Something's Wrong with Maddie

A Sapphic Horror Novel

By: Taylor Z. Adams

Narrated by: Salem Arbuckle

Maddie died. Piper refused to accept it.

One blood ritual later and Maddie is back—undead, starving and nothing close to resembling human. Despite her deceased girlfriend reeking of rotting flesh, Piper decides she’ll do anything to keep her zombie girlfriend: lie to suspicious neighbors, outwit a nosy cop, and make sure the apartment complex’s missing-person flyers don’t point to their kitchen.

As scraps of the old Maddie surface, so do the hunger pangs. The body count begins to pile up, and Piper has to decide what she's willing to do to keep her girlfriend fed.

Part sapphic dark romance, part black-comedy horror, Something’s Wrong with Maddie is a gore-slick tale of grief, obsession, and devotion with sharp splatterpunk bite, body-horror set pieces, and a love story that refuses to die—even when it really should.

©2025 Taylor Z. Adams (P)2025 Taylor Z. Adams

When love is too pure for this world.

Even the veil of death is just a suggestion. I thoroughly enjoyed Something's Wrong With Maddie. It is a black comedic take on accepting people for who they are even when its tough, the grief of loss of a partner and identity, and about how many licks would it take to get to the center of a tootsie pop, if the tootsie pops were frat bros brains. The writing is smart, and feels pretty earnest, and comes from some of the experiences in the author's personal life (obviously not the whole zombie girlfriend part, but someone has definitely worked a call center before).

The only low points for me were the main character herself Piper, who doesn't just lie poorly, but so poorly as to the point of complete failure. There is talking yourself into corners, then there is Pips who will blatantly spew out things that would get people arrested and the people she is talking to are just like "that was weird, better not look into it further". The other gripe I had with the story is the fact they would have been busted forever ago, the crimes are Team Rocket levels of subtlety, almost no real effort is made to cover up the early instances of feeding. While I may not think cops are good or smart at what they do, Pips could almost turn herself in and go, "It was me!" give details of the crime no one would know, and the cops would just let her go and wonder whats with all the weirdos lately.

Major positives are also the dialog amongst friends. They have that very casual and natural discourse feel one would have with very close friends. Characters like Josh and Steph feel like very real people and quite flawed people, but with good intentions. All in All, I thoroughly enjoyed the story, it was fun, dark, and had just the right amount of gore to really relay the depravity, but without wallowing in the suffering or seeming self indulgent. I really look forward to another book from Taylor Z. Adams!