When I Look At the Sky, All I See Are Stars by Steve Stred | Book Review
Dr. Rachel Hoggendorf is an accomplished psychiatrist, and David is her new patient, a man who claims to be four hundred years old and possessed by a demon. As their sessions continue, David begins sharing details he shouldn't know and behaving violently, and the psychiatric team is forced to question whether he might actually be telling the truth. A visceral, edge-of-your-seat horror novella from a splatterpunk-nominated author, all frantic pacing, hooves and horns, and growing dread about what lies beyond this plane.
Plot Summary (spoiler-free)
Dr. Rachel Hoggendorf is an experienced psychiatrist, and David is her enigmatic new patient, a man who claims to be four hundred years old and possessed by a demon. The book is built around their sessions, as Rachel tries to unravel his mind and David starts sharing details he has no way of knowing and behaving violently, until the psychiatric team has to seriously consider whether he is telling the truth.
The story keeps its footing on the line between sanity and madness, between a treatable delusion and something genuinely outside the natural world. This is a short, fast novella from a splatterpunk-adjacent horror author, and it is not a romance. It is a claustrophobic descent into paranoia, obsession, and dread about what might lie beyond this plane.
Character Development
The two leads are the whole book. Rachel is competent and grounded, and her professional confidence is exactly what the story works to erode. David is the engine: unreadable, articulate, and increasingly frightening, whether the source is trauma, illness, or something else. Their relationship is convoluted and compromised, and it is the essence of the story rather than a subplot.
Themes
Reality and perception are the book’s real subject: how do you know what is true when the person telling you cannot be trusted and the evidence keeps not adding up. Mental illness is handled with genuine sensitivity and depth, and the book refuses to resolve the ambiguity cleanly, which is the point. Paranoia and obsession bleed from David into Rachel and into the reader.
Writing Style and Effectiveness
Stred builds tension and unease expertly, and the vivid prose makes the atmosphere claustrophobic in a way that is hard to shake. The pacing is frantic from the first page, and the book pulls you into a small, tightening world of two people and one impossible question. The ending is somewhat open, and it lands anyway, leaving thoughts that stay with you after the last page.
Conclusion
When I Look at the Sky, All I See Are Stars is a haunting, propulsive dive into the human psyche. It is an engaging, unsettling read that trades on ambiguity and pays off with a lingering sense of dread rather than a tidy answer. It is horror and psychological thriller, with no romantic element at all, so it sits well outside Bloodthorn’s usual dark-romance lane.
Evaluation
- Overall Rating: ★★★★☆ (4/5)
- Writing Style: ★★★★☆ (4/5)
- Characters: ★★★★☆ (4/5)
- World-Building: ★★★☆☆ (3/5): a tight, contained setting rather than a built world.
- Spice Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆ (0/5): no romantic or sexual content.
Trigger warnings: graphic violence, demonic and body horror, mental illness and institutionalisation, paranoia and obsession, an unreliable and unsettling narrative.
Recommendation: for readers who want a short, intense psychological horror about the line between madness and possession, and who like ambiguity over resolution. Fans of Steve Stred’s other work, and of claustrophobic two-hander horror generally. Not for readers looking for romance.
