My thanks to Netgalley and ECW Press for my free digital ARC!

It's 1901 and Ada is a young schoolteacher desperately seeking to leave her scandalous past behind. She finds a fresh start in a tiny rural town where Christianity and tradition reign. Ada, with her queerness and love of natural oddities, flora and fauna, slots into her new life uneasily, but willing to try to put her past behind her. She manages for a while, until unsettling visions (grisly malformed animals, swarms of insects) begin to plague her. 

Lowry Bridge one of those places ruled by a small group of pious women, who know everyone's business, and anyone who fails to live up their nigh-on impossible standards is snubbed and shunned. One of those people is Mrs Norah Kinsley, a mysterious widow who befriends Ada. I loooooved Norah, and honestly wish we had more from her perspective. Maybe Elliott Gish fancies writing another book focused more on her. 👀 I loved Ada's character though, so was more than content to stay in her head for the whole book. Though the cast of characters is large, Gish does a superb job of fleshing them all out and making them unique. The children Ada teaches are vibrant and lively (except for Muriel who is ethereal and haughty); Ada's father, absent for most of the book, manages to be ominous, cold and calculating even in his absence; Agatha, a sunshine ray of a woman wasted as the meek wife of a reverend. 

Ada's slow descent into madness is gripping. As she's tormented by some unseen being, the line between reality and fantasy becomes increasingly blurred. Gish takes what it means to be an upstanding, well-mannered woman of the early 20th century and grinds it beneath her bootheel. She explores sexuality, sensuality, freedom, the restraints placed on women then (and now), and how a woman might break free of those restraints. It's beautifully written, deliciously creepy, unsettling and infuriating. 

It is a very slow burn though, so go into it with patience and you will be rewarded!