Ada Byrd arrives in the small town of Lowry Bridge to become the new teacher. She's unmarried, loves nature, and knows that this posting will allow her to reestablish her reputation where no one knows her.

She elicits curiosity and friendship from the town, starts the school year off well engaging the students, taking then for small explorations in the woods, and begins to hope for a future in this place.

Ada keeps a journal, and we discover that she is still grieving the violent death of her sister Florrie who was married to an abusive man. Both she and Florrie are no strangers to abuse, as their father spent years emotionally and physically abusing them.

As Ada begins to feel comfortable in the town, small things begin happening: she sees strange, disturbing things that no one else can, and begins to believe the Grey Dog, the presence she feels in the woods, is leaving her animal corpses and visions. Ada becomes increasingly unsure what is real and what isn't, and between her slowly unravelling mental state and her befriending an unconventional, wealthy widow who keeps herself separate from the town residents, Ada's reputation begins to deteriorate to the point that she can barely tell what is real and what is caused by the Grey dog.

This book plays with one’s perceptions, and the reliability of the main character’s narration: was she suffering from overwhelming grief and years of physical abuse to the extent that she began seeing things that were not there? Or was there actually a wild presence in the woods outside the town that only some people could see, particularly oppressed and/or abused girls and women? Or is Ada's behaviour just a manifestation of female rage that can no longer be contained after all the restrictions, hatred and abuse?

Author Elliott Gish walks a fine line between the daily horror inflicted by patriarchy and misogyny, and the possibly supernatural, elemental force that some women of the town give themselves to.

The author, though including some gory scenes, creates more of a suspenseful story with menace and violence creating a horror-filled atmosphere. Ada is desperate to flee society's and her father's expectations and constraints. She doesn't really understand her feelings as there has been no one to show her or support her in expressing these emotions and desires, including that of her burgeoning sexuality. It's no surprise that Ada hears the call of the otherworldly entity or elemental force, giving in increasingly to a desire to not conform, to not be respectable, as that has never made her happy.

This was a beautifully written story that pulled me in immediately. Ada's journal entries give you a fantastic understanding of her changing, possibly deteriorating, mental state, including her resentments, her worries, and her increasing fascination with whatever is in the woods.

This is a book that lingered in my mind long after I finished it. I felt uncomfortable and deeply sympathetic for Ada, and loved the way the novel closed.

Thank you to Netgalley and to ECW Press for this ARC in exchange for my review.

Didn't finish this, was not at all what I expected from the synopsis. Certainly not bad, but don't feel that we need this in our collection.

One of the best horror novels of the year. An eerie slow burn set in a small Canadian town in 1901 about a schoolteacher escaping her past. I enjoyed this very much but it's almost hard to review because I just want to push it into people's hands and tell them to read it.

While it takes a little time for the horror-y bits to pick up, I didn't find the book itself a dull read. Instead from the beginning we know Ada has a complicated history and that she is struggling to figure out who she is and what she wants. It's no help that she has basically no options as an unmarried woman nearing 30, and cannot tolerate her restrictive father's home. I liked spending time with Ada, and as the book is in diary form it was always nice to have her sit down to tell me about her day.

We slowly build the horror, it's never a straight up scare, but there is a fair amount of gore on the page. (Near the end there is some actual violence, though before that it is mostly the corpses of woodland creatures.) But this is one of my favorite kinds of horror novels that is actually About Something. While modern feminist horror is often quite muddled, once you go back in time over 100 years it's a clearer story. Ada is a feminist character, a woman who wants freedom, a woman who feels the pain of the limitations put on her life. She is also someone who is so used to those limits that she doesn't fully realize what she wants and how she feels. Following her own journey of self-discovery as she comes closer and closer to a supernatural force, becoming more animal is the very kind of thing that starts to appeal to Ada and her love of the natural world. It works quite seamlessly, considering feminism, sexuality, freedom, patriarchy without making you feel like you are being hit over the head with the themes.

A confident debut and I hope we see much more from Gish.

This book seemed like it was going to be a very atmospheric and creepy story, but it kind of fell short. While there are definitely creepy and sometimes scary scenes, it was heavily overshadowed by the day to day mundanity of being a devout religious woman. It felt like at times I was reading someone’s recounting of every church event interspersed with a weird shadow they saw out of the corner of their eye.

I do admire the author and their writing. For this to be their first novel and it to be so well written, that is very commendable. But the book is so slow and I was severely bored while reading it. It was also a bit confusing, and it felt like it didn’t know where the story was going until the last 10% of the book.

Overall, this wasn’t my favorite slow burn creepy ‘horror’, but the author’s writing has me really intrigued so I might see what they produce in future works.

How to describe this book? It seems like an historical novel set in 1901/2, Ada Byrd goes to teach in a small village after a scandal at her last post. There’s a slow burn of creepiness and strange events around Ada, there’s a mystery about the previous teacher, there’s the awful domestic violence story of Ada’s beloved sister, Florrie and also their relationship with their overbearing and violent father. And then there’s Norah Kinsley, a beautiful widow, mysterious and witchy. And what’s with the forest, and the strange child, Muriel? There’s so much here and it was a slow burn to begin with and then I couldn’t look away, the final sections completely compelling. Women’s wants and needs, the control society has over them, their appearance, behaviour, desires etc. So many thoughts! A brilliant read.

