I started reading and loved the tone but then realized this is the prequel to another book.

I'm excited to read this, but I'm a completionist and need to read the 1st book that was published and come back to leave a full review.

Update coming!

There's something terrible going on in the town of Ascension, and actually, everywhere. The dead aren't dying. Or more, they're dying but remaining trapped, up and moving and falling apart. But they aren't zombies. Death has been killed, setting off a cross country journey to try and bring him back, while Sadie Grace and her daughter try to keep their aunt out of this, and keep the town from falling apart completely. It's a very messy, complicated story, in the best way possible.
What a wild ride. There were an absolute ton of moving parts, but somehow Grecian made them all fit together and move in a way to create a good story, both suspenseful and entertaining. I will say, there were a few loose ends that seem like they should have been tied up, but I also gather that this is kind of part of a series, so there will probably be another.

I was hooked from the beginning!!
I devoured Rose of Jericho by Alex Grecian.
It was amazing, addictive, and engaging.
I was instantly sucked in by the atmosphere and writing style.
The characters were all very well developed .
The writing is exceptional and I was hooked after the first sentence.

I didn’t know that this book took place in an already created universe, but by the end I already wanted to go back and read the first book. This first introduction into Rabbit’s universe was one of the best introductions I have ever read. In general, this was a very weird book. I also didn’t keep reading it because of how choppy it felt. But fear not, the more you read the more it makes sense and the more engrossed you become with the story.

The dual POV was a little weird as I touched on before. It’s a lot of moving parts and it can get muddled pretty fast. I think eventually it does help the story become more complete than with just one single POV. I found all the characters to be unique in their own right even without much development. This is where reading the first book would come in handy, especially for the main characters. Readers can tell they’re missing something but it’s not super detrimental to the story.

The plot takes some time to come to fruition and for readers to understand what is going on. I think it clicked for me about 60% of the way through, and then I was fully hooked until the end. Some might guess it sooner than others but I fully appreciated the journey it took readers on!

Important note: Be aware that ROSE OF JERICHO is a sequel to RED RABBIT. This information isn’t (at the time I’m writing this) anywhere on the cover or in the description, but it absolutely should be.

This story picks up ten years after the first book. We don’t get anything in the way of introduction to help with remembering past details, so it took me a bit to settle in.

I really liked what the author was going for with this story, regarding the persecution of witches, and the issues around death as an entity and a necessity. But I felt it was all spread a little thin. I loved the first book, and while I enjoyed this one, I just didn’t feel that same magic.

The audiobook is narrated by John Pirhalla, who also narrated RED RABBIT. I loved the way he embodied the mood and tone of the story and characters.

*Thanks to Macmillan Audio for the free audiobook download.*

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Alex Grecian for providing me with a complimentary digital ARC for Rose of Jericho coming out March 11, 2025. The honest opinions expressed in this review are my own.

I received the audiobook of Red Rabbit and enjoyed it. So I was excited to receive this book to read. The beginning was really shocking and dark. I really enjoyed the set up. I think the story was even better than the first book. I really loved the setting and time period! I love a good supernatural story. The first half of the book was definitely my favorite. I would definitely check out more books by this author!

I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys historical supernatural books!

4.5 Stars – A Hauntingly Haunting Sequel

I enjoyed this more than the first book. It has a less adventure, more haunted feel to it, which perfectly suits the eerie setting of Ascension, Massachusetts. The atmosphere is rich with unease—ghosts in Bethany Hall, a village where the dead don’t stay dead, and something lurking in the attic.

Rabbit, Sadie Grace, and Rose are compelling, but I do think you’ll want to read the first book to fully appreciate them. If you love horror with creeping tension and witchcraft, this is a must-read. Haunting, unsettling, and highly recommended!

Thank you, NetGalley, Macmillan Audio, and TOR Publishing, for the advanced copies in exchange for my honest review.

Something strange is happening in Ascension. The dead aren’t staying dead. A mother on her deathbed suddenly recovers, a boy crushed under a milk cart walks away, and a hanged man can still talk. When Rabbit and Sadie Grace travel with their friend Rose to care for her cousin, they realize their new home, Bethany Hall, is packed with ghosts—and something worse is lurking in the attic. The villagers are hostile, the town is hiding something, and a much bigger threat is coming for them all.

