I absolutely love Gretchen Felker-Martin’s work—her writing always gets under my skin in the best way, and Black Flame is no exception. This book was super creepy, in a way that felt intimate and relentless. The horror here doesn’t just lurk in the shadows; it whispers from old cursed film, coils itself around Ellen’s psyche, and slowly infects everything in her life. There’s a sickly, decaying beauty to the horror here, the kind that makes you squirm and turn the page faster. This book haunted me long after I finished it. I loved every awful, brilliant second. Thank you to Tor Publishing Group and NetGalley for providing this ARC for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

This is not exactly what I expected, but I liked the idea of the book. The execution could’ve been better, but when it comes to horror I’ve come to realize that I’m actually really picky. I want a story that makes me feel scared in some way, even if it’s not in a traditional sense, but it didn’t give me any sort of “horror” type of feeling.

However, a problem I had at first (the lesbian story arc) made more sense toward the end since it was a huge character development moment especially with Ellen’s Jewish background. It didn’t flow well with the rest of the story and felt like a second book altogether but it ended being woven in with the rest of the story by the end.

Almost want to give the book a 3.5 just for mentioning Palestine at all - major points to the author for that.
Even though it’s not exactly what I expected and I think it could’ve been improved, I still enjoyed it and will probably come back to it when I’m in a better headspace / less distracted and can enjoy it more.

I've never wanted to watch a fictional movie more than I want to watch The Baroness. Twisted, dark, fun.

Black Flame is a captivating, fantastic, disgusting horror of a novel. It falls into one of my favourite categories of horror -- a story about a haunted film. The horror is visceral and revolting and so, so smart; you're unable to look away, and that's the point. Absolutely remarkable work from this author, and I cannot wait to read more from her in the future!

A gut-wrenching, brutal story that still had me crying tears of triumph by the end. Absolutely floored by this book and one of my all-time favorites.

Felker-Martin's writing always challenges me, and Black Flame maybe did the most. Felker-Martin has such a way of creating visuals in your mind, especially grotesque and dark ones. This book was really gross and vivid, and also I liked it! Let's do more queer horror!

Black Flame is a dark, visceral horror about obsession, repression, and the dangers of desire, following a closeted archivist whose life unravels as she restores a cursed film that may be unleashing real horrors on the world. It was fantastic!

This is a twisty, gut wrenching, fever dream of a book.

I found this book so intriguing - I kept going back and forth between loving it and hating it. I was uncomfortable throughout the entire reading experience and I truly believe that was by design. First and foremost, I HIGHLY recommend checking trigger warnings. I really enjoyed many scenes in this book. The body horror was so well done that I would have to put the book down and come back to it to make myself more prepared for what I was reading. The themes of this book are definitely themes that many people experience but the time period made them so much more heightened. Again, check trigger warnings (which I’ve included at the end what I could think of but may have missed some). While many scenes are hard to get through, the end I found beautiful in a weird and twisted way.

I have to think of this book in specific scenes and not the whole book while writing this review. The MC is experiencing the real world and visions (?) simultaneously throughout the whole book and I had to re-read so many parts because I thought I missed something because all of a sudden nothing would make sense. I would realize that it’s because I’m following the narrator go from one perspective (real world) to another (vision?, alternate universe?) without any commentary on it. And while I completely understand the point of it, it made reading it so difficult. I think my brain just couldn’t process it. But if I would stop thinking about the story as a whole I could appreciate the scene. But then I would be getting confused myself of what was real and what wasn’t.

So, overall, I think this is a really well done horror novel with some important and painful themes that I did not enjoy reading but overall liked……but don’t want to experience again.

TW: Detailed body horror, Rape, Body shaming, Eating disorder, Racism/Antisemitism, Misogony, Suicide, Homophobia, Transphobia, Holocaust, Conversion therapy

Thank you to NetGalley, Gretchen Felker-Martin and Tor Publishing group for the free ebook in exchange for an honest review.

I have been torn with this authors work so far. I loved the first novel, cuckoo wasn’t it for me and this was meh. I do love body horror and I did love the premise but the first half of the book drags a bit. I would say if you enjoy this authors work, you will enjoy this one!

A haunting, skin crawling, tragic read. Beautifully blending classic film horror and her well honed voice, Felker-Martin continues to show that she is a mainstay in the horror genre. I look forward to the next story she shares next!!

This book was crazy and creepy. I highly recommend checking it out if you enjoy gothic, creepy, and dark books. I would rate it a four stars.

