NetGalley

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: COUNTRY PEOPLE by Daniel Mason

| Jessica Crawford

Country People by Daniel Mason is a 320 page standalone novel to be published by Random House on July 7, 2026.

Genre

Literary Fiction

Blurb

A rollicking work of lyricism and humor, about one family’s tumble into the unknown, from the Pulitzer Prize finalist and bestselling author of North Woods

Miles Krzelewski is a devoted husband, a doting father beloved for his outlandish bedtime stories, and the proud owner of a truffle-hunting dog in a land with no truffles. He is also a bit lost, twelve years late with his PhD on Russian folktales, and increasingly haunted by a sense that he’s become a disappointment to his family. So when his wife Kate accepts a visiting professorship at a prestigious college in the far away forests of Vermont, he decides that this will be his year to finally move forward with his life.

But Miles is a man of many enthusiasms, one who possesses, in Kate’s words, “a great capacity to fall in with anyone, anywhere.” And no sooner does he arrive than he finds himself entangled with a cast of characters as colorful as any of his folktales, from a ghostly tree surgeon to a scythe-mad biochemist, a Shakespearean temptress and a photographer of snowflakes obsessed with chronicling, on thousands of index cards, the world’s delusions in a “Inventory of Wrong Ideas.”

The new friends, the enchanted woods, the sure, no PhD, but all good fun. Until Miles stumbles upon a bizarre—perhaps ridiculous—local legend, which, he soon suspects, might not be just a legend after all.

Joyous, absurd, and life-affirming, Country People is a luminous exploration of marriage and parenthood, the nature of belief and the power of stories, and the ways in which we find connection in an increasingly fragmented world.

Opening Line

…And so my path descended, through the twisting caverns.

My Thoughts

“I…asserted that the world was mad, and the world said, that I was mad, and confound them, they outvoted me.” ~Nathaniel Lee, 17th century English dramatist

Country People by Daniel Mason, author of one of my top reads of 2023, North Woods, brings readers along on the journey of one year in the life of the Krzelewski-Petrosian family. The parents are in academia, 45 year old Miles still “working on” his dissertation, the topic of which he has changed several times, when Kate gets offered a visiting faculty position across the country. They pack up their two children and the family dog and leave California for a new home in the Green Mountain area of Vermont.

The narration in this book is quite funny. As an example, when the family first cannot resist stopping at every roadside farmstand they pass,

[they] soon found themselves in possession of more zucchini than they had ever been in possession of in their lives, one of those milestones a person passes without fanfare, but a milestone nonetheless.

There is plenty about country life that surprises these Californian transplants, mostly to their delight. Miles’ current dissertation topic involves Russian folktales, having most recently been changed from Russian peasants in the works of Tolstoy. For the purposes of his research, surely the good people of rural Vermont count as being like peasants? Maybe?

Despite his awareness that flat-earthers existed, Miles had never actually met a live one. He wasn’t sure exactly what he’d expected, but it was someone more superficially brain-damaged than Hugh, who, for all his looseness with the world of facts, had seemed, until that point, more like a run-of-the-mill mansplainer in his late-forties. But Miles had apparently been living in a bubble, because here was a person with all his teeth, sensible sun protection, and an alpenstock, now holding forth on Pythagoras, ring laser gyroscopes, and the 2017 solar eclipse. Except, he realized after a while, Hugh wasn’t a flat-earther, Hugh was a hollow-earther, and his disdain for flat-earthers seemed to match even his disdain for the general population who believed the world was solid at its core.

Wow, taking it to another level, thought Miles.

The exciting part was that neither Kate nor Miles, in all their lives, had known this was something a person, a nonmedieval person, could believe, that it was even part of the great stock of possible beliefs. But here it was! And Hugh, who took encouragement from the stunned general silence of these hikers, who were now beginning to doubt not only his credibility regarding snakes and wildflowers, but also their personal safety, expressed surprise that no one else had heard this theory, actually two theories, one that held there was both an Inside and an Outside of the Shell, and another that there was only an Inside, and on the outside was the Void.

