I had hight hopes for this one but ultimately it didn't really work for me. Flowers for the Sea is I guess a take on cosmic horror in novella form, following a pregnant woman surviving on a ship after her home has flooded. Except she really doesn't want to be pregnant and maybe isn't carrying a human child.

The premise is interesting, but I wasn't a fan of the execution. Flashbacks weave into the present weave into dreamscapes that make the narrative difficult to follow. The depictions of pregnancy, childbirth, and early motherhood are very gruesome and disturbing. And as someone who has had a couple of children including a traumatic birth, I found myself irritated by inaccuracies and strange choices, especially when real childbirth can be horrific enough. Like you're going to have sex while in active labor??? And have no pain before immediately delivering? I don't know, I just couldn't get into it.

I'm not opposed to using the horror genre to explore these topics and think it can be done in a compelling way. This reminds me a bit of Sorrowland by Rivers Solomon, but while their execution really worked for me, this didn't. It's also quite short and doesn't feel like there was enough time to really tell the story the author is trying to tell here. So if this sort of thing interests you, I might recommend checking out Sorrowland instead. I received an advance copy of this book for review via Netgalley. All opinions are my own.

Flowers for the Sea is tells the dark story of Iraxi, a woman pregnant with a daemon, aboard a ship of survivors of a flooded kingdom.

Rocklyn’s writing is absolutely stunning, and the reader is so easily immersed in the squalid world of this ship. This hauntingly beautiful story is layered with meaning, as Iraxi’s story touches on motherhood and the ways a body is irreversibly stretched to accommodate new life.

While I did at times need to reread pages in order to fully follow the story, I absolutely enjoyed this work and look forward to following along with the author’s future publications!

Iraxi has left her homeland to journey on the sea. She's pregnant, and everyone looks at her for the savior of their species. But something is different...

I really enjoyed this story, even if I was confused for a good bit of it. There's a lot left to the reader's imagination; not a lot of backstory is really explored. I do always love a good sea creature story.

There's not much else I can say about this story without entering spoiler territory, but I do recommend this to anyone who loves cosmic horror, a good sea monster, and conspiracies.

Thank you to Net Galley, Tordotcom, and Zin E. Rocklyn for the chance to read this advanced review copy! Flowers for the Sea releases on October 19th.

This was a short and haunting read. I've never seen a depiction of childbirth quite as gruesome as this one. Iraxi is living on a ship that has spent months at sea in a community barely surviving where she is still considered an outcast. She is pregnant with a baby that is considered a new hope for all but the baby is the last thing she wants.

I wish we would've gotten a little bit more about the Lovecraftian inspired monsters that lurked beneath the deep. It felt like this novella was a set up for a larger story and that it ended right as the real story was beginning. I can easily see this concept being expanded to a full length novel.

Overall it was still and entertaining read. I received an arc from Tor in exchange for review.

I reviewed Flowers for the Sea on my YouTube channel and interviewed Zin E. Rocklyn on the Horror Tree website, and read the NetGalley proof for my preparation. This was a creepy tale that was like a dark version of Waterworld. Compelling lead character, sensuous descriptions, and a perfect, if grim, ending. I hope many many people read and enjoy this novella as much as I did!

Flowers for the sea is a fantasy horror novella that explores the horrors of being forced upon a particular path. Our protagonist, Iraxi, is shunned by her community after refusing to marry a prince. She loses her family in a fire and ends up on a boat that is meant to be an arc, her village’s salvation as they try to survive their lands being flooded and monsters from the skies and sea trying to end them. But this arc is a losing endeavor. Sanitation on board is questionable, food is becoming scarcer, and the monsters are becoming bolder and hunting people from the ship more as time goes on. On top of this, Irexi is pregnant with something not quite human and must deal with this unwanted pregnancy as she struggles both to survive and to come to terms with her complete loss of autonomy.

