunger

"THIS BOOK IS EVERYTHING . . . Grotesque, creepy, and celebratory, Freakslaw is sure to be one biggest books of the year (and possibly, one of the defining novels of the century)." ―CrimeReads

"A crackling, subversive horror debut . . . this is a carnival you won't escape unscathed." ―Storizen

"A nonstop freaky, witchy, outlaw, glamour misfit fantasy―adventure fantasy, sex fantasy, revenge fantasy . . . I'd kill to run away with this circus." ―Michelle Tea, author of Modern Tarot

"A grotesque tale of a freak show carnival out for blood . . . Fans of Katherine Dunn's Geek Love should snap this up." ―Publishers Weekly

"Delightfully dark and experimental, a celebration of the wild pleasures of living in the world and in every variety of human body . . . In a deeply satisfying build of sex, violence, and mayhem, the novel descends into a kind of spiritual war between our animal―perhaps even magical―natures and the strictures placed upon them by society and the self." ―Electric Lit

"Shines like neon, buzzes like a chorus of funfair bulbs―Freakslaw is a riot! To all the oddballs and beautiful freaks, this book is scrumptious vindication." ―Gerardo Sámano Córdova, author of Monstrilio

"Visceral. There are no details left to the imagination, all the blood and guts, hate and joy on full display. The Freakslaw is a place for outcasts to find their voices, and Flett has certainly displayed hers as she welcomes readers to her powerful imagination. A fearsome, hopeful, cautionary tale of otherness, hatred, and rebirth." ―Kirkus

"A stampede of literary brilliance, a riot of filthy delinquency" ―Victoria Gosling, author of Before the Ruins

"Fans of stories about characters seeking belonging and their true selves will fall into the world Flett has created." ―Library Journal

About the Author

Jane Flett is a Scottish writer who lives in Berlin. Her fiction has been commissioned for BBC Radio 4, featured in Electric Literature's Recommended Reading, Highly Commended in the Bridport Prize and performed at the Edinburgh International Book Festival. She's a recipient of the Scottish Book Trust New Writer Award, the New Orleans Writing Residency and the Berlin Senate Stipend for non-German literature. Freakslaw is her first novel.