As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Mary

Middle-aged Mary returns home after losing her New York job, hoping to reconnect with her past. Visions and voices intensify, and new killings seem linked to an infamous serial killer.

Read full description

Nat Cassidy’s highly commercial, debut horror novel Mary: An Awakening of Terror , blends Midsommar with elements of American Psycho and a pinch of I'll Be Gone in the Dark .

Best Horror of 2022― Esquire, Paste Magazine, CrimeRead

Harper's Bazaar 15 Best Books for Spooky Season The Lineup Best Debut Horror Novels of 2022 American Writers Museum―Staff Recommendation

Mary is a quiet, middle-aged woman doing her best to blend into the background. Unremarkable. Invisible. Unknown even to herself.

But lately, things have been changing inside Mary. Along with the hot flashes and body aches, she can’t look in a mirror without passing out, and the voices in her head have been urging her to do unspeakable things.

Fired from her job in New York, she moves back to her hometown, hoping to reconnect with her past and inner self. Instead, visions of terrifying, mutilated specters overwhelm her with increasing regularity and she begins auto-writing strange thoughts and phrases. Mary discovers that these experiences are echoes of an infamous serial killer.

Then the killings begin again.

Mary’s definitely going to find herself.

First published: 2022
Publisher: Tor Nightfire
Pages: 416
Amazon reviews: Read reviews on Amazon

Book tags

Content warnings

Body Horror / Body Trauma

Missing warnings do not mean other content is absent.

Horror profile

Scary: Not rated
Creepy: Not rated
Gore: Not rated
Disturbing: Not rated
Weird: Not rated

How we calculate this

These are editorial estimates of intensity, informed by reading and review evidence, then checked before publication. They aren't star ratings, reader-vote averages or a measure of quality.

Each dimension runs from 1 (low) to 5 (exceptionally intense). A 5 is reserved for strongly consistent evidence. People experience horror differently.

Scary: Fear, tension and immediate threat.
Creepy: Unease, dread and an uncanny atmosphere.
Gore: Graphic injury, blood and bodily detail.
Disturbing: Upsetting ideas and lingering psychological impact.
Weird: Surreal, strange and reality-bending elements.

We draw a filled profile only when all five scores have been reviewed. Unrated does not mean mild. Missing scores are not estimated from genre tags or your saved taste. This profile isn't a complete content-warning guide.