Leslie J. Anderson's The Unmothers is a compelling blend of folk horror and mystery set in the isolated town of Raeford, where we follow Marshall, a grief-stricken journalist investigating an impossible claim of a horse giving birth to a human child. What begins as a seemingly absurd assignment quickly unravels into a dark exploration of small-town secrets and generational trauma. In Raeford, Anderson creates a palpable sense of unease; the fog-shrouded landscape becomes a character in itself, its oppressive atmosphere mirroring the weight of the towns' inhabitants' unspoken burdens. The novel explores deeper themes, including bodily autonomy and the unique challenges women face in rural communities. . Anderson tackles these issues with sensitivity and nuance, grounding her supernatural tale in very real, contemporary concerns. The characters, despite the story's bizarre premise, feel remarkably authentic. Their struggles and motivations resonate deeply, making the horror elements all the more impactful. As the narrative progresses, the pervasive fog of Raeford seems to seep into the story itself. While this contributes to the overall atmosphere, it occasionally makes the plot feel hazy, particularly in the final act. That said, this small issue doesn't really diminish the book's overall impact. I hesitate to slot "The Unmothers" into any single category. While it could be described as "horror for horse girls," this label doesn't do justice to the breadth of Anderson's vision. It's a thought-provoking tale that will appeal to anyone drawn to stories of small-town mysteries and the often unsettling nature of human relationships.

I was so excited to try a good horror book, but unfortunately, The Unmothers felt unnecessarily wordy and the plot fell completely flat. While intriguing initially, the execution was poor.

I really enjoyed this folk horror story--I was hooked from beginning to end. The setting, the characters and the plot were all great and really compelling. What a great story!

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned

Really a great folk horror story! Kept me on my toes throughout the whole thing.

Marshall is a reported and sent to a small town to get the story about a far-fetched rumor that a human baby was born from a horse. She knows she is really sent there to get away from the city and grieve the loss of her husband. What she finds is murder and dark secrets the women of the town are keeping.

I love reading horror that is connected to folklore of a small community or group of people. The folklore in this story is very original and made a very fascinating story. The only thing not making this a great read for me is the main character. For some reason I never connected with Marshall. I tried to grieve with her through her trauma and feel her uneasiness as she tried to fit in with the small town residents. She just was not relatable for me.

I couldn’t get into this book. The story was a bit disjointed and I couldn’t get invested in it. I liked the premise just not the execution

This is the driest book I think I have read for 2024

Marshall’s husband died and to help her cope. Her boss sends her on a journalist assignment to a small town where strange things are happening.

Maybe I am too dumb to read this book but I understood nothing. I felt like nothing was happening. Marshall was going there to write a story about a horse giving birth to human baby but nothing really happens until 80-90% of the book. It is the slowest burn in a horror book I have ever read.

There is so many POVs with little to no explanation on who or why these people are involved with the storyline. I felt like this book was all over the place.

The last 90% of the book was the best part.

I was wanting spooky, dark with old folklore and I did not get that.

Genre: Horror
APK: Ebook
Pages: 323
Rating: ⭐️
Series or Standalone: Stand-alone

The nitty-gritty: Weird and unsettling, The Unmothers explores folklore, belief, pregnancy and grief, a story told in flawless prose, dripping with dread.

The Unmothers was not what I expected at all, but I really ended up loving it. I’ll admit I got off to a shaky start, because so many different characters are introduced, and it takes a while to see how they’re all connected. But boy, this story got under my skin! This is a beautifully written tale with horses, small town secrets, and lots of heartbreaking emotion, and while it’s being categorized as “horror,” I would say it’s much closer to a literary thriller, although there are some subtle supernatural elements. Anderson’s themes of motherhood, pregnancy (and unwanted pregnancy) and making personal choices are poignantly written, and I loved the way she combined them with folklore.

Carolyn Marshall is a journalist who has been sent to the small town of Raeford to investigate the strange rumor of a horse that gave birth to a human baby. When she arrives, she finds a decaying town shrouded in secrets and townspeople who are reluctant to tell her what happened. As Marshall begins to search for the truth, she discovers some disturbing rumors: young girls who find themselves unexpectedly pregnant are told there’s a way to “fix” the problem, something that involves a certain old tree in the woods, arcane symbols, and a sacrifice. But far more sinister than that is a man named John Daily, the local drug dealer who seems to have everyone in town under his thumb. 

