This is an excellent folk horror novel with strong supernatural elements that will definitely have you questioning everything by the end.

Sophie wakes up in the woods naked with no memory of who she is. When she walks to the titular small town, it appears that they've been expecting her. But she's not a prisoner. She can't leave though. In fact, the town folks treat her like a star. There's something she must do before she can leave, although nobody will tell her exactly what that is.

We get to go back and forth between her time in the town and her life before. We'll be able to see what led up to her being there and the horrifying thing she must do in order to leave.

The twisty narrative is fantastic. I was never completely sure of what was going on but, as it plays out, some hair raising revelations are going to be made. And the ending will put you on edge with it's implications!

This novel sucked me in from the beginning and I highly recommend it.

I would like to thank Net Galley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Contains minor spoilers.

I was really excited at the beginning and I have to say I really loved the ending. But the middle part felt a bit repetitive at times. There were also small things like <spoiler>she was angry at her friends for having serious relationships back to back, but the relationship with Jamie would have been around the same time of those relationships</spoiler>.

If not for the ending, it would have been a 3 stars read.

Conceptually, this is a unique premise. The lore and nods to paganism throughout the book were well done and, despite, the creative (and at times confusing) structure of the timelines, the mystery was compelling enough to propel me onwards when reading.

I was disappointed that I didn’t get an autumnal or spooky vibe when I was reading. When Sophie is abducted and magically confined to a community, I was expecting the creepiness to ramp up, but she was remarkably blasé about it and instead of atmosphere, we got heavy emphasis on sex and humanizing the creepy community… which sucked any spookiness out. It was disappointing because it could’ve been oozing with atmosphere and tension… but just wasn’t. Sophie wasn’t an interesting character to me: an alcoholic that’s largely a passenger for everything that happens to her, her character felt disempowered. She doesn’t show any fight, spunk, or curiosity even amid some pretty bonkers scenarios. Because she was so boring, her backstory wasn’t compelling to me and I felt the pacing of the story was adversely impacted since equal weight was given to Sophie’s current existence, backstory, and time in Withered Hill. While some of it was important for narrative purposes, much of it wasn’t and made the flow feel disjointed.

While the story is certainly a unique take on the genre, I’m not sure the structure doesn’t get in the way a bit. The ending was unique but because it was telegraphed repeatedly throughout the story, it didn’t blow my mind but kinda just confirmed what I suspected and that was that.

There’s a strange r/menwritingwomen undercurrent where the women are sexualized and/or male-gaze stereotypical with an uncomfortable misogynistic vibe that’s story-spanning. There’s also a distracting overuse of the word “lovely” that was so non-descriptive, it started to drive me nuts!

Ultimately, I’m glad I gave this a go. It’s probably one that hits differently on a re-read!

I was privileged to have my request to read this book accepted through NetGalley. Thank you, Canelo!

It was an okay book but felt a little underdeveloped for me. I loved the premise but couldn't really attach myself to the story and characters. The prose was well written. 3 stars.