3.5/5 stars
Recommended if you like: thriller, fungal horror, eco horror, body horror, crime reads

This review has been posted to Goodreads as of 4/23 and will be posted to my review blog 5/15 and to Instagram 5/28.

I was drawn in by the cover and the comps to T. Kingfisher and Jeff Vandermeer, both of whom I love. Assuming that this would be cli-fi/eco-horror similar to Kingfisher and Vandermeer, however, was a mistake. Other than the mushrooms, this book relies far more on slasher and thriller tropes and setups than either of those authors (and frankly than the eco-horror genre as a whole).

Horror is one of those genres that I've tentatively dipped into the past couple of years but where I wouldn't classify myself as a horror 'fan.' I'm very particular about my horror and prefer more 'fantasy horror' à la T. Kingfisher or Erin A. Craig than typical horror. Alas, this falls more into the traditional horror realm than the fantasy horror or eco-horror that I tend to enjoy.

This is a very contemporary feeling novel, complete with modern slang and instagram. I'm not a fan of contemporary fiction, and when my genre fiction is set in our world in modern times, I like there to be as few anachronisms as possible. It dates the piece and usually just feels like the author is trying too hard. Slight and casual references to social media or a specific site can work sometimes, but generally when an author tries to include something like IG, it just feels off. Considering the slang and mention of modern websites drops off considerably in the second half of the novel, I wish it was just left out completely.

Frankly, the second half of the book feels like a completely different novel than the first half. The first half is all about crime and setting the stage and the characters hanging out (and hiking in the woods in the dark while high...seriously? You're here investigating a string of disappearances and you're hiking a strange area in the dark while intoxicated in some way? How dumb do you have to be? I almost wish someone had gotten murdered here just to show them a lesson). The second half of the novel focuses almost entirely on the eco-horror and murder aspect, and a lot of the fluff from the first half disappears in this part. While this had potential to align more with the kinds of books I like, it ended up turning into a 'final girl slasher' type of story.

In terms of the overall plot...there was a lot going on. You have some weird mushroom thing, then you have random dudes shooting at people in the woods, then a potential serial killer, and then oh wait there's a second mushroom thing. It was just all over the place. Was anyone in that town normal?

In terms of characters, there were only two narrators: the Strange and Erin. It was kind of interesting getting to see the POV of the Strange and some of the things it had inhabited. I didn't really love those chapters, but it was still interesting.

I'm going to be honest, but I think Wagner probably picked her most boring character to be the narrator. Erin has potential. Her brother went missing and was presumed dead, she and a friend are now investigating a series of similar disappearances. It's a good setup, unfortunately Erin lacked much beyond that. She doesn't have the fire of Dahlia or Kayla, the two other main women in the book, nor the societal injustice angle like Hari, nor the townie knowledge of Jordan. She's just kind of there, and a lot of stuff happens around her and to her, but she herself doesn't really push the story forward until closer to the end.

*I'll also note that a character's name changed (Mitch to Mike, I think) for around a chapter or two. I'm aware this is an ARC and so there will be some mistakes, but just wanted to briefly call that out.

I found the characters too hard to follow and the pacing of the story was awkward. Ended up DNFing. I feel there was a lot of promise with this story but it fell short. If the whole story had been the perspective of the forest's energy, I would have devoured it. Unfortunately, it wasn't.

Under the guise of writing a travel article, a young woman travels to a small Oregon town to find answers to her brother’s disappearance 5 years ago. As she explores the wilderness surrounding the town, it becomes clear that there are numerous ways someone can go missing in these woods.

The small mountain town setting was depicted perfectly… the dense forest, the hidden trails, the sense of isolation, the rot. The town is just as much a character as any person on the page. Its history and its sins play such an important role as the story unfolds.

The spore horror was nauseatingly well done. Every time I thought it couldn’t get more brutal, I was proven wrong. Readers who enjoy thrillers, small town horror, missing persons mysteries, and all things fungal will love this book!

