This was a dark, creepy, joy of a novella. It can be such a challenge to master mood and characters in a short format but this scratched every itch for a gothic atmosphere and rage-motivated FMC I could drum up. Succinctly written but still engaging from start to finish, I could have eaten up a whole novel of this but absolutely loved the snack-sized version.

OVERALL RATING: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
5 perfect stars!

Wow.

No, seriously. I actually finished this, stared at the last page for a moment, and just went, "…wow."

I picked this up completely blind because the description intrigued me. All I knew was the blurb--that's it. I wasn't expecting the direction it took, the emotions it stirred up, or the fact that I'd end up sitting there after the final page and just having this 😨 face. LOL.

This is also my first real dive into gothic horror, and if this is the standard, I completely understand why people love the genre. It has that delicious feeling of dread where every page quietly whispers that nothing good is waiting around the corner, yet you keep reading anyway because you simply have to know how everything unravels. Dalrymple's writing carried this story, too, and I absolutely loved how it balances the themes of Christian guilt, an abusive father, forbidden love, loss, and horror.

Henry's disappearance is the main layer of longing in the story but beneath the creepy, morbid vibes I found myself reading the entire thing as a metaphor for grief and the lasting effects of abuse. I think it made the emotional core land incredibly well for me.

I finished it in one sitting without ever feeling rushed or wishing for more pages. It tells exactly the story it wants to tell, then leaves before it loses its impact.

I'd say it's an Ethel Cain album meets The VVitch meets From Black (2023). It's haunting, atmospheric, and heartbreakingly human. Even though this is just a quick read, I can't recommend this enough!

This author wrote on of my favorite reads of last year (Bed Rot Baby) so I knew I’d love this even though it was very different. It was definitely a gothic read and the atmosphere was amazing right away. For a novella, each word was used wisely to quickly establish a sense of place and its community, as well as the sense of isolation and building recklessness. The MC was really interesting, multifaceted and a bit unreliable, and I loved the supernatural bend to the horror. This was a one sitting read, not only due to the length but because I couldn’t put it down.