eARC

Book Review: PORTRAIT OF A WITCH UNDONE by K. S. Shay

| Jessica Crawford

Portrait of a Witch Undone by K.S. Shay is a 368 page debut novel being published by Erewhon Books, an imprint of Kensington Publishing Corp., on August 25, 2026.

Genre/Subgenres

Fantasy, Horror, Paranormal

Description

For fans of Starling House and A Discovery of Witches with a Thomas Crown Affair twist: a contemporary New England coven hides the mysteries that lurk in the marshes north of Boston—and how they are connected to the largest unsolved art heist in modern history.

Once, Maeve Ryan was the strongest witch of her generation. But Maeve messed up a spell to contact the Lady of the Fens, an eerie Revenant who lures the unwary to their deaths in the brackish marshlands of the North Shore. Maeve destroyed her reputation, hurt her best friend Ash, and tainted herself with unbound, wild magic that transforms witches into insane Revenants.

With unbound power eating away at Maeve’s mind, all she wants is to get rid of her magic. Forever. But Ash’s research into how the spell went awry leads in an unexpected direction: the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and a link between the Lady and a decades-old art theft worth $500 million. When Ash disappears through a stolen painting’s empty frame, Maeve has to follow.

Inside is the Other Marsh, a haunting, deadly realm where only the Lady’s rules apply. Within this half-world lie secrets about North Shore’s history, Maeve’s failure, and the fate of the masterpieces that disappeared over three decades ago. But as Maeve fights toward the truth, she risks her friendship, her coven, and her life against enemies hiding in plain sight

Opening Line

Birds call from dying limbs, a harvest moon rises, and I take the commuter rail home to rob my grandmother.

My Thoughts

❧ A coven of witches
❧ A competent, obstinate, scrappy MC
❧ A spell that turns paintings into a prison
❧ A horrifying Revenant with a tragic backstory…plotting her escape
❧ The importance of positive relationships!

Let me begin with the latter portion of this book, which was really something else! I would actually call this a horror novel with an urban fantasy setting. The creepy veiled Lady of the marsh following our characters from painting to painting, plenty of violence via physical fights against enemies (both human and not), flocks of birds following the characters wherever they go—all very menacing! Some of the characters begin the story as friends, some as strangers, and some as rivals, but in a satisfying plot arc they are forced to accept one another as allies and fight the evil that plagues the North Shore coven of Massachusetts together. And then there is the joy of seeing characters who have struggled stubbornly finally take hold of their own power, on their own terms. Witches be GOATed!

They want to reduce me to a legend? Let them. I will be the worst fable they have ever written.

But I will say that at the start of this book, there were a few things I noted that seemed like they might be debut novel issues. Stylistically it initially read like a YA book even though its characters and themes are not, every character was first introduced by their race (bonus points for the inclusion of a nonbinary character, though), the pacing seemed a bit uneven, the rules about the magic system and the paintings involved in the spellwork were hard to follow, and a great part of the tension in the narrative relied on lack of communication between characters–a pet peeve of mine, although admittedly having a reason to withhold certain information is much preferable to the miscommunication trope.

Even if the execution wasn’t 100% a homerun for this reader, by the end I was “all in” anyway. Full of magic tied to the land, mystery, coven intrigue, desperation, the uncertainty of shifting of alliances, a tangential romance subplot, and monsters created though tragedy, this was an action-packed tale with a touching and very gratifying narrative arc—a powerful story!

“I mean, on a scale of one to an unbound, undead Puritan witch, how bad could family be?”

My thanks to Kensington Publishing and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for my unbiased review.

Bookshop.org

Book Review: THE WITCH BELOW THE DREAMING WOOD by H.G. Parry

| Jessica Crawford

The Witch Below the Dreaming Wood by H.G. Parry is a 448 page standalone novel to be published July 21, 2026 by Redhook.

Genre

Historical Fantasy, Retelling

Description

From the author of The Magician’s Daughter comes a captivating historical fantasy where dreams come to life and Arthurian legends are reborn.

