I really wanted to love this one, the premise had all the right ingredients for a moody, mycelium-laced horror: a missing metal singer, a haunted forest cabin, and a creeping fungal presence that threatens to unravel reality. But in the end, The Midnight Muse just wasn’t for me.

The writing is atmospheric and eerie, and Jo Kaplan clearly knows how to build dread. The mushrooms-as-metaphor motif is cool in theoryespecially with the themes of transformation and artistic obsession, but the story often felt more like a slow, dreamlike descent than a satisfying narrative. The pacing dragged, and the characters (aside from Brynn) didn’t fully click with me. I found it hard to stay invested in the band’s dynamic or feel much urgency in the unraveling mystery.

If you’re into surreal, psychological horror with a literary bent and don’t mind ambiguity or slower burns, this might hit the spot. But for me, the atmosphere outweighed the emotional pull, and by the end, I was more spored-out than spooked.

Not a bad book just not my vibe.

So supremely creepy and dark. Another entry in the queer people/mushroom horror canon. Loved the characters and the story told here, but I do think some of the flashback sections took away from the momentum of the plot.

- body horror
- forest rot mushroom horror
- heavy metal band
- government conspiracy
- eerie occult
- rottagegore
- macabre music obsession
- 4.5 stars rounded up
- multi-pov 3rd person

I love mushrooms so much, and add them to an eerie atmospheric horror where members of a heavy metal band go to an isolated cabin in the woods a year after their lead vocalist goes missing in the same woods?? You are telling me you are combining two of my favourite things: forests and music -- and giving me a spine-tingling tale that is equal parts poetry and terror? YES.
Give me ten of these. I enjoyed the multi-POV format interspersed with excerpts from news articles, journals, lyrics, blogs, reports and conspiracies -- it almost reads like a mystery horror? We get rot, infectious fungus that seems to have a mind of its own and we get well-fleshed out characters who each have their dark sides that become more and more apparent as they're pulled into a void where they might just lose more than their lives.

This will slap as a movie adaptation besties we need to make it happen somehow-- it comes out next spring just in time for summerween so you should consider pre-ordering, just saying ;)

(Thank you Netgalley & Clash Books for the Review Copy :) All opinions are my own)

TW: SA; please be mindful of that before picking this one up :)

This was really good! I read it really close to Girl in the Creek, and I think you'd enjoy one if you enjoyed the other. They both have a pretty similar story about going out into the woods to find someone, only to deal with mushroom monsters and body horror. Both were equally as fun, but I do think this one had the edge a bit because I think the characters were just a bit more interesting and fleshed out. The only issues I had were that there's a twist with a character towards the end of the book that felt pretty random and a bit unearned. The last few chapters also kind of dragged and I think you could probably shave off like 30-40 pages to make that part more concise and it would have been a bit more satisfying. This is also very much a petty complaint and it very much just me being an obnoxious snob with metal music, but the band seems kind of corny. I was excited to seemingly read a body horror book about a black metal band, but they sound more like Evanescence or something hah. Again, I don't think that's going to bother a lot of people. It's just a me thing. The book itself is super fun I wish half stars were an option because this is definitely more like 3.5 stars, but it's still very much worth a read, so I'll bump it to 4. Especially if you're into body horror and sporror because those aspects of the book are great. Thanks for the ARC!

What a cool book! I think this has been the most unsettling book I have read! The Midnight Muse blends body horror, claustrophobia, and government conspiracy, and the occult in such a seamless way! I really had a great time. I love the order in which information is shared with the reader, from the main story to the snips and peeks of third-party info.

My only complaints with this book- I wish the ending was either scarier and more open-ended OR more neatly tied up. It felt a little non-committal.
I wish we dug more into Harlow's experiences in the facility. Was Queen Carrion really following her? Were her visits from "Wendy" and "Lou" actually the Pseudo? There was such a gap in sophistication from when we saw the pseudo as Brynn before Harlow and Thorn are rescued and as how they are presented to Harlow in the facility (IF Wendy and Lou are the Pseudo and not just Harlow's imagination). I think the present/AFTER time period could have been more impactful or spooky.

All in all, I really liked this book and have already recommended it to all my spooky loving friends. Thank you for the chance to read and review!

