An abandoned Heian-era mansion in Japan is the perfect venue for this wedding party, but it’s also the home of a ghost bride with a black smile and a hungry heart. 

     This was one of my most anticipated releases of this year, but honestly, I have nothing positive to say about this novella. I would say that I loved the Japanese folklore aspect of this book, but nothing was explained at all. I know it’s not the author’s job to educate me on Japanese mythology, however, there was no description at all of what these creatures were. If I were writing a book, I wouldn’t feature an Impundulu without explaining to the reader what it is and what it looks like. This aspect could’ve been a positive to me if it was handled differently.

     For the first few chapters of the book, I wasn’t necessarily hooked, but I noticed that the story was building and I was excited to see where it went. However, the story never built to anything. I spent the whole book waiting for something to happen, and when something finally happened, I found myself asking “That’s it?”.

     There were things that were alluded to in the book that were never explored. There was a scene in one of the first chapters that seemed like it would give us backstory on why two of the characters hated each other so much. But it never explained why. It teased an explanation, but that explanation never came. Another thing that wasn’t explored was that towards the beginning of the book, for two chapters, the author had me thinking that a character was possessed. But, then they just never acted possessed again and it was never mentioned.

     The characters in this book were awful. And not awful in the way that you care what happens to them and are rooting for their downfall, they’re awful as in you care nothing about them or what happens to them. There was no real character development.

     This book was just not for me. I didn’t enjoy anything about it and I’m really upset about that since I’ve been looking forward to this book for months. The premise was amazing and there were so many opportunities for it to be scary, but the author didn’t utilize any of those opportunities. I wouldn’t have finished this if it was a full novel instead of a novella. This book just really frustrated me. I’m very disappointed.

Thank you to Tor Nightfire/Macmillan and NetGalley for this arc. All opinions are my own. 

TW: suicide attempt; murder; gore