SEEKING REPRESENTATION

It Crawls Under Your Skin Cover

About the Novel

Sylvia Lake knows what crawls under her skin, and she calls it the Nameless.

With the help of this spirit-like creature, she murdered her way into leading the continent’s largest conglomerate. Electronics, communications, pharmaceuticals—they rule it all with an imperial fist. She is the sole heir of her family's secret research into the Lake, the world that the Nameless inhabits. As such, she considers herself the only one who can rule the world as holder of the ultimate knowledge.

And she is the only one, until she isn’t—Matthew, her company’s newest rising recruit, shares not only some of her talents with the Lake, but her thirst for power.

In Matthew’s scant know-how of these eldritch arts resides both a threat and an opportunity: he’s the perfect subject for her experiments, and the only one capable of standing against her. Kill him now? Or study him first? Though she vouches for playing it safe, the Nameless seeks more and more, no matter the risk to itself, to Sylvia, and to those she loves. It is willing to sacrifice anything, including Sylvia’s own wife. If Sylvia stood against the monster who raised her, would it hunt her the way they have countless others?

As her research progresses and her grip on her memory slips, Sylvia confronts that which she has tried to ignore her entire life: what is the true nature of the Nameless, and what happened the day she first met this monster of hers, when she killed her own mother? If she’s wrong about Matthew—about herself—the empire she erected out of blood will crumble.

IT CRAWLS UNDER YOUR SKIN (98,000 words) is told across two timelines from Sylvia's and the Nameless's points of view, blending corporate dystopia and supernatural horror in a descent towards a monstrous decision. It will appeal to fans of Agustina Bazterrica’s TENDER IS THE FLESH and Johanna van Veen’s MY DARLING BEAUTIFUL THING.

Genre

Supernatural Horror / Psychological Thriller

Status

SEEKING LITERARY REPRESENTATION

Contact

For representation inquiries, please contact: elyjosecouto@proton.me

Sample Excerpt

"What does it look like, Syl? In the Lake?" Hel's voice is barely louder than a whisper.

"Like glass," Sylvia explains. "And like grass of a beaten color. You know the brown of those flowers we left outside for too long? Everything feels…harder, in the Lake. Sharper. But it is so much more beautiful there. Hemolymph looks bright red. Blood looks like a nectar made of crystal. You'd love it. And its eye. The beetle's eye. Its eye is so beautiful, under the wings, so full of nerves and rich tissue underneath. It is marvelous, Hel."

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