Thursday, November 6, 2025 at 7:00 PM
Skylight Books, Los Angeles
 ****A “paranoid, self-annihilating” (Gretchen Felker-Martin, author of _Manhunt_ and _Cuckoo_)** **horror debut following a woman who seeks refuge at an all-trans girl commune only to discover that demons haunt her fellow comrades—and she's their next prey!**** _Herculine_’s narrator has demons. Sure, her life includes several hallmarks of the typical trans girl sob story—conversion therapy, a string of shitty low-paying jobs, and even shittier exes—but she also regularly debates sleep paralysis demons that turn to mist soon after she wakes and carries vials of holy oil in her purse. Nothing, though, prepares her for the new malevolent force stalking her through the streets of New York City, more powerful than any she’s ever encountered. Desperate to escape this ancient evil, she flees to rural Indiana, where her ex-girlfriend started an all-trans girl commune in the middle of the woods. The secluded camp, named after 19th-century intersex memoirist Herculine Barbin, is a scrappy operation, but the shared sense of community among the girls is a welcome balm to the narrator’s growing isolation and paranoia. Still, something isn’t quite right at Herculine. Girls stop talking as soon as she enters the room, everyone seems to share a common secret, and the books lining the walls of the library harbor strange cryptograms. Soon what once looked like an escape becomes a trap all its own. While trying to untangle the commune’s many mysteries, the narrator contends with disemboweled pigs, cultlike psychosexual rituals, and the horrors of communal breakfast. And before long, she discovers that her demons have followed her. And this time, they won’t be letting her go. **Grace Byron** is a writer from the Midwest based in Queens. Her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, New York Magazine, The Nation, and Vogue, among other outlets. Find her @emotrophywife. Herculine is her debut novel. **Sarah Rose Etter** is the author of _Ripe_, the chapbook _Tongue Party,_ and _The Book of X_, winner of a Shirley Jackson Award for best novel. Her work has appeared in _Time_, _Guernica_, _BOMB_, the _Bennington Review_, _The Cut_, _VICE_, and elsewhere. She has been awarded residences at the Jack Kerouac House, the Disquiet International program in Portugal, and the Gullkistan in Iceland. She earned her BA in English from Pennsylvania State University and her MFA in fiction from Rosemont College. She lives in Los Angeles. For more info, visit SarahRoseEtter.com.