A young woman is lured to her late fiancé’s remote island estate – only to uncover eerie family secrets, a haunting past, and a monstrous hunger stirring beneath the sea. This is ‘Reliquary’, the atmospheric horror debut from New York Times bestselling author Hannah Whitten.
Hannah Whitten has been writing to amuse herself since she could hold a pen, and sometime in high school figured out that what amused her might also amuse others. When she’s not writing, she’s reading, making music, or attempting to bake. She lives in Tennessee with her husband and children, in a house ruled by a temperamental cat. She’s also a huge tattoo enthusiast — a passion you’ll subconsciously notice as you read her new novel, Reliquary, her first foray into horror literature, and body horror in particular, as Hannah explains in this exclusive interview.
Hannah, I know I should probably ask you about your new novel ‘Reliquary’ but since you’re heavily tattooed and your new book moves within the realm of body horror, I’d like to start with your passion for ink on skin. Where did it come from?
I remember being fascinated by tattoos ever since I was a kid, though back then I never thought I would get one. I grew up in a super evangelical Christian environment, where they were frowned upon, and didn’t consider them as a possibility for a long time.
I think my love for tattoos dovetails nicely with the themes of body horror in my work.
Altering your appearance to be more in line with who you are is a beautiful, powerful thing, while being altered in a negative way is terrifying. And losing control of your body has so many analogues in the real world, like the loss of reproductive freedom and the right to gender affirming care. In ‘Reliquary’, Claire’s desire for belonging is what makes her susceptible to being remade in a horrific image. The scariest thing about that scenario is that your want for safety can be what makes you unsafe.
When did you get your first tattoo?
I got my first tattoo when I was twenty-five, soon after the birth of my first child. It’s very simple, just a stylized mountain range on my ribs, and I mostly got it to prove to myself that I could. After that, it was off to the races.
What does tattoo art represent to you?
Many of my tattoos are sentimental, but also, lots of them are just things I thought were cool! That’s the beauty of it, to me. You can get tattoos to commemorate big life events, but you can also just get something pretty because you think it’s pretty. Free will, baby!
Do you have a trusted tattoo artist you usually go to?
Most of my tattoos were done by Devin Eller (IG: @devin.ellertattoos), a Tennessee artist, and she’s who I go to for customs when I’m at home. But I love to collect tattoos while traveling, so when I’m in a new city with time to spare, I’m always looking for walk-in studios.
I love having little tattoo reminders of the places I’ve been.
There’s an anecdote connected to your first book ‘For The Wolf’ which came out in 2021. You were pitching it to several publishers, but you weren’t having much success, so in order to encourage yourself, overcome your fears, and transform yourself, you decided to get your first tattoo…
It wasn’t my first tattoo, but it was my first large, visible piece! I’d had a design I drew up myself for a while. A large tree with bare branches and roots visible, with a circle around the roots and the words “all manner of things shall be well”, a quote from Julian of Norwich. I’d always told myself I would get it when ‘For The Wolf’ sold, but it floundered for a bit on submission. One day, I decided to just go ahead and get the tattoo, because even if that book didn’t end up being my debut, it would always be meaningful to me and deserved to be commemorated. The book actually ended up selling just a little while later, and I’ve always thought that deciding to get the tattoo even without the promise of publication gave the universe a little push.
Let’s talk about ‘Reliquary’. Many people may be surprised that, after five fantasy novels (a duology and a trilogy), you shifted to body horror. But, as you mention in the acknowledgements of ‘Reliquary’ itself, the idea for the story actually came to you quite a while ago, and you wrote the first draft during the period between ‘For The Wolf’ and ‘For The Throne’. What happened afterward? Did you leave it in a drawer until you eventually picked it up again to finish it?
I did! It lived in the drawer for quite a while, though I picked at it over the course of a few years. I was in-between editing rounds on ‘For The Throne’, my second novel, when I watched the movie ‘Ready Or Not’. I’m a huge horror movie fan, and my fantasy work has always had a tinge of horror to it, but watching that movie really unlocked my story-brain in that direction.
I started ‘Reliquary’ mostly as an experiment to see if I could write in a contemporary voice, since my previous work was all second-world fantasy.
The story came to me very easily, and it wasn’t until I had the bones of a first draft already written that I even mentioned it to my agent. At that point, we had already pitched and sold my trilogy, starting with ‘The Foxglove King’, so ‘Reliquary’ was just a fun side project that my agent and I would work on in lulls between editing rounds. By the time pitching season rolled around again, ‘Reliquary’ was completely finished, so we sent it along without really knowing if my publisher would be open to me trying out a different genre. I’m incredibly lucky that they were!
