Novelist · Historical Horror · Essays
In the cold depths of Lake Superior it waits. It hungers. It hates…
From the author of The Black Hunger comes May the Sea Smother You, arriving May 2027 from Run For It, an imprint of Orbit Books.
“The finest queer horror novel I’ve ever read.” — Thomas D. Lee
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Coming May 2027
May the Sea Smother You
A Novel
May the Sea Smother You
25 May 2027 · Run For It, an imprint of Orbit Books
Gary McLaughlin has been swimming in the deep end his whole life. His small town is oppressive, his father is in and out of prison, and his grandfather vanishes for weeks at a time. Exploring ancient shipwrecks is the only thing that brings him peace — until an unnerving not-quite-accident sends him fleeing from the water.
Years later, Gary and his partner Tim have built a life for themselves far from the narrow-minded town and its rotting shipwrecks. But when tragedy forces Gary to return, he finds that neither the town, nor the lake, nor the dark things that lurk in its shadowy depths, have forgotten him.
The water has called him home, and it will take its due…
The finest queer horror novel I’ve ever read — utterly terrifying and deeply soulful.
— Thomas D. Lee, author of Perilous Times
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Also by Nicholas Pullen
The Black Hunger
Out now from Orbit Books
A queer gothic horror novel of otherworldly creatures, ancient cults, and a terrifying journey from the stone circles of Scotland to the icy peaks of Tibet.
A gothic masterpiece. A devastating exploration of humanity’s capacity for evil.
— Sunyi Dean, author of The Book Eaters
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Acclaim
Praise
For May the Sea Smother You
May the Sea Smother You drags you down to the icy depths of Lake Superior, where unfathomable horrors lurk in the darkness, twisted around a heart of queer longing. It’s the finest queer horror novel I’ve ever read — utterly terrifying and deeply soulful.
Thomas D. Lee, author of Perilous Times
For The Black Hunger
A new dark classic… reveals its horrors inch by devastating inch.
Molly O’Neill, author of Greenteeth
Full of slow, creeping horror… a triumph.
Thomas D. Lee, author of Perilous Times
Utterly original and thrillingly addictive.
Jennifer Thorne, author of Diavola
A terrifying journey to the place where the cruellest, hungriest creatures hide.
Michael Rowe, author of Wild Fell
Reviews & Press
In the press
Recent Writing
Essays & dispatches
- How To Keep Reading Part 3.
- My aunt and uncle and their children made a movie…
- We know all the rules now. It's time to break them.
About the Author
Nicholas Pullen
Nicholas Pullen is a Canadian novelist who lives in the Yukon with his husband and their dog. He is the author of The Black Hunger and May the Sea Smother You, forthcoming from Orbit Books in May 2027.
He has degrees in history from Oxford and McGill, and is a Canadian federal public servant, but was once paid for his role in an adaptation of A Clockwork Orange after its thirty-day run at the Edinburgh Fringe, so can consider himself a failed professional actor.
Contact
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The Rights Factory
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