I absolutely loved this one, the storyline was exciting and mysterious from the first page to the last. Especially in the beginning, the eerie atmosphere was written phenomenally, I really felt uneasy while reading, it was fantastic. The structure of the book with all the flashbacks, foreshadowings, excerpts of notebooks/blogs/letters and so on, additionally added to that, it was done brilliantly. As a huge metal fan myself I obviously loved all the music aspects as well, but I'm sure this book can also be a great read for non-metalheads. All in all huge recommendation for everyone who likes nature horror and body horror.

Netgalley ARC - first off thank you for the opportunity to read this, it really stood out and piqued my interest as soon as I saw it.

It is so well written and I was hooked from beginning to end. I had visions of it being in a similar vein to The Last Of Us video game/tv show with the fungal subject matter, and while this was touched upon, the whole premise and plot took things to a whole other level.
The character development was rich, with each main player given their own engaging back story and it was easy to pick favourites and route for some over others.

It’s not just another cabin in the woods shocker. There some intricate twists and turns, and Jo Kaplan writes so descriptively that it compels your mind to immerse yourself in each scene. I don’t want to spoil anything, else. You really should read it and find out for yourself. I just wish Queen Carrion were on Spotify as I want to hear every song now!

I was a massive fan of Jo Kaplan’s 2020 debut It Will Just Be Us which featured in my Horror DNA Top Ten Reads of the Year. It must have been very tempting for Jo to write another haunted house story (and I would have jumped at the chance of reading such a book) instead she makes a subtle and thoughtful change of direction in When the Night Bell Rings, abandoning the atmospheric spooky mansion in favour of a parched desert landscape and an abandoned silver mine which was part eco and dystopian thriller.

With The Midnight Muse Kaplan makes another highly memorable change of direction which takes in a struggling heavy metal band, disappearances in a scary forest and a whole lot of other stuff I do not want to say too much about without going into spoiler territory. Be careful which reviews you read, many include pretty heavy spoilers. Although there was a slight lull in the middle, The Midnight Muse picks up for a big finish, heading into a highly satisfying big finish. There must be some weird goings on in the great state of Oregon, where this is set, as it did touch on some of the same ground as Wendy N Wagner’s eco-horror Girl in the Creek which was set in Mt. Hood National Forest, whilst this is mainly set in Oregon’s Umpqua National Forest of the wild Pacific Northwest.

I am a huge fan of horror of novels which feature music, particularly heavy metal, and this is a big part of The Midnight Muse, who are a struggling metal band who have great material and are looking for a big break. Because I am a massive fan of the portrayal of metal in horror fiction I looked at the band Queen Carrion and could not quite figure out what they were, even though plenty of lyrics are interspersed into the narrative. ‘Corpsepaint’ is mentioned on two occasions, but they did not seem like a Black Metal band and were certainly not Satanists. Casual readers might not notice this, but heavy metal fans might and it lacks the authentic metal lore of David Peak’s masterpiece, Corpsepaint.

The Midnight Muse is much more than a story of a struggling metal band looking for a hit, it has a complex triple narrative that takes in multiple characters over three time periods and circle around the disappearance of charismatic singer and sole songwriter Brynn Werner. In the narrative which takes up the most page space the other members of the band visit the remote cabin where Brynn disappeared from a year earlier. In this passing year, the band has been on hiatus and there is friction over what to do next, as most of the band believe she is dead.

The drummer Harlow Sorenson refuses to believe Brynn is gone, with the two young women being childhood friends, with the story circling back to when they were kids. Harlow is seriously dysfunctional, has alcohol problems, with her narrative also jumping beyond what happens in the woods with the rest of the band. All the band have page time and are incredibly well developed characters, after a few chapters it became relatively easy to tell them apart, even when they clashed.

Even before things start to go south in the cabin I had sympathies for all of them. It was easy to understand why they wanted to finish Brynn’s incomplete album, try out other singers, whilst Harlow obviously saw this as a sign of betrayal. Even though Brynn is not directly in the book, she dominates the story, and is vividly portrayed through the other characters, especially Harlow who has a strong connection with her.
Kaplan cleverly breaks up the action with old interviews with the band (particularly Brynn) in metal magazines and skilfully builds up the lore of the band and the idea they were ‘cursed’. The story repeatedly circles back to a concert where the lights went off, in the following stampede a young fan was killed. Brynn became obsessed with the song they were playing at the time of the incident, becoming fascinated with the idea of ‘the Low Places’.

