Can’t even lie, they really had me in the first half of this book. There’s some really good horror imagery in this, I really loved the marine life aspects. I totally get why it’d be classified as a southern gothic folk horror and it does work for a while but it gets overshadowed (for me at least) by alternating unreliable prospectives, the weird focus on motherhood instead of parenthood when there are multiple parents in the story, and then that anticlimactic ending.

Your next weird gothic folk horror read!

SYNOPSIS:

"After striking out on her own as a teen mom, Madi Price is forced to return to her hometown of Brandywine, Virginia, with her seventeen-year-old daughter. With nothing to her name, she scrapes together a living as a palm reader at the local farmers market.

It’s there that she connects with old high school flame Henry McCabe, now a reclusive local fisherman whose infant son, Skyler, went missing five years ago. Everyone in town is sure Skyler is dead, but when Madi reads Henry’s palm, she’s haunted by strange and disturbing visions that suggest otherwise. As she follows the thread of these visions, Madi discovers a terrifying nightmare waiting at the center of the labyrinth—and it’s coming for everyone she holds dear."

MY THOUGHTS:

- My mind was ALL OVER the place when I finished this book 🤯 I was in awe and also like thinking WTF!

- Beautifully written and captivating story about the physical and metaphorical loss of a child (so BIG content warning)

- Talking content warnings, there's also some body gore stuff, which ads to the plot, but is not for everyone

- Simultaneously unsettling and gripping! It starts out with a slow burn, then a third in you are like WHAAAAAATTT!

- Inspired by old fairytales/folklore gives this books very gothic horror vibes

- This is my first book by this author and definitely not my last. And in the meantime this book will sit with me for a long while.

Got stranger and stranger, in a good way.