THE RIVER HAS TEETH

When girls start disappearing in a Tennessee nature park, a family of local witches worries they’ll be blamed.

The Lloyds have lived on the Bend—an area bordering a river and the nature park—for generations, and the land is imbued with their Scottish forebears’ magic. The Bend, not their bloodline, is the source of the Lloyds’ power, but lately it’s felt corrupted, making their spells go awry and frightening off all but the most desperate customers. So when Natasha Greymont asks for help finding her missing sister, Rochelle, Della Lloyd is reluctant. The Greymonts’ wealth and status should grant them access to resources Della can’t even imagine, and solving the mystery may in turn destroy Della’s own family. But Natasha isn’t what she seems, and the two girls, both White, are irresistibly drawn together. Alternating chronological perspectives map their shift from antagonism to trust. There is a familiar, genuine rapport that grounds the recurring theme of chosen family between Natasha, who’s bi, and her pansexual best friend, Georgia Greer, who is cued as Black, as well as with Rochelle’s best friend, Margo Yoon, who is Korean and pansexual. This genre-blending contemporary thriller offers a searing indictment of men who prey on women while the book’s fantasy elements offer a form of revenge and resolution. The broad narrative strokes that address the book’s intersections of race, class, sexuality, and gender will prompt important conversations by readers.

Potent, atmospheric, and wholly satisfying.