3.5 stars

**Thanks to NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.**

Errants Roots OUT NOW

Basics
Author: she/her (from US)
Genre: contemporary horror
Length: read-in-one-sitting novella (98p)

Pros
+ Deirdre (newly pregnant) and her boyfriend visit her ancestral home
+ family cult
+ lore set by the matriarch
+ gender reveal gone wrong (or right?)
+ violence & gore
+ vibes: anxious, insidious, menacing
+ themes: family tree, inheritance, generational trauma, female power

Cons
- Deirdre's mom acts unbelievably (sometimes naive, sometimes complicit)
- the whole story hinges on the mom bringing Deirdre but it goes against everything she's done in the past 25 years, so I didn't believe an oddly-timed pregnancy would make her act that way
- unheeded warnings make my sympathy for the characters lessen (I'd much rather they try to listen to warnings and fail)

Similar Vibes: Follow Me to Ground by Sue Rainsford (book) X Ready or Not (movie)

TW: murder of adults and children (off-page), murder of adults (on-page), blood, cutting, drugging, burning alive, corpse/bones/ash

“ The roots of your family tree can run deep, but they can also become twisted, spreading a seeping rot that will eventually affect everything.”

Errant Roots is the 6th instalment in Raw Dog Screaming Press’ horror novella series ‘Select Papers from the Consortium for the Study of Anomalous Phenomena’ edited by RJ Joseph. Each volume features a different author but the themes within the pages all build on these need and ideas explored by the previous author and their narratives.
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I personally reached out to RDSP for an arc copy of this novella, like I do with every single previous book in the series. This is my favourite series currently, ever since reading Bleak Houses, the first volume.

This is probably my second least favourite of the whole series. It was well written, a quick and easy read that could be done in one sitting. I just found the narrative a little too predictable and that is the opposite of what I’m accustomed to while reading novellas from this series.

A very strong novella exploring how generational traditions (murderous rituals) and family bonds can lead to being completely disconnected from reality and oblivious to atrocities from within a comforting, but cocoon of lies.

I will say though that this will end up being a forgettable story for me because the characters felt like caricatures and the lore was a great concept but ultimately left quite a few plot holes. Imagine a full-length novel that dives deep into each character and their psyches, lore that intertwines folk horror elements and generational family secrets. How good would that be?

i wanted to love this more than i did. there's hints of lore and ominous stories here, but they're lost in the squash of this book that should be 250 pages into 90. 3 stars. tysm for the arc.

Errant Roots
Sonora Taylor

3.75 / 5

This was one fu#ked up family tree. Talk about metaphorically cleansing yourself of familial traumas and bonds! I really dug this!

This was a fun horror story with excellent writing. I had a great time while reading.

I predicted where things were going right off the bat, but I'm kinda used to that (consuming as much horror as I do), and it didn't ruin my reading experience. I still had a great time discovering precisely how we were going to get there.

Recommended!

3.75 / 5 (rounded up)

A surprise! It kept me on the edge of my seat for the entire read. Recommend! Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher and the author for a free e-arc copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Beautiful, sad and twisted. As a mother and daughter myself who has "sacrificed" for generational change, this one hit home. The author did a wonderful job showing the relationships between mother and daughter and how sometimes you need to leave family to make family better and stranger.

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of the eARC in exchange for an honest review

A short folk horror about family and the legacy of beliefs we left behind, hits close to home. We meet Deirdre, a woman who has become pregnant with her long-time boyfriend Tom. As soon as she gets pregnant and informs her mother, her mother's mysterious family comes into play. This comes as a shock, as Deirdre has never heard anything about them. A trip to her family's rural home quickly goes awry.

A quick one-sit read, this captivated me once Deirdre, her mother, and Tom make their way to the farmhouse. A bit predictable, but it allowed me to personally reflect on a similar family legacy, filled with principles and beliefs that are not quite well explained, but are expected to be carried out. It can stem from a simple experience and can shape entire generations of practice. The title? Well chosen, as family "trees" are a common statement, and I, myself am an errant root. This short novella helps us question whether these beliefs are worth inheriting and passing along, and how these very beliefs shape us and affect us in invisible ways.

Harriet's doubt with her initial decision, and taking Deidre back to her family home, and realizing that may be the incorrect choice. (Trauma) or atleast my take away with their visions, hasn't completely left her, and without proper support from the outside world, she is left to wonder who may have been right all along. Deidre may have not been raised within this family, didn't react immediately to danger, reflective of most closed group's initial "friendly" or "familial" impression has impaired her sense of safety, but that disconnect ultimately saved her and a few others.

