I am sorry for the inconvenience but I don’t have the time to read this anymore and have lost interest in the concept. I believe that it would benefit your book more if I did not skim your book and write a rushed review. Again, I am sorry for the inconvenience.

I'm going to start out by saying this book cover is beautiful ❤️

I loved the premise of this book, old Earth magic, very southern. I enjoyed the characters especially Red. I wish there was more between Lee and Otis I felt it ended very unsettled.. I'd have loved to see more of Meredith learning as well. And more about some other charters.

I didn't see who did it coming so that was a nice surprise.. for a debut this was well written but it did take me a bit to get though as it just couldn't keep my attention for long but if you like magic, family magic, Southern style old magic then this is a great read.

Strange Folk by Alli Dyer

320 Pages
Publisher: Atria Books
Release Date: August 16, 2024

Fiction (Adult), General Fiction (Adult), Sci Fi, Fantasy, Magic, Family Dynamics

Opaline “Lee” has returned home to Appalachia after a failed marriage. Her children, Meredith and Cliff, will have to adapt. She has taken a long substitute teaching job as a way to earn money.

Her great grandmother, Belva, talks about the magic of the land. This is something Lee was never interested in learning. Now that Meredith has had her first blood, Belva presents her with her own black book to record her magic. Lee attempts to stop Meredith from learning but Meredith seeks another teacher, Redbud, Lee’s mother.

Several mysterious deaths and an attack on someone close to Lee scares her. She wants to take her children far away from this land and its people before something happens to one of them.

The story has a steady pace, the characters are developed, and it is written in the third person point of view. Parts of this book remind me of Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman. Lee is like Sally in the fact she has turned her back on her family and magic. If you like stories about magic and family dynamics, you will enjoy reading this book.

Strange Folk had me hooked from the first sentence to the last. I read it in a matter of hours, I was so desperate to find out what happens next. A woman returns home after a nasty marriage ends in divorce to stay with her estranged grandmother. She and her children all have gifts but she prefers not to talk about it. As events unfold that make it necessary for her to use her gifts to save her family, will she come to terms with the events of her past? You won't want to miss this taut thriller about magic, family secrets, and overcoming traumas. Strange Folk was a thrilling story in a memorable setting with characters you won't soon forget.

Set in the mountains of Appalachia, Strange Folk is a story of generational trauma intertwined with folk magic. Lee Buck left Craw Valley at 18, intending to never return. But now, she is back with her two children as she tries to regroup from her impending divorce. Magical realism and family drama are a sweet spot for me and I had high expectations. I was immersed in the setting and the descriptions brought to life the feel of the Appalachian mountains as well as the community. The magical system felt authentic for this specific setting as well and I enjoyed learning about it.
Unfortunately, the characters were hard to relate to or root for. Lee often said one thing and then did another. Making choices that went against what she said she wanted. The story deals heavily with generational traumas. Lee's family has a long history of addiction and dysfunction. The women of the family seem to fall into the same pattern with little communication or intervention. I think overall, the story felt heavier than I was expecting. This is Alli Dyer's debut and I will be interested to see what she writes next.

Thank you NetGalley and Atria Books for the opportunity to read in return for my honest review.

Appalachia is not a place a typically venture to in my journey across fiction. Strange Folk is the argument that I probably need to change that going forward.

This was a breezy read, but there were occasional lines that would knock the wind out of me.

Lee is our center, and I found her deeply relatable from page one, in her behavior and her relationships with the people around her. You understand her actions and motivations, even when you know she is making a mess of things.

I do think the plot got a little bit too twisted up in itself, particularly towards the end, which detracted from the fantastic character work. We had two or three book's worth of plot crammed into 300.

A solid debut. Easy to read with enough depth to keep you engaged.

This book had a solid premise, but a messy execution. I was expecting something magical and atmospheric, but this didn’t deliver as much as I was hoping. It starts off well, but as the story goes on it starts to become very lackluster and boring. A big issue for me as well was the characters, more and more kept being added so it became messy and difficult to follow. I soon found I didn’t really care what was going on. It got to the point where I was only reading this to be able to review it, not for enjoyment.

