A good read for a muggy summer weekend. Sue Rainsford's writing is eerie, lyrical, and unlike anything else I have read in recent memory. She occassionally bends language in ways that I had not expected and more than once took a completely different turn (with both sentences and plotpoints), than I expected.

The characters are intriguing and the interplay of body and nature and the health and illness of both were absolutely wonderful. In that regard, I felt reminded of the game series "Pathologic", which I have not played myself, but went down a rabbit hole of video essays about more than once. Sickness, progress, spirituality, nature, conflict... Many themes carry over, and I felt like this book accompanied and fleshed these out a fair bit.

I wouldn't have minded more unsettling scenes (though for the sake of honoring the book's pacing, I might rephrase this as "I would have loved this book to be longer"), and a better description of the climate itself. While I imagine this to be set in the southern U.S. (Ireland was mentioned as well in some geographical ponderings), I couldn't really feel the dense humidity or whirring of insects. That's part of the reason for the four star rating. Despite this and some other facets I felt were missing, I truly enjoyed this interplay of flora, fauna, humanity and the grey hues inbetween. I'm excited to see what else the author has in store for us in her coming work(s)!