Thanks to NetGalley, Titan Books, and the author for the ARC in exchange for my honest review. Unfortunately this was confusing and ultimately unsatisfying. I do think that Hall is quite a gifted writer, but the plot here just didn’t really work for me, because I could barely follow it.

The book felt disorganized with unlikable characters and an excessive number of viewpoints. Simplifying it to just Myrrh and Cayenne's perspectives would have streamlined the story and reduced unnecessary complexity.

What a book!! We follow a few different women in this muilti-POV novella. The two characters we hear from most are Myrrh, a young woman adopted at birth and searching for her birth family (while being tormented by her inner voice named Goblin), and Cayenne, an unhappy woman who hates her step daughter and wants a baby of her own. These stories, along with a few other, come together in unexpected ways.

I really liked this - I found the quick chapters and POV changes a bit jarring at first but it really lent itself well to building up to this books unforgettable climax.

I was immediately intrigued by this premise but the actual story was not what I expected from the marketing. Like other reviewers, I question the label of horror but I must acknowledge that I cannot fully critique a DNF. Mostly I failed to care about the characters and without that immersion I struggled to continue the story.

I requested this one because it might be an upcoming title I would like to review on my Youtube Channel. However, after reading the first several chapters I have determined that this book does not suit my tastes. So I decided to DNF this one.

This is a conundrum. See, I like the writing a lot and I believe it’s a pretty great story, but I’ll argue till I’m blue in the face that this is not horror. It’s just not. I see why it was out with the genre, but it feels a little misleading. This is not what it’s described to be.

Thanks to NetGalley and Titan Books for this ARC. This book will be out in April!

I started off being confused by the characters monologues, but the pieces fell into place one by one. Sad, creepy and ultimately enjoyable.

I found this book very difficult to follow. It was not clear and the plot felt quite messy. Unfortunately I found this very disappointing

3.25⭐️

Myrrh is a book about a woman who was adopted as a child going on a search to find her biological parents.

It was marketed as horror, but I really did not find this to fit into the horror (or really even thriller) genre. I would categorize Myrrh as slightly unhinged/suspenseful/ speculative litfic, and if it had been marketed that way I think I would've enjoyed the book more. There are some horror adjacent aspects included in the storyline that I enjoyed, but I don't think they were clear enough or substantial enough to place the entire book in the horror genre.

This book is written through the POVs of multiple different women. It is unclear how they are related at the beginning, but by the end we are able to see their connections weave together. The POVs were each distinct and the chapters were short, which I always love. This made the book a really fast paced and short read, and it was easy to quickly become interested in the women and the plot.

I was enjoying the book until I realized my enjoyment was just rising anticipation of a climax that really never came. I kept hoping for something shocking, and I finished the book feeling disappointed.

There were certainly some interesting themes explored here (motherhood, loss, hope, adoption, etc.) but they didn't come together in a way that felt memorable for me.

*Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for the free digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I really struggled with this one, the writing was so jolting and the short chapters didn’t work at all. I felt it hard to connect to any characters, their motives, or their actions and I found the entire thing a little flat unfortunately.

Myrrh is a novel about adoption, belonging, and family, as an adopted woman searches for her birth parents and an unloved wife dreams of a baby. Myrrh was adopted as a baby and is now an adult looking for her birth parents whilst tormented by a voice in her head, Goblin. Cayenne is wife to a husband who seems far closer to his daughter—her stepdaughter—and yearns for a child of her own. As their stories are told in parallel, the narrative unravels their respective desperation as it builds towards the unravelling of secrets.

Told in distinctively short chapters, Myrrh moves between multiple narratives in a whiplash-inducing way that feels like it matches snippets of reason and desperation, and particularly Myrrh's own confused sense of self and time. The opening builds up a sense of dread, particularly with Cayenne's story and Myrrh's "Goblin", leaving you wondering what is going to happen and how the book is going to develop into the psychological horror that it is described as.

