THE DESECRATED

In Gray’s debut novel, a young woman must battle her inner demons and deal with supernatural happenings while working at a New York morgue.

Twenty-year-old Sabrina Shelby is the forensic attendant at New York City Mortuary Services, where she works the night shift. Still mourning the death of her father, she spends her evenings alone at work, tending to and taking care of the dead. When handsome English film actor Trevor Pryce is arrested and sentenced to work with Sabrina as part of his community service, he interrupts her monastic routine. However, it’s not just Pryce’s dashing presence that distracts her, but also inexplicable, unnerving occurrences at the morgue and cemetery that upset her understanding of the world: Cadavers seem able to move, apparitions appear, and eerie sounds of a respirator recur. As more oddities surface, Sabrina turns to her homeless friend Ulysses for support and solace. He seems to intuit what the bizarre events mean, and he drops a mysterious amulet into a drain at the morgue; however, it’s unclear if this artifact is meant to protect Sabrina or cause her further harm. At times, the amulet moves itself into corpses with violent, gruesome consequences. Interestingly, this horror tale is set in the near future—specifically, an era in which a Covid-19 vaccine has already been developed. The narrative oscillates between a realistic look at the darker side of human nature and an otherworldly, fantastical account of the spirit world haunting the living. The colorful cast of characters and the amulet’s effects are intriguing enough to keep readers’ attention throughout, and there are moments of lyricism, too, as when Gray describes the city sky’s “amazing, unfathomable banquet of constellations and stars.” Trevor’s character veers close to caricature, as he’s a handsome movie star who seems solely interested in drinking and sex. Gray hints at the possibility of a real friendship between him and Sabrina, but teasing out his emotional complexity might have made for an even more engaging read.

An often compelling horror story that looks at how the living treat the deceased.