Synopsis:
A dark, intoxicating and deeply unsettling queer YA horror about a lonely boy and a sinister sea god risen from the deep, from the New York Times bestselling author of Don’t Let the Forest In and Hazelthorn. Perfect for fans of Frances Hardinge.
The only thing Jonathan wants from the mouldering isle of Kelcarrow is to escape. Summer is ending, and when his friends leave for college on the mainland, Jonathan will be alone with nothing but the ocean’s haunts.
In an act of wild desperation, Jonathan pays a tithe to Scorpion Deep – an eldritch sea god – and, to his horror, awakens him from the murky depths. As scales grow down his spine and Scorpion Deep’s obsession darkens, Jonathan realises the only way to end the nightmare is to destroy the monster.
But the price must be paid in blood.
Review:
Maybe the most bloody and uncomfortable by CG Drews yet.
A lonely teenage boy, the extra in a friendship threesome, awakens an obsessive eldritch sea god in a childhood game for a wish gone wrong.
He has no idea if he is being eaten, or if he is being loved.
Drews nails that gloomy, isolated feeling with a small Maine island where all the men are fishermen and look away from anything that might make ripples, such as child abuse and neglect.
I was not expecting this to have more than one mythic creature. However, whilst there is a greedy and possessive, murderous god; it is the human wilful ignorance, internal shame and guilt, and human horridness and misery that will raise your hackles.
Well, he wanted a break from himself, too. It was exhausting, actually, being constantly packed down into the claustrophobic box of his skull where there were no windows, no doors, no escape.
Drews’ prose is gritty, gruesome, and leaves you scraped raw and aching. This is her most hopeless and bloody novel yet. The end was bittersweet, bizarre, and led to an ending I still don’t quite know how to feel about.
I wish the novel was longer to flesh out the eldritch horror. To develop the secondary characters. To see more growth from our tragic protagonist.
He’d licked love from the knuckles that had bruised him for so long that he thought the blood in his mouth was normal.
Per usual, I appreciate the asexual representation, but wish there was more validation for our poor, lonely, traumatised teenager.
A novel you will want to devour in one sitting, lest it devour you.
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