This had some great grotesque imagery—I just wanted more! The opening was strong and heartbreaking, setting up a dark and eerie tone. Some surprise characters popped in (which I wasn’t expecting), adding an extra layer to the story. The main characters were compelling, and I was always excited to switch between their POVs.

That said, I wanted more from the storylines—some loose ends could’ve been fleshed out, and the ending felt a little abrupt compared to the buildup.

I found out after reading that this is set in the same world as Red Rabbit and has some of the same characters, but it didn’t really rely on the first book. Nor did I see anywhere that it’s a sequel. It gave me serial thriller vibes—where the same characters appear, but you can read them in any order. (It makes sense now why there were cover redesigns of the first book.)

If you’ve read Red Rabbit, definitely pick this up. If not, you might finish it wanting just a little more.

I enjoyed the first installment of this story, but I do think that this "sequel" wasn't super necessary. Or, I should say that it didn't convince me that it needed to exist. I don't think this was a bad book, but I feel that the characters suffered a bit and the story took a little too long to get going for a sequel. The witchiness and the vibes were still there, and I do enjoy Grecian's writing style, so I was still interested in the story. But, overall, I just didn't *love* this.

Also, I don't think that you'd..necessarily have to have read Red Rabbit to understand this, but the way it is marketed on Goodreads and some other outlets doesn't quite indicate that this is like a loose sequel to a first book. "From the New York Times bestselling author of Red Rabbit comes a supernatural horror where ghosts and ghouls are the least of a witch’s problems in historical New England."--Like this just needed to be phrased much, much differently. Even I didn't catch it at first, but luckily I had already read the first one.

I have to say, though, that either way I am really, really digging the historical western fantasy vibes and would absolutely devour more things like this.

Rose of Jericho by Alex Grecian
I want to start this review by saying I was not aware that this book is a sequel. This book features characters from the authors book “Red Rabbit.” While I didn’t find anything necessarily confusing, which leads me to believe it CAN be read as a stand alone, one of my biggest complaints is not getting to know the characters better. That complaint might have been resolved if I had read the first book.
This was probably one of the more unique books I’ve read in recent memory. The dead stop dying and no one is sure why…but I just didn’t *love* the book. Honestly the biggest thing for me is there was just too much going on. There were so many different story elements happening at once that you weren’t able to really dive into any particular aspect of the story and really explore that plot point. There was the undead, witches, witch hunters, ghosts, a haunted house…..I think if the author had just shaved down some of these elements and really honed in on some of the plot points, this unique story would have had a harder punch.
I also wish I hadn’t gone into this story thinking it was horror. There was nothing particularly scary about it. It was closer to a historical fiction with supernatural elements.
All that being said, it’s a very unique story and I think if I had read the first book where some of these characters and elements were explored more, I would have had a much greater appreciation for it.
Thank you to the publisher for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

“It might have happened, but this is the story of how Death returned to the world, not the story of a happy little girl.”

Rose Nettles arrives in Ascension, Massachusetts to visit her dying cousin. Rose, along with Sadie Grace and her daughter Rabbit, are shocked to discover that Clarissa Sinclair is far from knocking on death’s door. There is something strange about Ascension and it’s not just that the dead don’t seem to die. Their new home, Bethany House, seems to have an unusual number of ghosts and people tend to vanish and never return.

I didn’t realize this was a sequel to Red Rabbit when I requested - honestly, I loved Red Rabbit and just wanted another book by this author. I do think it can be read as a standalone. It’s been a few years since I read RR so I’ve definitely forgotten some of the lead up, but I think you will enjoy Rose of Jericho even more if you read both. I loved seeing these characters again and loved how the author focused on Rose, Sadie Grace, and Rabbit to continue the story. I loved how cut off from the world the characters seemed and how we did get a look into parts of Ascension’s history. This was a creepy good time full of grotesque imagery, ghosts, and Death himself.

Thank you to Tor Nightfire for an early copy.

