Faith can offer comfort, purpose, and a sense of connection. In Heretical Talk, it also becomes the gateway to disturbing questions that stretch across time, trauma, and dimensions.
Debut author Beau Lemmerman brings together six interconnected stories in a cosmic horror novel filled with cursed lives, ancient demons, psychological scars, and an unsettling search for divine meaning.
Six Decades Bound by One Cursed Killer
At the center of Heretical Talk is a serial killer known as Needless. His crimes leave physical consequences, yet his words create the deepest wounds. The killer’s heretical talk remains inside the minds of his victims, altering how they understand faith, reality, and their place in the universe.
The narrative travels through six decades, following survivors and outsiders whose lives become connected through encounters with Needless and forces beyond ordinary human understanding. Each tale adds another piece to the larger mystery. As these characters search for God and a path back toward the light, they encounter a void filled with creatures that challenge everything they once believed.
In 1984, a retired trucker and his estranged teenage son travel together along a country road. Their troubled relationship becomes the least of their concerns when they reach the isolated Umbra Island, where an ancient species of demons has been waiting beneath its peaceful appearance.
Another storyline follows a traumatized survivor who becomes an astronaut in 2004. Hoping that space might bring him closer to Heaven, he instead witnesses Armageddon from a satellite station as nuclear destruction consumes Earth. His position above the planet gives the event a chilling perspective and deepens the book’s exploration of faith during catastrophe.
Horror Across Time, Science, and Belief
The 1994 storyline enters the world of quantum physics. A survivor living with PTSD discovers a mathematical equation connected to a dark dimension older than the universe. When that dimension is opened, chaos spreads throughout the research facility. Scientific curiosity, personal trauma, and cosmic danger collide as reality begins losing its familiar shape.
In 1974, a former drug addict preparing to become a nun faces a severe test of faith. Needless arrives to make a confession and shares truths that reshape her understanding of the world. The encounter places spiritual devotion beside horrifying knowledge and asks how belief can survive after innocence has disappeared.
The novel also reaches back to 1964, where a biker gang of outcasts called The Needless becomes a town’s defense against a shapeshifting demon. The creature wears human skin while hunting local victims, creating fear around identity, trust, and the hidden nature of evil.
A second 1984 narrative takes place inside an asylum. A young orphaned mental patient joins forces with an imprisoned Needless to confront a demon and a dangerous doctor connected to the killer’s past. This setting brings together confinement, institutional cruelty, supernatural terror, and revelations about the history shaping the entire novel.
Through these shifting periods, Beau builds a layered story about people carrying damage across years and generations. The structure allows every account to stand with its own atmosphere while contributing to a shared legacy. Readers gradually see how one person’s suffering can influence lives far beyond the original moment.
The novel’s reality-bending terror draws upon cosmic questions while remaining grounded in human emotion. Faith, grief, isolation, guilt, and connection give the horror its emotional force. Its brutal imagery and darkly poetic approach create a reading experience designed to remain in the mind after the final page. Heretical Talk contains elements of supernatural mystery and tells a gritty story filled with psychological dread. It’s a story where the poetic brutality of Cormac McCarthy meets the visceral, reality-bending horror of Clive Barker.
Heretical Talk has received a five-star rating from Readers’ Favorite, with critics describing it as “Unsettling. Unhinged. And just plain brilliant.” The book is available through major retailers, including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Google Play Books, and Ingram.
About the Author
Beau Alexander Lemmerman began creating stories at nine years old after buying a guide to drawing Dragon Ball Z characters. He wrote fan-fiction comics and sold his first copies on the school bus, earning forty dollars from an early display of creative ambition.
Raised in Upstate New York, Beau became a freelance writer, editor, and photographer after high school. His work appeared in the local Sentinel & Dispatch and the County Public Market Newsletter. Inspired by Ernest Hemingway, Steve McQueen, and Hunter S. Thompson, he later traveled across the country and gathered experiences that included working as a bounty hunter and occasional ghostwriter.
Today, Beau works as a full-time veterinary biomedical technician in the Puget Sound region. He also operates Baal House Books, his personal workshop and independent press for dark and unusual fiction.
A Haunting Search for Meaning
Heretical Talk offers cosmic horror with an emotional center, connecting supernatural terror to humanity’s need for answers. Through six scarred lives, Beau creates a haunting journey into belief, loss, and the frightening possibilities waiting beyond the limits of reality.