A slippery, fever-dream of a novel. Unsettling, puckish, and brilliantly written, it's an absolute one-off. I loved it.
Written mostly in the first person plural, a group of young cousins gather with their parents for a birthday party at Aunt Frankie's house in upstate New York. They see something from a bathroom window moving from the treeline to a shed: '...we just knew it was the same thing over and over, which was worse, somehow, even though it should have been better that there was only just one.' Abi, only three goes charging outside, and the others go in search of her. It gets darker and weirder as the children encounter many unexplainable things in the woods. These sections are interspersed with 'Intermezzos' giving some of the history of the family and Beezy the matriarch and how she died. There is creepiness, and surprise, and craziness, all of it brilliantly written. At the end there is some kind of resolution but just enough to leave me thoroughly unsettled. Highly recommended. It will be published in the UK in April 2025. Pre-order it and thank me later. (Thanks to Hutchinson Heinemann for the proof.)