4.5 ⭐️ | This was such an unsettling and atmospheric read and I am so impressed that this is a debut author.

While this is categorized as horror, I think readers will have the best experience going in expecting something closer to literary fiction with elements of folk horror. This is a very slow-moving, character-driven novel, and I don’t mean that as a criticism. The plot is moving exactly as it intends to. There isn’t a lot of traditional “action,” and much of the horror remains quietly in the background until the pieces begin coming together toward the end.

The Welsh setting is also such an important part of the novel. Wales never feels like a backdrop. It feels inseparable from the story itself. There’s so much love for the landscape, history, and culture woven into the book. That connection to place becomes especially powerful as the novel explores the idea of the land as something ancient and almost sacred in its own right.

And that’s where the horror really worked for me. There’s something ancient lurking beneath this story. A sense of the land holding something that predates organized religion, perhaps even something far older than humanity. The book never gives you easy answers about what exactly is calling to these characters or why, and I loved that ambiguity. It feels unknowable in a way that makes it genuinely unsettling.

This may not work for every reader but for readers who love deeply atmospheric settings, and slow, creeping folk horror that is content to leave some mysteries unexplained, I think this could be something really special.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I was so bored. I’m disappointed that I didn’t love this but sheesh 🙄 So much telling. And more telling. And then some more telling on top of that. I didn’t connect with a single character and I will not be finishing this series because I couldn’t care less and life is too short.