A Season of Monstrous Conceptions by Lina Rather, 160 pgs, Pub Date: Oct 31st

Genre: Dark Fantasy, Cosmic Horror, LGBTQ
Overall (out of 5)⭐⭐⭐💫
Prose ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Pacing(1=slow 5=fast)⭐
World Building ⭐⭐⭐
Character Development ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Library or Buy-worthy: Library
Similar Vibe: The Death of Jane Lawrence by Caitlin Starling, The Hollow Places by T Kingfisher, The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor Lavalle

***Caution Spoilers Follow ***
I love weird books and this novella definitely makes my Best Uncanny book list of 2023. Witches, alternate dimensions and a Victorian outlook on congenital anomalies (TW for pregnancy loss) all add to the unusual atmosphere that author Lina Rather has created here. With anatomy in its infancy, we see an alternate London through the eyes of a couple of ladies from The Worshipful Company of Witching Midwives. There is the thought that the number of uncanny children being born is a portent of some sort.

If you like dark fantasy with female centric beautifully written prose, cosmic horror type other 'worlds' and a bit of unique magic then give this one a try. I loved all the books I've compared this one to above, so take that for what it's worth. In general I usually always like books that take historical fallacies and imagine "what if they were real". The author does a great job of that here. The only issue I had was slow pacing, which lost my interest at times. All in all a nice short read that sucked me into it's world quickly. I liked it.

This is probably the Halloween night novella I'll be shoving at the most people. It's creepy and unsettling and heartfelt and sad. I could describe the plot, but I much prefer when reviews describe the feels, so I'm going to give that a shot. Sarah is an outcast that can pass as normal, but that passing makes her a bit of an outcast from the outcasts even. She's spend her whole life looking for love, praise, or even just basic acceptance. You'll want to give her a hug the whole time, basically. This has horror elements, but it's really about the quest for belonging and how that can blind us or set us free. A deeply human story about the need for love.

3.5 stars

I have the same problem with "A Season of Monstrous Conceptions" as I do many other novellas: I need more from it. A mere 160 pages just isn’t enough for Lina Rather’s amazing story.

Sarah Davis is a midwife’s apprentice in 17th-century London. It’s a time of great strangeness for the city, with women giving birth to monstrous babies and citizens whispering of the Devil roaming the streets. Struggling to find her footing as an independent woman, Sarah is tired of being used as a pawn, as a tool for others’ goals. So when she finds herself trapped in a dangerous game of magic with the fate of the world at stake, she must decide what’s more important – her own dark whims or humanity's survival.

There’s so much here for Rather to work with. From Sarah’s feminist fight to her hidden past and the dark rage within her. To the fascinating setting of 1675 London, a time when academics neither have discovered gravity nor even understand the science of conception. And then there’s the Other World, the mystical source of Sarah’s magic. It’s all ripe with potential, and the narrative could be developed so much further.

Can I please get a rewrite? A lengthier, denser, more epic historical fantasy novel instead? I’d give a lot to read a deeper dive into this story.


"A Season of Monstrous Conceptions" publishes October 31st, 2023. Be sure to grab a copy because, novella or not, it’s very much worth a read.

My sincerest appreciation to Lina Rather, Tordotcom, and NetGalley for the digital review copy. All opinions included herein are my own.

I was fortunate enough to receive the EArc of this from Net Galley.

I was surprised when I first got into the story that it was a novella and not a full length novel. But it had a very compelling start that really pulled me in.

This Historical fantasy - alternate reality London in the late 1600’s, was such an interesting setting for a world where suddenly babies are being born strange and uncanny. With the backdrop being one that most readers would be passingly familiar with, it let you focus on the new and unfamiliar parts of the story.

I was very intrigued by the world and the main character Sarah. I found myself wishing it was a full length novel. However the story it told was a very start to finish story and didn’t need to be expanded to make it effective.

There is some great queer representation both literally and through metaphor with the uncanny humans.

Some of the sentence structures and choices were a little off. They could be confusing or rambling at times.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed it

I really wanted to like this. The premise seemed so intriguing, and I've enjoyed what I've read from the author previously, but this novella fell flat for me.

I think it primarily struggled with pacing. For the first half of the book, nothing really happened - and then in the second half of the book, it felt like everything was happening too fast. I think it could have been improved by being longer, to allow for more world building and to give a sense of purpose to the story and conflict. I wanted to know more about The Other Place, I wanted to explore the characters more, I wanted more of the monstrous babies.

