Herculine is a book about the real-life inner demons of a young trans woman, and the real-life other demons that offer gender-affirming care—but at great cost. The writing style of the book is perfect: often frenetic, following the myriad thoughts and anxieties of the nameless protagonist as she joins an all-trans-women commune in rural Indiana and quick finds herself an outsider, not privy to the secrets the other girls keep from her. However, the overall plot of this book came off as rushed and disorganized in a way that took away from all else that the book achieved.

The story follows the unnamed protagonist as she, laid off from work in the city and without clear direction to her life, is invited by her ex-girlfriend to join a trans-women-only commune in rural Indiana. The protagonist reluctantly joins, and is immediately tangled in the strange politics of the camp: her exe Ash’s strange power over the young women in the camp, meetings in a strange chapel-like space, and a social world that seeks to exclude her, though she is not sure if it is due to jealousy of her relationship with Ash or something far more nefarious. Throughout all this, the protagonist is haunted by her own sleep paralysis demons as they begin to intrude more and more into her life.

Overall, the writing style was a huge strength to the book. As someone with ADHD, this book felt like it captured the fast-paced flow of racing and anxiety-fueled thoughts. Seeing the way the protagonist bounced between ideas and fell into rote patterns of thinking felt very real. I really enjoyed this aspect of the story.

Unfortunately, I struggled a bit with the overall plot direction. Particularly towards the end when a lot of the plot begins to race, the ideas and scenes felt pretty disconnected. There were times when I started a new chapter and immediately had to go back a few pages because I couldn’t figure out when or how something happened. Ideas flowed together more or less but overall were missing the thread that connected everything in a coherent and understandable way.

This was a 3.5-star book, rounded up to a 4. I genuinely did enjoy it overall, and it was fast-paced enough that I finished it in one day.

Thank you to the publisher for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book!
I loved some parts of it but others seemed to fall a bit flat.
I loved the commune and the misguided community. It really reflected how desperate people are for community and support. I liked the conversations that happened in the book about being queer.
I wish there was more explanation as to wth was going on sometimes but if you really vibe with books that feel like a fever dream, this is right up your alley!

Sadly, this book did not do it for me. Which sucks because it sounded right up my alley and, in my opinion, has such a unique story idea. The story execution however was just extremely disjointed and patchy, I was often left confused multiple times.

I’ve read reviews of this being considered a slow-burn but I honestly didn’t get that, it just just felt like poorly paced writing rather than purposeful suspense. We just got whacked in the face with the horror elements in a way that literally made no sense to me? I’ll give it to Byron, I like the demons, I like how they were portrayed, but we were suddenly just thrown into the deep end of them and their lore within the commune,

Okay but the characters!? How was every single one unlikeable and problematic? I wasn’t able to connect with the main character at all, nor the people she surrounded herself with. Also, the amount of conversation around ketamine was just outrageous like…… we get it…. You like and use drugs???

So sad this one missed the mark for me, I was so excited to read it and the cover is just gorgeous.

Thank you NetGalley and Saga Press for providing me with this book in exchange for an honest review.

This is a book heavily marketed on its horror but I think the best part was the literary fiction aspects. The suspense reminded me a lot of the techniques used in Midsommar and really elevate the story. However, where I felt this fell flat was the quality of the story. The synopsis made this sound phenomenal and while I was entertained, it wasn’t memorable. I enjoyed the queer commentary, the build ups, the eroticism. But there’s something I couldn’t quite place. Maybe I am interpreting the writing wrong or simply in too much of an academic mindset (as the fall term has just started) for the experimental writing but I thought it was lacking.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC.

This was way hornier than I realized going into it and that wasn't really for me. But I loved the trans women cult turned horror aspect!

Erotic and violent, pulp horror in the best way. The unnamed main character is flailing in New York City, the other girls around her seem to be succeeding, much to her envy. She tries to set herself apart (she’s not like the other trans girls, she avoids her trauma), when she really dreams of a picket fence life. Her magnetic ex, Ash, convinces her to come to her trans girl utopia in rural Indiana. When she first gets there, she notices a subtle sinister feeling but is distracted when Ash showers her with the attention she has been craving. Things escalate when occult sacrifices are made, and her autonomy is threatened. She must finally act and face her demons head on, with the risk of losing the affection of others.