Marshall is confronted with way more questions than answers: how was baby Phillip born? Is Roswell, the sixteen-year-old boy who cares for him, really the father? And who is the mother? The answers are buried under generations of town secrets and mysteriously tied to the town’s horses.

This is one of those stories that grows on you the more you read. At first I struggled a bit with all the many characters and points of view, and it’s a slow burn mystery that takes its time. But once all the various threads start to come together, it’s nearly impossible to stop reading. Leslie J. Anderson perfectly captures the feel of a small, insular town with a seedy underbelly. On the surface, Raeford is home to several prominent horse ranches, where little girls grow up with a love for all things horses and riding. But the belief that there is some kind of horse god in the forest who will help girls with unwanted pregnancies gives the town an ominous feel. Throughout the story there are glimpses of this creature, but it’s never clear whether it’s real or not. It’s as though the townspeople believed it into existence, and I loved not only the idea, but the fact that this otherworldly element doesn’t feel quite real.

Alongside this storyline we learn about John Daily and his shady dealings in town. Some of the characters are related to him, like his wife Agatha and son Roswell, and even those that aren’t are entwined with him in terrible ways and are unable to escape his power and influence. Daily was the true monster of the story, a man I loved to hate.

Anderson explores several hard-hitting themes, which are seamlessly incorporated into the story. First, Marshall is grieving the recent loss of her husband Joseph and having a pretty rough time dealing with it. Her editor gave her the Raeford assignment as a way to get her out of town and hopefully kick start the healing process, but of course all her memories of Joseph follow her there. Most of the chapters are told from Marshall’s perspective, so we see how she begins to interact with various people in town, and by trying to solve the mystery of baby Phillip’s birth, she gradually comes to terms with her own grief. Marshall was a fantastic character, relatable, caring and curious, and she’s determined to get to the bottom of what’s going on in Raeford.

And of course the other main theme is right there in the title, the theme of motherhood. This is a fiercely feminist story, where women are given a magical solution to deal with unwanted pregnancies. I won’t spoil all the details, but I was fascinated by Anderson’s weird ideas and the complex rituals involved. This is where the “horror” part of the story comes in, so squeamish readers beware. The word “unmothers” takes on deeper meaning when you think about it in this context, and it’s honestly the perfect title for this story.

I also loved the horse elements, which are authentic and detailed. The author is a horse person herself, and her love of that lifestyle shines through in her descriptions. I went through my own horse phase when I was little and even took riding lessons, so this book brought back lots of memories.

The tension increases until the final, violent climax. Anderson infuses her story with so much emotion, and the ending was powerful and redemptive. Readers who love literary horror with a slow burn mystery definitely need to pick up The Unmothers. I’m very curious to see what Leslie J. Anderson does next.

Big thanks to the publisher for providing a review copy.

this was pretty boring to me. i was expecting there more weird/ horror things going on. but i normally find detective stories to be pretty slow and the mc was essentially the same type of character here as a journalist

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me an e-ARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. I was immediately drawn to this book from the first chapter. I mean who wouldn't when you open with a horse giving birth to a human child?? I felt like the characters were well developed and flawed which is so important to me with books. I want to see the flaws that they have no matter how big or small. This book focuses a lot on horses, I was never a horse girl myself growing up but the way Anderson describes them is beautiful. This book is a masterpiece on feminine rage and I know so many people who would love to read this book. There are so many layers to this book and I can't wait to continue to think more about it and have the layers unravel. This book is one that will stay in my mind for a long time.

A new favorite! I absolutely loved this. I tried not to read it too quickly, but it was honestly such a joy that I kept going back to it. I feel like no matter what I write in this review it's not going to do the book justice, and I also don't want to spoil anything, so I'm probably going to keep it sort of brief.