Where does your passion for body horror come from?
Body horror is the thing that scares me the most, it feels pretty natural to write it. Since ‘Reliquary’ was just for fun when it first began, it made sense to write something that made my skin crawl!
I know that as a teenager you read (like many of us) Stephen King’s novels, but when I think of body horror I think of writers like Clive Barker or filmmakers like David Cronenberg, or even the recent incredible film ‘The Substance’ by French director Coralie Fargeat. Or even H.P. Lovecraft, since in ‘Reliquary’ there’s mention of a strange, ravenous sea creature moving through the bowels of Harrow Point. What do you think of all these names and references?
I’m a huge Clive Barker fan, and ‘The Hellbound Heart’ is a book I return to often, as well as ‘Imajica’ —lighter on the body horror, but big on the cosmic, which is another subgenre that my horror work often plays with. I’ve read Lovecraft, just to do my homework, but find that I enjoy other cosmic horror writers more, like Thomas Ligotti and Robert W. Chambers. I’d love to write a riff on ‘The King in Yellow’ someday. ‘A Game in Yellow’ by Hailey Piper was a recent read that used the Carcosa mythos, and I absolutely loved it. I read a lot of horror novels and watch a ton of horror films, but when it comes to watching body horror, I’m pretty squeamish! I made myself familiar with Cronenberg (again, to do the homework), but they certainly aren’t films I return to! (laughs) I love cosmic horror movies, though. My favorites are ‘Event Horizon’ by Paul Anderson and ‘In The Mouth of Madness’ by John Carpenter.
Can the ocean, which is itself one of the “protagonists” of ‘Reliquary’, be compared to the unconscious to be confronted – something you have already explored in your previous books through forests, wilderness, and nocturnal realms?
I certainly think so! I’ve found that in my recent work, I keep coming back to water as a conduit of power, and a symbol of our unconscious. The world is mostly water, and our bodies are mostly water, so it makes sense to me as a metaphor. The ocean is another one of those things I find very unnerving. I remember watching the film ‘Underwater’ (which I think was pretty universally panned, but I enjoyed it), and thinking that it was basically a space film, just set in the ocean. And that got me wondering about how essentially the two things are the same. They’re these wide swaths of unknown that we have no real way to measure, that we can’t survive in, and we have no idea what’s really out there.
There very well could be awful cosmic horror gods who feed on human misery, but I really hope not!
The cover/artwork of ‘Reliquary’ (created by the artist Alex Eckman-Lawn IG: @alexeckmanlawn) is truly intriguing, with its surreal aesthetic. Perhaps at some point one of your readers will even get it tattooed, choosing a skilled tattoo artist who specializes in that kind of work…
I would love that! I’ve had a few readers get tattoos inspired by my books, and I take it as the highest possible compliment. My favorite one I’ve seen is where a reader got the hands of Red and Eammon, the protagonists from ‘For The Wolf’, and her parter got Neve and Solmir’s hands from ‘For The Throne’.
Do you think writing a book like ‘Reliquary’ will take you away from series fiction? That from now on you’ll be an author of standalone novels that may also vary in genre depending on your inspiration?
Actually, my next book is the first in a duology! But I do really enjoy the process of writing a standalone. You have to pare down the story to its core components, know it inside and out, and be succinct, which is not usually something I excel at! (laughs) I have a standalone fantasy in the works, coming out in 2029, and I’m excited to flex that muscle and see what happens. For horror, I think I’ll always work in standalones, but never say never.
I can usually tell from the outset how many books a story is going to need, and I could very well have a horror series idea eventually.
Have you ever been to a tattoo convention in your life? Are there any major ones in the state of Tennessee where I believe you live?
I loooove tattoo conventions! It’s so exciting to have so many artists at your fingertips, and I’ve gotten some beautiful pieces from artists that I would have had to travel long distances for otherwise. There’s one in Chattanooga/Tennessee that I love called ‘Literary Ink Tattoo Convention’ (IG: @literaryink), which is a combo tattoo and book convention, so pretty much perfect for me. I go and sign books and meet readers, but I also get tattooed. Win-win.
Would you like to present ‘Reliquary’ at other tattoo conventions, or do you prefer the comfort and quiet of a bookstore?
I haven’t done a full-on event for a book at a tattoo convention, but I think it would be super fun! I’ve found that there’s a lot of crossover between tattoo people and book people, which makes sense, since they’re two of the best kinds of people.