I’ve read the previous two sci-fi novellas from the author and really enjoyed them, so I had to give this new fantasy a try. Set in 1600s London and following an apprentice midwife who happens to have some otherworldly powers, this short book turned out to be atmospheric, spooky, a bit horrific, and very interesting on the whole. Sarah is a nice protagonist to follow - one with a past she is escaping, desires she is scared to act upon lest she lose her reputation and vocation, someone who just wants to be seen as a whole person for who she is. While the book is very short, I liked her character arc and where she ended up. The plot itself isn’t too complex and was pretty predictable too I guess, but it still left me satisfied. I don’t think this will be a series, so I can only hope for a new installment in the author’s Sisters of the Vast Black series.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me a free copy in exchange for an honest review. A Season of Dangerous Conceptions tells the story of a midwife-in-training in 1600s London dealing with an onslaught of babies who are born odd or “uncanny”. I was so interested in the premise of this book, but in the end it did fall flat for me. I wish I had something of substance to say about my thoughts on this, but honestly it was just “meh”. At the 75% mark it picked up but I feel like it lost steamed in the middle of the ending. It was alright to read but in the end it’s relatively forgettable. It’s hard to form a thought on what exactly it is that didn’t work for me which is a shame because I hate giving low 3-stars and not being able to give criticism of substance.
I just can’t see myself recommending this to anyone for the fact that it just didn’t make an impression.

This story was okay. I'm not sure I have any other feelings about it.
I think it was too short to really make an impact on me character and feelings wise.
But I also feel it shouldn't have been longer, because I would probably DNF it.

I liked the setting and the fact that the main character is a midwife the most.

Rating: 2.5

I didn't like the writing style. The main character's perspective made me feel detached from the story.

Thank you to the publishers, author and NetGalley for the free copy of this book.

I enjoyed this one, my main complaint being that I wish it was a little more hashed out/longer. It still worked though and was a good, quick read.

Childbirth is stressful and unpredictable in real life but, in Lina Rather’s brisk novel, A Season of Monstrous Conceptions, a touch of magic makes things even more so for the mothers who birth children who bear the marks of another world. Sarah Davis is an apprentice midwife, learning to help both mother and child survive the often traumatic labor. She also has a touch of the other world, herself, allowing her to manipulate the force that’s seeping into England in the wake of the Great Fire of London.

A chance meeting with the pregnant wife of Sir Christopher Wren one morning brings Sarah into the orbit of a man determined to rid the world of magic forever. Wren longs for a world that can be cleanly explained with mathematics and physics, with no more inexplicable happenings or bizarre births. But the midwife Sarah apprentices for—plus the rest of the unofficial guild of midwives—sees an opportunity for women to seize the power of magic to remake the world with less patriarchy and a lot more matriarchy. The only person who bothers to ask Sarah what she wants (sometimes, this character can be a little pushy) is Margaret, who just wants to have a good time with Sarah.

The plot of this brief book races along as Sarah, caught in the middle, puzzles out her own desires in the middle of the wishes of the more powerful people in her life. I loved the amount of rich historical detail Rather used in A Season of Monstrous Conceptions to bring the London of the 1660s back to life, albeit with a lot more weirdness than in our own historical timeline. I felt like I was in the birth chamber with Sarah or in the taverns drinking with Margaret or wondering at Wren’s architectural works in progress. The fey touches of magic made London electric and mysterious, so I felt for Sarah when she started to wonder if the world needed more physics or more strangeness.

A huge thank you to the author, NetGalley, and Tor Publishing Group for providing this e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book is perfect if you wanted something with slight cosmic and body horror with a queer main character - and you wanted a quick read.

This book is set in a slightly alternate reality London in 1675, where a slew of babies are being born with strange appearances - extra body parts, webbed fingers, gills, etc - in an almost endemic fashion. Our main character, Sarah, has escaped her previous life after her husband mysteriously died and has taken on a midwifery apprenticeship to a Mrs. June, and sees firsthand the increase in these strange births.

Sarah, however, has a secret - she was also one of these “strange” babies, as she was born with a tail and has magic and powers she doesn’t fully understand, nor can she use consistently. She is able to masquerade as a normal woman as her tail was removed as an infant after she was born, before anyone could see it. It happens to be that this is the exact reason Mrs. June had hired her - as she is part of a secret and unofficial Midwife’s Guild who focus on using magic - through a connection to a universe they don’t fully understand, called “The Other Place”. And this guild wants to use Sarah’s unique power to connect with The Other Place to remake the current one for themselves.

Sarah also meets the enigmatic Sir Wren who also wants to use Sarah’s power to change the world, but he wishes to use it to remove any guesswork from day-to-day life. He believes that by using the power of The Other Place, Sarah can remake the world so people can be in complete control - without any tragedies or deaths or any variables at all. And when Sarah and Mrs. June are hired to be the midwives for his pregnant wife, it’s revealed he’ll do anything to accomplish this goal - even if he has to use his own newborn strange son.