The writing is just so good. This is a book in which every paragraph is carefully crafted, and there is zero filler. You are immediately pulled into this atmospheric world, full of dread and death. Marshall, the reporter, is a main character you can root for. The small town feels frighteningly familiar and claustrophobic, and from the moment Marshall gets there the danger is palpable. This is the sort of place that knows everybody’s business but will typically turn a blind eye even if someone is desperate for help. The further I read, the more I found myself thinking, “Boy, I sure hope this turns out okay, somehow.”

There are many alternate POV chapters, (bordering on too many but Anderson is capable), and the characters that she chose to follow surprised me a little bit. You will get to know a LOT of people. Anderson does something I really admire, which is show me a person that first comes across as very unlikable and then later reveal another, more personal side of them that completely changes my perspective. For a little while I did have some trouble remembering who everyone was because there were so many townspeople involved, but eventually I had it all straight. Rather than do first person perspective she also opted for third person, so it feels more like the camera just follows one character for a few minutes and then smoothly shifts over to another.

The way Anderson describes horses and how magical they seem to little girls is powerful. If you are a fan of horses I think this book will resonate with you specifically, though please be aware that awful things also happen to horses in this story so it is a double edged sword of the most literal kind. I don't want to say too much about this novel, because I want people to read it and enjoy it like I did. But there are several complicated themes that are handled, such as Grief, Motherhood/Pregnancy (both wanted and unwanted), and Addiction. It’s absolutely horror, but it’s also a crime/mystery story. I would maybe call it a little bit of a slow burn, but it’s not boring in any way. I couldn't really guess where things were heading, nor did I want to try. It's one of those books with A24 vibes. Bizarre and creepy and surprising!

There were a couple of things about the town lore that I found a little confusing, but it was still so weird and interesting to me that I was completely on board. And by the end, I had a pretty good grasp on it. I think Anderson is extremely talented both as an author in general, (that prose!), and as a creative storyteller. If she releases another horror novel I will be first in line to read it.

Thank you so much to Netgalley and to the Publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review! All opinions are my own.

Biggest TW: Animal death (violent), Substance abuse, Racism, Bullying, Domestic abuse, Suicidal Ideation, Mention of Miscarriage

I'm astounded. This book might be one of my favorites of the year. It's haunting and all too real at the same time. A must read, for sure.

Brilliant book! The atmosphere was bleak, dark and oppressive but the community of women shone through.
The book is about secrets and the burden women have to bear, along with a healthy dose of horses.
I honestly cannot recommend The Unmothers enough, it was truly a masterpiece.

Loved it! While the writing is at times uneven and tiny bit repetitive (some of it will probably be smoothed out by the final edits), this story of a depressed reporter following a bizarre lead in a small town known for its horse business (and superstitious) is excellent.
The sounds, smells, and the atmosphere of the foggy roads and the small town with its old church - it all worked really well. You may think you know where it’s going, but you don’t.
A very enjoyable, creepy read.

Thank you, NetGalley, for sharing the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

As a huge fan of multi-POV, I enjoyed seeing so many sides to the story. This story combined horror and folktale aspects with a mystery/thriller plot, which I felt worked really well!

A slow burn folklore horror that keeps its cards close to its chest.
It was definitely a bit hard to follow at times but I think that was the point. It had a slow build up that brought the suspense

There were so many aspects of this story that felt rooted in real life (in the most frightening way) and the oddities of the town would have easily fit into the confines of an X-Files episode!

The folklore embedded into the town was also incredibly intriguing, making the story all the more horrific for it.

A fantastic debut - I can’t wait to see what Leslie comes up with next!

Thank you to Leslie J. Anderson and Quirk Books via NetGalley for the eARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

“The Unmothers” is a very strange book that took awhile for me to get through. It is told from multiple perspectives within a small town, with the main perspective being that of a visiting journalist. The premise of the book was so strange I immediately wanted to read the story. A human baby is born and supposedly the mother is a horse.

I found this story to be slow and intricate. It’s supposed to be a horror, but I never found myself immersed enough in the story to be horrified. I appreciate what the author was trying to do with this story that focused so heavily on horses, the realities of pregnancy, and the strength of women. I would recommend this book to readers who are looking for a story about grief, pain, mistakes, revenge, and horses.

