We support women’s rights to right. We support women’s rights to wrongs. We also support cursed castles and dark romances. And we TOTALLY support messy, queer love-quadrangles. Be honest, is there any other kind of queer love story? And it sounds like we’ll receive ALL of this and more in The Thorns We Wear Inside Amy Avery. This beautifully written, lush novel tells the tale of a witch, a monster, and two parasitic demons trying to keep them apart. (Come on now, demons!) And at Nerdist, it’s our pleasure to exclusively reveal the cover for The Thorns We Wear Inside, which is every bit as gorgeous as we’re imagining the contents of this book to be. Here’s your first look at the cover of this dark romantic sapphic fairytale.
Damn, that is one exceptional cover. Artist Micaela Alcaino has absolutely outdone herself. We are loving the statue vibes, the stark red, maybe of blood, maybe of passion, maybe of both, and the gilded gold. Of course, the most intense detail is how our leading ladies are ALMOST but not quite touching as thorns grow around them. Just let them hold hands!!! We’re yelling in our hearts already. So there’s no doubt we’re going to be absolutely verklempt while reading this book. The Thorns We Wear Inside really sets that dark-fairy-tale tone and brings the feeling of blossoming romance we crave.
The Thorns We Wear Inside‘s cover is enough to woo me over to this novel. But if you’d like to know a bit more, here’s the official synopsis:
For fans of For the Wolf and Nettle & Bone comes a dark, romantic fantasy about a witch, a monster, and the two parasitic demons who’ll stop at nothing to keep them apart.
Raye is cursed. Living things crumble at her touch, drained by the demon who clings to her like a seductive, malevolent shadow. No wonder the townsfolk want her dead. Tormented and pursued, she seeks shelter in a mysterious castle at the heart of a forest.
The castle is an eerie place. Its residents lie trapped in time like flies in amber, all save one. Mir. Mir has a demon of her own, a creature that forces her to seek and crave blood. When the two women begin to use the castle’s trove of magic to unravel their curses, their demons unite. The parasites refuse to let their hosts escape, and 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 forest, Raye and Mir will have to break both the castle’s curse and the binds of their twisted quadrangle before the past catches up with them.
The Thorns We Wear Inside sounds like a perfect fantastical queer adventure; a mysterious castle, curses, demons, and the first touch another person has felt in years. We’re sighing a wistful sight.
If you’d love to get The Thorns We Wear Inside and its perfect cover on your shelves, you can pre-order the book right now through Amazon. The Thorns We Wear Inside will release on November 10, 2026.
This post has affiliate links, which means we may earn advertising money if you buy something. This doesn’t cost you anything extra, we just have to give you the heads up for legal reasons. Click away!