This a pretty short story about a family who experiences some rather sinister changes once an estranged grandfather comes to visit. The book is pretty atmospheric, set near the ocean during the Boy's (who is never named) summer vacation. The Boy lives with his mother and father and they're a happy family until the mother's father comes to visit. There's something off about the Grandfather, and the longer he stays the more unsettled the family feels, and the more the Boy feels himself changing. The concept is cool and properly creepy, but there's a huge lack of explanation that makes it hard to guess what is really going on. I had a hard time understanding what the point of the plot was, and didn't feel like it was all that scary or fun to read. The plot to me jumped all over the place, and abrupt scene changes made it hard to track how long the grandfather stayed. Overall, the vagueness of the narration and plot made it hard for me to truly enjoy this, but I really liked the idea behind it all.

wow. I was not expecting this to be this good. If you're looking for a novella that's freaky, uncomfy, and the perfect about of horror I'd totally recommend it. From the very start it feels like something is off and it just builds and builds.

S.L. Coney’s debut novella, Wild Spaces, has been compared to the writing of Shirley Jackson, H.P. Lovecraft, and even Robert McCammon. Those are some big names to follow for such a short book coming in at just 128 pages, and Coney’s writing certainly reflects all of those comparisons in different ways.

Wild Spaces is the story of just five characters – 4 humans and a dog – and the dog is the only one with a proper name, Teach. The others are known only as “the boy,” his father, his mother, and his estranged grandfather.

The boy and his parents enjoy a coastal life. His father is a nature enthusiast while his mother writes stories about pirates. But then, her father, previously at sea and who the boy has never met, shows up at their household and things take a mysterious turn.

There’s a strong bond between the boy and Teach, as with any boy and his dog. The scenes of the boy whispering in Teach’s ear will give you all the feels. Teach is also weary of the grandfather and quick to growl, or even attack, when he is close. It’s very obvious that the dog knows something is not right.

What follows are awkward scenes between the grandfather and his family. Coney leaves the reader in the dark most of the time rather than spoon feeding you the obvious. We are left to piece together what is happening as the demeanor of the family changes, storms start to roll in from the coast, and there are hints at something supernatural occurring.

The writing is almost lyrical. Coney points out irregular details in a poetic way. Not a single word is wasted as the story builds to an odd conclusion that is both somehow horrific and bittersweet.

This is a story about family and relationships, and how the presence of others who come in and out of our lives can have lasting effects. The only problem with the book is that readers will probably wish it was longer. Some may also find the lack of identity with the characters distances them from the story, but you might want to read it again and dig deeper. Coney didn’t call the dog “Teach” for nothing.

Wild Spaces releases August 1st from Tordotcom Publishing.

"Wild Spaces" is an articulate, poetic little Southern-Gothic-by-way-of-Lovecraft coming of age story packed into the size of a novella. If you're reading that description and thinking "wow, that's a lot", I promise you, it is so artfully curated in terms of mood, plot, and incisive characterization that it's like the best kind of appetizer - lingering on the tongue, consequential, and whetting my appetite to read more of S.L. Coney's work.

The premise is simple: a boy is turning 12. He loves his mother and father. He finds a stray dog. His grandfather, estranged from the family, unexpectedly visits. Some monstrous and unspoken legacy haunts the family by the South Carolina beach. Coney lets you marinate in the gorgeous descriptions of living in the humid, salt-harsh environment before letting the eldritch flag start flying.

To say more of the plot would be inadvisable; it's far more fun to go in blind. This genre-defying little novel is both frightening and heartwarming, tragic and visceral. Coney marries coming-of-age with inescapable and inevitable terror, and the result is rich and intriguing. It's great.

Ok this book had EVERYTHING and I love it a lot.

Genre wise I would make its own little category and call it a coming-of-age horror novella (of about 128 pages!) Although some people much cleverer than me have called it cosmic horror.

There are disturbing, creepy, sickening scenes, with a suffocating claustrophobic atmosphere. But there are gorgeous parts too. At one point it even had me crying!

There is a running theme of generational trauma which was really interesting to see (though its history was not really explained).

The pacing was spot on. The ending was fantastic. I honestly loved the whole thing.

Big thank you NetGalley and to the publisher for the chance to review this book pre-release. I really enjoyed this novel. It was fast-paced and had me anticipating each following page! A more formal review will be available on my IG/TikTok and Goodreads.

