The Lamb

2025 Goodreads Choice Award Finalist for Best Horror

A FOLK TALE. A HORROR STORY. A LOVE STORY. AN ENCHANTMENT.

From an incendiary new talent, a contemporary queer folktale about a mother and daughter living in the woods, for fans of Angela Carter, Margaret Atwood, and Julia Armfield.

Margot and Mama have lived by the forest ever since Margot can remember.

When Margot is not at school, they spend quiet days together in their cottage, waiting for strangers to knock on their door. Strays, Mama calls them. People who have strayed too far from the road. Mama loves the strays. She feeds them wine, keeps them warm. Then she satisfies her burning appetite by picking apart their bodies.

But Mama’s want is stronger than her hunger sometimes, and when a beautiful, white-toothed stray named Eden turns up in the heart of a snowstorm, Margot must confront the shifting dynamics of her family, untangle her own desires, and make her bid for freedom.

With this gothic coming-of-age tale, debut novelist Lucy Rose explores how women swallow their anger, desire, and animal instincts—and wrings the relationship between mother and daughter until blood drips from it.

"The Lamb . . . is not out until February but it has already created a buzz."—Sunday Times

“This is the book I've been waiting for. Dark, twisted, and utterly enthralling, The Lamb is a novel I will never forget.”—Molly Aitken, author of Bright I Burn