3.25 stars

A queer, foreboding tale of female rage and an oppressed spinster’s decent into madness

Ada Byrd is an unmarried woman in the early 1900’s, banished to a teaching post in a small town by her father after running into trouble at her last. Ada start to notice odd goings on about the town, which slowly unravels her character; she begins behaving erratically and not at all like the “good woman” she is expected to be

The beginning was slow, but the final 40-30% really tickled me. I felt a sense of dread and horror on every page which really got under my skin. The rest, unfortunately, bored me. I think it would’ve worked better for me had it picked up in pace quicker and been shorter

"Grey Dog" by Elliott Gish delivers a hauntingly visceral twist on historical fiction. In 1901's isolated Lowry Bridge, Ada Byrd encounters grotesque phenomena, from dying crickets to malformed fauna, as her grasp on reality unravels. Gish deftly explores the interplay of nature, trauma, and female rage, crafting a chilling narrative that captivates and disturbs. A thrilling, darkly poetic journey into the wildness of both woods and mind.

This was a really great historical horror novel set in a Canadian town 1901 following a schoolteacher escaping her past.

This book delivers exactly what was promised and delivered it well! The atmospheric setting, the creepy, ominous tone, the slow build-up! Everything was absolutely excellent and so well done, I can hardly believe this was a debut!

This one is for you if you enjoy; women breaking the norm, creepy forest setting, creepy children, religious horror and sapphic desires,

Brilliant! Read it!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read a free copy of this novel in exchange for my honest review. I could not put this book down, from the very beginning it draws you in and doesn't let you go. I enjoy anything that is LGBTQIA+ focused, PLUS the fact that it's Historical Horror made me fall in love with the characters and story. It's a long read, but so so worth it!

Grey Dog by Elliott Gish

Page Count: 400 pages

Publisher: ECW Press

Other Books I Enjoyed by This Author: Debut

Affiliate Link: https://bookshop.org/a/7576/9781770417328

Release Date: April 9th, 2024

General Genre: Historical, Feminist, Gothic, Literary

Sub-Genre/Themes: Sapphic desire, small town, one-room schoolhouse, teaching, creepy woods, “something in the woods”, death, grief, feminism, patriarchal society, religious communities, “madness/hysteria/delusions”, gossip, widows/spinsters, naturalists

Writing Style: Literary, Journal entries

What You Need to Know: Prepare to settle in for the long haul. This book unravels itself slowly. For this particular novel, the pleasure is in the journey–the full expanse of 400 pages working together to establish a strong aesthetic, develop a rich sense of place and atmosphere, and dive deep into the character of Ada Byrd.

My Reading Experience: This book is a whole mood and the temptation for you will be to hear all the buzz and jump into it with the wrong expectations. Readers are not finishing this book and raving about the heart-pounding scares (although there are moments) and the pages aren’t flying by like the latest “whodunit” thriller (although the journal entries do keep those pages turning). The reason readers love this book, in my humble opinion, is because Elliott Gish has told a feminist Gothic Horror story set in a small town with a creepy, mysterious wooded area, an intriguing widow who lives through those creepy woods and just over the bridge and main character we intimately draw close to through her journal entries. She has taken a position as the teacher in a one-room schoolhouse and she’s getting a room and board at a local family’s house that also housed the last teacher (who mysteriously disappeared). At first, everything is “church on Sunday, the smell of apples, and tea & cake” until Ada starts feeling watched–which wouldn’t be so unsettling if it wasn’t for the fact that the townspeople are religious and hung up on women behaving properly…you’ll see. This gets interesting quickly. My advice is to prepare for this one. Maybe save it for your Autumn TBR and make sure you read it with your afternoon tea and a cozy blanket–you’ll want to stay in Lowry Bridge for a while and allow Gish to woo you with this secretly seductive debut!

Final Recommendation: I saw somewhere that someone recommended this book as “Anne of Green Gables but Feminist Gothic Horror” and it could not be more accurate. If you read the entire Anne of Green Gables series and watched the PBS series, even watched Anne of Avonlea with Sarah Polley, this book is going to take you right back to it but infuse those delicious vibes with sapphic desires, feminist gothic themes, and a “get up out of your seat and clap” kind of ending.

Comps: The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry and The Death of Jane Lawrence

I am in awe. I haven’t been this affected or unsettled by a book in over five years. It’s like this was specifically tailored for me. An Anne of Green Gables fanatic who grew up to love spooky. My God. Gorgeous. Strange. Disquieting. I cannot recommend it enough. It should be on every award list. WOW.

Lush prose. Compelling characters. Moments that are so genuinely frightening it takes the breath away.

I will read anything Elliott Gish writes. I am a new lifelong fan.

