Alma Katsu
G.P. Putnam's Sons
22 September 2026
252
eBook - EPUB
Horror
ARC via NetGalley
Beauty doesn’t fade. It feeds.
Dorothy Wagner has spent her whole life wanting nothing more than to be seen. But after failing to make her mark as an influencer, she takes a job working for a brilliant coder whose company is focused on cutting-edge deepfake technology. And there, in secret, is where she creates her salvation.
Isabella. An impossibly gorgeous girl who takes social media by storm. Dorothy's artistry is brilliant, and Isabella seems so real that she garners millions of followers. But everybody knows overnight success doesn’t just happen. And when someone gets a little too close to the truth, a violent confrontation sends Dorothy on the run, forcing her to confront what she’s willing to sacrifice to keep her secrets.
A modern reimagining of a classic tale, Alma Katsu’s Incarnate is an illuminating, haunting tale of algorithmic worship and beauty that can kill.
Incarnate was a book I ended up likely more than I'd anticipated. It's billed as a horror, but it's more at the creepy-eerie end of the spectrum as opposed to a blood-fest. The story played on some interesting themes and current social issues such as self-image, online personas, social media and AI, and the fantasy-horror elements blurred the lines between the real, the perceived and the fake. There were a couple of parts of the story that I didn't think were fully answered, so I closed the last page still wondering about those things, but that wasn't a deal breaker for me as I had still enjoyed following Dorothy's tale. And, to be honest, those same questions were never really answered in Wilde's original story, on which this one is loosely based, either. In the end, I am giving this book 4.5 stars. It was both entertaining and thoughtful and I recommend it to those who enjoy speculative stories with a darker edge.
I received this book as a free eBook ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
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