The story follows the imperfect but highly relatable Miles, devoted husband and father, as he finds himself slipping into the doldrums of otherwise having no professional purpose of his own and failing to meet expectations. For a time he finds solace in hiking through the woods, zen in scything crops with another failed academic husband in the area, joy in learning to ski along the snowy mountainsides. Winter puts the first two on pause, while a knee injury halts the last one.

It’s then that Miles finds a feeling of community in the most unexpected of places. He befriends an eclectic ensemble of locals who all share a belief in a rather fantastic legend lifted from the alleged writings of a man who claimed to have descended into nearby cave systems so far that he stumbled upon another world, a veritable paradise within the Earth’s core. It almost doesn’t matter to Miles that he does not share this specific belief; a man went into a cave and perhaps saw something, but the magic to him is the enthusiasm among the group of people who gather to discuss the story and their research into its different facets, and the sense of belonging they extend to him.

Honestly, it did take me somewhere between 15-20% of the book before I settled in and stopped asking “What is this, exactly?” and started to really enjoy it. It’s a bit difficult to put into words what exactly it’s about, but I can confidently say that it is witty and well-written literary fiction. I’ll borrow from the blurb on Goodreads, because I find it quite accurate: “Joyous, absurd, and life-affirming, Country People is a luminous exploration of marriage and parenthood, the nature of belief and the power of stories, and the ways in which we find connection in an increasingly fragmented world.” Well done!

Thanks, NetGalley and Random House, for the eARC in exchange for my unbiased review.

Goodreads

Book Review: HEAVEN’S GRAVEYARD by Grace Curtis

| Jessica Crawford

Heaven’s Graveyard by Grace Curtis is a 368 page novel from DAW with a publish date of June 16, 2026. It ties in to the author’s previous novel Idolfire but can be read as a standalone.

Genre

Science Fantasy

Description

From the Sunday Times-bestselling author of Floating Hotel and Idolfire comes a science fantasy tale of history and myth, magic and mystery, perfect for fans of Shelley Parker-Chan and A. K. Larkwood

Two thousand years after the events of Idolfire, the world is on the brink of war, and the discovery of the enchanted city of Nivela threatens to push it over the brink

“What do you want to know?”

It’s been 2,000 years since the events of Idolfire, and we’re in a whole new Kite-drawn cargo ships race across thoroughly chartered seas, hauling the latest innovations in convenience and slaughter. It is developed, learned, interconnected, and on the brink of catastrophic war.

Archeologist Cod couldn’t care less about the conflict brewing between neighboring powers. She spends her days in happy obscurity, cataloging relics in the Republic of Asha and searching for clues about her lifelong obsession, the mythical hero Aleya Ana-Ulai. 

Then a letter arrives summoning her home. Cod’s old teacher has made the discovery of a lifetime. But her home is Palgaro, and the discovery—the ruins of the enchanted city of Nivela—is set to change the world. And not for the better…

Heaven’s Graveyard is a sinister lesbian history mystery bringing the magic of Idolfire into a dangerous new century.

Opening Line

Once, on a fine summer evening a long time before everything happened, when they were having something that was not quite a fight and not quite NOT a fight, Sparrow said to her, “That’s the real problem, Cod. By the time we met you’d already fallen in love with a myth.”

My Thoughts

Having studied anthropology myself, a book about an archaeologist working in museum studies is sure to grab my attention. Make it science fantasy, and I’m even more intrigued. The “sinister lesbian history mystery” part at that point is just bonus material!

Dr. Coda Canalully left the relative backwaters of Tessi for the vibrant city of Asha amid some unfortunate circumstances, never planning to look back. But when her mentor, history professor Denali Marr, sends her a telegram requesting she come see him about a “historic discovery”, her interest is piqued. The two of them have long shared a dream of proving that mythic heroine Aleya Ana-Ulai was a real person. But the day Cod arrives back her old university stomping grounds, it’s discovered that Marr has died under suspicious circumstances. What exactly had he discovered, and could there be those who don’t want it shared with the world?

