“ℑ 𝔴𝔞𝔫𝔱 𝔱𝔬 𝔰𝔲𝔯𝔳𝔦𝔳𝔢.” 

“𝔈𝔳𝔢𝔯𝔶𝔬𝔫𝔢 𝔴𝔞𝔫𝔱𝔰 𝔱𝔥𝔞𝔱.” 𝔏𝔦𝔡𝔡𝔶 𝔩𝔢𝔱 𝔤𝔬. “𝔑𝔬𝔟𝔬𝔡𝔶 𝔤𝔢𝔱𝔰 𝔱𝔬.”

Published: 02/09/25 (ARC)

Publisher: Tor Books

Genre: Horror, dark fantasy

Page count: 272

Format read: 📱

Other books read by this author: None

A visceral, botanical ghost story set in a small town, sub-tropical floodplain. I adored the way the story was framed by & intersected with neighbours gathering to tell local legends & unexplained experiences. The strong undercurrent of dread & sense of unreality that ran throughout, when coupled with intense & vivid imagery, made for a hallucinogenic fever dream of a novel. The one area this fell down for me was the characters, but purely in that I wanted to get to know them much better than we did. The vagueness of the prose, though beautiful, left me at times a little disconnected from the characters which meant I wasn’t as invested as I otherwise could have been. 

Thank you so much to Kathleen Jennings, Tor Books, & NetGalley for the ARC.