Wales, 1941. As the second world war ravages the globe and bombs fall from the sky, people all over the world begin to dream of King Arthur. The dreams spread like a fantastical plague, flooding people’s sleep night after night. Whispers arise of wonders and unexplained sights – dragons in the London Underground, and strange lights over Stonehenge. Self-proclaimed prophets claim they are miracles, heralding Arthur’s return at the time of Britain’s greatest need.⁣
⁣
Elaine Ambrose has never dreamed of Arthur, and she doesn’t believe in miracles. A librarian at the British Museum, she wants only to protect the museum’s collection from the Blitz, and is frustrated to be sent instead to catalogue a reclusive professor’s private library on the coast of North Wales. But all is not as it seems. Soon Ellie must confront what she’s tried to ignore: she dreams not of Arthur, but of Nimue – the Lady of the Lake. And her dreams promise not salvation, but a return to the darkness of the last days of Camelot. 

Opening Line

When we were children under the Lake, my other would tuck us into bed every night with the same words.

My Thoughts

“That’s the trouble with destiny, and with despair. Both make it too easy to tell yourself you had no choice.”

The Witch Below the Dreaming Wood is an Arthurian legend love story that transcends space and time.

The tale unfolds in chapters that alternate between Nimue’s story (told in the first person POV), and that of Elaine Ambrose (third person), a librarian working in London during the second World War. As their nation is embroiled in warfare, the people of the United Kingdom collectively begin dreaming about the once and future king, Arthur. Is the phenomenon spreading by the power of suggestion on the minds of a stressed population, or is there actually something otherworldly afoot?

It was as though the incendiaries had cracked open the earth and allowed something old and primal to slip through.

At first, Ellie resents being sent away from where she can be of most use to the war effort in order to catalogue the library of an isolated manor house in the north of Wales. But events at her new lodgings lead her to believe that Camlan House might in fact have a much bigger role to play in looming world-shattering events than she could have imagined. She teams up with the estate’s groom, honorably discharged RAF pilot Tom Wilder, to try to puzzle out what is behind the unearthly goings-on they witness there.

Both parts of the story were excellent, but I especially delighted at Nimue’s narration of how she was raised by the Lady of the Lake to be Merlin’s doom. Her entire life has been solely about preparing to enact her mother’s vengeance against the mighty wizard and advisor to the king in Camelot through subterfuge, never mind how Nimue herself might come to feel for the man.

Oh, the joy the repartee between Nimue and Merlin brought to me!

“As it stands, I owe you an apology, and probably an explanation. I don’t have an explanation for you, but would you like to learn how to turn into a mouse?”

“I’d better get going. I promised Arthur I’d join him in council.”

“I thought you said you were going to be completely useless this morning.”

“I never promised him I wouldn’t be useless. I never even promised him I’d be awake. I did promise him I’d be human, which is a shame, but he’s learned to be specific over the years.”

And of course we also have the other usual suspects in this part of the tale: Morgan le Fay and Mordred, Queen Guinevere and Sir Lancelot.

Poor Lancelot. So brave and so honourable, so determined to be all things to all people that he was constantly hurting them in the process… “He can’t turn aside from Arthur, and he can’t turn aside from you, and so he’s going to tear himself apart trying to be everything to both of you at once, and deep down he can’t believe that it will end badly.”

If he could be the best knight in the world while betraying his liege lord, then it meant that knighthood wasn’t what he had believed it to be. It meant that perhaps his standards meant nothing, and never had. It meant everything was falling apart.

Both strands of story weave together epically at the end. There is no time loop here, but if “timey-wimey” plots hurt your brain too much to enjoy a book, you might want to skip this one. However, if you love fantasy stories inspired by Arthurian legend, WWII historical fiction, and grand wistful romances all packaged together with strong moral lessons, you must give this a read!

It will end one day, of course. Everything does. Until then, we have the ground we hold against the dark, and the stories we fill it with.

A thousand thanks to Redhook and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for my unbiased review.

Book Review: HOW TO CHEAT YOUR OWN DEATH by Kristen Perrin

| Jessica Crawford

How to Cheat Your Own Death by Kristen Perrin is the third book in the Castle Knoll Files series of murder mysteries. It’s a 336 page novel to be published by Dutton on April 28, 2026.

Genre

Mystery

Description

From the gritty streets of 1960s Soho to the lofty galleries of present-day West London, two interlocking mysteries decades apart unfold in this latest instalment in the award-winning, New York Times bestselling Castle Knoll Murder Mystery series

Some secrets are deadlier than others

1968: Frances Adams is loving her new London life, and she’s stepped into a world of glamour thanks to her new friend, Vera Huntington–a magnetic socialite as mysterious as she is provocative. Vera dances around London like she owns it, taking Frances with her.