She needed a thousand data points to shield herself from the one fact that mattered: Marr was dead. He’s died that morning. Seven years away from home and she’d missed him by a single day.

This book reminded me very much of the video game Heaven’s Vault in vibes. (Also, the main character in the game is named Aliya!) The game is “an archaeological sci-fi adventure that oozes a contemplative, mysterious, and grand vibe, combining ancient history with cosmic exploration”. This book leans more fantasy with a sprinkling of steampunk, and its adventures are rooted in one imagined world rather than across many (although there is mention of the possibility of visiting other planets some day). The discoveries in the game reveal a concept of repeating, fallen civilizations, and there is a hint of this cyclical nature in this book. It seems it actually references the events of another novel by this same author, Idolfire, which I have not read–otherwise I suspect these hints may have been more like pleasing little easter eggs in the story.

To be an archaeologist was to be a perpetual beggar-detective, sifting through miserly scraps preserved by the whim of time. And the scraps grew smaller the further back in time you looked. The vault of years between Cod and Aleya was as impassable as the space between life and death…

Anyway, the content and vibes of both book and game work well for me, and I enjoyed my time spent within these pages. Academics interested in connecting to the past suddenly faced with danger on top of the inherent mystery in their labors, the details of the legends out of time (the gods, effigy magic, etc), the worldbuilding insofar as the rivalry between the Alliance and Procumbent Church, the swashbuckling ex whose heart Cod broke years before, and the evolving relationship with an adversary–all made for a satisfying adventure. I will be keeping this author on my radar!

Content warning: there is one brutal scene of the killing of an animal, but if you feel like you might want to even just skim over that one part, there is nothing else like it again.

Thanks you to DAW and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for my unbiased review.

Goodreads

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.

Book Review: THE LAST FERRY OUT by Andrea Bartz

| Jessica Crawford

The Last Ferry Out by Andrea Bartz is a 320 page standalone novel published in Ballantine Books May 20, 2025.

Genre:

Thriller, Mystery

Opening Line:

Blood hits limestone and splatters for a second before the rain beats it back, diluting it and sluicing it away in pink rivulets.

My Thoughts:

What a nice, original thriller!

Abby’s fiancée died four months ago while spending a few weeks on an isolated Mexican island in order to finish her capstone project in a peaceful location free of distractions. Eszter had died from an apparent allergic reaction. Now, Abby herself travels to Isla Colel in an effort to feel closer to her lost love, to see how she spent her last days alive, to understand how the unthinkable could have happened. As Abby meets and learns the secrets of the island’s residents and the group of expats who have fallen in love with the desolate locale (as well as the blank slate it offers), she begins to see that she never knew the woman she loved as well as she thought she did.

Abby was a wonderful main character, a grieving woman who learned to survive by being bold and valuing efficiency. Eszter was the daughter of Hungarian immigrants, and desired her parents’ approval despite their strictness and unyielding expectations. Isla Colel was a beautifully evocative setting, with the fonda, tropical beaches, limestone cliffs, and bioluminescent bay…and also with the abandoned resort hotel and rusting comm tower lending a more menacing air.

Just before her death, Eszter texted Abby, “There’s something I need to tell you.” The mystery of this story stems from Abby trying to understand what that might have been, and as she talks to the people her fiancée spent her last days with, it becomes clear that someone knows more than they’re saying. This was a refreshingly unique and decently smart mystery/thriller. Some readers are happy with the works of certain prolific authors who can’t be bothered to fact check the details in their books or to worry that the plot makes sense, as long as they’re telling an interesting story. To me, this book was a cut above that type of thing, for sure. And then just when you think it’s over and the resolution complete, out trots a twist that is just ::chef’s kiss::. Good stuff! 4.5 stars.

Thank you to NetGalley and Ballantine Books of Penguin Random House for the eARC in exchange for my unbiased review.