Wendy N. Wagner's "Girl in the Creek" was an immediately immersive and deeply atmospheric read for me. I was captivated right away by the premise – Erin returning to the unsettling Oregon foothills near Mt. Hood, seeking answers about her brother's long-unsolved disappearance, only to find herself pulled into a much deeper and darker local mystery involving vanishing bodies, strange fungal growth, and tightly-kept community secrets.

Wagner masterfully evokes the Pacific Northwest setting; reading it, I could almost feel the damp air and the looming, ancient presence of the forest. I found the way she blends elements of eco-horror, local folklore, and perhaps even hints of cosmic dread truly effective and genuinely chilling. It creates a unique and pervasive sense of unease.

The story felt like it was doing more than just providing scares; it seemed to be thoughtfully exploring poignant themes of unresolved grief, the secrets buried just beneath the surface of seemingly quiet communities, and humanity's often destructive impact on the natural world. Erin's determination to uncover the truth, even as the situation becomes increasingly strange and personally dangerous, made her a compelling character to root for.

Overall, "Girl in the Creek" struck me as a standout piece of contemporary horror – intensely atmospheric, intelligent, and genuinely unsettling. It weaves together different horror threads seamlessly with strong character work and resonant thematic depth. It’s a haunting, beautifully written, and compulsively readable novel that definitely lingers long after the last page.

A quick, fast-paced and bracing read! I learned a new horror subgenre while reading this - the so-called sporror - reminiscent of The Last of Us and a bit of Wilder Girls. Botanical horror wasn't something I've delved much into previously, but this is a compelling entry.

Wagner's writing is atmospheric and creeping, and she's quite capable of creating a strong sense of place. I live in Oregon, and I was excited to read a horror novel taking place in my backyard. The setting really did read like the Pacific Northwest, the dark towering woods, the small towns hiding secrets, I could almost smell the rain and loam (and later, other things). With one minor nitpick (Wagner described an April night on Mt. Hood as "summery and hot" which is extremely unlikely (unless she's doing it to drive home a point about climate chaos?)) it did read as though written by a local or at least someone very familiar with the region.

I loved that the book was fast-paced and the plot didn't lag at any point. However, I do think some of the sub-themes could have been expanded upon - the climate aspect of the book, the troubling trend of BIPOC women going missing - without losing pace and, in fact, would have enriched the story. As is, the wider cast of characters is paper-thin and even the MC, Erin herself, doesn't have much of a personality. She has a history and a job (and I like the casual bi rep!) but we don't spend enough time getting to know the characters before the events begin eventing, and even then it's difficult to feel much for them (except Elena) once shit hits the fan.

<spoiler>I did have some questions/mild issues with some of the plot points that felt to me like they were written to drive the plot forward rather than with much intention or reason. For example, why did the Steadman brothers kidnap Erin and her friends? It was to get them up the mountain and have the sinkhole collapse (the plot) but their motivations as characters are unclear and never explained. I also wanted to better understand the difference between how the two disparate Strangenesses worked, the original and Elena's offshoot, because once Elena came into full focus, her fungus was full-blown The Thing/Blob/what have you, consuming people and objects and houses indiscriminately, while the original Strangeness just colonized beings and used them to observe and spread. Why the vast difference in function, other than to ratchet up the body/biological horror aspect? At times it felt like Wagner was galloping forward so enthusiastically that she left some details behind.</spoiler>

The body horror is really front and center here, and it's not for the squeamish. There are also mentions of harm to animals, so if you're sensitive to that you may want to avoid this one. I breezed through it and enjoyed it, despite definitely cringing in parts. Wagner is a writer I'll keep an eye on.