Unfortunately, that is where I found the book to disappoint me. If it hadn't been marketed as horror, focusing more on the ideas of adoption and belonging and family with maybe some focus on a thriller element, then maybe I would've found the ending to be more satisfying, but for me, it just felt predictable and not really dark at all, just a bit grimly predictable. It's not that it's a bad story, it's just that it is set up to be a different book, and it doesn't really delve into some of the darker elements enough. There are a couple of "unreal" elements that could be something unexplainable or something in the heads of the characters, and there's one chapter that delves into one of these in an experimental way that I liked, but the ending just doesn't really do them justice either.

I like how the story is told and Myrrh in particular is a gripping character, but Myrrh wasn't quite the book for me, with an ending that fell a bit flat. Not marketing it as horror might help with expectations, and I've seen other reviews pointing this out as well—it does have some psychological elements at times and will probably appeal to fans of psychological thrillers, but if you're coming to it looking for horror, it felt at least to me like a bit of a let down in that regard.

DNF @ 30%.

It may be that the end of this book brings things together with a satisfying 'ah, that's what it all meant!'

But I shall never know, because the journey is just as important as the destination, and the journey here wasn't working for me.

I simply felt no curiosity about how the stories of Myrrh and Cayenne would intersect, or whether there's a reason they are named after the sidekick of frankincense and a pepper respectively.


The style of writing was perhaps intended to elicit intrigue but just felt oblique to me. Some books are very much "What's going on? I want to find out!', whilst others, such as this, are more 'What's going on? Actually, I don't care enough to find out.'

Also the voice of 'Goblin' had already become very grating at the point I reached.

Not one for me, I'm afraid.

Unfortunate DNF!

I just couldn't find or focus on the through line of the story. The writing was interesting and well done, but too meandering for me right now.

Initially, I LOVED this book. Unfortunately it started to feel like it was dragging on a bit. It was beautifully written, but I think I could have skipped 30% of the chapters, and still have understood the plot. If you like slower paced books, I definitely recommend, but it wasn’t for me.

I will start out by saying this was a very well written book, but it is not horror.

I'm not really sure how to respond to this book. Its a story of identity for someone who is adopted and the many personal decisions and actions of people close to her had to make to get to the present day. And for someone who is adopted, I'm guessing as the author put it, they are constantly searching to belong, searching for who they are and where they came from.

I'm not sure why authors write things that don't make sense and try to loosely connect it in order to fill the gaps in the story. Myrrh has an inner voice she calls Goblin, who constantly berates her but (spoiler) at the end we find out that Goblin is actually a deformed, dead baby who she never met or had any form of contact with because she herself was a baby at the same time of its short existence.

I probably could have gone without reading this one. I actually put it down at one point and read a Clive Barker book and came back to finish this.

I was initially drawn to this book because of the striking cover, and the blurb sounded great. Whilst I thought the writing in this book was absolutely beautiful, I found it slow unfortunately, and it didn't grip me in the way that I wanted it to and thought it would. I found the first 60/70% quite boring, and it only really picked up at the end. I think a lot of people will enjoy this book, it's just not for me unfortunately. 2.5/5 *

This is a literary psychological horror novel that combines seemingly different narratives into something sinister and horrific.

Myrrh is the name of a woman who was adopted as a baby. She was raised by good people yet this feeling of not belonging blossoms inside until it becomes an obsession to find her birth parents. Inside of her is a voice which she calls Goblin. It tells her she's worthless, unwanted, and unloved. It also tells her to do horrific things to others.

Cayenne is a woman who married a man with a teenage daughter. As time moves on she feels completely alone and cast aside by both her husband and his daughter. Theirs is a passive aggressive relationship. She has an obsession also. She wants a baby of her own but gets nothing but contempt of the idea.

These two different characters make up the heart of this increasingly disturbing novel. We'll discover secrets from both as their obsessions begin to take dark turns. We'll soon start to see where these stories cross as issues of self identity, loneliness, and longing are explored with a sparcity of dialogue. The horror comes from being in the heads of these characters and seeing them slowly devolving mentally. It's effectively creepy and frightening.

I highly recommend this book.

I received an ARC of this book through Netgalley with no consideration. This review is voluntary and is my own personal opinion

*Thank you NetGalley for the eARC of this book*

This was an interesting and thrilling read. I loved the original prose and the tense atmosphere throughout the whole book. Really loved the horror and twisty elements. 3 stars.