MY REVIEW
I saw the title and cover for Beautiful Brutal Bodies and was drawn into this fairy tale that walks on the dark side. I’m not sure what I was expected, but I was curious enough to read until the story finally woke me up the last quarter of the book.
The character, Tian, had me curious, with her being a singer/songwriter with an online following. It seems influencer novels are popping up here and there and I want to see what authors are doing with the subject and characters. Tian is isolated in a mansion with her friend and protector, Liya.
When several fans suffer injuries while listening to her online, she is packed up and shipped off, along with Liya, to an island in the South China Seas.
Tian finds Shenyu, her musical collaborator, is on the island too. That adds another piece to the puzzle that includes bizarre rituals and haunted forests. Could there be some romance in their future?
I didn’t read the first book, Gorgeous Gruesome Faces, so I don’t know if that is why the book seemed to drag a bit in the beginning. But once the story picks up, secrets, curses and danger threaten their survival.
My thanks go out to Roaring Book Press and NetGalley for the opportunity to read Beautiful Brutal Bodies.
GOODREADS BLURB
Full of skin-crawling folk horror and sapphic romance, this feral fairytale and standalone follow-up to GORGEOUS GRUESOME FACES follows a reclusive songstress and her bodyguard who must unravel the occult mysteries of their past to escape from a cursed island.
Tian is a singer-songwriter with a massive online following, known for her hypnotic vocals and ethereal looks. But behind the glamorous façade is a disturbing reality: raised in an isolated mansion, Tian is a prisoner in her own life.
Liya is Tian’s childhood friend and her only close companion, tasked with protecting Tian at all costs. But hidden beneath Liya’s beautiful human exterior is a beastly secret: her teeth are far too sharp, and her appetite much too ferocious.
When several fans mysteriously suffer fatal injuries while watching her livestream, Tian, along with Liya, are sent to a spiritual healing retreat on a remote island in the South China Seas. They are joined by Tian’s musical collaborator Shenyu, a troubled idol whose recent brush with the law and string of bad boyfriends has him seeking his own new start. But the trio soon discovers that the island is no peaceful getaway. There is constant surveillance, bizzare rituals, and something terrifying lurking in the forest. Something not quite human.
In order to escape with her loved ones, Tian must uncover her connection to the island’s blood-drenched legend — and the truth behind Liya’s monstrous identity — before the island claims them all as its final sacrifice.
- Genre: Fiction, Horror, LGBTQ, Young Adult
- 336 pages, Hardcover
- Expected publication November 4, 2025 by Roaring Book Press
ABOUT LINDA CHENG
Linda Cheng was born in Taiwan and spent her childhood moving between cultures and continents. She received her BFA from the Savannah College of Art and Design, and worked as an art director across South Carolina and Georgia where she developed a deep love for sweet tea, grits, and Southern Gothic stories. She currently resides in Vancouver, Canada with her family.