This novella is beautifully written, and the words wrapped my mind in a dream-like state. I could almost smell the stench of the ship and feel Irexi’s pain as she deals with labor and the exhaustion of growing a baby inside her. The description wasn’t too flowery. It really contributed to the atmosphere of ‘everything is totally not fine even though we are trying to pretend it is’ and the feeling of fighting a losing battle for survival. In about 108 pages, author Zin E. Rocklyn was able to set up the atmosphere, get me invested in the characters, and provide an ending that is frankly incredible. If you like eldritch horror and existential dread, then you will love Flowers for the Sea.

Thank you to Netgalley and Macmillan-Tor/Forge for an arc of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Iraxi has reason to be angry. She's stuck on a ship in a flooded world, surrounded on all sides by those who despise her, and monsters of air and sea who are waiting to end her. She's pregnant with a child she doesn't want in a new world where no one has yet to carry to term. She's not even sure the child is human. Her hatred burns her from within, leaving no room for anything else. Her anger is like the water that filled her world, rising swiftly and submerging everything in its path.

This is a novella that will speak to all your senses. Not only is Iraxi's rage all-consuming, but the descriptions of the ship and its people will also engulf you. Seventeen hundred forty-three days at sea. She is locked in this place surrounded by rotting wood, the sea lapping at it from all sides, mildewing in the salty air. The stink of bodies and fluids and blood all around. Unable to even escape to fresh air due to the razorfangs from the sky and tentacles from the depths. This narrative will envelop you in its depictions like a dark, oily dream from which you can't awake.

While the eldritch creatures encircling the ship would typically be the focus of a novella, Rocklyn beckons us to sit with Iraxi in her boiling resentment and fury. We experience her loathed pregnancy, the debilitating changes to her body, and eventually the horror of her labor and what comes after. If you are looking for a dark and disturbing visceral tale, Iraxi's account will whisper bleakly to you. Flowers For The Sea is ghastly and gloriously weird and well worth the read.

Zin E. Rocklyn’s horror novella gives readers a striking debut. Flowers for the Sea is a marine biologist’s nightmare and a climate change activist’s worst-case future. The book brims with gripping prose, telling a heart-wrenching and terrifying tale. Overall, Flowers for the Sea stumbles to the finish line, but it will likely captivate many readers, and for that, I praise it. 

Iraxi is pregnant, and the baby might not be human. She’s managed to make herself part of a small community on a ship, a collection of survivors who remain after an apocalyptic event forced the small remainder of humanity to the sea. The waters churn with the movements of dangerous fanged creatures while wraith-like beings glide through the skies. But Iraxi’s shipmates may prove the most nefarious and dangerous foes. Meanwhile, she struggles to decide whether she even wants to be pregnant, a status her shipmates assert will help them survive. 

Flowers for the Sea will undoubtedly titillate horror readers. The Lovecraftian tale borrows elements of Rosemary’s Baby and other horrific stories. Rocklyn crafts a unique world that could support multiple full-length novels. My problem with the book, though, is that it feels locked in place, unable to breach the surface of its own pool of ideas. 

It’s hard to explain. Flowers for the Sea reads like a poem. A semi-vivid, nightmarish dream. The prose is transportive and has the power of a punch to the face. But, the events occurring happen in a way that made me feel like I was watching through translucent glass. I could always glean the outlines of the characters, the setting, the creatures in the scene, but it lacked a level of clarity I so desperately desire from the narrative. 

Part of the problem, as I hinted at above, is the story’s length. Rocklyn does an amazing job presenting their ideas with limited page space. In this case, however, I found myself hankering for a full novel. I often had problems deducing exactly what was happening.  This is undoubtedly a result of Rocklyn’s deliberately dreamlike prose. That’s fine, of course, but I felt lost in the fever dream of this world, unable to latch onto details that could ground me in the world. I struggled to find the larger narrative because the novella is so limited in scope.  

