Black Sheep

Starred review from July 1, 2023

Harrison (Such Sharp Teeth) returns with a novel about families and belonging--and those who don't. Vesper left the home of her deeply religious family six years ago and is doing fine, thank you very much. After a disastrous evening shift at work, she returns home to find at her front door an invitation to the wedding of her cousin and her ex-boyfriend. Torn between not wanting to return and wanting to show that she won't take this lying down, Vesper decides to go home. A fantastic twist starts off this novel and turns a typical trope on its head. Going back to the family she ran from, Vesper is forced to confront a mother who never showed affection, a father who abandoned her, and a disbelief in the religion that was forced on her. Vesper remembers her life growing up and contemplates how it affects her today and how she may not have seen things for what they truly were. She also faces the horrific reality that most of us, without even noticing, turn into our parents. VERDICT A razor-sharp voice full of wit and humor, along with some edge-of-your-seat moments, will have readers clamoring for more.--Tegan Beese

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Starred review from July 17, 2023
Harrison (Such Sharp Teeth) has earned a reputation for writing stories about complicated women spiked with a hefty dose of the supernatural, and this deliciously spooky outing is no exception. Heroine Vesper is a waitress with a bad job and a worse attitude who lost all her friends and family when she left her insular religious community six years ago, looking for freedom and her absent father, who mysteriously disappeared from her life. She’s sure she’ll never be allowed to return—until she receives an unexpected wedding invitation: her close friend and cousin Rosie is marrying the boyfriend Vesper left behind. Half heartbroken and half desperate to see who bent the rules to invite her, Vesper goes home to a rapturous welcome from everyone except for her cold and distant mother. In fact, they’re all almost too glad to see her, their smiles too wide, their conviction too firm: Vesper is home, they say, because the Lord wills it—and there is no escape from the will of their Dark Lord, Satan. Harrison finds new ways to press on the bruise of growing up as an outsider, delivering small-town religious horror with wit as sharp as a ritual dagger piercing through a bleeding core of familial trauma. This deserves to be front and center in any bookstore Halloween display. Agent: Lucy Carson, Friedrich Agency.

July 1, 2023
Vesper Wright does not want to go home. She left the church and her whole family behind at a young age. But when she gets an invitation to the wedding of her cousin (and former best friend) to her ex-boyfriend, she has to go. She wants to be there to see if her ex still cares for her, to make her cousin feel bad about her decision, and to wear the sexiest dress she can find. Once home, though, she is pulled back into the world of her childhood and the all-consuming church. The complicated relationship with her movie-star mother, Constance Wright, is also at play here. Constance is not the typical loving mother but a cold, removed figure that never loved Vesper and kept her father from her. The pieces of this horror plot start to fall into place when the reader learns the true nature of the church. Harrison (Such Sharp Teeth, 2022) is a horror author readers should pay attention to for her original story lines, feminist plots, and fascinating characters.

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