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Love Is Just Love
Of Teeth & Claws follows a queer man who, after being outed and estranged, returns to his Southern hometown only to find it being stalked by a brutal creature tied to old secrets, witchcraft, and the boy who was his first love. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
I believe we’ve all experienced our first love, that person who awakens something inside us that we didn’t realize was even there. Most often, it starts with laughter, playful banter, and teasing. But as we grow closer, we begin to share pieces of ourselves with this person, pieces that, at that young age, we’re not sure fit in life’s puzzle. For straight youth, these connections are fostered and encouraged by society. They are told in every fairy tale, sung in every love song, and shown in a plethora of films. For those of us in the LGBTQ+ community, it’s a frightening feeling, a panic that can be isolating and terrifying. I wanted to explore that. I wanted to take that beautiful possibility, box it into society’s flavor of “normalcy,” and wrap it in dark, unforeseen challenges. In essence, I just wanted a love story.
Jasper Mill feels steeped in history, secrecy, and tension. What inspired the setting, and how important was Southern culture in shaping the tone of the story?
When I began focusing on the LGBTQ+ experience in horror, I felt it was essential to write what I knew, and that meant exploring Tennessee. It’s challenging for anyone in our community to be truly accepted, and that is especially true in the South, where tradition and faith are often weaponized. In my lifetime, I’ve met many in the community who have chosen to leave for new homes in regions where LGBTQ+ people find a more welcoming atmosphere. But I don’t necessarily believe leaving is the answer. I believe we are better served to keep our homes, because it is our right to have them. I thought that if I could take these love stories, these relationships, and make them rise from a place of horror and mystery, it may help some people understand that love is just love. No more, no less.
The novel explores how shame travels through families and communities. What drew you to that theme?
Certainly, it would have to be my own experience. And, sadly, it is not unique in any sense, especially in the 80s and 90s when I was raised. I was the youngest of eight children, consisting of seven boys and one girl. Two of my older brothers were Baptist Deacons in the church. Shame follows you in a legacy such as this. But I think that is one of the positives of growing older. You become a bit wiser. And you also stop caring so much about what others think. I wanted the reader to know that shame is nothing more than a winter coat. Really, you can take it off at any time.
Do you think horror is uniquely suited to exploring queer identity and experience?
Yes! I do! And that is a great question. Not only do I think it is uniquely suited, but I also don’t think it is explored nearly as much as it should be. There can be so much terror and turmoil with the LGBTQ+ journey, and that is speaking to the internal struggles that many of us face while on that road. These themes parlay eloquently into horror, because it’s not just the monster lurking in the trees that you need to fear; it’s the monsters who hide as friends and family. Even the monsters that lurk in the mind.
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Then again, this could be a Mystery novel. As Alex drives north of I-75, back to the mountains of Jasper Mill, Tennessee, he doesn’t realize that he is escaping the sanctimonious shackles of his mother only to hurl himself into a boiling cauldron of murder, conspiracy, and black magic decades in the making. And those involved could be the ones he holds most dear.
This could even be a Horror novel. Because at the center of this intrigue lives a creature, a monster made of teeth and claws. It hunts in the moonlight at the bidding of a mysterious mistress who seeks revenge on those who wronged her so many years ago. And soon, just days from now, it will hunt for Alex.
Or…maybe this is a Love story. Alex has known love; he’s almost sure of it. Love of his eccentric grandmother, Belle, and her free-spirited friends, Justine and Gracie, the women who helped raise him. And what about David Stone? Could David still be there in the mountains of Jasper Mill, waiting to love, to rekindle, to forgive? Because David is always there. Like the blue of the sky.
Yes…this is a love story.
Because we deserve it.