Erin Harper is a free lance journalist tracking down her missing brother Bryan who was last seen in Faraday, Oregon. When she arrived there, she realizes that Faraday is a hot spot for missing persons and links up with another group of people looking into why so many people disappear from this small town. Only a few days into their investigation they discover the body of a young girl who recently went missing, floating in a creek and covered in strange mycelium and fungal growth. The story will take a sharp turn into the supernatural (and cosmic horror) when her body goes missing from the morgue and her fingerprints show up at a new crime scene. Erin and her group will realize only too late that something sinister and dark is happening behind the scenes...
The Girl in the Creek is an amazing eco/botanical horror, comparable to Jeff VanderMeer's Annihilation or
T. Kingfisher's What Moves the Dead. The baseline story is gripping, the characters easily relatable with great character development, and overall is paced well.
Plus it has a nice little splash of cosmic horror thrown in there. Overall a solid read!

I'll be honest, the cover of this book is what instantly drew me in. The title and blurb ended up being an extra treat.

There have been people going missing in The Clackamas National Forest and no one is really sure what's happening to them. A serial killer? Bears? Lost while hiking? When Erin's brother goes missing, she decides to go looking for him years later. While on her search, she stumbles upon another missing person and she's covered in a mysterious fungus in a creek. Soon, the creek girl goes missing from the morgue and there's something very strange going on with her.

I have to say, I loved this book and I'll be purchasing it once it's published! This story was exciting and well-paced. There wasn't ever a time where I felt bored or as though nothing was happening in the story. The concept was incredibly intriguing to me and I loved how everything was interconnected. The second half was increasingly bizarre and grotesque. The descriptions were so vivid. It reminded me a bit of Annihilation and The Fungus. But just vaguely.

The twist at the end was exciting and I thought it added a nice ominous conclusion to this story.

My only complaints were that this book got a bit confusing at times. I didn't always understand the "science," I guess, behind the explanations of the fungus and I couldn't always keep the characters straight in my head. This is a book that I wish I had the physical copy so I could've annotated and bookmarked along the way.

Thank you to NetGalley and Tor Publishing for the ARC. All opinions are my own.

TW: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Death, Gore, Physical abuse, Torture, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence

Girl in the Creek was a fun mycelium-filled trip that filled the hole in my heart as I awaited the new season of Last of Us to air. The setting of a little town in the Pacific Northwest mixed with fungi antics made it a fun read!

While the synopsis caught my attention upon first read, the actually book didn’t work for me.

From the first chapter I felt lost and then things went down hill from there.

This was packed with a full cast of characters (which I constantly mixed up) and cringey dialogue. It got to the point where I didn’t even care about the mystery anymore.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley
for the eARC.

Quite a lot of characters to keep track of for me but overall enjoyed the concept and the execution. As a hiker myself I love a good eco-horror and this had some fun twists and turns. Will certainly be picking up a copy to have on my shelves. Thanks to Netgalley & Nightfire for the ARC!

Freelance travel writer Erin Harper is still grieving for the brother who disappeared in the Clackamas National Forest years ago. In a bout of nostalgia she and her team travel to Faraday, Oregon to do a podcast relating to his and other mysterious disappearances in the area. Long abandoned mines and a once posh hotel add to the eerie atmosphere of the old growth forest. When Erin finds the body of a young girl in the creek which later disappears from the morgue she is determined to find answers. Is a serial killer lurking in the forest or is it something supernatural or alien? This unsettling mash up of a traditional missing persons mystery with a horror and alien menace plot thread was original and at times off putting to this reader. Told from Erin's point of view her emotions and changing perspectives as the narrative progressed was well expressed although creepy. Erin herself was the only character that was well developed as I felt the others were very thinly drawn with the exception of the town's matriarch The forest itself is very much a character in this unusual novel with its strange unnatural fungi and botanical horrors. I will henceforth look at mushrooms I encounter on hikes with a wary eye. An unusual read. This is my first read from this author but I understand she is a Hugo winner for other works.

Girl in the Creek is a slow-creeping, pulse-pounding dive into eco-horror that's a thrill ride. Erin is still haunted by her brother's mysterious disappearance five years ago. Her return to the Pacific Northwest to uncover the truth brings with it more than just grief; it unleashes something ancient and something hungry. The character development is solid throughout, especially Erin's unraveling mix of grief, obsession, and resolve. The side characters in the novel bring out the camaraderie, highlight Erin's emotional depth, and even a little humor.