Present day: When Annie Adams heads to London to visit her famous artist mother, Laura, the last thing she expects to find is a dead body. Least of all for it to be Laura’s new protégée, left in an alley with her heart surgically removed from her chest.

Annie is no stranger to murder–after all, she’s solved a few already. And something about this case feels familiar. She’s read about one just like it in the journals of her late great aunt Frances, whose friend Vera was killed in the 1960s in the exact same way.

As Annie investigates, threats pile up on Laura’s doorstep, and it soon becomes clear that she’s next. With her mother’s life on the line, can Annie find the killer before it’s too late?

Opening Line

The neon lights of Soho bounced off the autumn puddles, their reflections half interrupted by the steady droplets of freezing rain.

My Thoughts

I think this was my favorite entry in the Castle Knoll Files so far!

Or, possibly, I now just have a greater appreciation for skilled writing and plots not riddled with holes when it comes to my reading of mysteries.

Either way, How to Cheat Your Own Death, book three in the series, is an engaging murder mystery that once again alternates between Annie Adams investigating with Rowan Crane in current times and the journal entries of her Great Aunt Frances that are tied to the case in some way. This one takes place in London, where Annie’s famous artist mother has welcomed her absent father back into their lives and has also taken on an apprentice in an uncharacteristic move. Laura Adams begins receiving threats in the form of animal hearts left on her doorstep, and then someone turns up murdered and dumped in her trash receptacle. As Annie and Crane work to figure out what happened, they also puzzle through what it might have to do with Frances’s history with a wealthy family in the 1960s, a murdered socialite, and a local art gallery.

I was intrigued with the threads of story around the paintings and Frances’s time as a university psychology student. There are some fascinating characters here, as well as some truly awful ones. There is also some movement on the romance front in this installment.

This book kept me up late to continue plowing through its pages to learn the truth. I will happily read any more that follow in the series!

My gratitude to Dutton and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for my honest review.

Book Review: THE BOOK WITCH by Meg Shaffer

| Jessica Crawford

The Book Witch by Meg Shaffer is a 320 standalone novel from Ballantine Books with a publish date of April 7, 2026.

Genre:

Contemporary Fantasy, Mystery, Romance

The Blurb:

She can hop into any novel, she just can’t stay there. Come along with the book witch in this magical and inspiring love letter to reading from the USA Today bestselling author of The Wishing Game.

Rainy March is a proud third-generation book witch, sworn to defend works of fiction from all foes real and imaginary. With her magical umbrella and feline familiar, she jumps into and out of novels to fix malicious alterations and rogue heroes. 

Book witches live by a strict Real people belong in the real word; fictional characters belong in works of fiction…. Do not eat, drink, or sleep inside a fictional world, lest you become part of the story. Falling in love with a fictional character? Don’t even think about it.

Which is why Rainy has been forbidden from seeing the Duke of Chicago, the dashing British detective who stars in her favorite mystery series. If she’s ever caught with him again, she’ll be expelled from her book coven—and forced to give up the magical gifts that are as much a part of her as her own name.

But when her beloved grandfather disappears and a priceless book is stolen, there’s only one person she trusts to help her solve the case: the Duke. Their quest takes them through the worlds of Alice in Wonderland, The Great Gatsby, and other classics that will reveal hidden enemies and long-buried family secrets.

Opening Line:

All stories are love stories if you love stories.

My Thoughts

If you love books (and if you’re here, I’ll assume you do) and contemporary fantasy isn’t an automatic nonstarter for your reading, then you will be DELIGHTED with The Book Witch by Meg Shaffer!

An unread book is a caged animal, trapped between paper walls. They want reading, need it. To open a book is to set a story free.

So much of this book is about books we love, why we love them, and why they are worth defending (from book bans and challenges all the way up to literal book burnings). The vehicle for delivering this message is an enchanting fantastical mystery story filled with adventure and a healthy dash of romance (and in fact, the book is divided into parts cleverly titled after various genres). The droll writing had me giggling out loud in many places. My favorite books may often be on the darker and grittier side, but this story was indisputably good for this reader’s heart and soul!

“Sorry, this is weirder than when Ebeneezer Scrooge sent me a fruitcake for Christmas.”