After the tragic death of her husband, journalist Marshall is spiraling in her work and her personal life. Her boss sends her to a small town to investigate what she believes is a BS story…a horse giving birth to a human baby. The supposed father? A sixteen year-old boy. As Marshall begins to speak to the residents and learn more about the town and their superstitions, bodies, both human and horse, begin to show up dead, and Marshall quickly begins to realize there’s more to this town than it seems. Is there truth to the boy’s story about the baby? And why is everyone fearful of the woods and the fog that seeps out of it?

This was a fascinating folk horror story dealing with generational trauma, bodily autonomy, and feminine rage. I’ve always been a “horse girl,” so I enjoyed the important roles horses played in the novel and their relationship to the folk horror aspect. I also appreciated the feminist messaging in this novel, especially with regard to pregnancy and childbirth. Although I enjoyed this story and was satisfied by the novel’s ending, the many different POVs were hard to keep up with at times, especially since some characters’ names were similar. I also found myself a bit confused at what was happening in some parts. Overall, I’d recommend it though!

I’m sure there’s a philosophical Law about the following, but if there is, I don’t know its name: the moment you say “I think I’ve seen everything”, something will pop up which reminds you that, actually, you really haven’t. For anyone trying to work out how to write one hell of an advertising hook, look no further than THE UNMOTHERS.

After the death of her husband (and a bit of a breakdown), protagonist Marshall, a reporter for a city newspaper, is dispatched by her editor to the small town of Raeford to investigate what initially seems like a complete crank story: one of the horses of the town’s many horse farms has given birth - to a healthy, human baby boy. Raeford, however, might turn out to be a story itself - it’s a deprived country town full of underhanded cruelties, and when two brutalised bodies are found in a field, a generational secret held close to the hearts of Raeford’s women might just come crawling into the light…

If you know me well, you’ll know that my favourite horror film of all time is THE VVITCH (2015), so I’ve been really excited to see the steadily growing popularity of folk horror in the wider publishing market. However, while The Unmothers is very much advertised as a folk horror in this vein - you don’t need to look any further than the cover, which gets a 10/10 for iconography - in many ways, it’s a very different story altogether. My closest comp, which struck me immediately, is Gillian Flynn’s SHARP OBJECTS; a woman from the city, after a difficult past and a somewhat destructive comfort habit (in Marshall’s case, cigarettes), investigates the goings-on in an insular rural town and finds herself in over her head. See what I mean? However, this doesn’t work to it’s detriment, for the simple reason that Anderson writes rural America really well. Raeford is a particularly evocative setting from the moment Marshall crosses the threshold, and there’s such a vivid depiction of whitewashed, clapboard churches, trailer homes and bars, not to mention the often-tired stables which are viewed with no end of pride by the generations of equestrians. Even the ruined house which provides a backdrop to the generational trauma of the central family is a very literal skeleton from the time of the Civil War. The town also seethes with consistent issues caused by generational traumas and poverty, with resonate in a very real sense before we come close to encountering anything supernatural. The Unmothers is consistently occupied with pregnancy and reproductive rights, and so the town is full of pregnant teenagers and harangued women, immigrant workers are neglected by the community and the law in tandem, and an opioid crisis is raging in plain sight. The most unsettling thing about Raeford is not the fact that it is particularly unusual - in the case of many rural towns in neglected pockets of the US, it is exceedingly, painfully ordinary.

One of my favourite aspects of the narrative, however, is the consistent presence of the ‘horse girl’ figure. For the uninitiated, the term refers to a girl, often a teenager or preteen, whose passions revolve around riding, horses and their upkeep: you might recognise their presence in series’ of horse-themed children’s books, and will probably see them milling around the horses in any stable. In a novel about female rage and power, the horse girl - an often bullied figure (as we see in the case of passionate equestrian Brittany) - is a figure Anderson places in a position of knowledge and authority, whether of the secrets of Raeford, or the ability to control such a powerful and formidable creature as a horse. Though I’m often hesitant when it comes to discussions of ‘female knowledge’, specifically due to Ursula K. Le Guin’s brilliant writing on the subject (i.e. how female knowledge is forced to be arcane and relegated to darkness, while male knowledge is associated with science and widespread knowledge in the mainstream), this empowering of a female archetype which undergoes frequent maligning is something I really enjoy seeing in genre fiction, particularly horror, and so it hits a nice balance in the wider span of the narrative. There are also a couple of chapters written from the perspective of the hivemind of Raeford’s horses, and Anderson achieves a really eerily written effect through the register - in case you haven’t already noticed, this is a very horse-heavy novel.