To say much else would bring me into spoilerland, and I can’t afford to stray there. So I’ll leave you with this: Flowers for the Sea might be just the horror/fantasy combo you’ve been searching for. It might be the novella that ushers you into more Lovecraftian tales. For me, it was an interesting read that I didn’t fully connect with. Rocklyn’s writing and deliberate vision, however, ensures that I’ll be on the hunt for their future work when it arrives. 

Rating: Flowers for the Sea - 6.5/10
-Cole

I love nothing more than a book with a good atmosphere, gothic overtones, and more to the narrative than we expect, this novella manages all the of that and gives us a very intense main character to see it through. Dark, moody, intense, and fiercely independent, Iraxi wants no part of the world she's trapped in, not her past, not her lovers, not these people, and not this baby inside of her. She's one of a small group of people who have somehow survived a great apocalypse and managed to make a life on an ark that keeps them safe from the surrounding ocean- as long as they don't go up to the deck by night. Here there are monsters, terrible interpersonal dramas, strict ideas about the role women may play, and all too much of a demand for children who have yet to survive long enough to maintain their dwindling population. Iraxi wants free of all of it but there doesn't seem to be any way she can have what she wants more than anything no matter how much her rage with the role she's been given demands it. There is a lot said here about mothers, women and babies' roles and importance, and some very visceral things to say about being pregnant itself.

A quick, interesting read, though as with most novellas, I wish it'd been more fleshed out. Also REALLY wish I'd gotten content warnings for this, so I'll add them here:

tw: graphic depictions of pregnancy, genital trauma.

This was a very quick novella with a very strong writing style that I enjoyed. That said I already don't remember much of it so it is one of those novellas that unfortunately won't stick with me. I think I have read other speculative works that focus on motherhood that I have enjoyed more that also touched on the themes brought up in this space. I was intrigued by the world and the situation this community found itself in but I never felt like I could latch on to the character or situation before the story ended. That said while I was reading it I was enjoying the writing and the intrigue. This falls into the category of novella that I wish was a novel so I could learn more and stay with this writer's story a bit longer.

Following an apocalyptic flooding, a group of survivors are cast to sea in search of a new home. Among them is Iraxi, the first among them to carry a child to term in months, although she hardly finds this to be welcome news.

Iraxi is a complicated and tragic character, her personal tale one of struggle. She's lost her family and is despised because of her race and her lot in life as both a commoner and the offspring of mystics who could commune with the sea. She's also full of self-loathing and bitterness, and wants to do little more than die.

Zin E. Rocklyn crafts a wonderfully honest exploration of depression in Iraxi. No doubt some readers will harp on our narrator being unlikable, but how likeable can or should one really be when they don't even like themselves and yet are tough enough to not give one single goddamn about what anyone else thinks? Rocklyn mines these depths of hatreds, both internal and external to Iraxi, for all their worth, fueling this narrative with a complex blend of self-recrimination and, yes, dashes of hope.

Flowers for the Sea is a complex character study, but it's also a story I wanted more out of. The bulk of this slim novella is focused on Iraxi's pregnancy, but we get a few brief teasers about the monsters that inhabit the seas and skies around this ark. We're told of people who have been snatched off the deck, and why the survivors refuse to venture into the open after dark. It's intriguing stuff, and being the sucker for creature features - especially sea monsters! - that I am, I really wanted a deeper focus on those elements. I had hoped such aspects would play a larger role and was ultimately disappointed at the lack of chompy critters wreaking havoc on these poor people.

This book gives me shivers. It is the perfect book to read in the fall and short enough that it captures your attention and doesn't let go. I definitely recommend if you like fantasy and horror.

Series Info/Source: This is a stand alone book. I got an eGalley of this book to review through NetGalley.

Thoughts: This book starts out on a ship that’s been sailing for a really long time (think hundreds of months) with a woman who has been pregnant for a really long time (well over your typical 9 months). The story unravels piece by piece as we try to solve a number of mysteries: why is our main character so disfigured, what happened to these people that they ended up on this boat, and what exactly is our main protagonist pregnant with?