ARC provided by NetGalley

Strange Folk is a generational book set in a small town. It has witchy vibes, and that was the most fun part about it! I would not say the witch stuff is not as fleshed out as it could be, and there was A LOT going on that made it drag on just a bit, so it's not perfect, but it's entertaining. It's not young adult, but there are parts that seem a little YA-ish (like the lack of world building and haphazard plotting). However, I would still recommend as a fun read. If you're looking for a strong main character, then this one is not for you. If anything, the other characters were more interesting than Lee.

Thank you to NetGalley, Alli Dyer, and Atria Books for the ARC!

Appalachian magic? Small town folk lore? Dysfunctional family relationships? Sign. Me. Up.
I've been in a bit of a slump lately so I figured I'd something new might just be the ticket out. I was right - 'Strange Folk' got me out of my slump. I enjoyed the atmosphere, the magic, and the setting...but a lot of the rest fell a little flat for me. There was just so much going on from romance to magic to murder and it felt like a lot was crammed into 300ish pages.

An easy 3 stars regardless, and still a fantastic debut. I'm looking forward to more by Dyer!

I enjoyed this dark tale of mothers and daughters, magic and legacy.

This book reminded me a bit of the Tufa books by Alex Bledsoe. It is richly steeped in the Appalachian mountain magic held close by insular communities, much as the Tufa books are. In this case, though, instead of fairies there are witches.

Lee returns to her grandmother's home with her two children because the life she tried to make for herself far away from where she grew up (and where she had wanted to escape from all of her life) fell apart. Lee instinctively came home to regroup and to heal. Lee has some of the magic that most of the women of her family do, but she has repressed it because she does not want to be of this place. When her kids start making connections to the community, Lee is surprised and upset.

Then people start turning up dead. It seems that there's some dark magic rising and Lee's grandmother, the community healer, is the first person blamed. But the answer is tied in with the drugs being sold in the community, old hatreds and unhealed wounds, and the desire for power. The whole family ends up having to work together whether they want to or not.

The author does a great job of showing relationships between women. Lee and her grandmother Belva have a bond that's remained unbroken, but Lee has cut herself off from her mother because of the pain that her mother's addictions caused her when she was growing up. Lee's daughter, on the other hand, is fascinated by Lee's mother and wants her as a mentor. That intergenerational way of attaching felt very real. The author has compassion for these sorts of small struggling communities but isn't afraid to show the dark sides of them either. I was impressed with this book and would read more by this author.

I enjoyed the author's writing style, it matched the book really well. The core characters were very distinct from each other but still read like a family. I will say that the number of characters thrown at us was a but much at times, and even now that I've finished the book I'm still a little murky on the family tree even though the relations were a very important point to the book.

Overall, this is a solid debut. It'll be interesting to see what Alli Dyer does next.

Actual Rating 1.5

TW: Drug and Alcohol Abuse, Pedophilia

Lee left Craw Valley to go to college and never planned on returning. However, on the brink of a nasty divorce, she brings herself and her two children back to her Grandma’s home in Craw Valley to temporarily get back on her feet. But she soon finds herself and her children drawn into the magic and darkness of the area, and it isn’t long before someone is found dead, possibly from her Grandma’s spellwork. Searching for answers, Lee finds herself forced to confront family secrets and trauma in order to find the answers she needs.

I wanted to love this one, and the premise and setting had me sold. But it fell short for me, and I think most of it came from the author’s writing style.

At first, this read started off quite strong. But the more I read, the more I began to notice things that bothered me to the point of distracting from the plot, setting, and characters. There were many instances where the writing felt clunky. Things would be awkwardly worded or written in a way that made the intent difficult to get. This also came through in the dialogue, and most of the dialogue kept the characters from feeling like real people based on how awkward it felt. The author also strayed into telling rather than showing – not throughout the whole book, but often enough that things felt disconnected for me. This was especially disappointing as this is set in the mountains of Appalachia and is advertised as being lush and atmospheric.

There were also a couple things that I found grating: the constant use of “Grandma Mama” as a title, and the shortening of Cliff’s name to “iff.” I know these seem like minor things, but for whatever reason I found them frustrating, especially with how often it came up throughout the book.

The characters just never came to life. Despite being a family of witches, they were bland and lacking in any real personality or depth. I didn’t like any of the characters and couldn’t connect with them. The antagonist felt like the villain in a Scooby-Doo episode, and by the end of the book I honestly didn’t care what the resolution was just as long as it was over. It felt like the author tried to include too much, especially on the traumatic side (including family/personal trauma), so everything relating to that stayed surface level and unresolved/unexplored in a way that was entirely unsatisfying.

