This book explores grief and loss in a botanical horror setting . I really enjoyed the pacing and the way the author incorporated social commentary into the book . A must read for spooky season .

Thank you netgalley for the earc .

Struggling with grief after the death of her father and coming to terms with the unsaid but inevitable dissolution-in-progress of her current relationship, artist Rita is primed for my favorite horror subgenre of a story: "artist goes off to create in seclusion; weird shit ensues." Spending a week at an isolated lake local to where her father grew up, Rita takes advantage of her girlfriend having forged her application--and having won-- an artist's residency complete with a creepy cabin in the woods, with some local folks behaving weirdly, as an extra treat. Rita begins to experience strange visions/hallucinations and possible instances of lost time or what might seem to be out-of-body experiences, and her resulting artworks reflect both her mood, the atmosphere, and her either literal or metaphorical (both? neither? not sure what was going on, really) journeys and experiences while exploring the land and the lake around the cabin. Morris' writing is breathtakingly gorgeous, from the descriptions of the landscape to the artful essays detailing each painting, in the voice of an art critic. Overall, I'm not sure I completely loved the story but I definitely appreciated the lens of beauty, terror, and decay that it was written through

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

This was an interesting one- it had me feeling like "what the heck did I just read" at the end, which is not necessarily a bad thing! I think I would have liked it as a longer read but still enjoyed it.

Rita is an artist who is having a hard time finding inspiration after her father passes away. Her girlfriend sets her up with grant money to stay in a remote wetland to rekindle her love of art, but there is something in the pond...
Tiffany Morris's novella is a moving and insightful story about grief, art, climate change, and death. The imagery is nightmarish and beautiful, and the chapter openers are set up like explained cards for the art Rita has made, which I really enjoyed. This is a quick read but will stick with you.

"Grief, like life, was green."

Spending a week in a secluded cabin, on the land once stolen from her people, indigenous artist Rita Frances is meant to paint. She is also attempting to connect with her Mi'kaw roots, now severed with the loss of her father. But instead, alone with nothing but nature and unfriendly townspeople, Rita is being distracted by something. Something strange and sinister that may or may not be happening outside her window. As she begins to explore the mossy pond by her cabin, Rita finds more than she ever expected to.

I love stories where you're unsure if the main character is experiencing something preternatural, or if they're losing grip on reality. From the first chapter, Morris makes sure you are firmly in the middle: skeptical and intrigued. Her writing is unmatched, the imagery visceral; I could see every one of Rita's paintings by their description alone. My only true complaint was its length. As a novella, I felt this story was rushed. I would have loved days and weeks of descending into madness with Rita. I wish I could have had the symbolism ground into my bones.

This was my first book by TIffany Morris, and I was very impressed. While it definitely had horror aspects, it was also poetic, and I loved that. The character Rita's description of what was around her and what she was experiencing made me feel like I was there with her. The struggle of mental health and PTSD is not something I'm used to reading, and I appreciated what this novella had to offer in terms of that. I will absolutely read another one of Tiffany Morris' books!

This is a novella that I really feel could have been a full length book. I enjoyed it but often felt that it didn’t go far enough or delve into enough details about things like its stance on the climate crisis or the depth of the side characters. It leaves a lot of questions unanswered in a way that I kind of found unsatisfying rather than suitably mysterious.

The prose is nicely written and the structure of describing what artwork the main character created and then having a chapter that showed the inspiration behind it was compelling. I was frustrated about the main character’s girlfriend being so opposed to her ideologically and thought they should have ended it long ago and that the relationship just didn’t make sense. Overall, this just needed more development.

Reviews posted to StoryGraph and Goodreads on 9/6/2023. Review will be posted to Amazon on release date.
An outstanding debut Novella that explores grief. I really enjoyed the structure of this novella as we follow the journey of Rita through her paintings found upon her disappearance during an art residency. Rita is grappling with the loss of her father, the severing of the relationship with her mother, and the ending of her relationship with her girlfriend. The descriptions of nature throughout this piece were lush and atmospheric. I felt like I was in the woods with Rita exploring and tumbling down a very odd path. No spoilers but the ending is primo!

This is a very short novella, but it was still a massively slow burn in the first few chapters for me. And while I appreciated the lyricism of the writing and the overall points and imagery, it all felt a bit distanced. It's a fascinating book, though, and it does so much in such a short space.

