Black Flame
The Natural and Unnatural Rear their Ugly Heads
As someone who doesn’t often read or watch horror, I was exploring new territory with this exploration of sex, the occult, and gruesome imagery.
While most will know Felker-Martin for her previous works Manhunt (2022) and Cuckoo (2024), I had yet to discover this author’s work until the cover art of Black Flame caught my eye. Much like the haunting of the main character, this dust jacket’s visual gripped me and held on. A week later, I was compelled to purchase it.
Black Flame is the third novel Gretchen Felker-Martin has written, published August 5, 2025. Fans of the author claim on forums that Black Flame is Felker-Martin’s best work yet. Critics of Black Flame call it purposeless sex, with a boring character and too much violence. As an amateur reader in the horror genre, I am ill-equipped to contrast this novel with the classics. But I can easily give my reaction in a vacuum. This novel disgusted and intrigued me, and I would recommend it if you are feeling up to an uncomfortable read.
Themes:
Sex, Gender, Horror, Family Issues, Queerness, Film, Unreliable Narrator
Summary:
In under 200 pages, main character Ellen Kramer leads us through her desolate day to day life. She is a Jewish film restorer who does nothing but repress her desires. In her early thirties, she is isolated, depressed, and only finds bliss in her mindnumbing work in restoring film at her bleak job. Surrounded by people who throw around their anti-semitic opinions and lazy nepotism carelessly, she finds little purpose in life.
Ellen is not only a disappointment to her parents for having a girlfriend in college fifteen years prior, but a disappointment to herself for abandoning said ex-girlfriend to denounce her sexuality and appease others. Soon enough, Ellen's lack of desire in life is starkly juxtaposed by her jarring sexual fantasies.
Ellen’s newest project at work is a long-lost and damaged film by Karla Bartok, a Jewish director who stars in his production in drag. The Baroness is his role, and within the Baroness’s castle, a 17-18 year old boy is sexually ravaged throughout the harrowing film. Faceless creatures and sexual nuns swarm flesh in this fortress. The human creatures eat with stapled mouths, hungry for flesh both sexually and to satisfy their stomachs. This dark film relays unnatural and forbidden acts. It’s easy to wonder…why was this plotless film made? What meaning could it possibly have for an audience?
While Ellen restores this piece, she is subject to strange dreams, life-like hallucinations, and the wildest sexual fantasies. Is the source the film, or Ellen’s denial of her natural urges? Ellen’s passive and bleak life comes to a dark and uncontrolled head once the film grips her. Losing her grip on reality and desperate to keep herself hidden, she is made an example for the readers to interpret.
Review:
Some readers online say the shock value of the gore and sex are sensationally pointless. But for Ellen to reach the point of no return, she must face the most uncomfortable truths within her. For her lustfilled craze may be prescribed unhealthy or gross to the readers, but it is the culmination of repression, self-hatred, shame, and ultimately, the source of all lifelessness in Ellen’s life. True freedom from this haunting of the film is her freedom from the opinions of others. Ellen’s happiness was lost upon her in her struggle to be an unattainable pride for her family, and her constant self-hatred brought from fifteen years of pointless agony.
While it could be a hard read for many readers (horror-gore, sexual assault, anti-semitism and anti-lgbtq+ comments), it may be worth the read if you’re able. Even though the events were grisly, its comparison to the joy that can be found outside those horrors was a refreshing reminder.
This novel is a recommended read for all the people who are scared to live their life the way they desire.
Do you want it?
Do you know what it may represent for you?
7/10. I’m not much of a horror-reader, but it gripped my attention. I loved the tight writing and the claustrophobic focus on Ellen’s point of view.
“Do you want it?”
Black Flame
Genre: Horror
Author: Gretchen Felker- Martin
Publication: August 5, 2025
Warnings: SA, violence, anti-semitism and anti-LGBTQ+ comments, death, nudity, horrific imagery, mature themes
Rating: 4/5
UK cover of Black Flame.