After the Path Foundation restored a movie directed by a Klansman, its funding is being pulled. As such, they can’t afford to refuse the obscene amount of money offered to restore an exploitation film of occult magic, orgies, and violence confiscated during the Holocaust and recently found in the home of a dead Nazi official. Restoring a film directed by a Jewish cabaret performer will offset the taint of the Klan film, prove the foundation is solely a proponent of freedom of speech and expression, and (unspoken) play into the insidious and cruel beliefs that have plagued Jewish people for centuries. Ellen Kramer is tasked with the restoration, and not because of her status as the best restorer.

Although Ellen is disgusted by the film, its haunting debauchery releases coils of her own inner darkness. Soon, the images are bleeding malevolence into her life and forcing her to confront the soul-killing horror she’s inflicted upon herself. As the infection of the film’s terrifying allure sweeps through Ellen’s body and mind, she wonders if the film is the key to freedom. But will that proffered freedom exorcise her demons, or will it exorcise her?

Black Flame is a journey into a closeted Jewish lesbian’s psyche, as a film created by the blood of grief, hatred, and loss cracks open her own stores of the same. The story transverses the darkness and inescapable realities of generational and personal trauma—from the vast horror of genocide to the microaggressions of queermisia, misogyny, and anti-Semitism, whose cuts are as dehumanizing as overt acts. In college, Ellen bludgeoned her budding identity and ephemeral happiness into straightness, but her choices are rotting her from the inside. She swallowed everything to be marginally accepted and unloved, and now lives as a corporeal ghost. Except in the lab. The extreme concentration and ability to fix and clean something sullied allow her to ignore her emptiness. However, the film corrupts that peace, latches onto her repressed loathing and hopelessness, and uses her as a conduit to feed its hunger.

In previous books by Gretchen Felker-Martin, all the pain, terror, and self-revulsion are spread out among a cast of characters and feel more aggressive. This is a quiet, insidious horror of a reality where being shredded like cheap tissue paper when people rip into Ellen mentally and physically is met with resignation and quickly muted rage. Ellen’s downtrodden self-flagellation is oppressive and the sucking void of want underneath her skin is visceral. While her increasing confusion and brutal personal realizations are affecting, the pace meanders in the build-up to the climax. Partly because the creation of the sense of unreality requires some repetition and partly from overindulgence. However, the disjointedness fits Ellen’s inner discordance like a LeMarchand puzzle box.

Blake Flame is compelling in its ability to swing from terror to ecstasy, liberation to stark wretchedness in moments. It conveys the sadism and desolation of trying to kill who you are in Felker-Martin’s ruthlessly grisly style.

Ellen Kramer is a film restorer living in 1980's New York who's had some modest success and is deeply closeted, having been sent away by her Jewish parents to a conversion-camp style (or counseling of some sort) to "cure" her queerness in her teens. Now in her thirties, so much of Ellen's internal life is spent denying her desires that it takes a haunted queer film restoration project to reawaken them, becoming the only available pathway to self actualization.

Felker-Martin skewers the idea of an idealized 1980s by laying bare regular accepted attitudes of homophobia, misogyny, and antisemitism, amidst grisly consequences as the supernatural film (originally made by queer victims of the Holocaust) becomes a vehicle of vengeance and rage against racists, homophobes, misogynists, and other bigots. This book does not fool around with the gore, and has frank descriptions also of the stochastic violence in Nazi Germany, The Holocaust, and the casual bigotry of the 1980's, including scenes of a normalized sexual assault. Reader beware, this is a well written but unflinching read.

I don't even know where to begin with how much I loved this book. I was so nervous going into it since it combines some of the things I care about most deeply - queer horror, cursed films, and archives -- but Felker-Martin absolutely nailed every one of them and created a sum greater than its parts. Over the few days I took to read this, I dreamed about the Baroness, which is a mark of how deeply this book got its hooks in me (no pun intended). As always, Felker-Martin is a master of complex queer characters and it was refreshing (and devastating) to see the debilitating shame and self-hatred of being closeted laid out so bare as its own layer of horror.

3 stars

I thought the author had written this book just for me when I read the synopsis. I am an absolute sucker for books about haunted movies and this sound perfect: a film archivist working at a newly disgraced studio is forced to work on a thought-lost German film filled with cult-like, obscene behavior. Is Ellen losing herself to the film or is it opening her up to becoming her real self?

I thought the book had real promise but, ultimately, there were too many gaps in the story for me. Felker-Martin does a good job describing the film itself, but I was never clear on the reason the second version (not a spoiler) was significant, nor what infected it. So, some good stuff, but it just didn’t get there for me. And Ellen was so very weak. I had a hard time relating to her. I would read the author again, though, as I liked her style.

Oh, and I HATED the cover.

