Translator – Nancy Forest-Flier
“Nothing’s normal here.”
Katherine van Wyler was sentenced to death for witchcraft in 1664 but that’s not where her story ends. Hundreds of years later, the Black Rock Witch remains, her eyes and mouth sewn shut.
Once you move to Black Spring, you will never live anywhere else. The residents of this insular community are used to living alongside this emaciated, chained woman but they’ve been lulled into a false sense of security. If Katherine’s eyes ever open, her power will be unleashed.
This book has been on my radar for years and waited patiently on my Kindle for two. The upcoming release of the sequel gave me the perfect excuse to dive in and then I almost didn’t finish it. To be honest, if I hadn’t already committed to reviewing the sequel, I probably wouldn’t have.
“She’s not going to let you go. You live in Black Spring now. That means the curse is on you as well.”
It’s rare for a book to have a negative impact on me. Reading is my joy. Even when I read memoirs of people who have experienced the horrific, I find hope in their resilience.
This book, though, had a significant impact on my mental health. You could say it did its job, with the witch reaching out from the pages to infect me with her curse. It got to the point where, each time I started reading, I’d think ‘Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.’
But nothing was all right, nothing could ever be all right
I don’t think of myself as a reader with many rules. I’m happy to wander between genres and dip my toe into unfamiliar territory. Do what you want to the humans, especially if we’re in a slasher, and I’ll likely forgive you. I may even cheer you on. If you harm my fictional animals, though, we’re going to have a problem. I had a big problem with what the animals, one in particular, experienced in this book.
I don’t want you to think this wasn’t a good book. It was. It was well written. I got attached to a couple of the characters. I needed to know what hell was going to be unleashed once Katherine’s eyes opened. But wow, it really did a number on me.
“Peacocks. You know what that means, right?”
Content warnings include alcoholism, attempted suicide, death by suicide, death of a pet, lynching, mention of domestic violence and sexual assault, and suicidal ideation.
Once Upon a Blurb
Whoever is born here, is doomed to stay until death. Whoever comes to stay, never leaves.
Welcome to Black Spring, the seemingly picturesque Hudson Valley town haunted by the Black Rock Witch, a seventeenth-century woman whose eyes and mouth are sewn shut. Blind and silenced, she walks the streets and enters homes at will. She stands next to children’s beds for nights on end. So accustomed to her have the townsfolk become that they often forget she’s there. Or what a threat she poses. Because if the stitches are ever cut open, the story goes, the whole town will die.
The curse must not be allowed to spread. The elders of Black Spring have used high-tech surveillance to quarantine the town. Frustrated with being kept in lockdown, the town’s teenagers decide to break the strict regulations and go viral with the haunting. But, in so doing, they send the town spiralling into a dark nightmare.
Schizanthus Nerd 