By Jim Mcleod 
A Game in Yellow by Hailey Piper, a Decent into Madness and Desire!
Piper’s bold fusion of eroticism and horror vividly challenges genre boundaries, offering a narrative that is as intellectually provocative as it is viscerally terrifying. Within its pages, readers are drawn into a labyrinthine world where their deepest fears and desires collide, forcing them to confront uncomfortable truths about their existence. The vivid imagery and haunting prose invite an exploration of the human psyche, making it not just a story but an unsettling experience lingering in the mind like a ghostly spectre, urging contemplation and reflection.
Hailey Piper, the Bram Stoker Award–winning author known for her mastery of cosmic horror and queer narratives, delivers another chilling tale with A Game in Yellow. Blending eroticism, psychological tension, and Lovecraftian dread, Piper crafts a story that lingers like a fever dream, equal parts seductive and unsettling. A Game in Yellow follows Carmen and Blanca, a couple whose attempt to reignite their relationship through forbidden pleasures spirals into a nightmarish exploration of obsession, control, and the fragility of reality.
At its core, A Game in Yellow is a story about addiction, not to substances, but to power, pleasure, and the intoxicating allure of the unknown. Carmen, a submissive in a BDSM dynamic with her domme girlfriend Blanca, struggles with a dwindling sex drive that threatens their relationship.
The answer to their prayers arrives in the form of Smoke, a mysterious figure who introduces them to fragments of The King in Yellow, a cursed play that promises euphoria in small doses and madness in excess. Drawing from Robert W. Chambers’ 1895 work of the same name, Piper reimagines the play as a psychological drug. Reading it grants Carmen fleeting ecstasy, but each dose pulls her deeper into a hallucinatory world where the boundaries between her reality and the play’s nightmarish realm of Carcosa dissolve. There have been many attempts to reimagine The King in Yellow for a modern world, but few, if any, match the sheer brilliance of Piper’s powerful and deeply impactful version.
Piper’s narrative thrives in the transitional space between time, space and the two worlds of this impressive novel, weaving themes of codependency, fear of abandonment, and the paradox of control. While Blanca dominates their sexual play, it’s Carmen who secretly governs their relationship’s trajectory, her insecurities and cravings driving them toward danger. The novel interrogates the power dynamics of BDSM, not as titillation but as a metaphor for broader existential struggles. As Carmen’s addiction to the play intensifies, her grasp on sanity slips, and the horror shifts from psychological to visceral, culminating in a climax that merges body horror with cosmic horror.
I have to admit, at times A Game in Yellow had me blushing and rubbing the back of my neck in that slightly embarrassed way that those who are easily shocked by intimate scenes, but that is on me and the quality of Hailey’s writing. I’m a sheltered wallflower when it comes to this sort of thing, and I have always been intimidated by those who are way more confident and ooze sexuality. And despite the occasional feeling of “oooh” I was utterly captivated by the novel’s events.
Carmen and Blanca are compelling precisely because of their imperfections. Carmen’s internal monologue, fraught with self-doubt and desperation, paints her as a relatable antihero. Her past trauma, hinted at through fragmented memories of a childhood friend named Aja, adds depth to her actions. Blanca, meanwhile, embodies a paradox: her submissive role in the bedroom contrasts with her controlling tendencies in daily life, a duality that reflects Piper’s knack for subverting expectations. Smoke, the enigmatic third player, serves as both catalyst and cautionary figure, her motives shrouded in ambiguity until the final act.
Piper’s prose is visceral and poetic, oscillating between the mundane (Carmen’s dead-end job, domestic routines) and the grotesque (hallucinations of rotting masks, skeletal figures). The play itself is presented in fragmented, script-like interludes, dense with metaphorical language that mirrors Carmen’s disorientation. My only criticism of this novel is that you may need a working knowledge of the source material to fully extract every single ounce of inventiveness from Hailey’s novel. But even if you have no knowledge of A King in Yellow, A Game in Yellow is still an exceptional read. One that showcases Hailey’s reputation as an essential voice in literature.
There is a wonderful Lynchian feel to this novel, that sense of unease and horror lurking under the surface during the “mundane” parts of the book is deeply unsettling. But it is when Carmen stumbles through a masquerade ball populated by decaying revellers, that the novel goes full on Twin Peaks’ Black Lodge.
The cosmic horror elements, however, are phenomenal in their execution. Piper’s depiction of Carcosa, a liminal space where time and identity warp is a standout, blending body horror with existential terror. The finale, which merges Carmen’s reality with the play’s madness, delivers a payoff that is both grotesque and poignant.
A Game in Yellow is not for the faint of heart, with its powerful sexuality, psychological disorientation, and existential dread weaving a tapestry of emotional turmoil that cannot help but leave a profound impact on anyone who reads it, unironically, just like the source material.
Piper’s bold fusion of eroticism and horror vividly challenges genre boundaries, offering a narrative that is as intellectually provocative as it is viscerally terrifying. Within its pages, readers are drawn into a labyrinthine world where their deepest fears and desires collide, forcing them to confront uncomfortable truths about their existence. The vivid imagery and haunting prose invite an exploration of the human psyche, making it not just a story but an unsettling experience lingering in the mind like a ghostly spectre, urging contemplation and reflection.
A Game in Yellow by Hailey Piper
Euphoria meets Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke in this latest novel by the Bram Stoker Award–winning author Hailey Piper, following a couple whose search to spice up their sex life leads them down a path of madness.
A kink-fixated couple, Carmen and Blanca, have been in a rut. That is until Blanca discovers the enigmatic Smoke in an under-street drug den, who holds pages to a strange play, The King in Yellow. Read too much, and you’ll fall into madness. But read just a little and pull back, and it gives you the adrenaline rush of survivor’s euphoria, leading Carmen to fall into a game of lust at a nightmare’s edge.
As the line blurs between the world Carmen knows and the one that she visits after reading from the play, she begins to desire more time in this other world no matter what horrors she brings back with her.
Bram Stoker Award–winning author Hailey Piper masterfully blends horror, erotica, and psychological thriller in this captivating and chilling story.
Further Reading
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For those passionate about horror literature, checking out this section is a must!
Damascus Mincemeyer