This post may contain affiliate links for books we recommend. Read the full disclosure here.
Book: “Fabulous Bodies” by Chuck Tingle
Publishing Info: Tor Nightfire, July 2026
Where Did I Get This Book: I received an eARC from NetGalley
Where You Can Get This Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | Indiebound
Book Description: From Chuck Tingle, USA Today bestselling author of Bury Your Gays, comes Fabulous Bodies, a supernatural joyride where Drive meets Beetlejuice.
Fashion influencer by day and grave-robber by night, Poppy Stringer is on call when Eddie Michaels—a flamboyant, piano-slamming rockstar and queer icon—unexpectedly dies. All Poppy has to do is retrieve Eddie’s body from the medical examiner’s office, but what starts as a routine delivery quickly goes off course when Eddie wakes up.
Poppy must fight for her life in a blood-soaked night of carnage and fabulous entertainment all across Palm Springs.
Review: Thank you to NetGalley for sending me an eARC of this novel!
It’s that time again folks! It’s time for another Chuck Tingle horror novel! I have found myself looking forward to these each year they have come out, and I will fully and happily eat crow because I know that when I heard that Tingle, previously known for his “Tingler” romances, was going to write horror I was skeptical. But he definitely made me eat my hat with “Camp Damascus” and “Bury Your Gays”, and now we have “Fabulous Bodies”! And once again we have a winner!
This was such a fun and fast paced read, I basically devoured it in one sitting and time flew by. Tingle always has such a creative bent to is ideas, as this one could have been one thing but it went in a wholly different direction than I expected but it completely fit within the concept even if it wasn’t what I anticipated. We have Poppy and Eddie racing around Palm Springs and wreaking havoc with lots of blood and gore and mayhem, all done in unique ways. I found myself cringing and wincing while also really enjoying the outlandishness of it all, and while I don’t really want to give anything away here I will say that the paths this book takes are pitch perfect executions of the genres that they are functioning within.
And it’s probably no surprise that our two main characters, protagonist Poppy and antagonist Eddie, have great chemistry and banter as they go on their spree around Palm Springs. I enjoyed the character arc that Poppy took, from ambitious and self absorbed would be influencer to hostage to a possibly undead rock star that was her idol who wants her to take him around while he kills people, without any clue as to what his motivations is. She started out as prickly and unenjoyable because of how single minded she is about fame and influencer culture (though we have perfectly understandable motivations, I must add), but as the night goes on and gets more chaotic she discovers some uncomfortablte truths about herself in a lot of ways and has to re-evaluate. It’s really a critique on fame at any cost, and while that’s a pretty well worn trope and has been for awhile I still found Tingle’s take on it enjoyable. And I really enjoyed the nasty and kind of hilarious psycho that Eddie is. He had me laughing out loud multiple times, but was also deeply sinister.
“Fabulous Bodies” is another great horror tale from Chuck Tingle! I am so pleased he keeps doing the horror stories and love the perspective he brings.
Rating 9: Fun, frenetic, gory, and creative, “Fabulous Bodies” is another winner from Chuck Tingle!
Reader’s Advisory:
“Fabulous Bodies” is included on the Goodreads lists “Best Summer Horror Books”, and “July 2026 Queer Releases”.
The Library Ladies 