Haunting and engrossing, a near-future creeping eco-horror novella that manages to address grief, climate change, colonization, art, and community all at once, without it feeling overworked. Instead, the writing is lyrical and just as haunting as the images and scenes it evokes, with Rita’s journey of trying to find herself and her place in a shrinking world. The body horror, eco-horror, isolation horror, are all just so well done and really make you stop and think about what we’ve done in the name of continuing to move forward, rather than address trauma and grief and decomposition and the important roles they play in sustaining the world.

Green Fuse Burning is an eco horror novella that’s a great quick haunting read. Green Fuse Burning follows Rita, a queer painter who is doing a one week art residency in an area that her recently deceased Mi’kmaq father grew up. During her time she finds herself having dark visions and can’t seem to pull away from the swamp.

This book tackled multiple themes like identity, grief, eco awareness, and letting go in a short amount of pages.

Each chapter begins with a description of one of Rita’s paintings that are being shown. The descriptions of the paintings along with the descriptions of the forest and swamp were hauntingly lush and had me wanting to jump into Rita’s visions.

Also, Rita’s girlfriend who signed her up to do this residency behind her back is annoying af. Rita could probably do so much better.

This book overall got 4.5 stars from me.

GREEN FUSE BURNING by Tiffany Morris ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
This tiny 90 page novella contains an entire lifetime’s worth of trauma and healing, pain and growth, death and rebirth. If you loved Bad Cree and like fungal, eldritch swamp-core horror (think What Moves the Dead & Mexican Gothic), then you’ll love Green Fuse Burning. This is a novella that is going to make you uncomfortable, teasing the line between disquiet and revulsion.
Morris explores disconnection, from community, nature, and most powerfully, the psychic rot that comes from disconnection with yourself. Without spoiling anything, I really loved the way she uses meta-excerpts about Rita’s art. This fictional intertextuality gives a really cool point of insight into Rita’s experiences and unpicked the ideas being explored, while highlighting how we give meaning to and process our own experiences, especially when compared to Rita’s rawer thoughts and feelings in the moment. The prose is genuinely stunning, with the kind of evocative, horrifying imagery and devastating turn of phrase that makes your darkest and least hopefully moments feel seen. The creeping sense of horror, nihilistic dread and catharsis made this a wild emotional ride and ngl, I needed to have a breather when I finished it, but if you’re a swamp-core horror gay, this is not one to miss.
Thanks Stelliform Press and Tiffany Morris for the ARC via NetGalley. Review is as always my own thoughts, honest and unbiased 🖤
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"Green Fuse Burning" is a thought-provoking novella that deserves a chance. While it didn't leave me awestruck, I can certainly appreciate its appeal for readers who enjoy gradual, introspective tales centered around themes of grief, love, ecological consciousness, queer and indigenous politics, and death. To me, it felt too slow, but the slow reveal makes the story what it is. I guess it's a classic case of "It's not you, it's me."

🍄 A creepy, poetic exploration of grief and colonialism.

Thanks to NetGalley and Stelliform Press for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

“Green fuse burning” is a character-driven Indigenous horror novella from L’nu’skw writer Tiffany Morris. Described as “swampcore”, the story follows Rita’s stay at an isolated cabin in Mi'kmaq territory after winning an art residency application. There, reality and dreams begin to blur into a waking nightmare Rita isn’t sure she can (or wants to) escape.

This is a story primarily about grief. Rita struggles with the pain of losing her father, the scars of her relationship with her mother, her estrangement from her Indigenous legacy, the dying embers of her love life, the way that colonialism and capitalism damage our ecosystems, and her very relationship with life.

While the horror aspect of this story didn’t keep me up at night, it has some disturbing scenes and it did manage to give me a sense of dread as Rita tries to figure out what’s happening with her and the land her rental sits on. But the human aspect of Rita’s thoughts and worries was actually tougher for me.

This novella is broken down in chapters that pertain to each of the paintings Rita creates during her residency, which make for an interesting structure and a surprising ending. I think anyone who loves art will get a kick out of this!

I’d recommend it not necessarily as a horror story, but for anyone who enjoys speculative fiction that deals with ecogrief and an Indigenous perspective. (I also loved the author’s afterword!)

ARC was provided by Netgalley & Stelliform Press.

