Ready for a New Trope? Try Femgore Romance.
What is femgore romance?
Femgore (noun): A romance-forward subgenre that blends female rage, graphic violence, and high-stakes action with an emotionally intense love story. Femgore centers women who are not just survivors, but retaliators. The gore is explicit. The power is feminine. The romance is passionate, often obsessive, and deeply intertwined with vengeance or justice.
Think: rage-fueled heroine meets blood-soaked romance.
Now listen, “Chick lit” used to be a term that sort of made me grind my teeth. It felt like a very patronizing term applied to books that focused heavily on “women’s issues.” I was thrilled when the term “femgore” started showing up in all of my publishing and book roundups. It is a growing subgenre of the horror diaspora, written about women, by women, and tends to focus on female rage and the consequences – orrrr benefits, if you squint – of unleashing it. Femgore reads contain explicit language, gruesome violence, and themes like obsession and body horror. If I were in charge of labeling things, I would call this “women are done with this s*** lit”.
Read these at your own risk (but also definitely read these!)
Greedy by Callie Kazumi
What would you do for a seat at the table?When Ed Cook is offered a lucrative opportunity to act as a personal chef for a disgraced socialite, he jumps at the chance. Ed owes the Yakuza a lot of money, and if he can’t pay them, his wife and child will disappear.
Hazeline Yamamoto has a very exacting palate, but she is also an… unconventional eater. After all, when you can afford lobster tail at every meal, you’ll eventually tire of it.
Ed is dazzled by the bright future that Hazel’s wealth can provide in exchange for his loyalty, but it will come at a price. He’s about to learn the truth about Hazeline’s charitable works and the chilling truth behind that mega fortune of hers. Will Ed live long enough to regret not taking his chances with the Yakuza? Can Helen’s unique palate preferences stay secret forever?
“Deliciously dark . . . This biting thriller about wealth, morality, and insatiable appetites will leave you hungry for another Callie Kazumi novel.”—Asia Mackay, author of A Serial Killer’s Guide to Marriage
“A deliciously twisted thriller that blends culinary obsession with moral horror . . . This novel savors excess, class, and complicity . . . and leaves you squirming.”–Dua Lipa
The Lamb by Lucy Rose
“[A] gleefully gruesome tale . . .. Femgore at its finest.” – People
“Grimms’ Fairy Tales meets Mommie Dearest in a twisted debut novel about the complex hungers of mothers and daughters . . .. The rich, almost unguent prose carries the story through its gruesome developments without, surprisingly, being gratuitous, as it digs deep into the viscera of the complicated relationships between mothers and daughters, lovers, and one’s own physical and emotional hungers. A gruesome yet illuminating coming-of-age story that will keep readers awake night after night.” – Kirkus Reviews
Bloom by Delilah S Dawson
A sweet sapphic femgore romance takes a deadly dark turn in this sharp-as-a-knife novella with the slow build menace.It should be a cottage core fantasy come to life! Rosemary has never felt this way about another woman. When she met pretty, perky, perfect Ash at the farmers market, Ro delighted in the pretty soaps and tasty-looking cupcakes that were piled high in her booth before she’d even met the proprietor. But as time goes by, and the two women get to know each other, Ro finds herself struggling. She knows she WANTS Ash, and Ro wants to BE WITH her. But she also wants to BE Ash. Her obsession with Ash might be all consuming…but there is something even darker going on. What starts out as a dreamy sapphic romance quickly turns into a nightmare as Ro and Ash continue to attract and repel each other in this fairytale-like read.
“A slim novel with incredible potency. A literary pursuit for the ages. I can’t recall a courtship as captivating as the one in these pages, and if there’s a better writer than Delilah Dawson going today, I don’t know ’em.” – Josh Malerman, New York Times bestselling author of Bird Box and Spin a Black Yarn
One Yellow Eye by Leigh Radford
“Complex and utterly brilliant, One Yellow Eye had me in a chokehold from the first word to the last. Radford has created a genre all her own that is darkly comedic, gruesome, and compassionate—to say I absolutely loved this beautifully macabre story is an understatement.” —Ashley Tate, bestselling author of Twenty Seven Minutes *
The Fox and the Devil by Kiersten White
An obsession with an immortal serial killer entangles a vampire hunter’s daughter in a sapphic romance in this enthralling gothic fantasy from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Lucy Undying.
Doctor Abraham Van Helsing is obsessed with vampires. He and his daughter, Anneke, have a complicated relationship, but when she returns home one night to find him murdered all her energy is focused on finding the killer. Anneke knows that she saw a stunningly beautiful woman hovering over his body, but the visitor left no physical evidence. The only proof of her existence is her consistent appearance in Anneke’s terrifying nightmares.
Armed with the very latest investigative and forensic techniques, Anneke puts together a team of detectives dedicated only to discovering the identify of the mystery woman. The group stumbles upon a shocking revelation: Dr. Van Helsing was not only victim of what may be the actions of a serial killer. There are victims across the European continent and Anneke is determined to follow the trail until she unmasks the murderer.
She does trust her fellow detectives, but Anneke does keep one piece of crucial evidence to herself. No one else knows that she receives letters from the killer. They’re sly communications addressed only to her and always signed Diavola. And sometimes, the letters are soaked in blood.
“Horror’s most versatile author strikes gold once again with The Fox and the Devil, a chilling twist on classic detective stories that propels readers through a macabre, kaleidoscopic tour of fin de siècle Europe. I fell completely under the sway of these indelible characters.”—Jennifer Thorne, author of Diavola
As you well know, this is a judgement-free reading zone. It is very possible that our femgore picks may be a little too intense for every reader, we’ve reviewed more trending books that lean away from gore and violence. But if you are a fan of this unique subgenre, use these titles as a springboard to find similar reads.
