We Turn Gruesome At Night: Burnt Sparrow

The nightmarish second installment of a new trilogy of provocative, disruptive and brutally poetic queer horror set in a small New England town.

From the Bram Stoker Award® finalist and Splatterpunk Award-winning author of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke, an intense, claustrophobic literary horror that is perfect for fans of Agustina Bazterrica, Mariana Enriquez and Paul Tremblay.

Ten years after the devastating massacre that occurred on Christmas morning in 2003 and the community of Burnt Sparrow, NH struggles to move forward. Meanwhile, Rupert Cromwell and Gladys Esherwood find themselves trapped in End House and suffering unbearable monotony day in and day out. When a town courier named Pierce arrives at End House and introduces Rupert to a secret organization known as The Perdido Society, Rupert discovers a deeply intricate and intensely sinister web of secrets spreading through the town. It isn’t long before more blood is spilled, shameful transgressions are revealed, and temptations are finally satisfied.

Captivating and profoundly unnerving, this is the story of two lost souls who are sent on an odyssey into the depths of depravity only for them to discover that it’s quite easy to turn monstrous, to become the thing you once despised. Lyrical, nihilistic and brutally poetic, this is shocking, unflinching, must-read horror from an author at the top of his game.

Eric LaRocca (he/they) is a 3x Bram Stoker Award® finalist and Splatterpunk Award winner. He was named by Esquire as one of the “Writers Shaping Horror’s Next Golden Age” and praised by Locus as “one of the strongest and most unique voices in contemporary horror fiction.” LaRocca’s notable works include Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke, Everything the Darkness Eats, and At Dark, I Become Loathsome. He currently resides in Boston, Massachusetts, with his partner.

"LaRocca holds readers rapt, engrossing them in a tale of layered depravities, confident they will be unable to look away. This is an exemplary middle book of a trilogy, a strong stand-alone story that plants the seed for the finale to come, and a tale that honors the history of the gothic but gives it new life by injecting it with the alluring catharsis of transgressive horror. For fans of Shirley Jackson, Clive Barker, and Poppy Z. Brite."
Booklist, Starred Review

“An absolute must-read miasma of immorality.”
Cinema Chords

“Poetic and vile in equal measure”
FanFiAddict

"Eric LaRocca returns to Burnt Sparrow much like a vulture circles carrion, ready to peck the bones clean. The second installment in his curdled New England trilogy is an abominable blend of perverted Shirley Jackson and Ray Bradbury at his most wretched, creating an utter miasma of immorality. There isn't a shadow within mankind's darkest nature that LaRocca will not drag into the autumnal light, illuminating what's monstrous in us all."
Clay McLeod Chapman, author of Devil Inside

"Unapologetically horrific, We Turn Gruesome at Night pulls readers deeper into the dark and disturbed town of Burnt Sparrow. This novel dares to show us how deeply wrong a place can be, and how it can transform the human beings trapped there into something monstrous. Deviant, unflinching and beautifully poetic, the Burnt Sparrow Trilogy is proving to be LaRocca’s masterwork.”
Jennifer McMahon, New York Times bestselling author of The Winter People and Stay Buried

"We Turn Gruesome at Night opens with a disturbing confessional letter in which things are said that shouldn’t be. In fact, the whole book feels that way—it’s a long, beautiful invitation to spend time with twisted sights, tortured bodies, and blackened souls. Eric is one of our absolute best."
Richard Kadrey, New York Times bestselling author of the Sandman Slim series

"With We Turn Gruesome at Night, Eric LaRocca returns to the New Hampshire town of Burnt Sparrow a decade after the carnage that occurred in his 2025 novel, We Are Always Tender with Our Dead. Here, LaRocca takes the traditional material of the New England gothic--winter isolation, confinement in an old house, secret confessions, forbidden desire, blood-drenched transgression, even rats in the walls--and uses it to tell the story of a man and a woman gradually constructing their own, living damnation. LaRocca's writing continues to surprise and delight as he takes the Burnt Sparrow trilogy in new, unexpected directions."
John Langan, author of Lost in the Dark and Other Excursions

Praise for the Burnt Sparrow trilogy:

"it’s hard not to see an insular, frightened contemporary America in “Burnt Sparrow: We Are Always Tender With Our Dead”: Eric LaRocca’s at-times masterful homage to Shirley Jackson."
Chicago Tribune

“We Are Always Tender with Our Dead is a new level for one of horror’s most important rising voices, and deserves to be remembered as one of the most important novels in the genre in 2025.”
Dread Central

"One of horror's brightest rising stars is on the other side of the threshold, ready to show us all his first epic in the genre. Step across with LaRocca, and you'll be rewarded, whether you're a newcomer or a longtime fan."
Fangoria

"The first book in LaRocca’s Burnt Sparrow trilogy of novels might end up being the most brutal book released by a major publisher this year. Combining small-town secrets with absolutely unflinching studies in transgression and depravity, it’s the boldest and best thing LaRocca’s written yet."
Paste Magazine

"Expertly balancing extreme disgust and awe-inspiring wonder, LaRocca pushes readers to their limit with his use of graphic and illicit sex and violence, making them squirm with intense discomfort, forcing them to confront the truth about the horrors all humans inflict, especially on those they love the most. The results? Mesmerizing. The thought of waiting for book two? Unbearable."
Booklist, starred review

"LaRocca stretches stylistically with this novel, showing impressive artistic growth and a true feel for characters who seem wildly disparate but are in fact closer than they seem. This book will appeal to horror fans looking for lyrical writing and confrontational self-examination; it feasts on insecurities and fear while reminding readers of their shared humanity."
Library Journal, Starred Review

"LaRocca creates a lushly gothic atmosphere that smothers both the reader and his characters... Only those with iron stomachs need apply."
Publishers Weekly

“This is small town hell on steroids: Burnt Sparrow is somewhere around the corner that you never want to even pass by. The beautiful writing of Eric Larocca makes this tale of grief, violence and perversion (a lot of it) a very strangely beautiful journey into darkness. It reminds me of Poppy Z. Brite at her most brutal, vile and best. Unflinching and relentless body and social horror, with a nod to Derry and unspeakable desire.”
Mariana Enriquez, author of Our Share of Night and A Sunny Place for Shady People

“Not since Twin Peaks has there been a town quite like Burnt Sparrow, where nightmares, secrets, cruelty, and longing are the currency. Your visit will be harrowing and it will cut you to the quick, but you’ll want to return as soon as possible.”
Paul Tremblay, author of Horror Movie and A Head Full of Ghosts

"Any time I read an Eric LaRocca book, I feel like I've been brutalized. Your reaction to that sentence will determine whether or not this book is for you. Full of transgressive horror and broken people, its greatest strength is in its psychology. How eager are we to be persuaded to see others as inhuman, so we don't have to care what happens to them?"
Christopher Golden, author of The Night Birds and The House of Last Resort