What is “Blessed Be Her Children?”
TALES OF SHUB-NIGGURATH is the ninth book of the Books of Cthulhu series by Crossroad Press (Tales of the Al-Azif, Tales of Yog-Sothoth, The Book of Yig). It is an anthology featuring pulpy tales of horror starring the Black Goat with a Thousand Young, the Great Mother, and many other titles. She is Lovecraft’s only female Great Old One (or Outer God) and the mother of countless monsters.
This book contains thirteen stories (plus one bonus tale) of witch cults, cursed gardens, nightmare pregnancies, twisted motherhood, and a post-apocalypse shelter built for those who think they can regrow the Earth’s ecosystem. Enjoy stories from David Hambling (Harry Stubbs), C.T. Phipps (Cthulhu Armageddon), Tim Mendees (Miracle Growth), Matt Davenport (Andrew Doran), David J. West (Let Sleeping Gods Lie), Andrea Pearson (Mosaic), Patricia Macomber (Star Quest), and new esoteric horror author Jessi Vasquez.
Who will live, who will die, and who will know a mother’s love? Read and find out!
Review
H.P. Lovecraft and queer reads have a complicated history. Lovecraft himself has several homophobic letters, cue surprise, but his best friend and legal heir was R.H Barlow, who I believe Lovecraft knew about the sexuality thereof. This was also just one of Lovecrafts gay associates in his latter years. The themes of alienation, living secretly among humanity, and religious persecution all resonate with many queer readers however. I’m particularly fond of the work of Ruthanna Emrys and her Innsmouth Legacy series that I discussed for Pride 2025.
“Blessed Be Her Children” by Jessi Vasquez is a novelette in the Tales of Shub-Niggurath anthology book that, upfront, I was the editor for. This was a book that that dealt explicitly with themes of queerness, sexuality, and the thing that terrified Lovecraft even more than seafood: women. Jessi self-identifies as queer in her author biography and the co-protagonist of her short story is a lesbian (lesbian romantic, asexual to be precise) that attempts to rescue the other one, her sister, from a Mythos cult devoted to the Goat with a Thousand Young.
The premise is a young mother, Cassidy, has been left high and dry by the father of her child, Liriope. Cassidy is very close to her sister, Jude, who had become alienated from the family due to her coming out as a lesbian. Cassidy seeks a feminist church to cope with the duties of her motherhood and unfortunately it happens to worship a demon goddess that practices human sacrifice. It is also extreme in its enforcement of gender roles, which I thought was an interesting angle to tackle.
The novelette takes the form of journal entries from Cassidy being read by her daughter years later. About halfway through the novel, they get switched from Cassidy’s writing to Judith herself. This changing of perspective may put off many readers but I quite liked it. Much of the writing is devoted to establishing the normality of both characters before their lives are upended by the cult. Stephen King’s style is 50% of the book being mundane details before everything goes to Hell and that’s how this tends to be.
I commented on how much I enjoyed David Hambling’s “To Play the King” for last year’s Pride month but having the story written from a feminine queer perspective is night and day for dealing with such things. You can easily understand how easily a woman might fall under the spell of something so warped as the Divine Mother’s Church. It also lightly hints that their tools are no different than other cults in the real world, actual supernatural power nonwithstanding. It preys on a vulnerable woman, love bombs her, and then isolates her from her family.
Jude is a great protagonist and someone who sees immediately through the cult’s BS but is stuck with the fact that this isn’t a Call of Cthulhu scenario where you can just go shoot up the place. Her sister and niece are both vulnerable to the mundane elements of the cult versus just the tentacle-y. The ending is ambiguous but very potent. I recommend the story and think it would have been an excellent full-fledged novel.
