The Bloodless Queen, by Joshua Phillip Johnson
12 Aug 2025The Book
Synopsis:
On the autumnal equinox of 1987, after fencing off half of the Earth’s land for huge nature reserves called Harbors, the leaders of the world called on their peoples to celebrate. Then began the horror and the magic.
Everyone who died that day—all 132,329 of them—instead of going cold and still, turned odd and fae. They became mischievous and murderous, before disappearing into their nearest Harbor, never seen again. And each year after that on the autumnal equinox, the same terrible transformations would occur: the wretched dead not dying, but instead riddling and whispering of a faerie queen—bloodless and powerful—while fleeing into the wild confines of the Harbors.
In the present day, Evangeline and Calidore are working as fencers, government-employed protectors whose magical powers come from mysterious tattoos of prime numbers. When they aren’t fixing the fences of the Midwest Harbor that separates the human world from Faerie or patrolling on the equinox, they are parents of an almost-seven-year-old daughter named Winnie.
But as the new year’s autumnal equinox approaches, Evangeline and Calidore find themselves thrust into a vast conspiracy that stretches across governments, religions, and fencers worldwide. As they race to untangle this web of power and intrigue, they will need to confront the questions that have haunted the world since the fences were built:
What lies at the heart of the Harbors? Who waits there?
My Review
The Bloodless Queen is an eco sci-fi thriller novel, written by Joshua Phillip Johnson, and published by DAW Books. A haunting tale that also blends touches of fantasy and horror inside, a really emotional exploration of grief and the extend we can go to fight it, with a well-crafted cast of characters and an imaginative worldbuilding that also includes a really engaging political plot.
The world has changed since the appearance of the Harbors, eerie reserves that seem to keep the Fae inside; during the Equinox day, the dead don't die, they turn into strange creatures that bring death and chaos. Calidore and Evangeline are fencers, tasked with maintaining the barriers between the human and the Fae world, with the help of their special abilities. However, with the next equinox coming soon, they will find themselves in the middle of a global conspiracy, having to venture and find the truth behind the Harbors and sacrifice much if they want to keep their family, even if that means bargaining with the Bloodless Queen.
Grief could be defined as the central theme around which everything is tied; Johnson does an excellent job of portraying the different ways it can be present, and how difficult sometimes is the process of letting it go. Parenting also plays a key role in how Calidore and Evangeline act, risking everything when they lose their child, even if that means entering unexplored territory; the emotional depth of the cast is one of the highlights of the book for me.
The worldbuilding makes the best of the alt-history features, taking a disruptive act as the base to the establishment of what we could define as a dystopian society; however, the most imaginative part is a depiction of the Fae that blends the classic myths with a more Lovercraftian nature and the introduction of fencers, who could be drawn as a parallel to superheroes.
If there's an aspect where this book struggles is the pacing, as we have a first third and a final third that are well balanced, but when we reach the second part, the most thriller oriented one, it struggles to keep in line with the rest of the book.
The Bloodless Queen is, to be fair, a difficult to classify book, but if you are looking for a really different approach to science-fantasy and want to read a novel exploring grief, you could give this one a try!
The Author/s
Joshua Phillip Johnson
Hi! I’m Josh. I’m a writer living in a small red house in the Prairie Pothole Region of Minnesota. During the day I teach English and Creative Writing at a small university on what used to be the prairie, and the rest of the time I go on adventures with my partner and child.
My first two novels, The Forever Sea and The Endless Song, are both available in the US and the UK!
My newest novel, The Bloodless Queen, is out July 8th from DAW. Grab it here or wherever you prefer to buy books!