Rainy March is a book witch of the Ink and Paper Coven, as was her mother who died when Rainy was a baby, and the grandfather who raised her. When fictional characters manage to slip the confines of their books and enter the real world, threatening to unwrite and rob the world of their beloved stories, those in the storycraft trade escort them back where they belong and erase their memories of the experience. When Burners enter books they do not consider serious or deserving literature and try to light them on fire from within, the witches hunt them down within the pages of the story to stop them before any permanent damage can be done.

“I’m starting to thing you don’t actually read the books you claim to love or hate. No, you wave them like flags in a war no one’s fighting but you.”

Rainy and her familiar, the Russian Blue cat named Koshka, are doing well for themselves in this role, until the day they enter one of the installments of the Duke of Chicago series. Rainy can’t help but be charmed by the debonair Private Investigator. The two wind up falling in love and meeting clandestinely, in his world or hers. But the coven abides by a set of strict rules, one of which is that fictional characters belong in their books, and real people belong in the real world, and fraternizing outside the bounds of ones duties is prohibited. When their secret is discovered, Rainy is forbidden from seeing Duke again.

But when there is a mystery afoot that may mean danger for Rainy’s loved ones (and may answer decades-old questions about the mother she never knew), the 1920s gangland Chicago detective might be the only person able to help her untangle the truth. Risking her livelihood and her very identity as a book witch in order to save the people she loves, Rainy teams up with the man she isn’t allowed to be with to solve the case. If only he would stop making bedroom eyes at her…

“Stop being gorgeous,” I ordered him, pointing at his face.

“You first.”

This story featuring charming characters and humorous writing (and a cameo appearance from LeVar Burton!) is a fun and clever homage to books everywhere, and I am so glad to have read it. Many thanks to Ballantine Books and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for my unbiased review.

One last gem of a quote:

“Stories thrive on conflict. You do realize that the fairy tale ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ without the Big Bad Wolf is nothing but a brief paragraph about an uneventful food delivery.”

Okay, fine, that was the second to last one. Now this:

“Reminds me that when the going gets tough, it’s probably time to escape into a book.”

This entire story could be the booklover’s creed!

Goodreads

Bookstagram

Book Review: PLASMA PULP: LOST WORLDS

| Jessica Crawford

Plasma Pulp: Lost Worlds is an anthology published by Raconteur Press in 2026 edited by Lawdog, featuring stories written by CE Hugues, Spearman Burke, Lee Allred, Dean Stone, Malory, Ted Begley, Craig A. Reed, Jr, Alan Wolfe, MD & Bam Boncher, and Ken Lizzi

Genre/Subgenre

Science Fiction, Raypunk, Plasma Pulp, Anthology

What This Is

This is the second collection of Plasma Pulp short stories put out by this publisher. So what exactly is this subgenre (also known as Raypunk)? It combines futuristic science fiction elements with an “Old School spirit of adventure” (think of the aesthetic of the Fallout franchise) told in the style of pulp fiction—which is to say, action-packed sensational stories with larger-than-life heroes and villains. Many of these stories feature the muscle-bound pilots of smuggler spacecraft wielding rayguns and plasma swords while on daring missions against mad scientists, fighting side by side with the voluptuous princesses of alien worlds (here the damsels are more likely to kick butt and take names than they are to await rescue). Our heroes sport names like Johnny, Duke, Rex, and Buck.

My Thoughts

So the thing is that any fiction that falls into the Pulp category is probably not my jam. I prefer literary depth to thrills and chills, and much more drawn to character-driven stories to plot-driven. That being said, there were definitely some stories within the collection that I found enjoyable (favorites include Spire of Doom, A Princess of the Stars, and Princess of Starways) (I wasn’t kidding about princesses being a staple of the subgenre!) The sentence level writing is not a problem, and the illustrations scattered throughout were good fun.

So while this collection may not have been exactly my cup of tea (I’m more of a coffee drinker, myself), your mileage may vary (one metaphor too many?) If this type of storytelling sounds appealing to you, give this anthology a try. Reading one or two entries at a time might provide you with the perfect bite-sized brain candy you crave in between heavier reads.

Thank you to Raconteur Press for the eARC in exchange for my unbiased review!

Book Review: AMITY by Nathan Harris

| Jessica Crawford

Amity by Nathan Harris is a 320 page standalone novel published in 2025 by Little, Brown and Company of Hatchette Book Group.