Sarah has a romance with a woman named Margaret, who also has a connection to The Other Place and possesses two horns on her head. And in contrast to Mrs. June and Sir Wren, Margaret only wishes for what’s best for Sarah and wants Sarah to do whatever would make her the happiest - and allow them to be together.

Sarah must make a choice on who she wishes to use her powers to help - Mrs. June or Sir Wren. The issue arises when she realizes that neither see her as her own unique individual, and instead only as a tool to use for their own means. Sarah must see her own self-worth to decide if she can make her choices for herself, instead of only what others want of her.

It’s also interesting how the book makes a parallel to the prejudice Sarah faces as having her “strangeness,” and the prejudice and inequality Sarah faces for being a queer woman in the 1600s. The danger of being discovered in a relationship with Margaret is both dangerous because they are both “strange” but also because they are both women. This is even more explicitly shown when Margaret takes Sarah to the kind of underground brothel that has both women and men being together - where it’s explicitly stated that while the people there might not be other in the same exact way as them, but that they are still all outcasts just the same.

This book is great as a short novella of under 200 pages with both cosmic and body horror elements. However, if you wished for a more in-depth look into the issues or characters in this book, you might want to choose another novel. While I think this book could easily be adapted to a much longer piece and fleshed out, currently it’s a very fast-paced book without too much of a deeper look past stating the issues and then solving them.

(To the publisher - review will be posted on Instagram and Tumblr the week of October 9th.)

This was a great read, and I think it could have made a longer novel easily. But it worked well as a novella, too.

This is set in England of the 1600s, but there are monstrous babies being born - like with gills and horns and such. We follow a midwife’s apprentice as she tries to learn how to harness her otherworldly powers.

I liked Sarah’s story, and I loved the idea of a witchy community. The mood of the story and narration just scratched the right itch for me.

My main complaint is that it was too short! I definitely wanted more. And there were moments when it was like, oh wow, we’re already doing this! I think the scale of the story in the end just really warrants a full novel.

I think it’d translate well as a movie at this length, though. I’d love to see that!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

Visceral prose and shockingly bleak. Stepping briskly alongside other staples in the gothic genre, Lina Rather's writing can definitely hold its own. This novella is a quick but engaging read that doesn't shy away from cutting to the heart of things. It's unique from many other gothic fantasies I've read in all the best ways. I can tell I will be rereading this every Halloween.

DNF at 20%

This is the second novella from Rather that I've read, and I think that she's unfortunately just not for me. I don't click with her writing and really struggled to pick this one up.

On the one hand, I liked the eerie atmosphere and elegant writing style. On the other hand, I felt the beginning was slow and the ending rushed. Which isn't perfect since we're speaking about a novella. A solid read, just not as strong as I hoped it would be. Not all questions will be answered.

A Season of Monstrous Conceptions is a unique entertaining story. It had a lot of historical references and was not boring. I like this story was not long and drawn out. Fast paced, but thorough in characterization of Sarah as well. You definitely get the notion women’s roles during this time period was not a respected one and women made hard choices to survive, even including marriage. I like the midwives were ambitious. Overall, a great story I am happy to have read.

While this is a novella (so grace must be given for rapid momentum and an acceptable lack of depth), I felt like we got to see many faceted sides to our protagonist Sarah as we’re thrown into a colonial-era London where babies are born monstrous and a coterie of midwives are dabbling in witchcraft to shift the balance of power.

I found Sarah uniquely compelling: a woman who wanted more than she was allotted and wasn’t quite capable of hiding her dissatisfaction, who had a witchy inclination, who had her own monstrousness cut from her and denied, who was consistently torn between two worlds, who is magnificently bisexual.

I wanted a bit more from Margaret - though there’s a certain self-awareness to her character in how she addresses Sarah about how little they know each other and I appreciated that. Again, a novella only allows for so much wiggle room.

There’s also some really great spooky/body horror descriptions, which are always a favorite of mine.

I was excited to read A Season of Monstrous Conceptions by Lina Rather, based on the description of the book. It sounded intriguing and I was curious as to where the author would go with the concept.
The first third of the book progressed well, but it lost me at the unexpected sex scene and the obscure occult descriptions of what was happening.
While the book is capably written, I had trouble finishing it. It just wasn't for me.
I received an ARC of #ASeasonofMonstrousConceptions from #NetGalley.

I don't know how else to describe this book other than incredibly English. This was an interesting and dark novella with a very creative story. I don't really know how exactly I feel about this book. It was interesting but only mildly memorable. Its worth a read