Hold My Heart, by Koji A. Dae
12 May 2025The Book
Synopsis:
Suffering from severe depression, Emma seeks out a serial killer who will kill her in the most gruesome way she can describe. But when she backs out of their agreement, she discovers the murderer is host to a parasitic creature from another dimension that feeds on the extremes of pleasure and pain. When the creature turns its attention to Emma, she is torn between the ecstasy of desire and guilt over her new urges. At the same time the killer, no longer protected from his memories by the creature, has to face a century of gruesome murders, including the death that started everything.
Hold My Heart is an uncompromisingly dark horror novella about desire—and the things we’ll do to get what we really want.
My Review
Hold My Heart is a dark erotic horror novella, written by Koji A. Dae, published by Ghost Orchid Press. After reading the excellent Mazi last year and the sci-fi proposal Casual at the start of this one, I couldn't resist a new piece by Dae; what we have is a delicious and dark approach that blends together themes such as mental health, the scope of desire and a fair share of weird horror.
Severely depressed Emma meets D in the dark web, seeking for somebody that brutally kills her to make her feel something; but D is a different animal than what she expected, hosting an alien creature that feeds on extreme pleasure and pain. After backing from the agreement, the creature (zhelani) puts its eyes on Emma, looking for a host upgrade; the zhelani takes Emma into an unleashed path to her darkest desires, a path between ectasy and guilt. At the same time, D has to face a century of murders, free of the zhelani, all the guilt threatening to break his mind.
Splitting the narrative between the two characters was a risky decision, but the parallelism between Emma and D journeys works as a great narrative structure; Emma, under the zhelani influence, embracing her darker side, looking for those forbidden pleasures even if she might feel guilt after, and D, a life ruined after his encounter with the zhelani, slowly weighting all the acts he did under the zhelani control. One, in free falling to the depths of the well and the other, after has hit rock bottom.
Dae's prose is precise, kinda falling on the short side, but really effective at transmitting emotions; the blend between erotica and dark horror works marvels to deliver an astounding piece. The suspense is always kept at maximum, and while there are some gory details, it is kept in control, instead focusing more on the ideas and the feelings. (Also, again props to Dae making the effort to capture BDSM essence into her novel)
Hold My Heart is a bold erotic horror novella, perfect if you are looking for a dark proposal, intense and weird; a short but excellent bite of what the genre can offer. A recommendation if you love the genre, trust me!
The Author/s
Koji A. Dae
A born drifter with plenty of dark stories, childbirth is the closest thing to eldritch Koji has experienced. Now she finds herself strangely settled in Bulgaria with two kids, a cat, and a whole lot of responsibility. She writes about things mothers see from the corner of their hearts and all varieties of human relationships -- with each other, with technology, and with the greater universe. Her work has appeared in Clarkesworld, Apex Magazine, Zooscape, Daily Science Fiction, and elsewhere.