This was a really interesting concept and story style. It felt a bit like the first season of American Horror Story with all of the characters and ghosts. I did think there might have been a few too many characters, that did not really contribute much to the story. But overall this is a good haunted house style story with more depth to the story. 3.5 stars.

I LOVED Red Rabbit so I really REALLY wanted to love Rose of Jericho. But I just didn't. I hate to compare the two, but when you have a sequel, that's just inevitable. I don't think a sequel was necessary and because of that, RoJ felt aimless and frankly a little boring. I was 25% in and still didn't know what the point of the book was and where it was going. Well written of course and I still love the characters Grecian creates, but the story overall was a let down.

This is the sequel to Red Rabbit and it's every bit as fun and fantastic.

In Rose of Jericho, we are reunited with a few of our favorite characters: Rose, Sadie, and Rabbit, who take up residence in a haunted mansion when they travel to the town of Ascension to visit Rose's ill cousin; and Moses, who is a man on a mission after his wife is taken from him. In a moment of anger and grief, Moses does something he cannot undo and suddenly, the dead won't stay dead.

And no, not in a zombie sort of way. Just in a 'you get your brains bashed in and you lie there a minute and then you stand up and go about living your life as if it was just a little owie' sort of way.

But now Moses is dead set on righting his wrong and he knows he's going to need Sadie's help to do it. So he heads out to find his friends, and they are going to soon discover the roles they will need to play in order to restore order to the world.

The Red Rabbit witchiness we've grown to love is still in full effect, with some cool cosmic intervention stuff thrown into the mix, and even more gore and violence!

Can we make historical cosmic fantasy a thing now?!?

“You can’t kill me because I’m already dead. If you’re planning to drag me down to Hell, then get it over with; just stop scaring my dog.” -Moses Burke

This is the story of how Death returns to the world. Yes, that is Death with a capital D. When there is no Death, whatever is killed will remain sentient like nothing ever happened to them, even if they were run down by a milk cart, broke several ribs, and witnesses were able to peer inside them and watch their heart stop.
Much like Red Rabbit, the sequel Rose of Jericho is all about the characters. Alex Grecian is a master at creating distinctive people that you care about and then placing them in quirky situations.
While I did not find this to be scary, it was filled with ghosts, witches, the living dead, angels/demons, murder and gore. There were a few tense scenes along with many humorous ones that kept me turning the pages to discover the next strange and unexpected plot point.

“I suppose you want me to ask what this woman cursed you with, but if I were to guess I’d say it was ignorance.” -another good line from Moses

Rose of Jericho by Alex Grecian.

Fantastic! This is the sequel to Red Rabbit, which I absolutely loved. In 'Rose of Jericho,' we follow Rabbit and Sadie Grace as they move with Rose Nettles to the village of Ascension to visit with Rose's sick and dying cousin. However, when they arrive, her cousin is no longer sick or dying...and neither is anyone else.

I had an awesome time reading this. I love this type of western horror. I don't know how Alex Grecian comes up with his ideas, but he has a great writing style. Everything from the atmosphere to the dialogue keeps me sucked into the story the whole time. And I loved the ending.

I definitely have to grab a physical copy when this releases on the 11th of this month.

Thank you to netgalley, tor nightfire, and the author for the e-arc to review!
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Set in nineteenth-century New England, Rose of Jericho combines gothic horror with historical fantasy in this follow-up to Grecian’s Red Rabbit. Multiple supernatural plot strands join into a compelling, thought-provoking tale. The novel opens with a quickly-told tragic love story that wins us over to the side of one of the main characters, Moses Burke. When he loses his beloved Katie, it seems logical within the construct of the novel that he’d go after and kill Death. But what happens to humankind without death? The layers of Grecian’s exploration of that question are masterful. On the one hand, the novel digs into its horror roots with vivid descriptions of those who cannot die, but really ought to. Moses talks with a man hanging by a noose “buried deep in the bloated purple flesh of his throat.” The man says, “I can’t see too good on account of a blackbird ate up both my eyes.” The novel also portrays the emotional strains arising from being dead among the living. Against that thematic arc, Grecian places two other significant sets of characters with their own goals. We meet the good Graces, a mother-daughter duo of powerful witches and their much loved “ordinary” Rose, a smart, goodhearted woman with whom the reader becomes emotionally invested. These three women move into a haunted mansion in the village of Ascension, where much of the novel’s action takes place. In addition, narrating from the attic is a supernatural being with a vested interest in the bizarre events playing out in the village and across the world. This being has a brother and a foe, whose identities and purposes gradually unfold. All these mysterious elements add up to an intelligent, worthwhile novel.