Wild Spaces is horrifying, heartbreaking, terrifying, and really freaking good.
I'm not sure how to talk about this book without spoiling it, but know this: there is no happy ending, except there really is.
Also, if you're the kind who likes neat, clean endings where everything is explained and you know exactly what was going on, maybe read something else, Or just suck it up and read Wild Spaces, because it's fantastic.

My thanks to NetGalley for making an eARC of this book available to me.

Short, but definitely not sweet. This is a coming of age story, but with horrors lurking in the family tree. We get a boy, his dog, loving parents, and a grandfather entering this scene who may just be from hell. Or perhaps something from the Cthulhu Mythos. This book is by turns both sweet and terrifying. And I enjoyed the hell out of it.

Review Copy

Stop what you're doing right now, gather your pennies and grab this book now! If you don't at least put this on your wishlist you may forget to buy and read what just may be the best written novella of the year.

This is a short read - easily consumed in one sitting, but it packs a wallop. It's horrifying, and fantastic. The writing is tight and leaves no question unanswered.


A solid five stars for WILD SPACES.

Great characters and story! Thrilling and fast paced. Must read for horror fans! I haven’t read any Lovecraft prior to this book but it still was impactful.

WHAAAAT! I am still reeling. This was so much so fast. Terrifying and heartbreaking. I wish this was longer, but don't think I'd have felt as eviscerated as this left me if it was.

Thanks to Tor and Netgalley for the advanced reader copy of this book.

This #horrornovella opens with a lovely familial scene, a boy, a dog, loving parents, a quiet simple life by the sea. Coney shows a closeness and warmth between parents and son through mutual interests and respect.

Then grandpa shows up. His personality is slithery and smarmy and his daughter immediately stiffens with the weight of memories and pulls away from the boy. Grandpa’s slow possessiveness of the boy reveals a long buried history of monstrous violence. Grandpa’s true self tears this tender family apart.

This book was INTENSE and lusciously written. Each word a well-placed morsel of beauty and anguish. We quickly learn how tenuous and precious our meticulously constructed lives can be. And who we try to become is never very far from the who we were meant to become.

A thought-provoking and lovely coming-of-age horror story.

For fans of Stephen King's "Fairy Tale", I highly recommend this novella written beautifully by author S. L. Coney. Lovecraftian in nature, mixed with atmospheric horror scenes, this slow build will grab at your heart as you read. The coming of age story between a young boy and his dog named Teach, is both poetic and taunt. When the boy's Grandfather arrives to stay a while, the boy, and his family, are never the same again.

With great honor, I recommend this book to young adult to adult readers who are in search of a short story, that you will remember. I'm hoping for a second book to follow up on the cliffhanger, but absolute, ending.

I went into this voluntarily and blind, not knowing anything about the story. Thank you to Tor.com via NetGalley for this superb arc. All opinions are my own!

A publisher must have serious confidence in their product to compare it to Robert McCammon’s masterpiece Boy’s Life. Of course, this type of hype is not uncommon in the book world, but there is no denying that SL Coney’s debut novella Wild Spaces possesses a rare type of beauty which has the reader hanging on every word and desperately trying to read between the lines for some deeper meaning. It was one of those rare books which was really great, but quite tricky to put the finger on exactly why.

Considering its 128-page brevity Wild Spaces is undoubtedly one of the most captivating releases of 2023 which was written in very simple language, almost as if we were reading a type of fable or fairy-tale. Interestingly, the few characters in the book are not named, with the third person narrative repeatedly referring to ‘the boy’ who dominates the story. However, the boy’s pet dog is named and animal lovers (or anybody else with a soul) will marvel as the close relationship between the pooch and the twelve-year-old. Even though in some days Wild Spaces was a coming-of-age story, there were virtually no other children for the boy to ‘come of age’ with which made it even stranger. There was one very brief reference to a girl at school, otherwise it featured only four characters.

Various blurbs call this beautifully realised novella ‘Lovecraftian’ which is a term bounced around a lot these days. Upon reading Wild Spaces it is easy to see why, but on the other hand if Lovecraft means nothing to you, then being none the wider does not lessen the story in the slightest. In actual fact it had me thinking about Franz Kafta’s Metamorphoses just as much as Lovecraft, as after all the deceptively simple story is about change and how the boy deals with it. I also considered whether this novella might appeal to YA audiences, but in reality I do not think enough happened (and that is not a criticism) to appeal to younger readers. However, for more reflective teens there is much to enjoy and discuss in these quietly observed pages as the feelings of the boy are bound to touch a nerve.

