BITTERSWEET IN THE HOLLOW

Mystery and magic unfold in a West Virginian town surrounded by Appalachian forest.

The James women are insular not by choice but because they are feared as well as loved by the small-town denizens who patronize their restaurant by day and purchase their magic by night. Narrator Linden, one of “four sisters born in as many years,” can taste other people’s emotions; the women in her family each have their own small but potent powers. But no magic can repair the fallout from Linden’s disappearance last summer solstice. She went into the woods and tried to summon the local bogeyman called the Moth-Winged Man, only to vanish for a day and be found injured and with no memory of what had occurred. Her father has moved out, her nightmares won’t stop, and suspicion trails her, especially when another girl disappears a year later. This multifaceted book successfully manages to be many things: a satisfying paranormal mystery, a family narrative examining the damage of secrets kept and the ways in which silence allows violence to grow, and a paean to the immense Appalachian forest and the small communities nestled between the trees. Luscious prose and a compelling setting make the book hard to put down as the mystery slowly and steadily unfolds over the course of just a few days. Main characters read white.

Complex, well-realized, and engrossing.