Where this book shines is with its botanical horror. The budging eyes, impossibly invasive growing spindles, grotesque transformations, and nature reclaiming bodies in ways that make your skin crawl. The body horror is visceral, just the way I like it. The tension builds like it's growing around you, and suddenly, you're trapped. There is an undeniable sense of doom threaded into the story. You feel the weight of societal collapse as an active, corrupting force pushes the story forward. It's the story where nature becomes the villain, or maybe it's a reckoning. Nature doesn't forgive and is always on the quest for new growth.

Thank you, NetGalley and Tor Publish Group / Tor Nightfire, for the opportunity to review the ebook.

Girl in the Creek was fun enough to read! It was quick and offered a little bit of everything. A perfect story to sit down and read in one sitting.

The body horror was interesting and creative. The characters are awful and immature. This is more a political complaint, not enough safe spaces I guess, than the mystery horror it’s advertised as. So disappointed in this, it was a priority read for me this year. Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC

Dangers lurk around every turn in the rugged Pacific Northwest forests

In Wendy N Wagner’s Girl in the Creek we head to Mt. Hood National Forest and the small town of Faraday, located in the wilds of Oregon, for an eco-horror centred around the suspicious disappearances of hitchhikers in the wild Pacific Northwest. This is a solid thriller, with some terrific sequences, particularly reminiscent of Nick Cutter’s The Troop, which is held back by a group of vaguely drawn characters who are so similar I repeatedly mixed them up.

Even if Girl in the Creek is populated by bland samey characters, ironically this is certainly not the case with the setting, which is expertly and atmospherically well drawn. The natural threat of the rugged and forest terrain oozes from the page, the abandoned buildings were equally startlingly described, as a group of twenty-somethings explore the area, whilst potentially researching an article for a travel magazine and other more secretive motives. The nature scenes are so vividly described the reader can almost feel the moister from the rain seeping from the pages and I loved hanging out in this wild location.

However, a great setting does not guarantee a terrific novel and Girl in the Creek is arguably held back by the fact it drops its biggest ‘reveal’ lies in the prologue. Even if the scene with the diseased coyote is skilfully and vividly written, revealing the ‘Strangeness’ at such an early stage removes the element of any future surprises. In reality, by giving the Strangeness a POV, I found this entity to be dull, uninvolving and did little in adding to suspense. If you want another book in the same ballpark, check out Mira Grant’s Overgrowth (2025) where a similar type of creation is given a much more powerful and gripping voice. Apart from main character Erin Harper, the Strangeness is the only other POV in the novel, which does partially give a voice to one of the missing women which the story revolves around.

Erin arrives at Faraday with a dual purpose, write an article for a travel magazine and secretly search into the disappearance of her elder brother Bryan from five years earlier. Connected to this is a fascinating thread, which the author abandons, of the fact that many of those who vanish are predominately women of colour. Floating in the background is the idea that the police do not do enough to find them. A podcast connected to one of the other women is discussed but never explored fully and instead once the story begins to motor it focuses entirely on the Strangeness. These disappearances hold little in the way of suspense as the prologue has already given away too much, even after Erin finds one of the young women dead in a stream whilst out hiking in the early part of the novel.

If you enjoy books with an X-Files vibe then there is still plenty of fun to be had journeying with Erin and her new friends, there are also plenty of human threats to contend with along with the Strangeness. The manner in which the entity is described, a contagious fungi described in this book seems to ooze secretly through the terrain and is at its best when reanimating the animals and whoever it controls. In the background is the idea that climate change plays its part in the expansion of the Strangeness across Mt. Hood National Forest.