Some of the pacing was a bit off in this story but overall fun read! Looking forward to reading more from this author.

This book was about a group of trans women living in a commune that was almost giving cult vibes then it turns into a complete horror story! The demon haunting our character has been there for a while who just moved into the community to be with her ex-girlfriend.. This story picked up quickly for me and I devoured it. It's so dark and spooky. It comes out in October right around spooky season. It's a great read

Herculine follows a young trans woman who is plagued by sleep-paralysis demons. In an effort to flee this and her unfulfilling life in NYC, she heads to rural Indiana to join her ex Ash at her all-trans “commune”. Already having conflicting feelings for Ash, she quickly realizes that her ex, and the other girls at the commune, are clearly hiding the full, disturbing intentions of what is taking place in their supposed trans utopia.

I really enjoyed the writing of this book. I feel like I could really understand this character and where she was coming from, even though I myself am not trans. The observations she made, especially in the earlier parts of the book, were really fascinating and often made something profound out of a small detail. I also enjoyed the frank depiction of trans women having sex together, something I don’t think I’ve read before. It is so clear that this story is own-voice, and makes me appreciate the rise in genre fiction written by queer and trans people.

While I enjoyed the earlier part of the book in New York, I did feel it began to drag a bit. Things definitely pick up once we get to the commune. The switch to full horror a bit later on pleasantly caught me off guard, as I had gotten to the point where I was assuming this was going to be more of a psychological style of horror. One critique I have is the lack of character development for the other girls in the commune. While the narrator and Ash feel fully realized, I didn’t feel like I got to know the others well besides Indigo later on. While this may have been intentional due to the other girls often keeping distance from the main character, it did make it to where a character’s name would be mentioned and I wouldn’t really remember who they were or what they were like. But overall I really enjoyed this book. Perfect for people wanting authentic LGBTQIA+ stories and bonkers horror/genre fiction.

To the unnamed narrator of Herculine, seeing demons is a normal occurrence. She uses her childhood Christianity to ward off the demons even though she's no longer a practicing Christian. We're told demons lay claim to those who've been traumatized. A lot of the narrator's complicated past is given rapid-fire in asides, giving the novel a fast-paced feel.

The book highlights the difficulty of being trans including dead-naming, going through conversion therapy, being closeted, bullies online and in-person, dealing with hormone fluctuations, coming up with the money for gender affirmation surgery, fear of being rejected by other trans girls, and people staring at you for looking different. The narrator bad mouths cis people a lot, which is understandable.

Presentation of the trans community in the book is very nuanced and diverse. Trans woman aren't presented as a monolith, but argue amongst themselves and gatekeep each other over who's more authentically trans. It's interesting that trans woman refer to themselves as trans girls in this book. Reasons given for this include fear of growing up or it being easier to be a girl than a woman.

The novel takes its time introducing us to the narrator, her friends, and her life in New York, before the action kicks off. She eventually leaves New York to join a commune of trans women in the Midwest. Things at the commune are borderline cult-like, with the leader having a ceremony to hand out hormones. There are occult books in the library and the others seems to be hiding something from her. When the Wi-Fi goes out and her car won't start, she realizes she's stuck here and things start to escalate.

There's some erotic scenes and a few funny lines. Unlike most horror novels, many (though not all) of the deaths occur off screen, just being mentioned in passing. I would have found the book more horrific if the deaths weren't dismissed so quickly, but it does make sense that the narrator doesn't want to look at the bodies or dwell on the deaths.

This book was a very unique and wild tale! I thought the premise was super interesting and I was immediately hooked by the story. Fans of the weird girl lit fic genre will eat this one up, as well as fans of supernatural horror.

