Porcelaine - Version anglaise

Reading it feels like participating in a seance.
The writing is so evocative that the line between reality and nightmare blurs. Every sentence drips with eerie elegance.
If Shirley Jackson and Edgar Allan Poe had a literary descendant, it would be Maelström.
Plus, I felt so much empathy for this poor little girl.. It was like watching a movie of my own childhood.
Please, Hollywood--do something right, for once. We need this.

"Porcelain" is a chilling, lyrical tale that lingers long after the last page. Agnes Maelstrom weaves horror and beauty in a way that is both haunting and deeply disturbing. She resurrects the Gothic tradition with a fresh, feminist voice. "Porcelain" is a fever dream of love, sadness, and forbidden vengeful rage, all wrapped in hypnotic prose. I devoured it in one night and barely slept afterward.

From the very first page, Porcelain pulls you in with its eerie, dreamlike atmosphere and refuses to let go. The author has crafted a story that feels both fragile and powerful, much like the porcelain doll it’s named after: delicate, beautiful, and hiding cracks beneath the surface.
Sarah’s journey is both heartbreaking and mesmerizing, blurring the line between reality and the supernatural in a way that lingers long after you turn the last page.
What makes Porcelain stand out is its depth. It’s not just about things that go bump in the night: it’s about love, loss, vengeance, and the weight of personal history. The writing is so vivid and immersive that you don’t just read this book; you feel it. You breathe it in. It stays with you, whispering its story even after you’ve put it down.
If you love gothic fiction that gets under your skin and into your soul, Porcelain is a must-read.

I don’t know if I can find the right words to express what Porcelain made me feel, but I’ll try. I’m 19, and I’ve carried the scars of school bullying for years, scars no one sees but that never fully fade.

When I picked up Porcelain, I expected a dark horror story. What I didn’t expect was how deeply it would reach into my own pain, twisting and turning it in ways that were both terrifying and healing.

Sarah is everything I wished I could have been back then. She doesn’t just endure the cruelty of her bullies: she fights back. And while I would never dare to do what she does, reading about her revenge felt like a form of justice I never got. It was brutal, yes, but also poetic, like the universe finally balancing itself in her favor. In my favor.

Maelstrom’s writing is hauntingly beautiful, weaving horror with something far more profound: grief, rage, and the desperate need to be seen. The imagery stayed with me long after I closed the book, and so did Sarah’s story. It reminded me that I wasn’t alone in my pain. That my anger was valid.

And most importantly, that I survived.

Porcelain isn’t just a horror novel. It’s a scream in the dark for every person who’s ever been made to feel small, and I will forever be grateful for it.

This novel is an absolute gem. Not only is Agnes Maelstrom’s writing breathtaking, but the fact that she self-translated Porcelain from French into English is seriously impressive. It’s tough to pull off a translation that still feels as alive and powerful as the original, but she nailed it. The atmosphere, the characters, the heartbreak—everything still hits hard in English. Maybe even harder, knowing it's not her first language. Honestly, it’s this amazing self-translation that caught the eye of the Horror Writers Association, founded by none other than Stephen King, and I get it. That’s how powerful this story is, and how great an author Agnes Maelstrom is. They had to have her. It’s no surprise why—it’s a brilliant read.