The concept of the Low Places is a fascinating part of the story and I enjoyed the manner in which Kaplan ignores all the cliches connected to heavy metal and Satanism, instead taking events in her own highly original direction. Even is some parts of the story will sound very familiar, think Cabin in the Woods, there was a massive amount going on, and I have not even mentioned the incredibly graphic body horror! Even if I am not sure exactly how Queen Carrion might sound like, I sure would love to sample them.

4.5/5

The Midnight Muse is fierce, original horror that seethes with fungal dread and artistic obsession. If you're craving body horror with heart, atmosphere, and a pounding metal soundtrack, this is for you. Just don’t read it in the woods.

a haunting blend of horror, grief, and artistic obsession. A year after metal singer Brynn Werner vanishes in the Oregon wilderness, her bandmates return to the remote cabin where she disappeared only to find something unnatural waiting in the woods. Fungal infestations, spectral visions, and a growing madness seep through the forest, warping memory and flesh alike.

Told through eerie flashbacks, journal entries, and atmospheric prose, this novel explores the dark side of creativity and the price of inspiration. Perfect for fans of body horror, psychological suspense, and music-fueled dread.

A highly entertaining body horror full of Fungi and heavy metal. I love horror, I think mycelium is pretty interesting and cool, and I love heavy metal. This novel combined all of those things and deliverers it really well. I liked the intermissions at points between chapters and had pretty good mental imagery for the whole of the book. I could easily see this turning into a summer blockbuster akin to Cabin in the Woods! Thanks to NetGalley for ARC access!

I have a real soft spot for horror featuring musicians, especially when it’s got rock or heavy metal – Jennifer’s Body, We Sold Our Souls both come immediately to mind – so I was looking forward to reading The Midnight Muse as soon as I spied it on NetGalley. The mushrooms on the cover helped there too, it felt like a delightful amalgamation of several of my great loves. Part of my love of these kinds of stories is, yes, my own love of metal music, and part is due to my deep and abiding love of the Faust mythos, many of whose tropes infuse the plot. It’s like they go hand in hand, after all, who wouldn’t do anything to be famous right? While The Midnight Muse does include the overarching theme of a pact with a horror from beyond time and space, it was saved from being predictable by the inclusion of one of my other favourite plot points – mad scientists and a secret evil organisation.
The fact that The Midnight Muse went down a sort of analogue horror route was delightful. I’m a huge fan of the SCP Foundation, Mystery Flesh Pit National Park and the backrooms videos (even if I’m too scared to watch sometimes). Somehow the way the story was written made this aspect feel like a secret conversation between me and the author, like they were asking “hey, you get it right?” and I loved every minute. The news articles and redacted papers peppered throughout the story broke scenes up nicely and felt like they were adding background to the story without pulling me out of a moment or feeling like they were there just to provide exposition. If anything, they increased my investment in the story and made for a good way to mark moving forward and backwards in time through the plot as well as a little more context for mentioned events that didn’t get discussed in depth. Having a news article about the fire, for example, gave me some context for characters emotions and actions, even if we didn’t get more in-depth information until later. They helped to seed information and build expectation in a novel way that was executed very well.
The writing style was very comfortable and comforting – my favourite turn of phrase being “Words tumbled... like amateur gymnasts stumbling through a routine.” Characters felt like they had their own distinct styles so even though there were multiple points of view throughout, I didn’t get confused as to whose perspective I was reading from. I’m a big fan of Jacqueline and loved her characterisation as a recovering people-pleaser. I formed a deeply personal connection with many of the characters this way, simply through how they each felt distinct and like they were working through their own issues. While they might have been judged by other characters, I didn’t feel like the author was judging them or leading us to do so and the band and their antagonists ended up feeling like a sprawling maniacal internal family system. I loved that everyone had their obsessions and vices and how key plot points were revealed piece by piece as characters (mostly Harlow) came to terms with their trauma and were able to face the past.
One of my favourite parts of horror media is the series of questionable choices that have to happen in order for the plot to progress and there are two here that had me screaming at the book. The first is the phrase “let’s kick things up a notch” which always end well and in this case was followed by the presentation of shrooms chocolate, which also always ends well, especially when combined with copious amounts of alcohol, and definitely always contains only psylocibin. The second is the choice to stay in a cabin in the middle of the woods that towards the end is revealed to have no reviews. I’d just spent a bit of time driving around the east coast of Australia and consequently booking a few motels and I can tell you there is no way in hell I am booking a place to stay without first checking the reviews. Absolutely delightfully baffling behaviour, but isn’t it the point of characters to be a little bit stupid? It’s not as fun if we can’t scream at or cheer them along through the pages.

