“The girl’s eyes brighten, and she smiles like a cat—she has a crooked canine. Ro wants to lick it. And she doesn’t know what to do with that information”

A book I bought on a whim, a book that just seemed to speak to horror-loving me. Even more so this year in which I am reading more and more horror. I loved the cover.

In this one we meet a girl named Rosemary, teacher, scholar. New in the area. And during a visit the a farmer’s market she meets Ash. She has never fallen for a woman but she is now. And for most of the book you could just see it as a love story. Our MC is blossoming, she is discovering a new sort of love, becoming happier and happier. And Ash? Ash seems like the perfect little girl, she has some quirks, but she makes some damn good cupcakes. Some delicious smelling soaps. She is sweet and attentive, to those that deserve it though. I really liked finding out more about these two characters and what makes them tick. We see the two grow closer, fall more and more in love, the chemistry palpable. Of course, there are some bumps in the road as many relationships have in the beginning.

But what if those bumps are more like red flags, what if those boundaries feel off, and what if there are more red flags peppered throughout the tale that makes you wonder. Ash has no technology (or so she says) in her home, yet she knows how a phone works (according to her part of a rebellion in her teens, which is still odd), there is more food than one person can possibly have (those chicken livers), that poor raccoon, there is a room that Rosemary cannot enter, the barn is locked with a shiny new lock, strange smells, do you want me to go on? I loved the dustings of red flags as the story continued, they are so nicely placed, at times I just had to re-read like did I see that right? Gasping when things connected and things I was wondering about were confirmed or at least put down more obviously. At points I was just like, RUN Rosemary. RUN. But of course I couldn’t do that, so I just watched Rosemary get increasingly obsessed/infatuated with Ash. See how Ash masterfully pulled the strings just the right way. It was perfect. It was glorious. It was painful. It was disgusting. It made me cry. I was 100% invested.

Oh, just one little thing, while I did like that Rosemary used some fancier words at times, as someone who is not a native English speaker I had to search words and checked what the heck they meant which dragged me out of the story.

So if you want an amazing story that seems like a love story but with underlying scary stuff and dread? Check this out. Highly recommended.