I think the most overwhelming feeling I got from this book was "oh, this would be so good if it was good". Byron's writing is so evocative, the imagery and emotion is really gorgeous at times, but I was unable to every really feel like I had a grasp on what was happening plot and worldbuilding wise. Up until about 80% of the way in, the book felt like a series of disjointed scenes in which our narrator vacillates back and forth between a deep and real belief in demons and a complete obliviousness to the supernatural, between deep love for Ash and a craving for her approval above all else and suspicion that seemed to come and go at random. At several points the narrator bounces between calling Ash her 'girlfriend' and 'ex-girlfriend' with no clear shift, which I can understand to an extent because relationships are messy as fuck and every lesbian has been there, but this sort of terminology problem is consistent. We see words like 'plane' and 'realm' tossed around without any clear explanation of what it means, We're dropped in the deep end, with the 'earthly host' and 'tethering' stuff not really coming in until the late back half of the book and not thoroughly explained. At a certain point I was just nodding along to information that the book treated as a given without ever having brought up. Ash wants to start an apocalypse? Sure. Greek mythology as well as Christian demonology? Alright. Indigo is chill now? Perfect.
I loved the parts of this book that I 'got' as it were, but it felt like I was never fully there, nothing ever felt like a solid through line from 'everything's a mystery' to 'ohhh THAT'S what's happening'.

3.5 - the horror part of the story didn't really show up until 2/3 into the book. it was otherwise good and kept me engaged.

I really wanted to love this but maybe it just wasn't for me. While it wasn't bad, per se, there were things that were a tad bit irritating. The pacing was good, and the plot was intriguing but the main character was just a bit insufferable.

This was really rough. I'd had my eye on this for a while, so it see it in my inbox was a surprise as much as it was a delight. But y'all, I really struggled with this book. It took until the 40% mark for anything interesting at all to happen, and then when something finally occurred, it was so anti-climactic. It felt as though all the important scenes were drawn out to be as long as they could every scene that actually contributed to the plot was given a maximum page allotment of two pages. The writing wasn't special, and neither was the plot, and I also really struggled with this main character. She gave big edgy "I'm not like other girls" vibes, and her mentioning doing ketamine every other page did not help. It's really unfortunate that this was such a letdown because the cover is so gorgeous and as a trans person, I am always looking for more trans books to fit onto my shelves.

The unnamed narrator of Herculine has been dealing with literal demons since her conversion therapy days, and when one particularly nasty entity starts stalking her through New York, she flees to rural Indiana where her toxic ex-girlfriend Ash has started an all-trans commune. The early sections with the narrator and her city friends actually worked well - there's genuine warmth in those relationships before everything gets complicated - but once she arrives at the commune and meets the other residents, I found myself struggling to stay invested in what was happening. Byron spends most of the book building this slow atmosphere of something being off (the girls stop talking when the narrator enters rooms, there are cryptic books in the library, weird rituals happening), but then suddenly explodes into full demonic chaos so abruptly that it never felt earned. The over-the-top final act with demons running wild and people disemboweled came out of nowhere, and while horror doesn't usually scare me anyway, by the time everything was falling apart, I was more bewildered than engaged. There are probably interesting ideas here about community and trauma and what happens when desperate people make questionable choices, but too much felt underdeveloped to really connect. While everyone seems focused on how unlikable the characters are or how often someone mentions ketamine, what really struck me about this book is how incredibly horny every single character is - and I mean that both literally (everyone's bodies are changing, hormones are surging, everything feels electric and overwhelming) and in terms of this raw, almost frantic hunger for connection, validation, belonging, anything that might fill whatever emptiness is eating at them.

If Lena Dunham’s character in Girls were reimagined as a trans woman grappling with demons both metaphorical and supernatural you’d get something close to the experience of reading Herculine. The novel blends raw emotional depth with surreal horror, creating a narrative that’s as unsettling as it is compelling.