The story revolves around an eleven-year-old boy who lives a happy childhood exploring the remote coastal plains and wetlands of South Carolina alongside his parents and the dog he adopts at the start of the novella, Teach. This perfectly happy existence becomes unbalanced when the boy’s grandfather shows up one day with no warning, cracks begin to form as hidden secrets resurface that his parents refuse to explain. The boy does not particularly like his grandfather (and Teach certainly doesn’t) and he hates the way in which his grandfather antagonises his parents. The longer his grandfather outstays his welcome and the greater the tension between the adults grows, the boy begins to feel himself change and his grandfather is some sort of weird catalyst.

To say much more about the plot would head into spoiler territory but Wild Spaces beautifully captures the feeling of a different kind of puberty with the boy struggling to understand his feelings. But deep down realises his grandfather is at the bottom of it and the part the old man had in fracturing that tight family unit was core to the success of the novella. Sure the story lacked fireworks, it did not need them, instead it was built around much subtler nuances, family relationships, secrets, and toxic relationships.

I do not know if there truly is such a thing as ‘Quiet Horror’ but if so then Wild Spaces is a fine addition to the sub-genre. It was hard to explain how unsettling the arrival of the grandfather, upsetting the daily interactions of the family had, but the viewpoint of the boy who was kept in the dark was pitch perfect. A perfect way of spending a couple of hours.

A quick but powerful read.

Inspired by H.P. Lovecraft, Coney plays off the foreboding sense that something is just amiss with Grandpa, and for good reasons.

In the whole book, you are left with dread-intrigue into what is happening not only with everyone around the boy but with the boy himself.

The ending wrecked me in so many ways.

I would highly recommend this to any horror enthusiast who loves family dynamics with mystery and Lovecraftian elements mixed in.


Will post review closer to release date on Goodreadds on on Instagram, and Amazon.

I would like to thank Netgalley , Tor Publishing Group, and S. L. Coney for the opportunity to read and review this novella.

I will be buying myself a copy when released-loved this one!

I requested this strange, luminous little novella from Netgalley completely on a whim (the blurb sounded intriguing, I like cosmic horror, Tor novellas are generally winners for me) and I am so, so glad I did — it is not often I come across a piece of writing that strikes me as actually perfect, but there is not a single thing I wanted this to do differently.

Our main character (who’s never named) lives happily with his mother and his father and his dog Teach – until his maternal grandfather shows up unexpectedly, bringing tension in his wake. And he’s changing, too – growing up, or growing into something strange? Part cosmic horror, part coming-of-age story, part reflection on generational trauma and the impact of family secret: this story has it all.

The absolute best part of this was its atmosphere, which is truly incredible — a perfect image of a southern summer by the sea, so wonderfully crafted that I could feel the humidity and saltwater while I read (even though I read the majority of this while sitting in a cold car in 30-degree New England spring weather). The building tension as the story progressed was nearly palpable. Everything else was excellent, too: the pacing could have felt uneven, but it was exactly what the story needed, and exactly right for the narrator. The characters felt wonderfully real and vibrant and alive.

This was, all in all, a stunning read, and I will be enthusiastically talking about it for the entire foreseeable future. thank you so much to Tor and Netgalley for the arc; I really, really can’t wait to see what S.L. Coney does next.

So this little book broke my heart.

The author brings us a disturbing and tightly written novella that meshes coming of age and Lovecraft – and it’s perfect.

Normally, I don’t like: coming of age, Lovecraft, or novellas. (Yes, I know. Yes, I read it anyway.) I loved this. I was engaged from the first page, worried about our little family, completely creeped out by Grandpa and maybe (just maybe), the author might get me reading more books like this.

An excellent story and I’m so glad I read it!

• ARC provided via publisher

Was very excited when I first heard about this book and my mind went wild. I didn't know what I really wanted but this wasn't really it. Just a bit and his dog story that is very normal. At least it's a quick read.

I love a story that manages to be so evocative and has staying power that does it all without ever giving any character a name. It gives the story a sort of detached narrative despite how closely we're following one family and their secrets, cracking open their lives and peering inside. The length makes it easy to read in one sitting, but more than that is the way the writing and flow draw you in, like a current drawing you out to sea, until you're pages away from the end, with only wreckage and surf around you and the shore a welcome solid relief. Haunting and beautiful.

What a strange and haunting fable this is. It is beautiful and disturbing and wildly atmospheric and too, too short. But maybe that's how it should be. It reminds me of my favorite Karen Russell stories, where sand and saltwater burble forth mysteries and unwanted treasures. Simply gorgeous.