I love one sit-reads! So this book is great for that and I fell into the folk horror role!

I was hoping this would be the non-binary, anti-gender essentialist horror novella of my dreams, but alas.

We have generations of a family of (cis) women who, for some unknown reason (still unknown by the end of the story) have decided that the coincidence of bearing children in their 24th year is vitally important—nay, a matter of life or death. The world-building is loose and the foundation nonexistent. We must suspend disbelief as estranged mothers reach out to daughters and vice versa, without explanation ... and innocent people are murdered based purely on a superstition with unknown threat potential. We also have "gender reveal" parties and "either boy or girl" and sex=gender and so on. At one point, a character questions the time period relatives are living in, but when it comes to the treatment of sex and gender here, I find myself asking: Is the author living under a rock? With contemporaries like the trans-embracing and gender euphoric "The Sapling Cage" (Margaret Killjoy), I find myself left with a sour taste in my throat ... and not because of the intended horror elements. Finally ... why the heck would content warnings be included at the BACK of the book? To con the wary reader into taking a peak while rifling through the pages on the way there?

This was well-written and well-paced, and there's a hint of something more interesting afoot, but otherwise this one was unsatisfying for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and Raw Dog Screaming Press for the ARC!

To be honest, I didn't have super high hopes for this one going in. However, I have to say that this really surprised me. Quite literally. I had no idea what was going to happen next, and I was on the edge of my seat trying to figure out what was going on. For being a short read, it packed a really solid punch. I highly recommend this one but PLEASE check your trigger warnings before reading.

Nothing fucks one up more thoroughly than family. At least, that's always been my take-away, and such thoughts were at the forefront of my mind even before I picked up Sonora Taylor's Errant Roots.

A little more than a year ago, my father passed away after a battle with cancer and dementia, and his funeral was the first time I had seen some members of our family in many years. Now that I think about it, I likely hadn't seen most of them since my mother's funeral roughly nine years prior. Like Deirdre's mother, my own parents had largely cut themselves - and me, by extension - off from the longer branches of our family tree. Visits with aunts, uncles, and cousins in my childhood were infrequent until they became an altogether scarce rarity. My mother excised herself completely from her own mother and siblings for reasons nobody seems clear on, and I would learn shortly before his passing that my father kept many secrets of his own, including another son I had never been aware of. So, right off the bat, I found myself perfectly at home with Taylor's themes and concepts.

Growing up in an almost reclusive enclave, one can't help but wonder where exactly the line lies between family and cult... and what if they're one and the same? Cults, after all, are almost universally defined by a figurehead who demands loyalty. My father's narcissism and inability to cope with disagreements or outright objections without delivering some form of mental abuse in return could almost, albeit not perfectly but almost, be seen as requiring a slavish, cultish devotion. His anger at those times when I would express my own thoughts and opinions contrary to his own were expressed disbelief and upset demands -- where did I hear that from? Who told me that? Who's making me think like that? He found it impossible to believe that I was my own person capable of critical thinking rather than an extension of himself, which he obviously would have preferred. For him, ideas were something that were handed down to others, implanted and imprinted upon them, not something you developed on your own. New ideas were discouraged, and the holder of such thought crimes interrogated to root out the source of such new infections. Always the one who knew everything about everything and, he was certain, far better than anybody else, if your opinion was ever wanted, he'd let you know what the right one was, what it was supposed to be, and that anything otherwise was crazy talk.

Reading Errant Roots was like going home again, albeit to twistier funhouse mirror version of home. And, granted, as far as I know my parents never killed, maimed, or sacrificed anybody. Not like Deirdre's family, whom she never knew or even met. But when she tells her mother that she, at the age of 24, is pregnant, Harriet suddenly decides to draw herself and Deirdre back to the old homestead and introduce her to grandma, to her aunts, and cousins. And once there, Deirdre begins to learn of the old secrets that bind the women of her family together, the old beliefs grounded in numerology and such coincidences that can only truly be providence. These are the kind of secrets with bloodshed and dead bodies behind them, and Taylor wastes no time showing us the true nature of Harriet's mother and siblings, greeting us with a human sacrifice in the novella's opening pages.