Of Teeth & Claws
Of Teeth & Claws is a queer Southern horror novel about Alex Burkhart, who returns to Jasper Mill, Tennessee, after being outed and estranged, only to find his hometown stalked by a brutal creature tied to old secrets, witchcraft, and the boy he once loved: David Stone, now a young officer caught in the monster’s path. Around Alex gathers one of the book’s best inventions: Belle, Justine, and Grace, a grandmotherly trio with wine, weed, bite, and real occult weight. The result is part werewolf story, part small-town mystery, part second-chance romance, with blood on the porch boards and tenderness in the underbrush.
The book can be grisly, campy, foul-mouthed, romantic, and sincerely wounded within a few pages, and that volatility gives it a live-wire charm. The opening murder is nasty and theatrical, but the book’s deeper hook is not gore; it is the way shame travels through families, towns, courtrooms, pulp true-crime books, and queer childhoods. Alex’s voice has a sharp, self-protective humor that keeps the story from sinking into misery, even when the pain underneath is unmistakable.
I liked the chosen-family warmth. Belle, Justine, and Grace could easily have become comic-relief eccentrics, but they feel loved into being: funny, meddlesome, occult, occasionally ridiculous, and fiercely protective. The romance between Alex and David also gives the monster plot a pulse beyond survival. The book is not always subtle, but that bluntness fits its appetite. It’s a novel of big feelings, old wounds, and supernatural retribution, and I respected its refusal to be decorous.
This is perfect for readers looking for LGBTQ+ horror, queer romance, paranormal fiction, Southern gothic, and small-town supernatural mystery. Fans of Grady Hendrix’s blend of horror, humor, and regional texture may find familiar pleasures here, though A.J. Grea leans more openly into queer longing and occult melodrama. Of Teeth & Claws is bloody, funny, wounded, and oddly sweet.
Pages: 304 | ASIN : B0GJ8L2B1T
Kamp Kromwell: A Novel
The novel follows Joey Carpenter, a teenage boy caught between the ordinary trials of growing up and the monstrous legacy of Kamp Kromwell, a summer camp haunted by tragedy, folklore, and something darker that won’t stay buried. It weaves Joey’s personal journey of survival, identity, and trauma with the eerie history of Jasper Mill and the cursed land it sits on. The story blends horror, coming-of-age, and queer self-discovery into a narrative that feels both chilling and raw, moving from gothic lore about the crooked oak tree to Joey’s painful memories of abuse and his attempts to reclaim his life.
Reading this book stirred up a whole mess of feelings in me. The writing is sharp and biting, like it wants to cut the reader open just to show what bleeds underneath. Other times it lingers in the shadows, letting dread seep in slowly. I was unsettled more than once, not just by the supernatural elements but by the human ones. The portrayal of Sam Barnes made my skin crawl, and the way the author shows Joey’s shame and survival felt almost too close for comfort. But that’s what hooked me. It’s horror that doesn’t rely only on monsters in the woods, but on the monsters we know too well.
The story moves from ghost stories to camp drama to deeply personal confessions, and yet that unevenness feels true to life. Memories don’t line up neatly, trauma doesn’t follow a straight path, and the narrative mirrors that jagged rhythm. Grea’s style veers between gritty and tender, and I loved the shifts. There were moments of humor that broke through the darkness, and they mattered because they reminded me that life is never just one thing. I also admired how unapologetic the book is about queerness. It doesn’t smooth over the rough parts or wrap them up in platitudes. It leaves the edges sharp, and that honesty made the story feel alive.
Kamp Kromwell reminded me of a strange marriage between Stephen King’s It and Boy Erased by Garrard Conley. Like King’s work, it builds its terror through folklore, small-town legends, and the slow creep of something monstrous hiding in the shadows, yet it also grounds itself in the personal anguish of a boy dealing with abuse and identity. Where Conley’s memoir is brutally honest about the shame and secrecy of growing up gay in a hostile environment, Grea filters that same raw vulnerability through a horror lens, giving the trauma both a literal and supernatural shape.
Pages: 294 | ASIN : B0FHC149LJ
