Chris Haigh takes a look at the latest fantasy and horror offering from Titan Books.
With the scope of horror ever evolving, the trend of natural horror continues (see Ryan La Sala’s apiary horror The Honeys from 2022) with Noah Medlock’s A Botanical Daughter, a Victorian-era horror in which a pair of queer gentleman scientists discover intelligent life hiding within a strange new fungus, leaving much room (pun so very much intended) for a creeping tale of terror.
As a horror story, A Botanical Daughter succeeds best; the aptly-named Chloe at the heart of the novel is an insidious, charming presence (to quote Bjork, a fountain of blood (and moss) in the shape of a girl), slowly taking over her tiny corner of the world. The imagery is striking – chests full of earthworms, brains full of cold, creeping fungi, slain bodies being reduced to mulch to fuel Chloe’s dark engine – and the execution is solid.
Though it treads overly-familiar plot points, A Botanical Daughter is an enjoyable blend of mycelial horror, queer obsession, and the dark inverse to the found family trope, proving an auspicious debut for Medlock, a book as soft as spring moss and as dark as blood-soaked soil.
A Botanical Daughter is out now from Titan Books.
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The Butcher of the Forest is a mere 140ish pages long, telling what is ostensibly a grown up take on a fairy tale trope. In this dark reimagining, two children, the heirs of the Tyrant who dominates the land, have gone missing in the woods. A lone woman, Veris – the only one who has ever been able to re-emerge from the pines and rescue someone else to boot – is conscripted by the Tyrant to reclaim his children.
What emerges from the mind of Premee Mohamed is a tonally perfect tale about families, the kind one is born into and the kind one constructs for oneself. Amidst the strange creatures and uncanny carnage that Veris finds in the woods, she finds kinship – however fleeting – and finds the opportunity to feel from a history of deep-rooted trauma.
Mohamed’s slim offering is little more than a novella, but with some impressive use of gore, an unsettling atmosphere, and a thinly-drawn yet likeable protagonist, The Butcher of the Forest is an enjoyable turn in the dark, dark woods of Mohamed’s imagination and a svelte paean to the power of family ties.
The Butcher of the Forest is out now from Titan Books.