As an elder millennial, I found it a bit challenging to fully connect with the protagonist’s voice and cultural references. There’s a certain edgy, hyper-modern vibe that made me feel slightly out of step, like I wasn’t quite “cool” enough for the ride. That said, the author does a phenomenal job portraying the inner and outer struggles of a young trans woman navigating identity, relationships, and survival in a world that often feels hostile and chaotic.

I struggled on what to rate this, and ultimately decided on 3 stars. It was not for me, but I don't think I'm the target audience.

as a nonbinary person who has been in a trans relationship and has trans friends... no.

no to all of this. it was NOT appealing or intriguing. i didn't know the main characters name for literally the whole story and just didn't care enough about her to go back and dig it up. this is written in the same manner as watching cis filmed porn: degrading and making you feel uncomfortable. as a person who has read smut and who also has read what others might believe are 'uncomfortable' sexual moments in books (think BETWEEN TWO MOONS and YOU WEREN'T MEANT TO BE HUMAN), HERCULINE was a shit show.

it's repetitive in both the usage of ketamine, sex, and the privilege of white girls. it felt like a pick me book. it also felt like someone watched an episode of euphoria and ran with it to fuel their whole book. this whole 'toxic ex running a cult'? barely see it for more than half the book. such a shame

WHAT A RIDE!
Lending the trans community such a strong, vibrant, angry voice - I see you!
I daily take for granted I am the gender of my body's identity. Watching such amazing cultural phenomena like Pose, Herculine is an in your face conversation showcasing the anger and desperation to be in YOUR body. The correct gender. The correct reproductive parts. Having a "normal" life.
With the current political climate, the transgender population is in crisis. Herculine takes a moment to show us a glimpse, just a glimpse, into the extreme they are being forced to consider.
My current reading obsession is queer horror - for this reason. It takes today's political nightmare - showcasing how normal this violence, this denial of human rights, denial to even exist has always been.

"Herculine" follows a trans-girl who is simultaneously otherworldly and incredibly relatable. We follow our protagonist as she struggles to find her place in life, her place amongst her community, and her place in the world. Meanwhile, something demonic is following her throughout the city, and she thinks (or hopes) that running away to rural Indiana might be the answer. When she arrives at the all trans-girl commune that her ex started, it seems to good to be true. And it turns out, it is.

This was one of my most anticipated reads of 2025 and I was beyond thrilled to receive a copy from Saga Press. But holy, shit is this not one of the worst books I have picked up this year.

I would give more empathy and understanding for a debut if the author didn't have plenty of writing experience outside of this novel. Byron has too many years in the writing field to be out here writing such horribly disjointed and choppy prose with terrible pacing that hinders any sense of flow, urgency or intention. And no, Grace, writing multiple paragraphs that are crossed out in your text is not a genius creative decision to show that your character is spiraling when recalling an event! It's just annoying and hard to read.

I am no ammature when it comes to reading disturbing or rather taboo topics especially regarding sex and sexual encounters. In fact, I read You Weren't Meant to Be Human (which does everything this book TRIED to do and failed at) which contains (in my opinion) much more 'gross' and 'shocking' sex than Herculine.

But the sex in this book feels borderline like a fetish; like a porno made for cis straight men to get off on. It doesn't feel like Byron is being authentic about presenting her characters engaging in something raw and unfiltered and taboo, it just feels like an excuse to use the word 'pussy' and 'wormed' (YES! WORMED).

The characters are bland and the main character is insufferable, comes across as so anti woman and anti trans solidarity for the 42% of this book that I got through. She complains about her friends when they're the most decent people in the novel and then doesn't understand why no one likes her. AND FOR THE LOVE OF GOD! How many times do we have to hear that she's a failed writer and does ketamine?!?!

The entire time I was reading this book I couldn't tell if this was supposed to feel so on the nose or be a parody. But the further I read the more I began to believe Byron is serious. It feels like she fully believes in all the horrendous lesbian stereotypes she tosses in here. I wish I could put quotes into this review to demonstrate how horrendous it is.

This is a book the theoretically should've been good but falls completely flat due to a complete lack of understanding of basic writing, editing and craft. Seriously, go read You Weren't Meant to be Human instead.