Much more fast-paced and ultimately disturbing than Felker-Martin's first two books, but of course holds similar themes of repression coming back in monstrous ways. This one will have you questioning your own sanity along with the main character. Utterly terrifying!

This book is a literal fever dream of a book! I frequently wondered if I even understood what was going on. The films that Ellen views are downright disturbing, as is the majority of this book - yet also manages to be quite erotic in a way that makes your skin crawl. This book does not tip toe around the issues of antisemitism, sexuality, and capitalizing on the dark and horrific side of history.

I am having trouble deciding where to start with this one, because there are a lot of different ideas packed into these scant pages! I absolutely felt a connection to Ellen, our main character, from the start. You can tell she's struggling, trying to be what her family wants her to be (a straight cis woman who "settles down" and starts a family) and how fundamentally un-Ellen that is. This story is set in 1985, and Ellen's Jewish family includes her grandmother, who is a Holocaust survivor. This comes into play during the story, especially as the film Ellen is tasked to restore is thought to have been stolen by a Nazi who was trying to destroy any Jewish art.

The movie itself is incredibly messed up, and Ellen finds herself completely wrapped up in its restoration. Through work, she also finds herself having to face the sexuality she's been trying to tamp down as she's told to bring in a woman who runs in the same circles as her college lover, who she's clearly never gotten over. It's a lot for Ellen, trying to navigate between her job, her identity, her relationships, her family dynamics (messy, very messy), and this film that is messing with her mind on many levels. She finds herself in the movie at times, which for me was a little confusing at times, but I also think perhaps that is intentional (Ellen certainly would have found such a thing confusing and jarring, after all).

Bottom Line: It's the messed up, gory horror with great societal commentary the author is known for, but with an added bonus of some really great character development.

Thank you to NetGalley, Gretchen Felker-Martin, and Tor Publishing Group for a copy of this novel.

Content Warnings Include: Graphic Imagery of Body Horror and Torture, Blood, Sexual Assault, Homophobia, Transphobia, Antisemitism, Controlling Family, Misogyny, Discussion of Nazis and the Holocaust, Homelessness, and Death.

I spent the first thirty years of my life cowering before my biological father, begging for his approval, begging for him to love me. I learned to hate myself, hate who and what I am, because he did not approve of it. He did not approve of me being queer, of my transness, of my atheism. Nothing I did was ever good enough for him, and I shaped my world, my life, around hoping he would accept me.

Around five years ago, I severed ties with my father and his side of the family, deciding to finally live my life as I see fit–to finally shed my skin, so to speak. To finally become the man I knew I was deep down.

Gretchen Felker-Martin’s “Black Flame” spoke to me on so many levels, I wondered for a moment as I finished the last delicious page if the author had somehow looked into my life, into my soul, and pulled out all of my monsters. I lay in bed, staring at the last few sentences, tears running from my eyes and down my cheeks with a wide smile on my face. This is the first of Felker-Martin’s novels that I have had the pleasure of reading, but it will not be the last.

Ellen works as a film restorer. She has spent her life trying to gain the approval of her mother. This includes breaking up with the first love of her life, Freddie, a trans woman, in order to date a man named Jesse. Everything she does centers around trying to please her mother, her boss, everyone around her–everyone except for herself.

A film known as “The Baroness” eventually finds its way to her, slithering into her life until it is all consuming. It is an exploitation film from a Jewish director, stolen and hidden away by a Nazi until it was unearthed after his death. Ellen is tasked with restoring the film, soon becoming obsessed with it as strange and horrifying things start to happen around her. Soon, the images in the film come to life in grisly detail, warping Ellen’s mind while also setting her free.

“Black Flame” is written beautifully. It deals heavily with the film industry and film as art, so the fact that Felker-Martin wrote it in such a cinematic nature should be no surprise. The entire novel is a masterclass in imagery.

Felker-Martin’s horror novel explores Jewish history, exploitation, fascism, self discovery, death, sexual assault, and what it means to truly be alive in your own skin. I wish I had been able to read this when I was younger. Even through the Clive Baker-like body horror, even through the fear and terror, “Black Flame” is a brilliant, beautiful novel. If you love horror books or film, you need to read this. If you have ever made yourself smaller so that others will not harm you, you need to read this. If you are alive, you need to read this book.

Extremely graphic and unbelievably powerful, Black Flame was shocking in a vulnerable, beautiful way. The vibe is a heavy, wet and dripping dread that slowly draws you in until you can’t stop reading. Chaotic, gory, erotic, and empowering. This read will be on my mind for awhile and I cannot wait to read Gretchen Felker-Martin’s prior books.