Another conflicting ARC for me this month. While I really enjoyed the premise, themes and ending of the novel - it took a really long time to get there. So long in fact, that the book really lost my interest in the later first third of the novel. For a debut author, I was very impressed by the writing of this book overall. It was incredibly lyrical, atmospheric and creepy towards the end. And, as mentioned, I really loved the themes of female rage and female treatment which they weave throughout the novel. Given the historical context, the theme fits in perfectly well paired with the more horrific aspects of the forest/small town setting. But it was not enough to keep me fully engaged and drifting off that I ended up having to reread chapters because I felt like I was suddenly missing something. However, the last third of the book was creepy and captivating - I wish Gish had introduced this a bit earlier so that I could have felt a bit more engaged when our main characters mental decline finally happened.

In 1901, spinster school teacher Ada Bird accepts a teaching job in the small community of Lowry Bridge. It’s isolated, so she has the opportunity to re-establish herself somewhere where no one knows her secrets. As she gets settled and gets to know her students and neighbors, her past seems far away. That is, until she starts seeing grisly visions that she believes come from some supernatural force she calls Grey Dog. Her life begins to make her question what’s real and what’s not, and ultimately, what’s real horror.

I thoroughly enjoyed this slow burn, understated horror. I love the exploration of being a woman, what that means, and what it costs through the lens of horror. It builds slowly, constructing an errie mood and vibe to take us all to places we don’t expect.

This was a bizarre book, quiet in its intensity. As the reader you are never quite sure if our narrator is reliable or not. In a lot of ways this book felt like The VVitch to me. I imagined it in a muted color pallet and stark black contrasts during the night. Following our main heroine in a Puritanical society, and her longing to be free; and the beast who promises her that freedom. This is not a book for people who need all their questions answered, for it's far too artsy for that. But if you let yourself get swept up in the story you might start to hear the Grey Dog too.

Reminded me of a bit of a harder Night Bitch, or Her Body And Other Parties- language the cuts about what it means to be a woman today, and societal places, and the horror of existence. I really enjoyed this and it will stick with me.

3.5 stars rounded up. This had The Yellow Wallpaper vibes and also reminded me of Rebecca, Midsommar, and Carmilla. The diary format was used well to show how the way the main character changes slowly throughout the book. This book was really good at building up suspense and using descriptive language to paint a picture and build a feeling of dread while keeping the story moving. The ending felt a bit abrupt though. I was hoping that the build up from the first two thirds would lead to something more, but the ending did make sense and work with the foreshadowing spread throughout.

This atmospheric, creeping literary horror was incredibly geared toward my interests, and I'm not sure why I never quite felt grabbed by it. It could just be that I've never been partial to epistolary novels, though I tried not to hold that against it.

The middle third of the book was most compelling to me - the beginning dragged a bit, and the end was...less satisfying than I had anticipated. I still haven't worked out exactly why. Regardless, there were at least moments that will linger with me, and it's worth recommending to fans of the genre.

DNFing this one - I'm just so bored. I am not enjoying this narration style and at least one surprise is already spoiled by the marketing of the book itself. I'm sure others will love the journal-entry exposition, but I do not.

**Thank you NetGalley and ECW Press for the eARC**

3.5 stars

This story is told entirely through diary entries by 29-year-old Ada Byrd, the main character who's just moved and started a new job as a teacher in a small town in the fall/winter of 1901. Ada has taken the role begrudgingly, as she had to leave her last post due to scandal right around the time that this town's previous teacher had to leave to tend to her sick mother. Ada is unmarried, a personal failing for the time period, and suffering from extreme amounts of both childhood and recent trauma. As she settles in, she has to navigate small-town gossip, a strict economic divide, uppity students, and whatever the heck is happening in the woods. Because something is definitely happening in the woods.

The writing is tense, atmospheric, and creepy---it did a great job of building a tense existential dread throughout the novel, even when the plot was slow to progress. Which was most of the time. I enjoyed the diary format and Ada as a narrator, and the vibes in this book were absolutely there. I could visualize the setting and happenings very clearly. The build-up here was very slow but effective, but unfortunately, the ending felt abrupt. I wanted more horror here than I got, and would have liked a little less buildup in the first half of the book and a little more payoff at the end. I will keep an eye out for this author's future works, I think with the right story their writing would really work for me, but this wasn't quite that. Thanks to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for the advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

A slow burn literary horror with absolutely stunning prose.

We follow Ada, a women in her late 20s in the year of 1901, who moves to a small religious town surrounded by forest to become the town’s school teacher.

This book is told through various journal entries as Ada both reminisces on trauma from her childhood and previous post, to her day to day experiences becoming accustomed to her new life. As she starts getting comfortable she begins hearing and seeing unsettling things in the forest, which causes her to slowly spiral into madness affecting her reputation with her students, friends, and the townies.

Gothic, queer, historical fiction that touches on topics of small town gossip, expectations of women in 1901, and the beauty and horror of the unknown in the natural world. There are some scenes and lines that will stay with me forever!

Highly highly recommend this one! 5 stars <3

Thanks to NetGalley and ECW Press for the ARC :)