I will admit that when I initially requested this ARC it was because I had enjoyed Red Rabbit and wanted to try more from Alex Grecian. I didn’t actually clue in that this was connected to Red Rabbit in any way. Personally, while I wish that had been more obvious, I did really enjoy it none-the-less.
I think Rose of Jericho definitely builds and expands on all the things I loved about Grecian’s western-horror genre blend from before. Even though this was the second book I have read from them with this sort of world, it still felt unique. Rose of Jericho definitely feels more geared towards a magical realism, paranormal sort of horror. Finding its footing in an eerie ambiance as opposed to visceral descriptions of gore like Red Rabbit did. While those descriptions are there, they did seem less pronounced, and instead the narrative felt more emotionally taut—with a tension built on disconcert and disquiet as opposed to any sort of foreboding physical presence.
I did like the fact that the book still held onto that sense of ready paralysis. I described Red Rabbit as… “one of those books that keeps you in a constant state of ready: You can’t read on because something bad will happen, but you can’t stop because you need to make sure everything will be okay.” Rose of Jericho is no different. You’re paralyzed by what is occurring, but also have this intense need to see what happens.
As someone who has read both Red Rabbit and this novel, I do think you get a little more by reading them as a duo, but it isn’t required. In terms of whether I’d recommend Rose of Jericho or not, I absolutely would. This is a fantastic book to keep in mind if you’re in the mood for very fast paced horror, but also are craving something a little outside the box.

Historical fiction horror set in the town of Acension Massachusetts in the early 1880s. The perfect mix of horror, thriller and comedy. What happens when the dead dont die? The ladies move into town, events get stranger and harder to explain. What is haunting thir home? A very enjoyable Book.

Thank you to Tor Nightfire for the ARC.

Thanks to Tor Nightfire for the copy of this book for review

This dad read Rose of Jericho by Alex Grecian, a historical fiction/horror/fantasy novel from Tor Nightfire. It’s the 1880’s and in the town of Acension, Massachusetts, the dead aren’t dying. A mother who had been ailing with a life-threatening disease is suddenly up and about, a boy gets run over by a horse-drawn carriage and walks away, gunshots fail to take lives. New to town are three mysterious females with otherworldly abilities, and the house they descend on is filled with spirits from time gone by. With events getting stranger and more nightmarish, it’s up to one person to take on the mantle that will right the world, but are they up to the task?

Rose of Jericho starts off strong, Grecian wastes no time jumping right into the odd and gruesome setup for the book. What followers after the first few chapters, however, is a head-scratchingly large cast of characters that only continues to grow, a meandering plot, and a fairly anticlimactic finale. What should have tipped me off is the fact that Rose of Jericho starts off with a cast of characters section, a hint that there’s really no true protagonist. This made Rose of Jericho feel disjointed; as a reader I never quite found the narrative anchor that kept me engaged with the story. At about the halfway point I felt that Grecian was marking time to get to the finale. Interstitial characters and plot points felt like distractions versus key elements to the overall plot.

This isn’t to say that there aren’t compelling characters present. There is a trio of witches whose connection to magic is the highlight of the book. However, these magical elements would come and go without much exploration (this book is a sequel to Grecian’s Red Rabbit, which I have not read) and I found myself more puzzled than intrigued. Also, for being touted as a horror novel, I found Rose of Jericho could have ratcheted up the frights. There is no shortage of violence and scenes that will make your stomach turn, but “horror” might be a bit of a stretch. To me, Rose of Jericho is more of a historic dark fantasy than anything else.

Rose of Jericho is quite a journey, and one that I’m still not sure was worth the effort. I give it 🧢/5 – maybe give it a shot if you like historical fiction with a dash of horror and a touch of supernatural.