Genre:

Historical Fiction

Synopsis:

A gripping story about a brother and sister, emancipated from slavery but still searching for true freedom, and their odyssey across the deserts of Mexico to finally reunite, all while escaping a former master still intent on their bondage

New Orleans, 1866. The Civil War might be over, but formerly enslaved Coleman and June have yet to find the freedom they’ve been promised. Two years ago, the siblings were separated when their old master, Mr. Harper, took June away to Mexico, where he hoped to escape the new reality of the post-war South. Coleman stayed behind in Louisiana to serve the Harper family, clinging to the hope that one day June would return.

When an unexpected letter from Mr. Harper arrives, summoning Coleman to Mexico, Coleman thinks that finally his prayers have been answered. What Coleman cannot know is the tangled truth of June’s tribulations under Mr. Harper out on the frontier. And when disaster strikes Coleman’s journey, he is forced on the run with Mr. Harper’s daughter, Florence. Together, they venture into the Mexican desert to find June, all the while evading two crooked brothers who’ll stop at nothing to capture Coleman and Florence and collect the money they’re owed. As Coleman and June separately navigate a perilous, parched landscape, the siblings learn quickly that freedom isn’t always given—sometimes, it must be taken by force.

As in his New York Times bestselling debut The Sweetness of Water, Nathan Harris delves into the critical years of the Civil War’s aftermath to deliver an intimate and epic tale of what freedom means in a society still determined to return its Black citizens to bondage. Populated with unforgettable characters, Amity is a vital addition to the literature of emancipation.

Opening Line:

I had few pleasures to call my own.

My Thoughts:

This is a work of historical fiction taking place in the American South and Mexico in the years immediately post-Civil War. POVs alternate between siblings Coleman and June, servants of the family who owned them as slaves before the North’s victory freed them. Still stinging from the Confederacy’s loss, the patriarch of the family takes June with him as he joins a group of other disgruntled Southerners who travel to Mexico in order to establish a new mining town and get out from the under the laws of the Union. Later, the man’s wife and daughter, along with Coleman and the family dog, strike out to join them. The journey presents a multitude of dangers and interesting characters – criminals, Mexican soldiers, Black Seminoles, and others.

What I liked about this book included the setting and atmosphere. There is the harsh beauty of the desert, the chapparal and mesquite trees beneath the baking sun, but also the towns strung along their path south, which reminded me of being ensconced in the world of Red Dead Redemption 2. This video game takes place about 30 years later, but I could easily picture Arthur Morgan and his outlaw companions riding their horses through the territories of this book.

Also enjoyable was the character of Coleman, a former slave and current servant who is happiest lost in the pages of his books, taught himself academics and proper comportment both from the books assigned to the daughter of his employers for her education, and who has a sweet bond with the book’s canine character, Oliver. Additionally, there is a side character who exhibits some nice personal growth.

What didn’t work so well for me is a bit harder for me to name. I just wasn’t that engaged in the plot, which meandered at times (particularly during June’s page time) without a real sense of urgency or expected destination, figuratively speaking. In this way I suppose the pacing was a bit off, and I certainly wouldn’t use the word “gripping” to describe my own reading experience. At the conclusion of the book I thought to myself, “Well that’s nice,” but it really isn’t anything that I anticipate staying with me for long now that I have finished reading. I guess I appreciated the vibes more than the story. 

Book Review: THE ART OF A LIE by Laura Shepherd-Robinson

| Jessica Crawford

The Art of a Lie by Laura Shepherd-Robinson is a 304 page standalone novel published in 2025 by Atria Books.

Genre:

Historical Fiction

Subgenres:

Mystery, thriller

Synopsis:

In 18th-century England, a widowed confectioner is drawn into a web of love, betrayal, and intrigue and a battle of wits in this masterful historical novel from the author of the USA TODAY bestseller The Square of Sevens.

Following the murder of her husband in what looks like a violent street robbery, Hannah Cole is struggling to keep her head above water. Her confectionary shop on Piccadilly is barely turning a profit, her suppliers conspiring to put her out of business because they don’t like women in trade. Henry Fielding, the famous author-turned-magistrate, is threatening to confiscate the money in her husband’s bank account because he believes it might have been illicitly acquired. And even those who claim to be Hannah’s friends have darker intent.

Only William Devereux seems different. A friend of her late husband, Devereux helps Hannah unravel some of the mysteries surrounding his death. He also tells her about an Italian delicacy called iced cream, an innovation she is convinced will transform the fortunes of her shop. But their friendship opens Hannah to speculation and gossip and draws Henry Fielding’s attention her way, locking her into a battle of wits more devastating than anything she can imagine.