Most of what follows is going to consist of my critique (not all of it, don’t run away yet!), but is also going to be the bit with all the spoilers, so fair warning.

I’ve already mentioned how much I love the hook in the blurb here, so I’m reluctant to express disappointment of any sort: however, while The Unmothers succeeds on a concept level, it doesn't quite live up to it in its execution. In spite of the hints from the blurb, this is a multi-POV novel - Marshall is just a single perspective among many - and this is a feature which clashes with the novel’s overall tone. As expected with a novel seeking to be unsettling, the novel moves along at a fairly meandering pace in order to build up tension, but since we switch perspective very quickly, and very often, this means that it’s very hard to get a grasp on most of the characters before we end up following someone else. This also drags the novel down, especially since many of these perspective characters exist to confirm what other perspectives have already informed us: for instance, while the priest character exists to add to the church aspect of the American Gothic theme, much of his interiority doesn’t add to the overarching narrative. In a similar vein, while there’s plenty of poetic prose to appeal to anyone who prefers their genre fiction a little literary, a consistent feature of the character work involves the narration talking directly about how characters are feeling, using a repeated use of “felt” which comes across as very passive in characterisation - by saying “[character] felt” instead of presenting a description of the feeling or how it manifests in a character’s behaviour, characters can come across as wooden or at a sense of remove from the action, which, in a genre such as horror, when you want to scare or discomfort your reader, creates a distance which defangs the narrative. In a similar vein, sometimes - aided by the quick flitting of the narrative - characters switch settings so fast that sometimes it’s difficult to keep up, and character development is mentioned to have happened, but without the breathing space for this development to feel natural. Has Marshall actually been changed by Raeford, or does the narrative just tell us that Marshall has been changed by Raeford?

In part, this might be due to Marshall’s characterisation, which doesn’t have as much to it as I would have liked. We get little snippets of her backstory which has led her to taking the Raeford job, but again, despite the compelling potential of a woman coming to terms with the death of her husband and a miscarriage, these only get the slightest mention (also, if I were Marshall’s editor, I personally wouldn't send her to pursue a story about cryptic pregnancies to help her recover from a miscarriage, but maybe that’s just me). We’re directly told she’s grieving and angry, but never quite breach into her feeling these things. Especially in the context of the theme of reproductive choice within the novel - as we later discover, the women of Raeford have passed down a secret ritual through which they can pass an unwanted pregnancy onto a horse, and when the horse gives birth to the baby, they can choose to keep it within a limited timespan before it turns into a foal - this feels like a missed opportunity. Our established villain is also dispatched far too quickly for the reputation established for him throughout the narrative, and when we discover a teenage boy previously coerced his girlfriend into sex, Marshall acknowledges this is rape openly on the page, but this is quickly overshadowed by every character in the novel - including his victim - referring to him as nothing but a “nice boy”. Of course, there is some nuance here - coercive control is very real, not everyone who has been sexually assaulted knows they have been from the moment it happens, and victims’ feelings for perpetrators are often incredibly complicated, so this is a realistic response - this felt very disappointing from a book which advertises itself as a novel about female rage and agency.

Overall, while The Unmothers is a vividly created American Gothic with some seriously unsettling things to say about rural communities and a beautifully realised depiction of equestrian life, its execution falls short of the folk horror story it’s advertised as. In reality, much of the narrative reads as a literary thriller with supernatural elements. Whether it’s eerie or outright scary, a good horror is always one with bite, but unfortunately despite its potential, The Unmothers falls just a little short of showing its teeth.

Thank you to Quirk Books and Netgalley for an eArc in exchange for an honest review.