Loud as Bones

“My only way to survive was to join the horror.” This book is gory, ravenous, and absolutely wild. And it’s not exactly your typical vampire story. When I saw it advertised as a sapphic vampire novella, this is not at all what I expected, but I’m not complaining! I absolutely devoured it. I sat down and finished it in a three-hour sitting. After reading “Into the Dark, We Go” I already knew I loved D. G. Woods’ writing, and this novella only cemented that. Her prose is accessible yet beautiful. If I am anything, it is a sucker for a gothic, decaying-house story, and if you combine that with feral, obsessive vampires, it’s pretty much a guaranteed win for me. The story of Iris gets genuinely dark and unsettling, and the torture she endures is horrifying. It feels claustrophobic and hopeless throughout. The atmosphere suffocates you in the best way. And the ending? Perfect. No notes.

This book was just what I needed for a dark and gory, gothic little sapphic vampire romance. Nothing was held back in this story and I fucking loved every minute of it! | LOVE a little captor/captive trope, especially when things get spicy. Reading this at night was just the perfect setting with some candles going and the rain on my tv playing. I was kicking my little feet at this book while reading and the way my mouth dropped open at a few scenes. I was eating this up fully was in love with this book! If you are looking for a great vampiric sapphic novella, give Loud as Bones a try. Please be sure to get yourself reading this ASAP and thank me later. D. G. Woods did an absolutely amazing job with this. The details and feelings you get out of this book was so good the entire time. I haven't stopped thinking about this since finishing it a couple nights ago. I'm still just in awe with this story! And when the title is in the book somewhere, I fucking highlight it and make it every time, I love that so much

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5 rounded up I received the ARC copy of this book from the author in exchange for honest review. Thank you! I didn’t really know what to expect as this was my very first book by Woods, but I was not disappointed. All those promises of the macabre? She delivers! In Loud as Bones, the reader follows a story of Iris in the worst possible time of her life. It feels as if everything was crumbling down from the beginning, and still you don’t expect the ceiling to hit you when it does. I loved the dark, gothic vampires. They were horrendous and monstrous and sensual, very self-centered—the perfect predators in a story of their prey. But Iris’s story does not end with them. It transforms under their torture, and she blends within the walls of her decaying house. Time loses all meaning as past permeates the present, and hunger maddens the mind. The book is promoted as sapphic vampires novella, and I must admit I was a little disappointed with the sapphic aspect of it. I suppose i expected it to be the driving force of the story or something, but it felt a little unsubstantial. We only get to know Iris’s partner Sophie through retrospective, and Ophelia and iris do not really have anything unique going on once Gunnar enters the scene. But other than that, no notes! Don’t forget to read the triggers and have fun! 🦇

This is not your sparkly vampire tale. This story is dark and vivid and the book you ask "what am I reading and why can't I stop?!" Our main character/narrator Iris/Agatha is not particularly likable. She's clinging to a relationship and a partner she should have let go of, living in a house that went from dream-home fixer-upper to rotting decay. And then the vampires show up. Deadly, decadent, obsessive. Ophelia and Gunnar... the kind of chaos that is passionate and jealous, possessive and aloof all at once. As they weave Iris into their web she starts to become something else... things that used to matter no longer do, she becomes numb to the violence, and then there is the room with the bones... and the stories they tell. This book was.. fantastic in its storytelling and imagery. You can feel the house decaying around you, Iris's descent from human to something else, her fear.. it's all so palpable from the page. I couldn't stop reading.

I like to start all my reviews by providing some insight into what I enjoy as a reader, because I'm of the belief that reviews do not declare a book as "good" or "bad". I believe different collections of words are written to fit different people. This book is for the people who don't shy away from being uncomfortable and who aren't afraid of the dark. This one's for the poets, those who find beauty in decay, and the people who maybe skip trigger warnings because they can be spoilers. If you aren't afraid to sit in a flawed character's mind while looking in the mirror, this book could be for you. "I wanted to shed my skin and stroke the planes of my own skull. Perhaps such intimacy would provide me with an identity." Loud as Bones is a quick read, I devoured it in a day, that invites you to the spaces in between what makes someone human. It's a story of desire, passion, decay, and release. The prose is poetic with beautiful and intentional imagery. I'm normally someone who is turned off by the word "vampire", but this book speaks to the raw, animalistic side of a creature that is often portrayed in today's media as glamorous. I absolutely loved the grit, the dirt, the mess that unfolds in these pages. There are scenes some may find disturbing, and I only say that because those are exactly the types of books I look for. If you're into that... yeah, maybe this book is for you.

