The Thorns We Wear Inside is a dark, romantic fantasy about a witch, a monster, and the two parasitic demons who’ll stop at nothing to keep them apart.
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In This Spotlight On The Thorns We Wear Inside
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About The Thorns We Wear Inside
Raye is cursed. Living things crumble at her touch, drained by the demon who clings to her like a shadow. No wonder the townsfolk want her dead. Tormented and pursued, she seeks shelter in a mysterious castle.
The castle is an eerie place. Its residents lie trapped in time like flies in amber, all save one. Mir has a demon of her own, one that forces her to seek blood. When the two women begin to unravel their curses with the castle’s trove of magic, their demons unite, refusing to let their hosts escape. Perhaps even more dangerously, Mir can bear Raye’s poisonous touch: the first caress either of them has felt in years.
As monster hunters close in on the castle, Raye and Mir will have to break the binds of their twisted quadrangle before the past catches up with them.
Seductive and cinematic, the dark fantasy The Thorns We Wear Inside has teeth. Step into the castle. If you dare.
The Thorns We Wear Inside features our favorite romantasy tropes: “will kill anyone but you,” love quadrangle, morally grey, forbidden love, villain romance, forced proximity, poisonous touch, dark allure, redemption through love.
Praise for The Thorns We Wear Inside
“A beautiful, brutal sapphic fantasy reminiscent of your favourite fairy tales, The Thorns We Wear Inside will indeed sink its thorns into you.”—L.R. Lam, Sunday Times bestselling author of Dragonfall
The Thorns We Wear Inside is “A lush, bewitching fairy tale reimagining cloaked in yearning and death that will leave you with the taste of copper on your tongue and the scent of roses in the air while you wrestle with what it means to be truly monstrous.”—Tanya Pell, Bram Stoker Award-nominated author of Her Wicked Roots
“The Thorns We Wear Inside is a gripping Gothic Fantasy with lesbian yearning and monster-for-monster dark romance. A refreshing witchy take on the Beauty & the Beast tale for lovers of queer fantasy-horror, with curses, demons, monsters, witches, and betrayed women finding love and acceptance for the people, and monsters, they have become.”—C.M. Rosens, author of The Crows
“The Thorns We Wear Inside probes the question of what makes a monster, and whether love is a curse or redemption. Sexy, bloody, and dark, this is a story for everyone who likes their fairy tales with teeth.”—M.K. Hardy, author of The Needfire
The Thorns We Wear Inside is “A darkly bewitching fairy tale.”—Laura R. Samotin, author of The Sins On Their Bones
“A hunger for flesh, a killing touch, a forest full of revenants, a castle frozen in time—The Thorns We Wear Inside is a deliciously eerie gothic fantasy for readers who yearn for more monstrous love stories.”—S.M. Hallow, author of The Halls of the Dead
The Thorns We Wear Inside is “Aching with yearning and sharp enough to draw blood…a dark, seductive fairytale of the demons that haunt us and the monsters who will love our sins. Utterly bewitching.”—Susan J. Morris, author of Strange Beasts
About Amy Avery, Author of The Thorns We Wear Inside
Amy Avery, author of The Longest Autumn, is a graphic designer living in Kansas. She writes lush fantasy novels for lovers of fairy tales and messy romance, all with a dash of horror. When not writing, she can be found feeding her nail polish addiction, crafting cocktails, or catering to the whims of a rather demanding tuxedo cat. She resides in Wichita, Kansas.
She made a striking literary debut with The Longest Autumn, an intricate seasonal fantasy inspired by the Persephone myth. The novel follows a young mortal conduit bound to guide the god of Autumn through a harsh, transitional ritual, turning classic mythological tropes on their head through rich world-building and nuanced romance. Avery expanded her reputation for haunting, emotionally complex storytelling with The Thorns We Wear Inside, delving into the darker corners of grief, buried family secrets, and perilous magic.
Known for her lush, evocative prose and deeply flawed yet empathetic protagonists, Avery crafts immersive secondary worlds where survival demands impossible choices. Her fiction continues to draw readers seeking lyrical fantasy imbued with high-stakes tension, emotional depth, and atmospheric dread.
You can connect with Amy Avery on her website, and on Instagram.
Source: Publisher
Publisher: Paperback Original | Astra Publishing House
ISBN trade paperback 9780756420819
Pub Date: Nov 10, 2026
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As an affiliate of Bookshop.org, Malaprop’s, Books-A-Million, Audiobooks.com, Chirp, 2nd & Charles, Amazon, NameHero, Envato, and Place-It, LitStack may earn a commission—at no cost to you—when you purchase through our affiliate links. We appreciate the brands we work with, and also appreciate that using our affiliate links may help you find your next great read, a book or two or more, in whatever form, while simultaneously supporting LitStack. When you use our affiliate links, you help keep LitStack running—and for that, we thank you.
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