Caitlin Starling discusses “The Starving Saints” with Sadie Hartmann

Join us & other horror lovers at the Seattle Public Library Central Location!

When: Thursday, May 22nd, 7-8:30pm Where: Central Library (Seattle, WA)

Registration is requested, not required: https://charliesqueerbooks.com/events/2501820250522 

About the Book:

Aymar Castle has been under siege for six months. Food is running low and there has been no sign of rescue. But just as the survivors consider deliberately thinning their number, the castle stores are replenished. The sick are healed. And the divine figures of the Constant Lady and her Saints have arrived, despite the barricaded gates, offering succor in return for adoration. 

Soon, the entire castle is under the sway of their saviors, partaking in intoxicating feasts of terrible origin. While the war hero Ser Voyne gives her allegiance to the Constant Lady, Phosyne, a disorganized, paranoid nun-turned-sorceress, races to unravel the mystery of these new visitors and exonerate her experiments as their source. And in the bowels of the castle, a serving girl named Treila is torn between her thirst for a secret vengeance against Voyne and the desperate need to escape from the horrors that are unfolding between Aymar’s walls. 

As the castle descends into bacchanalian madness—forgetting the massed army beyond its walls in favor of hedonistic ecstasy—these three women are the only ones to still see their situation for what it is. But they are not immune from the temptations of the castle's new masters… or each other; and their shifting alliances and entangled pasts bring violence to the surface. To save the castle, and themselves, will take a reimagining of who they are, and a reorganization of the very world itself. 

About the Speakers

Caitlin Starling is the nationally bestselling author of "The Death of Jane Lawrence" (2021), "Last to Leave the Room" (2023), and the Bram Stoker-nominated and Summer Scares-featured "The Luminous Dead" (2019). Her upcoming novels "The Starving Saints" and "The Graceview Patient" epitomize her love of genre-hopping horror; her bibliography spans besieged castles, alien caves, and haunted hospitals. Her short fiction has been published by GrimDark Magazine and Neon Hemlock, and her nonfiction has appeared in Nightmare, Uncanny, and Nightfire. Caitlin also works in narrative design, and has been paid to invent body parts. She’s always on the lookout for new ways to inflict insomnia.

Sadie Hartmann aka Mother Horror is the co-owner of the monthly horror fiction subscription company, Night Worms and the Bram Stoker Awards® winning author of "101 Horror Books to Read Before You’re Murdered" from Page Street Publishing. Her second book, "Feral & Hysterical: Mother Horror’s Ultimate Reading Guide to Dark and Disturbing Fiction" will be released August 2025. She lives in the PNW with her husband of 20+ years where they stare at Mt Rainier, eat street tacos, and hang out with their 3 kids.