If you’re not as bothered by writing styles and interested in a story about family magic, generational trauma, and harmful secrets, then you might enjoy this one more than I did. My thanks to NetGalley and Atria Books for allowing me to read this work, which will be published August 6, 2024. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are my own.

What attracted me to this book was its cover and title, and I’m so glad I got the chance to read it! I always enjoy any book that have magic in it and this one didn't disappoint, even though it's not the main theme. I was especially glad that I was able to understand the connection between the magic of the land and the Buck's family. This is a beautiful story about family, forgiveness and healing of ancestral traumas. The sceneries we get to imagine in this book are magical, and Alli Dyer's descriptions were so vivid, I could picture them in my mind!

In this novel, we follow Lee, a.k.a Opaline, who’s moving back to her hometown with her 2 kids following a separation from her husband. She isn’t really thrilled but it’s the only place she knows she can go to and where she thinks she'll be safe. She is struggling to reconnect with her family and acknowledge her legacy, but when bodies start showing up after each of her grandmother’s ritual, she has no choice but to finally accept who she is at her core and do everything in her power to find who’s behind all of this. And get that: this book has not 1, but 2 endings!!!! At around 75% of the book, you think you're done, because something big just happened and it was resolved, but nope! There's another twist and I didn't see this one coming, so kudos to the author for that!!!!

If you are looking for a heart-warming story with some mystery and suspense, this is your book!

All my thanks to NetGalley, Alli Dyer and Atria Books for the advanced reader’s copy of Strange Folk.

This novel tells of an enchanting world nestled within the haunting beauty of the Appalachian landscape. It blends together ancient magic, familial secrets, and the pull of coming home. A captivating read.
Many thanks to Atria and to Netgalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion. .

This was an interesting book for me, full of magic and mystery. I enjoyed how the descriptions of the setting and the characters helped the book play out like a vivid movie in my mind. There were moments that felt like Practical Magic and the deep wilderness of the mountains had a baby, but with a very dark atmosphere. There are definitely a few trigger warnings for readers, but the story doesn't included things for no reason, they help to weave the tale.

Overall I enjoyed this. I enjoy my first book by Alli Dyer and would be interested in reading more.

I found the premise of the book not to my liking and found it difficult to read through. I may pick this up again when the book is released, but DNF'd due to this reason.

4 🌟
This book had such fun, real characters. It went more into the serious familial and generational trauma that can be passed down than I expected, but that brought more depth to the characters. The magic was interesting, but I wish they went into more detail about how the magic system worked. I realize the POV we get is mainly from two characters who have been on the outside of the magic and are just learning their power, but I still would have liked more from the magic. The characters and story remind me very much of the Appalachia I know, which I also enjoyed. A very fun read despite it's serious themes, I found myself unable to put it down. I would absolutely recommend this book.

Thank you to netgalley for the arc copy!

I wish I could rate more than a 4 stars...it's definitely earned a 4.5! I really enjoyed this story. The characters were well developed and I found myself connecting immediately with them. The family aspects I think we can all relate to...even if we don't have magic around us. I totally enjoy a novel that goes deeper than just the regular tropes. I think you'll enjoy this read!

Thanks to Atria Books, Alli Dyer and #NetGalley for the eARC in return for my honest review.

"Moonshine, magic, and a murder mystery! What's not to love? If you're a southern girl, or even just a rural one, I think this story will resonate with you whether or not you happen to believe in magic. Dyer's backwater world is vivid, and her characters are no less vibrant than their surroundings. The trauma and healing that this family goes through together are enough to bring anyone back for more.

Certain elements of the story felt a little haphazard, as other reviews have mentioned, but Dyer's adept writing is enough to hold the story together. A+ Alli!" - My Goodreads review

I loved this book! I’m a half-way fan of fantasy because I need it rooted in reality. This is the type of book that makes me go, “yup, mountain people have magic”… in great and sometimes creepy ways.

This book had a lot of characters but I never got mixed up in who did what. The author did a great job with character development and plot, I really couldn’t love this book more and I plan to pre-order the hardcopy.