Opening Line:

Nine times out of ten, when a customer walks into the Punchbowl and Pineapple, I can guess what will tempt them.

My Thoughts:

This author’s previous novel was my favorite book I read in all of 2024. This one wasn’t as much of a homerun for me.

The writing style is quite good, and it is evident that a lot of research went into bringing 18th century London to life upon the pages here. From Hannah Cole’s confectionary shop to the various parks, grand homes, and gambling houses, the details all rang as authentic and do an admirable job dropping the reader directly into the setting. This story is a decent one featuring widows, murderers, con artists, and one satirical novelist turned crime-busting magistrate based off of a real historical figure. There is a mystery that largely stems from not knowing which information you can and cannot trust.

However, I found myself kind of annoyed spending time with the main characters. The story alternates between two points of view, and while the reader knows when one person or the other is being lied to, it can be quite frustrating when the characters themselves are unaware of this. You spend your reading time wondering if and when things will come to light for them, or if their part of the tale will continue to see them reacting to false pretenses. This set up had me feeling kind of angsty, and knowing what I knew as the reader sort of left a bad taste in my mouth as I read on.

Many other reviewers seemed to really appreciate the ending, but I have to say that to me it seemed rather sudden and underwhelming. Especially considering this author’s other work, I was expecting the rug to be pulled out from under me in much more dramatic fashion at the last moment. There were still unexpected twists throughout, but the final one didn’t really wow me the way I think it was intended to.

But in all this is still well written historical fiction with some twisty mystery for added spice. I just had difficulty enjoying my time with the characters in this one.

Much gratitude to NetGalley for the eARC.

Book Review: GIRL IN THE CREEK by Wendy N. Wagner

| Jessica Crawford

Girl in the Creek by Wendy N. Wagner is a 272 page standalone novel published in 2025 by Tor Nightfire.

Genre:

Horror/Sporror

Synopsis:

The Girl in the Creek by Hugo Award winner Wendy N. Wagner is an atmospheric and eerie story about a Pacific Northwest forest that seems to be devouring all who enter. A perfect read for fans of T. Kingfisher and Jeff VanderMeer’s cli-fi cosmic horror.

The Clackamas National Forest has always been a sanctuary for evil—human and alien. The shadows of looming trees and long-abandoned mines shelter poachers and serial killers alike. Then there’s the ruined hotel on the outskirts of picturesque small town Faraday, Oregon, nestled in the foothills of Mt. Hood. The one drowning in mushrooms and fungus not even the local expert can identify. Not to mention the stacks of missing persons cases. Freelance writer Erin Harper arrives in Faraday to find out what happened to her brother, whose disappearance in the forest has haunted her for years. But someone else has gone missing. And when Erin finds her in the creek, the girl vanishes again — this time from the morgue, and days later her fingerprints show up at a murder scene. Maybe it’s a serial killer, or maybe it’s the spores infecting the forest and those lost inside. Erin must find answers quickly, before anyone else goes missing. But she might be next…

Opening Line:

The body lay at the very limit of daylight, the last clear place on the stones before woods framing in the ancient adit began to peel away from the walls and pile up in moldy heaps.

My Thoughts:

Buckle up, Readers, and prepare yourselves for Sporror galore!

Erin is ostensibly writing a piece for a travel a magazine when she visits a town in the foothills of Mt. Hood with a group of friends and acquaintances for a rafting trip. But she and her bestie Hari have an ulterior motive – they are investigating as part of their research for a podcast episode addressing the numerous mysterious disappearances in the area over the past several years. Erin’s own brother is one of those missing people. At the same time, readers are treated to occasional chapters from the POV of various lifeforms that have been infected by something called the Strangeness, all becoming various extensions of some central creeptastic intelligence.

There were a lot of characters introduced all in a short span of time, but Erin is the only one we learn about beyond surface level, and she is our only POV character beyond the chapters of the Strange. The other characters probably could have used a little more delving into; some side characters such as the police deputy and the Steadman brothers felt especially thin. On the other hand, the idea of the Strangeness was a super compelling one, and I thought its origins and history were really neat.

The pacing in this book is not quite perfect. It doesn’t lag at all, but rather somewhere around 66% or so things ratchet up from 0 to 60 suddenly, and then readers are just hit over and over again with some truly wild and grisly things happening with little lulls in between each crazy encounter.