This book worked its way into my brain and gave me goosebumps in the very best way. It was spooky and tense, with intriguing characters and a fantastic thrilling plot.

A baseline synopsis could describe this book as Black Metal meets Evil Dead set in Stranger Things/Fungi from Yuggoth, but it goes well beyond that. Trauma bonding, addiction, survivor’s guilt, unrequited love from one obsessed with the perfect song; beyond and below. Kaplan’s peppering of purple prose prevents the ‘silly’ in mycelium from spreading through the pages. Sorry. Highly recommend for anyone interested in any of the subjects I’ve listed above!

If you love creepy body horror, nature horror, and isolated cabin in the woods vibes this is the book for you. If I went off vibes alone, this would be a five star, but with the story, the characters, the music, the body horror… it is just off the charts!

This was a speldid book! The creepiness is not up in your face and instead a little bit sneaky and lurking behind the corner. That is so much more effective. A very good book!

Thank you to NetGalley and to the publisher for this eARC in exchange for my honest review.

Creepy in the best way Didn’t expect to like The Midnight Muse as much as I did, but it pulled me in fast. It’s got that slow-build kind of creepy that sneaks up on you, and before I knew it, I was totally into it. The vibe is super eerie—almost dreamlike at times—and Jo Kaplan really knows how to set a mood. It’s the kind of book that lingers a little after you finish, in a chill, haunting kind of way.

When I read the description of this book, it sounded so incredibly up my alley. I just had to read it.

I also think that the cover is super cool and has great vibes. It is very important that a cover have the correct vibes, in my humble opinion.

I did find this book to have some good spooky moments, but I also found it a bit flat at times. I think the main contributor to that has to be the pacing. It felt kind of all over the place at times. I wish it was more consistent or more planned. I also think that contributed to the ending feeling a bit lackluster. It could've been such a huge moment.

This really had such an amazing premise, metal band gets spooky and weird and there are spooky mushrooms in a spooky forest. That's so fun! I just needed more oomph from it. But I can totally see this as a movie and I need that to happen! It's almost giving season-of-American-Horror-Story vibes.

Thanks to NetGalley for the e-ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review! My Goodreads review is up and my TikTok (Zoe_Lipman) review will be up at the end of the month with my monthly reading wrap-up.

Horror tropes with fun characters and page turning thrills left right and center - such a fun read! I loved the dynamics between the characters and the psychological twists with scares throughout.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishing team for the e-ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This book was a top-notch New Adult body horror/thriller novel. After chapter 2 or 3, this novel picked up and never let up. I enjoyed the main characters, but especially enjoyed the plot. There were so many twists and turns to this novel that kept this engaging from beginning to end!

Sometimes, towards the middle or end, a thriller drops off in intrigue, but this one really developed an interesting plot. I also really enjoyed the mixed media incorporated into the story from books, interviews, etc. that added outside perspective. I would definitely recommend this book for people that loved Five Survive or other Holly Jackson books.

I stumbled on this book by accident and it ended up being one of my favorite of the year so far. I went in mostly blind without knowing the author or what the book was really about, and I was so pleasantly surprised. It has everything I love: body horror, heavy themes of grief and guilt, multiple timelines, and most importantly fungus infection. If a book has mushroom horror in it, I must read it.
I loved how all MCs had their distinct voice and personality, they’re so well fleshed I’m convinced I could tell them apart without knowing who’s POV we are in, and with so many of them that’s very impressive. I love when we have morally grey characters, and even more when we have straight up assholes. Midnight Muse delivered on both front.
The suspense and anxiety I felt got so bad that I had to stop reading one night because I got afraid of what might lurk in the dark! We also have some amazing writing with beautiful (or sometimes nauseous!) descriptions, which makes me want to read more works from this author.
All in all I loved absolutely everything about this book, from the plot progression to the prose, with a special emphasis on Harlow’s journey through grief and guilt.
I can’t wait to buy a physical copy of this book and to recommend it to everyone I know.
Thank you so much for granting me access to an ARC of this gem