The Curse of Hester Gardens

by Tamika Thompson

We Need to Talk about Kevin as if written by Jason Reynolds and Tananarive Due meets Model Home by Rivers Solomon in an innovative twist on the haunted house about a mother desperate to protect her sons from the twin specters of gun violence and otherworldly menace in their public housing project.

Nona McKinley raised three boys in the Hester Gardens section of Medford, Michigan, an impoverished community divided by those who follow their faith in God and those who turn to crime to survive. With her drug dealer husband behind bars and her eldest son shot to death at eighteen, Nona has devoted herself to ensuring her other children escape their brother’s fate.

Her second son Marcus is on the right path. He's a valedictorian heading to an Ivy League school. He can get out.

But then, strange things start happening to Nona and other mysterious footsteps are heard when she’s alone, people have phantom encounters in the streets, unattended appliances go off at all hours. Even more concerning is the state of Nona’s living sons. Her youngest, Lance, is hanging around with a bad crowd, and Marcus becomes moody and secretive. Sometimes he even seems to act like a different person entirely.

Nona has her secrets too. Her affair with the married church pastor has been weighing on her conscience, but that’s not the only guilt haunting her. She fears that someone—or something— is seeking revenge for an act she made in a moment of weakness to protect her family. And now everyone in Hester Gardens must pay the price...

Genres: Horror, Fiction, Thriller, Paranormal, Audiobook, Adult, Fantasy

448 pages, Hardcover

First published March 31, 2026

About the author

Tamika is author of The Curse of Hester Gardens (Erewhon/Kensington), Unshod, Cackling, and Naked (Unnerving Books), which is the 2024 Next Generation Indie Book Awards WINNER for Horror, and which Publishers Weekly calls “powerful,” “unsettling,” and “terrifying,” as well as author of Salamander Justice (Madness Heart Press). She served as fiction editor for Foreword INDIES Award-winning anthology, Graffiti. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in several speculative fiction anthologies as well as in Andromeda Spaceways Magazine, Interzone, Prairie Schooner, and The New York Times, among others.

An active/pro member of the Horror Writers Association (HWA), Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA), as well as International Thriller Writers (ITW), she has attended the VONA/Voices Writing Workshop and the Community of Writers. A former journalist and producer, she has producing credits at Clear Channel Media and Entertainment, as well as at NBC and ABC News. She received a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Columbia University and a Master of Arts in Journalism from the University of Southern California. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Reviews

[Jamie]

DNF'ing @ 35%. It's not you, book, it's me. This is a well-written novel but it's depressing … so, so depressing. There's certainly some supernatural horror to be found within these pages, but so far most of the narrative has been focused on the horrors of life in the projects — poverty and gun violence are constant themes. And, while this is a thought-provoking story, it's just too much for me at present moment. With everything that's currently going on in the United States, I kind of need to leave the social horror in real life for a bit. I'd like to come back to this one at some point, but for now I'm going to go read a light, fluffy novel about four women who find friendship and romance in a medieval Italian castle. Thompson is an extremely talented writer, however, so if you're less emotionally exhausted than I am, definitely consider giving The Curse of Hester Gardens a read.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Erewhon Books for providing me with an advance copy of this book to review. Its expected publication date is March 31, 2026.

[Alisha 🦋💗 · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's difficult for me to articulate just how much I enjoyed this book. I went to an event where Tananarive Due spoke and correlated black trauma to the genre of horror itself and I think this book is the epitome of that statement. Black trauma .. is horror. Tamika does such a beautiful job in intertwining the two together and truly showing how we go through it physically, mentally, and spiritually. Reading this book, I was heartbroken, hopeful, anxious, and other feelings I can't even explain, but I did not want it to end. I wanted to hug Nona the entire book and tell her it will be okay and let her know she is SO strong. The lengths she will go to protect her sons is commendable and I hope to be half the mother she is.

This will be a book that I will never forget, and I am so grateful to have gotten an early copy. Certainly, would recommend this book to almost anyone.

[Adam Allen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an incredible book. It’s brilliant, it’s horrifying, it’s devastating, this should be a literary event. Finding a book like this is why I read in the first place. The story of a mother trying to navigate raising three sons in a housing project haunted both figuratively and literally by the violence and history there. This book packs such an emotional punch while being extremely readable and entertaining at the same time. By the final act, I spent the entire time reading in tears from the emotional truths it contains, and how infuriating it is that these things are in fact true.

[Zana · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75 stars.

This was a really heavy and depressing read, so I'd caution readers to be in the right headspace.

This was such a well-written contemporary Gothic novel. I couldn't put it down because the writing grabbed me by the shoulders and wouldn't let me go. I came in thinking that this would be a typical horror novel, but this turned out to be a lot more lit fic than genre fiction. And surprisingly, I didn't even mind it at all.

The real horror here is systemic. Systemic poverty, systemic racism, generational trauma, living while Black in America. Nona wants to do better for her sons, Marcus and Lance, and leave the projects. Marcus is on his way to Brown so he can break his family's cycle of poverty. But past crimes and present tragedies turn into a curse and an albatross that claw the entire family back from their dreams again and again.