In some ways, Errant Roots recalls Anne Heltzel's 2022 horror thriller, Just Like Mother, only meaner, nastier, shorter, and faster-paced. Like Heltzel's, Taylor's cult is centered around pregnancy and motherhood. And like Heltzel's, the usual tropes play out as expected and readers will know immediately which characters are sacrificial lambs waiting for the axe to fall. Thankfully, Taylor's story is her own, the cult's beliefs are suitably unique, and her approach to the material makes for a joy to read, particularly with the academic-styled bookends that turn Deirdre's story into a case study. Taylor also doesn't shy away from the gore, and serves up plenty of it, too, giving Errant Roots a particularly brutal, old-school edge. If I had any issues to take with this novella, it is only that I wouldn't have minded it being a bit longer, but that's just me saying I wanted more of a good thing.

Mostly, and even despite of all the carnage Taylor unleashes, Errant Roots was just so damn relatable, at least for me. Having gone into this book blind, knowing only that it was a new Sonora Taylor release, I wasn't entirely sure what to expect of it story-wise, or just how close to home some if it would land, especially given my thoughts in the preceding days on family and my parents, and raising children of my own. I won't bother to speculate if I would have chosen to read Errant Roots if I had known all I was getting into given where my headspace was at during this time, because sometimes, just sometimes, the book chooses you, you know?

What a great read! I was drawn into the story from the beginning, could not put the book down and read it in one sitting. To put so much into so few pages is truly art. Would recommend to anybody looking for a scary read that has you waiting for the next horrible thing to happen.
The book really shines a light on what can happen to people that left a cult and are drawn back in, back to what was once familiar, what feels safe. Something I never though about and definitely did not expect being confronted by by a horror book

My biggest problem with the plot though was:
<spoiler> We have this grandma that wants to adhere to the vision but then actively would end the whole line in an attempt to rectify the "straying" of the roots? I dont feel like that makes sense. It makes sense for the drama and the thrill but not story vise.</spoiler>

Thanks to netgalley and RDS Publishing for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review

Thanks to NetGalley and the author for granting me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest rating.

Thank you Netgalley, RDS Publishing | Raw Dog Screaming Press and Sonora Taylor for the eArc of Errant roots.

This is a great quick read of family secrets, rituals and witchy vibes, The premise and the pacing of Errant roots I felt was really well dne. Just building enough character development with Deidre and her Mother to be curious as to what made them leave the family home in the first place. When Deidre finds out she's pregnant, her Mother takes her back to her roots and introduces both Deidre and her husband to the extended family.

This novella is packed with creepy, dread vibes. You get a good sense from the start what's going to happen and it does but it doesn't end there. I loved the deeper level messages about our families, traditions, boundaries and definitely has Midsomer vibes. I felt there was a good balance between the plot and character building. The level of descriptive gore maybe will level you with your toes curling a bit but its worth it if you're not squeamish.

I will be picking up more of Sonora's books in the future.

4 stars for Netgalley, Storygraph, Amazon and Goodreads

Short but impactful.

I loved this. The author did such a good job of telling a story with a long past in a short novel.

I can’t wait to read more from Sonora Taylor! Highly recommend!

Thank you to NetGalley, Sonora Taylor and RDS Publishing | Raw Dog Screaming Press.

Yet another from the "Selected Papers from the Consortium for the Study of Anomalous Phenomena" series, "Errant Roots" is a story of confronting the past, generational violence and trauma, and survival.

This would have fit right in with the "Bound in Blood" anthology, that I loved, as not only a plant-themed story but also a book-themed one. I couldn't give it a higher rating for a couple of reasons. First it was a bit spoiled in the flashback of Chapter 1. I thought, "ok, men don't survive, got it." So when Deirdre's boyfriend Tom is killed, I already knew it was coming. Although, he wasn't developed nearly enough for it to be a shock regardless. Minor quibble, there is also mention of ghosts of those that have met their violent end. I was slightly disappointed that it was only lore, imagined by her grandmother Yvonne for the ritual.

But I genuinely enjoyed the story's premise of a matriarchal, almost coven-like family that seek to maintain a precious blood line. It does make one wonder what was really behind her great-grandmother's "visions." Deirdre places the blame on grief and loss, but I'm not so sure and I'm glad the author kept it vague. Deirdre's mother actually managed to escape when she was pregnant, but returned once she learned of Deirdre's pregnancy. "𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘳𝘰𝘰𝘵𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘧𝘢𝘮𝘪𝘭𝘺 𝘵𝘳𝘦𝘦 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘳𝘶𝘯 𝘥𝘦𝘦𝘱, 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘢𝘭𝘴𝘰 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘵𝘸𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘥, 𝘴𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢 𝘴𝘦𝘦𝘱𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘳𝘰𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘶𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘢𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘤𝘵 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨." Despite my qualms with this particular story, Sonora Taylor definitely has my attention!

