Hearts Strange and Dreadful

Thank you to NetGalley and Raw Dog Screaming Press for this advance copy of the re-release of Tim McGregor's Hearts Strange and Dreadful.

Tim McGregor wastes no time introducing us to the realities of daily life in and around the 1821 Rhode Island village of Wickstead where Hearts Strange and Dreadful is set, and in the same strokes that prepare the lamb for the Stokely family meals, we know what's what in the Stokely household, especially when it comes to the 17-year-old narrator Hester Stokely, cousin and adopted sister to the children of the family since her parents died in the same housefire which scarred her face when she was 12.

I've seen Hearts Strange and Dreadful referred to as historical horror and as a coming of age novel - and it is both of those, but y'all know I'm a fan of folk horror, and the folk horror elements were what really drew me.

Though Hester has lived with her relatives for five years, she is still an outsider. Hester disdains (most of) the superstitions that the village and even her uncle's family hold to, and it's this as much as her disfiguring scar that make their trust easily turn to suspicion. It's through her eyes we see how the village treats her and how quickly they turn against her when strangers arrive in town, bringing sickness with them.

Even as we begin to understand what is happening, watching events unfold through Hester's eyes is tense, horrifying, and sad - and I don't even want to talk about the final two sentences - the ones that confirm it's not always easy to tell who the monsters are. Heartbreaking.