There are the usual horror elements: Little Lonnie, a kid killed by a stray bullet from turf wars, haunts Hester Gardens as if he still lives there, or the pilot light in Nona's stove randomly clicking and turning on at odd times. At first, I thought these were just red herrings, but boy, was I ever wrong.

I wish I could rate this higher, but the sex scenes felt so unnecessary and really detracted from my reading experience. (Especially since the dude was a total slimeball.) Fade to black would've been a lot better imo.

Besides that, this was a dark and heavy read that I enjoyed and would recommend for readers looking for a blend of literary fiction and horror that explores structural issues in the US.

Thank you to Erewhon Books and NetGalley for this arc.

[Haley Newlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favorite read of 2026 so far

The Curse of Hester Gardens is one of those books that makes it feel impossible to pick up your next read. At least not until you’ve let this story of poverty, gun violence, a mother’s ferocity and love, curses and ghosts really sink in.

The Curse of Hester Gardens is for readers who enjoyed The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones, The Between or The Reformatory by Tananarive Due, and The Spite House by Johnny Compton, and other stories that pair supernatural horror with social realism. It’s part haunted house, part possession, and a whole lot of thoughtful commentary on social and economic hierarchies and the epidemic of gun violence in the United States.

I hope to see this book on every ballot come awards season. It is so important and intelligent. And I’m already looking forward to Tamika Thompson’s next release. Horror fans, this is a must-read.

Setting: Project/Community Housing in Michigan, Hester Gardens

Themes: the terror of real-world violence (not certain of a future, constantly afraid of losing loved ones), generational trauma, poverty and systemic oppression, the ferocity of a mother’s loved/protecting family

Sub genre: Supernatural horror

Details I appreciated:

- the stove light constantly igniting and ticking, a continuous and unnerving dread came with this

- Hester Gardens as a symbolic prison & shows what happens when pain affecting communities goes unaddressed

- gun violence and hidden, violent truths as a thing that sort of takes over or possesses a person

- Nona’s dream house she sees on the bus. Hopeful and shows desperation for safety and normalcy for her and her sons, the desperation to escape the oppressive situation everyone in Hester Gardens has been forced into through social and historical forces

- the sound of legs dragging across the apartment floor 👀

- this had some great scares and was super emotional, too

[Wendy · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Curse of Hester Gardens is absolutely worth your time.

Wow, this audiobook pulled me in from the very beginning. Tamika Thompson has such a beautiful, layered way of writing that makes you feel every emotion the characters go through. The story mixes real-life struggles with eerie, paranormal moments, and while it sometimes felt like two separate stories were unfolding, I ended up loving how they connected. The supernatural parts felt like reflections of old wounds and memories, ghosts of the past shaping the present in ways you don’t expect.

Jasmine Walker’s narration is phenomenal. She brings such power and emotion to every line, making the characters feel alive. Her performance added so much depth that I was completely invested. I felt like I was living inside the story.

It’s a truly well-crafted piece of art. I’m so grateful to RB Media, Tamika Thompson, and NetGalley for letting me experience it.

[Tara Shannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley and Kensington Publishing for an advanced copy in exchange for my honest opinion.

This was such a good book and it’s one that will stay with me for a long time. It took awhile to really get into the story because it’s not a fast paced paranormal thriller, more of a slow buildup, but it’s done in such a captivating way. You can’t help but be drawn into Nona’s life and her quest to save her boys. It’s definitely a story everyone should take the time to read.

[Christi Nogle · Rating 5 out of 5]

A bold and astonishing debut: expertly wrought, expansive and complex, tragic and redemptive. A heartbreaking story of a mother, a family, and an entire community struggling with supernatural dangers as well as the all-too-real threats of gun violence and systemic oppression. Poignant, chilling, and immersive.

[The Blog Without a Face · Rating 3 out of 5]

Haunted housing, or the building has seen some shit

BWAF Score: 7/10

TL;DR: Thompson’s debut is the haunted house novel stripped of its gentility: no manor, no inheritance, just a public housing complex in Michigan where the murdered stay because America gave them nowhere else to go. Nona McKinley is one of the finest mother characters in recent horror fiction. Uneven in its final act, devastating in its bones. Read it.

The public housing complex at the center of Tamika Thompson‘s debut novel has a particular compass problem. Depending on which direction your unit faces, you live under a different quality of light. The eastern homes get the morning sun and bake through September. The western ones take in sunsets that run pink and purple against the walls, which Thompson describes as looking like late-afternoon funerals down south. The southern dwellings stay dim most of the day. But the haunted quarters are the north-facing ones, where the sun never manages to show up, and where, as the novel announces in its opening pages with the flatness of someone reading from a city ordinance, the murdered just didn’t know how to leave.