This is a fast-paced and dread-filled folk horror about family roots and ties that bind us there. I was enthralled from the beginning. This is a novella, so there is not a lot of background information or lore, but for me, it was enough.

It was predictable, so the ending wasn't all that shocking. What I enjoyed about this was the bond between mothers, daughters, and sisters and, how those things look differently between generations, The ways superstitions and some deep-rooted traditions create discontent and rot and breaking the cycle of generational trauma.

My only issue is with Diedre's response to the horror around her. I'm trying to chalk it up to shock, but even that doesn't seem right. I needed some extreme emotions to be going on, but instead, it eventually felt like she was just being inconvenienced.

Thank you to NetGalley for this copy to review.

Errant Roots by Sonora Taylor is a dark, witchy tale that masterfully combines family secrets, supernatural suspense, and themes of legacy and identity. At its center is Deirdre, a young woman whose unplanned pregnancy sparks an unexpected and unsettling journey into her family’s past. What begins as a seemingly mundane return to her roots quickly spirals into a nightmare as Deirdre uncovers the sinister soil from which her family has grown.

Taylor crafts a deeply atmospheric narrative that weaves together the horrors of the supernatural with the complexities of family ties. Deirdre’s relationship with her mother—at times close, yet strained by unspoken history—serves as the emotional core of the novel. The discovery of her family’s dark legacy is gradual, building an eerie tension that keeps readers on edge as Deirdre unravels long-buried truths. The novel’s pacing is pitch-perfect, keeping you turning pages as the family secrets slowly rise to the surface.

One of the novel’s strengths is how Taylor uses the theme of inheritance, both in the literal sense of familial traits and in the more metaphysical sense of inherited curses and legacies. Deirdre’s journey is not just about uncovering external horrors, but also about grappling with what it means to belong to a family line steeped in dark, otherworldly powers. As she delves deeper into her family’s history, she is forced to confront the question of whether she can break free from her roots or whether she is destined to carry on the sinister legacy.

The supernatural elements of Errant Roots are chilling and imaginative, blending witchcraft, curses, and family lore in a way that feels both ancient and fresh. Taylor’s writing shines in her depiction of these dark forces—creeping and insidious, they are less about jump scares and more about the slow realization that something is deeply, irrevocably wrong.

At its heart, though, Errant Roots is also a story about self-discovery and agency. Deirdre’s pregnancy, her relationship with her mother, and the choices she faces all serve to highlight the tension between who she is and who her family wants—or expects—her to be. As her family’s true nature reveals itself, Deirdre must navigate the terrifying possibility that she may not be able to escape the influence of her bloodline.

Taylor’s prose is both lyrical and unsettling, drawing readers into a world where the past refuses to stay buried and the present is fraught with dangerous choices. The story is packed with those “delicious little thrills of tension and fright” that fellow author Laurel Hightower praised, keeping you hooked from one chapter to the next.

Errant Roots is perfect for readers who enjoy stories about family secrets, witchcraft, and the delicate balance between fate and free will. Sonora Taylor delivers a gripping, atmospheric tale that lingers long after the final page, leaving readers to ponder the weight of our roots—and what it takes to sever them.

A short (less than 100 pages) horror novella, about a daughter returning to the family her mother got estranged from before she was born and the reason for why she's never seen them before.
The novella does a masterful job of building tension and especially the first half is incredibly interesting. I really enjoyed finding out about where the family's darker traditions stemmed from and found myself incredibly interested in the setting.
My main issue with this novella is that it unfortunately suffers, as many novellas do, from feeling a bit underexplored. I would have enjoyed for the writing to dive a bit deeper into the lore it built as well as the setting, which would have elevated this story higher. Particularly the second part of the novella feels a bit too full with information for how long it is and I felt rushed along instead of being able to revel in the messy situation Deidre finds herself in.
Despite this I really enjoyed reading it, I liked the idea and I found the writing style intruiging. All in all, an interesting, but a bit too short, horrifying tale of a family reuinion and perfect for a quick spooky halloween read.

Errant Roots is about going back to your family's roots and realizing that something is deeply, terribly wrong. Upon getting pregnant at 24, Deirdre's mother brings her back to the family she abandoned so long ago to continue the old ways. It was mediocre writing, a bizarre premise with a weirder follow-through, wasn't great as a horror novella, and was generally a little disappointing.