This was a quick and strange (also strangely fascinating) read. There are very heavy Lovecraftian influences to this story. I really loved it, it was just so different and it completely had my attention the whole time.

The way it is written is beautiful, visceral, and eerie but also a bit different; you have to concentrate while reading this and at times I had to go back and reread things. Some of the things that happen here are just so bizarre that they require a double take, literally, to figure out what's going on.

My Summary (5/5): Overall I enjoyed this a lot. If you want a uniquely different, creepy, and disturbing Halloween read I would recommend it. There is quite a bit of gore and other very descriptive things that are unsettling, so for adults only. If you enjoy stories with a heavy Lovecraft influence I would also recommend this.

This book might only be 112 pages but it honestly feels like an entire novel has gone by— in the best way possible. I devoured this book in one sitting, I couldn’t get enough of it. It was horrifying, full of loss and sadness and hope and a fear of what that hope could mean.

I do not want to talk about the plot or anything because I honestly think the best way to take this story in is to go in knowing absolutely nothing.

I will say though— if you have any TW about children, birth, death of a child/mother due to pregnancy— please be cautious while reading this book. It goes into detail and is a pretty big factor of the plot.

Overall, this was a stunning debut and Zin E. Rocklyn is now and forever an auto-buy author for me! If you need a short book perfect for this spooky season— look no further!

4/5⭐️

TW: death, death of a child/sibling/parent, childbirth, pregnancy, death due to pregnancy, gore, fire, blood, sexually explicit scenes(not too detailed but there), body horror.

Thank you Netgalley and Tor Forge for this incredible arc!

I love a good novella especially in the horror genre and this was thrilling. Iraxi is an interesting character with a lot of inner conflict, especially because she is pregnant and has a different view about her state than expected by others. She is on an ark seemingly lost at sea and, not only that, but there are elements or creatures that are part of this world whose descriptions are very unsettling.

The whole story had me guessing to what was really happening because Iraxi's character was going between this dream state of sleep, particularly due to the pregnancy, and her role on this ark, which at times seems to be to have a successful pregnancy and birth to carry on this lineage.

I definitely recommend reading this for a quick thrill, especially this time of year around Halloween. This book has an incredible rhythm that just beat with a pulse and allowed me to fly through it and really feel that impact at the end.

A novella that uses its short form to interrogate the practice of scapegoating community members and the scariness of giving birth, this story is part study in body horror & forced emotional detachment.

I rarely read anything remotely touching on horror, but this did not disappoint at any level. The suggestion was Rosemary's Baby meets Octavia Butler, but I also think this story has elements of The Deep by Rivers Solomon. The stage setting, the people surrounding Iraxi, Iraxi's own internal conflict. All of it was beautifully stunning and painted such a vivid picture of what she was going through and how she was making decisions. I picked up this novella and had a hard time putting it down. I almost want to reread it immediately to really take in the vivid pictures Rocklyn sets, the way that Iraxi sees the world, has suffered at its hands, and has to make surprisingly complicated decisions. It is wonderful and ethereal. The images planted in my head were amazing, and I can't wait for others to read it.

I don't even know where to start.
This book was incredible.

We meet our main character and she's struggling on a ship, surrounded by a bunch of folk that are not her biggest fan. You really think "Wow, her life sucks" but let me tell you that's only the tip of the iceburg. We get to learn her history and it's heartbreaking.

The other characters you will either like or despise and for me it was the second, but who am I to judge how you feel about other characters. Just know all of them are so incredibly well written, flawed, and beautiful in their own right.

The story is fast paced and it ends on such a high note and you are going to feel deeply.

This is one of those books that I will be buying a physical copy of for my collection.

I was very squeamish during the first half of the book. This was not truly the authors fault as I should have read the description better. I am Very squeamish about everything childbirth related which is 50% of the story. However, after she gives birth I was completely into the story. The author does an excellent job of describing the world around the character and of building the suspense. This was a quick read but good for a fall afternoon with just enough spookiness to give that eerie feeling.