This was such an interesting take on the vampire lore and such a well execute exploration of the complex feelings a victim can have towards their abuser, and at no moment did any of it feel cheap. The prose was neat, atmospheric, poetic without being excessively flowery or veering into purple prose. Oh and the ending was very satisfying. [I received an ARC copy in return for an honest review]

Loud as Boans was an incredibly refreshing read. I absolutely loved reading this book. I found it unique and thrilling. I was kept on my toes throughout reading. I felt like I never knew what was going to happen next. Waiting for another shoe to drop or some sort of jump scare. Many twists and turns. It kept me wanting to know more, so i had a hard time putting it down. It did not disappoint!!

My second D.G Woods book and I’m a fan for life!!! Suspenseful kept me on the edge of my seat craving more!!!

DECADENT. 🩸 ROTTING. 🏚 OBSESSIVE. 🦴 A vicious sapphic vampire novella about desire, captivity, hunger, memory, and the horror of being wanted as something to possess. DG Woods takes vampire lore and makes it feel strange again. 😌🤌🏽 There are familiar pieces here—blood, obsession, immortality, seduction, the decaying gothic house, the dangerous pull of something monstrous—and Woods twists those elements into her own mythology with confidence. The romantic fantasy of the vampire becomes grotesque, intimate, violent, and claustrophobic. Desire becomes possession, immortality a trap, and the body a site of punishment, appetite, and control. Woods commits to the ugliness underneath the beauty. The writing is lush and sensual, with something grief-soaked and violent pressing through the atmosphere at all times. The house feels alive with memory, cruelty, and bone; it holds the story in its walls and gives the novella a strong gothic pulse from the beginning. One of the most beautiful and emotionally affecting pieces of the lore, for me, was what Woods does with the bones of lost lovers. I do not want to say too much and take away the experience of discovering it, but that detail pulled a surprising amount of emotion out of me. It felt original, intimate, and haunting; a small, strange invention that makes the world of the book feel entirely its own. I also loved the way Woods explores the ache of wanting someone who does not want you back, and the devastation of desire that has nowhere safe to go. The relationship dynamics in this book are obsessive, painful, and full of imbalance, and Woods lets those imbalances unfold with more mystery than I expected. There are emotional truths buried inside the horror, and the book keeps revealing them in ways that made me realize how much I had been misreading or underestimating certain characters. That sense of mystery was one of the biggest surprises for me. I had ideas about where the story was heading, and Woods kept pulling the floor out from under those expectations. Some of the most satisfying revelations were the ones I did not even realize the story was holding back, and the last 15% completely caught me off guard in the best way. The ending brings the plot together, but its real force comes from the character revelations and emotional recalibrations—the kind that change how several people in the story can be understood and make you rethink what you have been reading all along. My minimal critique: the structure moves in and out of different forms, and some worked better for me than others. There was a stretch around the middle where I felt myself struggling a bit with the pacing and shape of the narrative, though I never felt bored or disconnected. The book shifts its rhythm often, lingering in mood and language before snapping back into plot, violence, or revelation. For such a short novella, I was surprised by how much movement there was in the pacing, and even when certain sections did not hit as strongly for me, the story still kept me engaged. The final stretch adds complexity while keeping the horror fully intact; the violence remains visceral, the cruelty carries emotional weight, and the revelations give the whole novella more depth and strangeness. I loved how much care Woods put into the ending. It made the book feel more layered, more creative, and far more fun than I expected from something this brutal. This is bloody, claustrophobic, gothic vampire horror with its own sense of myth. Woods took familiar vampire stories and made them feel strange, grotesque, vicious, and alive (or undead?) again. I loved how inventive this became, especially by the end, and I’m very much looking forward to reading more of her work. Please check trigger warnings on StoryGraph if you have triggers you would like to avoid. This is a very dark book. Thank you to the author/publisher for the ARC. All thoughts are my own. 💀🖤🦴

“For a moment, I was certain Death itself had come to collect me.” This novella was haunting, heavy, and hungry. In under 200 pages, it landed like a punch to the gut. The writing was beautiful in the kind of way that lingers long after you’ve closed the book. “Some things are made beautiful to be destroyed.” That feeling is woven through every page, alongside grief, pain, and the desperate urge to outrun both. And when the story admits that “The craving for death was one thing; the anticipation was another. The wait was worse,” it doesn’t pull its punches. There were a lot of heavy themes throughout this book, and I found myself needing to step away a few times because of my own triggers. If you’re considering picking it up, I definitely recommend checking the content warnings and taking care of yourself. If you love dark, disturbing, haunted reads that aren’t afraid to make you uncomfortable, this one delivers. Thank you to the author for the eARC. 🖤