Title:- Black Sheep
Author:- Rachel Harrison
Date published:- September 19th 2023
No. of pages:- 289 pages
Genre:- Horror
Setting:- New Jersey
Rating:-
Plot:- 4/5
Writing:- 4/5
Overall rating:- 4/5
A cynical twentysomething must confront her unconventional family’s dark secrets in this fiery, irreverent horror novel from the author of Such Sharp Teeth and Cackle.
Nobody has a “normal” family, but Vesper Wright’s is truly…something else. Vesper left home at eighteen and never looked back—mostly because she was told that leaving the staunchly religious community she grew up in meant she couldn’t return. But then an envelope arrives on her doorstep.
Inside is an invitation to the wedding of Vesper’s beloved cousin Rosie. It’s to be hosted at the family farm. Have they made an exception to the rule? It wouldn’t be the first time Vesper’s been given special treatment. Is the invite a sweet gesture? An olive branch? A trap? Doesn’t matter. Something inside her insists she go to the wedding. Even if it means returning to the toxic environment she escaped. Even if it means reuniting with her mother, Constance, a former horror film star and forever ice queen.
When Vesper’s homecoming exhumes a terrifying secret, she’s forced to reckon with her family’s beliefs and her own crisis of faith in this deliciously sinister novel that explores the way family ties can bind us as we struggle to find our place in the world.
This book was nominated for Goodreads’ one of the best horror genre novels and so I was curious to read the book.
While the book was interesting, I feel this book does not deserve to be in horror genre. However, it is one of the creepiest and weirdest books that I have ever read.
Twenty something year old Vesper Wright never looked back home when she left her home town when she eighteen years old. Vesper gets fired from her job as a waitress at a restaurant and when she returns back to her apartment, she finds a wedding invitation–between her cousin Rosemary and her ex-boyfriend Brody. Vesper decided to return back to the town she vowed to never return back to but soon the secrets about her family starts to unfold.
If I tell you the reason why this book is creepiest books I have read, then I might have to give you spoilers. Let’s just say, the book touches about satanic cult and people involved in the satanic cult. The writing was great in my opinion and the descriptions of farmlands, houses and creepy items found in Vesper’s childhood home is imaginative and I can actually vividly picture them in my head. Vesper is a likable character even though she came from a dysfunctional family. She is also cynical which actually makes the readers fall in love with Vesper. The strained relationship between Vesper and her mother is described well, the reader wondering why the mother-daughter having a strained relationship.
The book briefly mentions the horror movie The Omen (1976) and all I could tell you is this book is slightly similar to the movie The Omen if you have watched the movie.
Overall, I actually enjoyed this book. This book is best read during the spooky Halloween season and overall, I would give this book four star rating!
Rachel Harrison is the author of The Return, nominated for a Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a First Novel. Her short fiction has appeared in Guernica and Electric Lit. She lives in New York with her husband and their cat/overlord.
Librarian note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
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