Title: Errant Roots

Author: Sonora Taylor

Release date: October 15th, 2024

*Huge thanks to RDSP for sending me a digital ARC of this one!*

If you’ve not seen, I’m a huge fan of Sonora’s work and I’m always excited to see her continued ascension within the writing world. I was first introduced to her work with her excellent ‘Without Condition,’ and from there, she’s continued to decimate her readers with a unique blend of emotions and chills.

When this novella was announced, I was over the moon, and given that we’ve already been blessed with a collection from Sonora earlier this year, I was filled to the brim with excitement over what she’d conjured with this one!

What I liked: The story follows Deirdre, a young woman who has just discovered she’s pregnant. She’s got a tentative relationship with her mom, she isn’t sure if Tom, the father of the child is husband material, and she has next to no relationship with her extended family. The pregnancy wasn’t planned, but when she reveals the news to her mom, she’s not only surprised her mom is excited, but also that her mom insists her and Tom take a trip out to Deirdre’s grandmother’s home and meet her extended family.

Taylor plays it relatively safe to this point, and you can see where this is going from a mile away, but it’s that anticipation that Sonora uses perfectly to absolutely coat this story with dread and tension. This is the long trip down a driveway where the crazy folks live in every movie. We know the family has something going on, we know something horrible is about to happen, and even when it does happen, you shake your head in disbelief that it’s ACTUALLY happening.

Sonora does a spot on job of laying out the why, the lore, the history and the reactions of those who know and who don’t are great, giving it an authentic feeling.

The ending is a satisfying fade-to-black moment.

What I didn’t like: Well, obviously, some folks are going to be annoyed that the story is, at least on the surface, a fairly straight-forward story. But if they can look past the ‘I know what’s going to happen,’ and let the atmosphere Sonora’s created take over, they’ll fall head over heels over the depravity that arrives.

As well, I wasn’t really on board with the format of the afterword. I assume it has to do with the series aspect of the RDSP release of these novella’s, but I’m not positive about that.

Why you should buy this: Sonora has carved out a fantastic style all of her own, where the characters feel real, the dirt gets between your toes and the emotions drive deep into the readers soul. Sonora’s delivered a fantastic novella here, one that long-time fans of hers will be giddy about and new readers will snap up her bibliography upon conclusion. A really great read from one of my fav authors.

5/5

Grab the book direct from RDSP here;

Errant Roots

Amazon link here;