8/26/26
Well, it’s been a full week since the last HWA controversy, which happened a full week after the previous, which happened a full week after the one before that, and so on and so on and scooby-dooby-dooby.
If a new one kicks off today, I’ll miss it, as I’ll be leaving in an hour for the Mountain. I’ll be there for the rest of the week, on hand while they run fiber optic lines from the main road up to the top, and unloading a truckload of me and Mary’s stuff, and getting quotes from contractors, and also painting both an outhouse and a barn. I’ll be without internet for a few days, save for cellphone hotspot (which doesn’t work very well up there). They should finish with the fiber optic cables by Friday evening, so hopefully I’ll be back online then. In the meantime, Patreon has been preloaded with a bunch of content to get you through the rest of the week.
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Women In Horror Year: Day 111
Her Wicked Roots by Tanya Pell
Hardcover - Paperback - eBook - Audiobook
Bram Stoker Award Nominee for Superior Achievement in a First Novel
In this queer retelling of Nathaniel Hawthorne classic gothic story, Rappaccini’s Daughter, a young woman is lured to a lush estate owned by a botanist who might be hiding dark secrets.
Cordelia Beecher is on the run. In search of her missing brother Edward, she has fled the oppressive charity school she was raised in, desperate to find the only family she knows. Using clues from his past letters, she sets off for the sleepy town of Farrow but everyone there claims to have never heard of Edward—not even the man he was supposedly working for as an apprentice.
With nowhere to go, Cordi turns to Lady Evangeline, a local botanist who owns the magnificent Edenfield estate. The benevolent lady of the manor has made it her mission to take young, often traumatized, women into her employ and protect them from man’s world of wicked desires and deceits. Hired as a maid and companion to her enigmatic daughters, Prim and Briar, Cordi quickly settles into Edenfield. Even as her relationship with Briar blossoms, Cordi can’t help but suspect that there are secrets in the estate…and when she stumbles across evidence that Edward was once there, she’s determined to find answers.
With this, her second novel, Tanya Pell establishes her mainstream horror bonafides, doing a complete turn from the pulpy fun of her previous book, Cicada, and delivering nothing short of a true modern gothic with lush descriptions, seething atmosphere, brooding settings, remarkable characterizations, and the love and romance that so many modern attempts at recapturing the spirit of true gothic horror forget about or fail to do well. It’s also an unapologetically political novel — something Horror as a genre has always been, but something that is becoming more difficult to do outside of indie publishing. Kudos to the publisher for not making her water it down.
It has been so long since I read Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Rappaccini’s Daughter that I don’t remember anything about it. (In truth, I’ve never been a huge fan of Hawthorne’s work), so this “modern retelling” worked well for me in terms of an original story. And again, it’s so night and day different in style and setting from her previous novel, that I can’t wait to see what she does next. That’s the mark of an author with staying power — one that doesn’t limit herself to one thing (cosmic horror, extreme horror, quiet horror. etc). Tanya is setting down roots, and she is here to stay.
Her Wicked Roots is available in hardcover, paperback, eBook, and audiobook with an utterly gorgeous cover from Gallery.