Actual Rating: 4.5 ⭐

Content/Trigger Warnings: Gore, depictions of graphic animal death & gore, talk of hospitalization, mentions of abusive parent, mentions of trauma/PTSD, discussions of mental health, brief scenes of racism, toxic relationship, blood, mentions of hypochondriasis, brief mentions of germaphobia (a.k.a. mysophobia), depictions of grief, loss of a father, depression, depictions of anxiety & panic attacks, scene of self-harm, heavy themes of suicidal ideation, explicit sex scenes, talk of isolation & abandonment, scenes of emesis, brief mentions of diabetes diagnosis, hallucinations

Author's Content/Trigger Warnings: Parental death, suicidal ideation, animal death/gore, and explicit sex


This was one heck of a reading roller coaster! I'm still reeling, feeling haunted by how this entire story unfolded. I've never read a book that tackles such heavy topics, but at the end, there's healing that's been found in working through and confronting those heavy feelings head on. I'm still a little soft and weepy over how the ending of this whole book played out. Please check content/trigger warnings for this book because there is a lot of suicidal ideation discussed in great detail throughout this book, as well as the way grief is such a powerful feeling. I really loved this book and I loved how unique the formatting was for this book. You get details of these paintings that were done by the main character and then you go into the day of the creating of that painting. It was the first time I'd seen this done in a book.

You also know I'm going to talk about the themes of being Native/Indigenous enough. Something that constantly had me in a choke hold was the subtle theme of the main character not feeling "Native enough" or feeling like they don't really belong anywhere because they're not enough. Friends, you know discussions of this hit me in all the feels as a white-passing Mescalero Apache. I was so tied up and twisted every time the main character, Rita would talk about how she couldn't remember certain Mi'kmaq words. I felt that on such a deep level especially as someone who all their teachers aren't in a position to be teaching me and having to self-teach. I'm so soft, I'm so squishy, I'm getting teary eyed as I'm typing/talking about this. I love when Native/Indigenous authors talk about this and it'll always hit really hard for me.

Overall, I loved this, I loved this so much! It's eerie, it's hauntingly beautiful and emotional, and I'm not going to be over this book anytime soon. I'm really excited to read more from this author especially because this author was featured in Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology , which is going to be one of my top books of 2023! I'm just excited to add another Indigenous author to my list of Native/Indigenous authors to read from. I don't think every reader will love this especially considering it deals with very heavy topics. However, I think many horror lovers especially if you enjoy fungi horror, you may appreciate and enjoy this book. So I definitely recommend this book to my horror loving friends!


All thoughts, feelings, experiences, and opinions are honest and my own.

This book wasn't for me. I liked how the artworks mirrored her trauma and mental state, I just didn't really enjoy the story that's all.

"Green Fuse Burning" by Tiffany Morris is a fucked up novella about a queer, sapphic indigenous woman written by a queer, sapphic indigenous author and is a wonderful addition to the burgeoning botanical horror scene amongst the likes of Silvia Moreno-Garcia's "Mexican Gothic" and T. Kingfisher's "What Moves the Dead."

"Green Fuse Burning" follows a Mi'kmaw woman who's disappeared into the surrounding swamp after winning an artist's residency scholarship in order to regain her inspiration following her father's death and, perhaps, reconnect her with her robbed heritage. Each chapter revolves around a mixed media composition that Rita, the artist, has created and allows us to follow her descent in madness... or perhaps it's understanding of the true meaning of life? Sometimes death and decay means the beginning of new life.

This novella covers some dark themes including, most notably, depression/suicidal ideation. Please check in with your mental health before proceeding with this novella.

Thank you to NetGalley and Stelliform Press for allowing me to read the digital ARC of Green Fuse Burning by Tiffany Morris. The story is about Rita a struggling artist who is dealing with the grief of losing her dad. She is feeling lost and disconnected from those around her and also from her own culture. When she wins a week at a cabin to paint she starts to endure strange occurrences. Although her she is beginning to paint like she never has before, she beings to have dark visions from the swamp near her. She soon learns she might have got more than she bargained for.
This was a novella and it was an easy read. The story did a great job of detailing grief and regret. This seemed like a journey the fmc had to go through to understand acceptance and death. I thought some parts were a little overly descriptive and the first half was a little slow. Overall I enjoyed the book. 3/5 stars.

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with an arc in exchange for an honest review. The following opinions are my own.

I really enjoyed this short story. I love horror, surrealism and stories by indigenous authors.

Green Fuse Burning was a beautifully written gothic novella. Main character Rita is deeply layered. Rita grapples with an amalgamation of challenges and these pressures accumulate upon her. It is her uncertainty and how it is portrayed that creates such an enthralling journey. The story truly kept my attention from the beginning to end. It would be a given to recommend to students, but would not be incorporated in my curriculum. The writing, while elegant, can be difficult to follow at times. It does fit within the artist theme, but can get ahead of itself.