What a weird little book! Right up my alley!

We follow Rosemary, a new professor at the local university, as she acclimates to a new town and meets the cliché manic pixie dream girl Ash at a farmer's market. What then follows is a bubbling cozy small-town romance until things slowly... start to get weird.

My only problem is that it was *too* slow for me. Even for a short book, I caught myself wanting to skip ahead and get to the juicy parts. This was marketed as horror and it's literally the first sentence in the synopsis! I was getting tired of musings about plant pots and soap scents.

But when it finally got weird? Damn, it was incredible. The author didn't shy away from the grotesque or the unsettling, which really helped suspend the disbelief in some more questionable parts.

Dawson is incredible with descriptions. From atmospheres to smells to textures, the story really came alive. She got me craving a cupcake for a whole day!

I'm really glad this is a novella, because I think trying to stretch the story would've messed up the pacing even more.