Astraios

ARC graciously provided by Quill&Crow Publishing House through NetGalley

The Bone Drenched Woods is what I refer to as “atmospheric dread” rather than horror. You come out of it feeling like slimy hands and sticky fingers tried to grab you.
The Teeth have victimised Hyacinth's village for generations, lurking in the woods in a reign of terror.

The setting reminded me a lot of Extasia by Claire Legrand : girls in a small village have to bear the punishing religious belief of elder men.

Hyacinth is a “wild thing” in comparison to the very tame, submissive behaviour expected by her community, dreaming of freedom and woods. Cruelty is her only reward. Cruelty and the grief that follows.

However, the metaphors for women's rights, religion and sapphic feelings ended up giving a very fuzzy feeling of cautionary tale.
I wanted more reflection on the Teeth, the patriarchal system and the women upholding it, but The Bone Drenched Woods undeniably made me feel cold dread and feminine rage.

The old European myth crawling over the gritty new America's lifestyle will always be something that draws me in.
The interlacing of cultures, the weight of centuries and legends on a modern world.

And there's something soft, heavy and slow in the pages of When Among Crows.
Wether it's the normalcy hidden in a monsters story. Maybe it's the hints, here and there, of History and it's stain.
But for such a short story, it moves me beyond what I expect every time.
There's sorrow and poetry and kindness intertwined and somehow it makes a fable in contemporary America, shadowed by Polish embrace.