In a large fictional story written mainly about human rights abuses and exploitation, it stands to reason that extreme nightmare fuel would ensue. Necromancy Cottage, Or, The Black Art of Gnawing On Bones has numerous examples, but these are some of the more prominent ones.
- Casey Harris's life is nothing short of terrifying. After losing her sister in a graphic drunk driving accident, her parents get divorced, her mother marries a man who (repeatedly) sexually abuses Casey, Casey is sent to a psychologist, Casey runs away from home...
- Secondary character Holly Eyrngo Nemov's life is perhaps the most tragic in the entirety of the book, not to mention the most disturbing. Holly was the disabled younger son of two parents dying from exposure to the Chernobyl Disaster, who sold him to a hellhound in order to prolong their own lives, which they later come to regret. Holly spends the majority of his childhood abused, severely injured or otherwise damaged by the gory rituals he's forced to endure.
- It's strongly implied that Desmond, the necromancer who owns Clover Isle, was abused sexually by his own mother, and also that his father was an SS Officer who was later taken away for war crimes.
- Scott, Holly and Celia had all tried in the past to escape Clover Isle by acts of suicide, which never worked.
- Aisling St. George survived the Jonestown Massacre in the late 1970s, and was a member of the Peoples Temple cult.
- The book contains VERY graphic descriptions of blood, gore, death and violence, including a shocking scene where Holly recalls being attacked by the Black Dog, which had tried to eviscerate him in the night after his family had left him.