Some of my all time favorite books are parasitic fungal horror, and while I enjoyed this story, it wasn’t quite to the same degree as those others. Perhaps because the tension and dread were a little less insidious and more in your face? I’m not sure I can explain the exact reason, but overall I still found this to be a 4 star read and think it’s a decent addition to the subgenre. A creepy as heck tale that keeps the reader engaged from start to finish.

Much thanks to Tor Nightfire and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for my unbiased review.

Book Review: A FAMILY MATTER by Claire Lynch

| Jessica Crawford

A Family Matter by Claire Lynch is a 240 page novel from Scribner with a publish date of June 3, 2025.

Genre:

Literary Fiction

Synopsis:

An exquisite and revelatory debut novel about the devastating consequences of one woman’s affair.

1982. Dawn is a young mother, still adjusting to life with her husband, when Hazel lights up her world like a torch in the dark. Theirs is the kind of connection that’s impossible to resist, and suddenly life is more complicated, and more joyful, than Dawn ever expected. But she has responsibilities and commitments. She has a daughter.

2022. Heron has just received news from his doctor that turns everything upside down. He’s an older man, stuck in the habits of a quiet existence. Telling Maggie, his only child—the person around whom his life has revolved—seems impossible. Heron can’t tell her about his diagnosis, just as he can’t reveal all the other secrets he’s been keeping from her for so many years.

A Family Matter is a heartbreaking and hopeful exploration of love and loss, intimacy and injustice, custody and care, and whether it is possible to heal from the wounds of the past in the changed world of today.

Opening Line:

Five and a half hours after he found out he was dying, Heron drove to his favorite supermarket.

My Thoughts:

This is an emotional story of family, love, and grief. It’s based not off a specific event, but the period of UK history (recent – 1980s) when lesbians would often lose any and all access to their children, the court claiming cutting these women out of the children’s lives would protect from immorality and save them from the shame of having a gay parent and the public ridicule it might bring.

Heron has raised Maggie by himself since she was 4 years old, and the book opens with him, now in his sixties, receiving a cancer diagnosis. Chapters rotate through 4 POVs, and a big chunk of them follow Maggie, now 43 years and dealing with many things this reader found relatable – aging parents (and in her case, having to face a parent’s mortality head on), marriage along with all of its features and bugs, raising children (including a patronizing teenager), and never feeling like there is enough time.

She is prone to thoughts like this lately, about time passing too quickly, or running out altogether. About everything slipping out of her grasp. When she told Conor she felt this way, he said it was just her age, textbook midlife crisis. Maggie had advised him, on the grounds of his own health and safety, not to offer that as an explanation again.

Another line I liked:

There ought to be more to life than washing machines and emails and remembering to put the recycling out on the right day. But life is also this. It is all of this.

Other chapters follow Dawn, Maggie’s mother, in 1982. Dawn is married and has a young daughter when she meets Hazel.

Dawn couldn’t understand it, the way Hazel made her nervous. The feeling that her mouth was full of all the things she would say if she wasn’t too embarrassed to put herself into words.

An affair is scandalous enough, but two women falling in love was even more taboo at the time. In an effort to still be able to see her daughter, Dawn suffers through indignity after indignity, like the court officials grilling her on the specifics of her sex life.

There is a lot of beautiful writing in this book, but my one complaint is that it seemed uneven in its telling. The beginning had a heavy focus on Heron and his illness, and then by the end this trail of narrative seems to kind of peter out. Maggie and Dawn have chapters throughout, but last parts of the book belong much more to the two of them. And then those just sort of end as well, without much of a climax or any sort of denouement. There were also several Britishisms that threw me a bit, but obviously that is not a fault, just something to be aware of.

I wish the parts of the story, Heron’s mortaltiy/navigating family life/what makes it all meaningful, etc etc, and Dawn’s love story along with its tragic and infuriating outcome, were brought together more cohesively. As it is, it seems kind of like two separate stories, requiring one to be dropped partway though in order to tell the other. But I really did enjoy the writing and the sentiments – Heron knowing the hardest thing about his cancer is watching his daughter watch him dying, Maggie understanding that it is important and necessary for her children to grow away from her in some respects, and Dawn’s reckoning:

Later-I mean years later-I realized the worst thing had already happened to me. When I worked that out, I was invincible.

A beautiful heartache of a story that ultimately offers hope.

My thanks to NetGalley and Scribner for the eARC in exchange for my unbiased review.