LoveReading Says
This book is an exquisite rarity: a faerie book that is at the same time marvellously visual and imaginative, but works equally well as a study of human trauma; a love story (of sorts); a family drama; a wholly engaging mystery. I found it in my to-read pile (which this year has been sadly neglected) and started it with no great expectation, although by the end of the third page I was not only hooked, but beginning to think that this might be the best book I'd read all year. Anyone who knows me knows how often I find myself disappointed by the payoff of a novel. This one maintained the tension right till the end - another rarity -never veering into over-exposition or self-indulgence. And the faeries are both nicely original and authentically folkloric: creepy, pagan, detailed, entrancing. I loved it, and I sense that I'll be following this author's future work with excitement and admiration. She's been places. She knows things. Follow her; you'll know them, too.
Selected by our December Guest Editor, Joanne Harris
LoveReading
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Camilla Bruce Press Reviews
A disturbing but brilliant narrative . . . a rare treat. - WOMAN'S WEEKLY
Creepy and disturbing right from the start. - Spooky Mrs Green
Beautiful, strange . . . hideously dark, delights in unsettling. - The Bookbag
A brilliant and sinister debut. - Ginger Nuts of Horror
A fairytale, a psychological portrait and a bleak drama. - New Books Magazine
Dark and magical, one of the best books I've read this year. - Books, Bones & Buffy
Odd and unsettling, this might not be for everyone, but we thought it was magic. - HEAT magazine
A glorious, pitch-black fairytale of a book. Lush, strange and defiant. As soon as I finished it, I went straight back to the start and read it again. -- KIRSTY LOGAN, author of Things We Say in the Dark In this storytelling masterclass, everything is inverted. - DAILY MAIL
A bewitching, beguiling, and deeply unsettling tale of one woman's strange life. It will ensnare you from page one and keep you riveted until the end. -- CAITLIN STARLING, author of The Luminous Dead This beguiling and unsettling debut had me hooked from the first page . . . a unique, strange and defiant folk horror story which lingers long in the memory. - DAILY EXPRESS
Dark and immersive; a feast of storytelling that lingers long after the last morsel's been consumed. -- SAM LLOYD, author of The Memory Wood Bruce's spooky novel is lascivious and bloody, a tale of sexual awakening and dark desires that wreathes its leafy tendrils seductively around you, then tightens them until they start to strangle. -- James Lovegrove - FINANCIAL TIMES
Exploring the darker side of fairytales, it inhabits that liminal space where folklore and horror collide. A worrying tale where reality is filtered through the unreal, and the rational rubs shoulders with the supernatural, this is a beguiling story of love and revenge. -- LUCIE McKNIGHT HARDY, author of Water Shall Refuse Them Smart, creepy . . . glittering and menacing . . . deliciously terrifying. -- Laird Hunt - GUARDIAN
This might be the best book I've read all year . . . creepy, pagan, detailed, entrancing. I loved it. -- JOANNE HARRIS, author of Chocolat and The Strawberry Thief -