Once Erin and friends leave the relative safety of Faraday the pace picks up and I particularly enjoyed the scenes in the abandoned town, which nature has all but reclaimed, with the group akin to urban explorers. My biggest struggle with the book comes from the amount of characters and the unclear relationships they shared with each other and the local bad guys who lurked in the background but contributed little to the overall story. After a brief time in begins clear the fate which befell Bryan (and the other women) and this was creatively injected into this botanically themed horror novel.

If you enjoy eco-horror or the appropriately named ‘Sporror’ (think mushrooms) then Girl in the Creek has much to offer. If you get past the interchangeable characters and let the beautiful grandeur of the Pacific Northwest take hold there are elements of both body horror and techno-thrillers lurking within the buried secrets that will not stay buried forever.

3.5/5

I thought the mushroom horror was really well written it was my favorite part but i struggled with character who were too similar to each other and I kept confusing them and I'm disappointed by the ending to be honest the forest horror was great and aliens made it very generic with how it was handled after and about the very end, same thing, I did not like it it felt out of nowhere and that there was nothing leading to it but overall it was easy to read and enjoyable!

this was enjoyable, i really got into it in the second half of the book. the mushroom body horror was horrifyingly well done, and honestly some of my favourite parts. and that ending also got me pretty good!! i didn’t expect that sort of conclusion lol. my only complaints would be sometimes the main character felt a bit flat and some stuff just didn’t make sense to me, but still entertaining. thank you to the publishers and net galley for the advanced digital copy!

Buckle up, Readers, and prepare yourselves for Sporror galore!

Erin is ostensibly writing a piece for a travel a magazine when she visits a town in the foothills of Mt. Hood with a group of friends and acquaintances for a rafting trip. But she and her bestie Hari have an ulterior motive - they are investigating as part of their research for a podcast episode addressing the numerous mysterious disappearances in the area over the past several years. Erin's own brother is one of those missing people. At the same time, readers are treated to occasional chapters from the POV of various lifeforms that have been infected by something called the Strangeness, all becoming various extensions of some central creeptastic intelligence.

There were a lot of characters introduced all in a short span of time, but Erin is the only one we learn about beyond surface level, and she is our only POV character beyond the chapters of the Strange. The other characters probably could have used a little more delving into; some side characters such as the police deputy and the Steadman brothers felt especially thin. On the other hand, the idea of the Strangeness was a super compelling one, and I thought its origins and history were really neat.

The pacing in this book is not quite perfect. It doesn't lag at all, but rather somewhere around 66% or so things ratchet up from 0 to 60 all at once, and then readers are just hit over and over again with some truly wild and grisly things happening with little lulls in between each crazy encounter.

Some of my all time favorite books are parasitic fungal horror, and while I enjoyed this story, it wasn't quite to the same degree as those others. Perhaps because the tension and dread were a little less insidious and more in your face? I'm not sure I can explain the exact reason, but overall I still found this to be a 4 star read and think it's a decent addition to the subgenre. A creepy as heck tale that keeps the reader engaged from start to finish.

Much thanks to Tor Nightfire and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for my unbiased review.

Weaving together science fiction, mystery, body horror, and climate fiction, the concept of this book was so cool and it has such a gorgeous cover. I had no idea that mushrooms could be so unsettling! With rich descriptions of nature, particularly fungi, strange and supernatural elements, and a puzzling mysterious entity, there were so many aspects of this book that I really enjoyed!

While I appreciated Erin’s perspective, there were just so many characters to keep straight and I didn’t feel a connection with any of the side characters. They all seemed similar and it would have been helpful if they had been more fully developed to make it easier to connect with them.

If you’re looking for a fungal horror story set in a creepy little town, a mysterious forest, and a sinister presence lurking in the woods, you may enjoy this more than me.

Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for an electronic ARC of this book!

I've been excited about this book for over a year, when it was initially announced. I sadly didn't love it like I'd hoped I would: I felt like there were tonal shifts that didn't fully work for me and threw me off from chapter to chapter (sometimes things felt almost Scooby-Doo-ish, but then they'd veer splatterpunk/super gorey or meditative and quiet).