Blurb:
The year is 1899 and Sonia Wilson is a scientific illustrator without work, prospects or hope. When the reclusive Dr. Halder offers her a position illustrating his vast collection of insects, Sonia jumps at the chance to move to his North Carolina manor house and put her talents to use.
But soon enough she finds that there are darker things at work in the Carolina woods.
What happened to her predecessor, Halder’s wife?
Why are animals acting so strangely?
And what is behind the peculiar local whispers about ‘blood thieves’?
With the aid of the housekeeper and a local healer, Sonia discovers that Halder’s entomological studies have taken him down a dark road full of parasitic maggots that burrow into human flesh – and that his monstrous experiments may grow to encompass his newest illustrator . . .
I will try to keep this story as spoiler free as possible whilst still giving an overview of why I thoroughly enjoyed this book. To begin with, I would say that the above blurb is only part of the story: It is a gothic, spooky story with a lot of mystery for about two thirds of the book and then it takes a huge twist and becomes somewhat of a monster story. I thought I had worked out the story until this twist came along and I still feel like I have whiplash from how good of a twist it really is.
This is a great gothic story, and the sense of dread and unease is in the story from the very first page, but I did very much appreciate that the whole story wasn’t completely depressing or dripping with foreboding. There are some very strong moments of community, where as a reader you can tell that this place has something very odd about it, but the people who live there are for the most part very caring and likeable people. Things are spooky, but it is still their home and there is an odd sense of comfort in that. I really enjoyed how the story is (in hindsight) actually very clearly made out to you from the beginning, and the folklore stories that are told to the main character by the other people in the local area feels very natural and very real. If I was to try and explain the actual concept of this story to you, it would sound insane, but the story is told in such a genuine manner by the various characters that it never feels outlandish. It feels scandalous and hard-to-believe, but never other worldly. Which is what I think makes this book so scary.
This book is quite gruesome but in a natural way: The story is focused very heavily on research into parasitic insects, and the book doesn’t shy away from explaining these parasitic cycles in the level of detail you would expect from a scientist and a scientific illustrator. Just a heads up that if you are not someone who enjoys descriptions of larvae or insect behaviours, because they happen a lot, especially as the story really starts to get more mysterious and begins to ramp up the stakes. That being said, the actual insects are not the focus of the story but they are the main motivator for why the scientist, Dr Halder, does what he does throughout the story.
The main character, Sonia, is very well written and I found her to be very relatable. She is a scientific illustrator who has up until this point mostly painted plants, and I really liked that she describes situations and people in colours. There are many times throughout the book where she will mentally ‘paint’ a person in her mind and how the different colours she uses tells us as a reader a lot about who the person is. I appreciated that when it comes to the insects throughout the story, she can both appreciate them for the beauty that they each hold, from the different colours of their wings and the different textures of their limbs, whilst also admitting that they can be creepy and unsettling. She was also a nice middle ground between the obsessive nature of Dr Halder, and the largely dismissive attitudes of the other staff under Dr Halder’s roof, who just view Dr Halder as a mean and crazy scientist. I felt all of the characters felt very real and well-rounded, and the story was very good as showing that almost every single one of them was a morally grey character – even Sonia is not a faultless individual, which is a welcome change to most main characters being completely perfect individuals who never have a bad thought. Sonia does her best with the situation she finds herself in, and her reaction to said situation is very much how I think most people would react. it is up to you at the end of the book to determine whether or not any of the choices made by any of the characters were really the ‘right’ ones.
As mentioned before, this book makes a twist from a gothic murder mystery style story, into what I can only really describe as a monster story, but even that doesn’t really explain what this story becomes and how it ends. Without giving any spoilers, I do think that the ‘monster’ in this story is up for debate, as whilst it is clear there is a literal monster (i.e. a non-human being), the humans are not necessarily any better in their behaviours and the motivations of both the monsters and the humans are very morally questionable. The most I would say is that the monster is somewhat close to a vampire, but is not a vampire in the traditional sense. I do think the monster design (which the story does tell you about in great detail) is a very cool addition to the monster genre, and is something I have not seen in media before, which felt very refreshing and also made me feel very curious about the monster. if anything, I would say that the real ‘monster’ of the story is nature itself, and that is a really interesting concept that I haven’t really experienced much.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book and I was actually quite surprised at how much I enjoyed this. I am not normally a fan of gruesome books (I am very squeamish and just the thought of blood makes me feel a bit faint) but I could not stop reading this book. The book feels like a slow burn but you turn a page and all of a sudden the stakes have risen and yet another unnerving situation has taken place that just adds to the overall confusion and curiosity that Sonia is experiencing along with us as the reader.
Taylor Talks Vegan 