That sentence is both premise and argument. Hester Gardens, a public housing complex in a mid-sized Midwestern city called Medford, is a place where violence has accumulated across decades until it has weight and agency. People who die here stay. They roll balls down alleys. They appear in bathroom mirrors. A child who took a stray bullet in the 1980s, when the crack trade was deciding who got which patch of concrete, is known through the complex as Little Lonnie: has a name, has a reputation, gets talked about at the bus stop. The younger gang members treat him the way they’d treat any neighborhood fixture. He sometimes kicks his ball toward you. He occasionally shoves a child out of the path of a still-moving round. This is not offered as remarkable. In Hester Gardens, the dead having nowhere better to be is simply a condition of the address.

Nona McKinley, the woman Thompson builds this novel around, has a face that gives you everything if you look at it long enough. She is forty-two years old, a mother with the kind of practical faith that has been tested so many times it has reshaped itself into something harder and quieter, a survivor of a husband who turned out to be something she never let herself fully see, and a woman who puts on her best bra (best of the three she owns, because it produces the deepest cleavage) before visiting her married pastor in his church office. She is fully aware of what she is doing and she does it anyway. The distance between those two facts is where the whole novel lives. Thompson renders this without mercy and without contempt, which is the harder trick, and the one the book keeps pulling off.

Pastor Davis is a beautiful man, intelligent and genuinely caring, his hands always slightly too familiar, his lines of pastoral reassurance delivered with the confidence of someone who has practiced them on himself long enough to believe them. He gives Nona money for her son’s college enrollment fee and calls it a grant from the church. She accepts it. Their bodies press together in the ways that bodies do when both people have decided not to name what is happening. Thompson quotes his dialogue not for what he says but for what it quietly demonstrates: that a good man and a bad arrangement are not different categories. They are the same person at different moments, and both are present at once.

The rest of the cast earns its place. The Hester Boys are rendered with the kind of precision that comes from Thompson knowing what it sounds like when a fourteen-year-old tries to act unbothered after his first cup of liquor. Grace, Gretchen’s twin sister, appears in the novel’s most purely terrifying sequence, shooting through a hole in the drywall with a bullet wound still wet in her forehead and her shoulders shrugging in the repetitive, wordless gesture of a child trying to communicate something she cannot say. She is recognizably a specific child, someone’s specific child, and not a haunting prop.

Thompson came to this novel from two directions and they show, productively. She is a former journalist with degrees from Columbia in political science and from USC in journalism, and the reporting background is everywhere: in the school built in 1952 still running its original fixtures, the backed-up sewer lines the housing authority has promised to fix for six months, the garbage contracts that let refuse pile so high a body can disappear into it. But she also came through horror, specifically through the short story collection Unshod, Cackling, and Naked, which won the 2024 Next Generation Indie Book Award and which Publishers Weekly noted for pushing “mundane Black experiences into unsettling territory.” That collection announced a writer with a specific interest in how the line between ordinary suffering and supernatural terror is, for people a country has decided to neglect, not much of a line at all. The Curse of Hester Gardens is Thompson asking what that argument looks like at novel length: what the haunted house story becomes when the house has no Gothic towers, no eccentric old money, no ancestral guilt. It faces north. The sun never rises. And the murdered are still here because they have nowhere better to go.

The haunting mechanics work best as emotional weather. When the stove lights itself in Nona’s empty kitchen, or when a shadow slides across the floor and retreats into the hallway, these moments function because they are the materialization of something she is already carrying: grief that has mass, guilt that moves through rooms. Thompson is very good at this. She builds dread the way good social horror should, through accumulation of recognizable misery until the recognizable and the uncanny become difficult to tell apart.

Where the novel works against itself is in asking those same elements to also carry structural plot weight, to constitute a system with its own interior logic. The explanation that arrives in the final movement, concerning the curse’s origins and the land it was built on, is a powerful idea delivered too late and too discursively to hit with the same force as Grace’s face pushing through the drywall. The argument steps in front of the story. For four hundred pages the book has been doing something harder and more specific, and the frame suddenly widening feels like Thompson deciding she needs to explain what the novel has already demonstrated.

The pacing is a bit tedious in the middle third, particularly in the church and party sequences where Thompson is doing necessary character work that bears its load without quite hiding the effort. At 448 pages the novel deserves most of its length and not quite all of it.

None of this is why you read the book. You read the book for Marcus.

Marcus McKinley is the middle son, named after Marcus Garvey, the valedictorian giving a commencement speech about the violence of neglect while his principal turns crimson at the podium behind him, the one with the Ivy League acceptance and the financial aid that covers everything. Thompson builds him with care and specificity and the patience of someone who already knows where she is going and wants you there when she arrives. He is brilliant and political and seventeen, and he is also a bear in the making: the posture wide-legged, the voice his father’s voice, the trembling in his hands when anger moves through him in ways Nona keeps herself from naming.

What Thompson does with Marcus is the most devastating thing in a novel that does not lack for devastating things. She earns it completely. She does not explain it.

The curse of Hester Gardens is not a curse you lift by solving the supernatural plot. It is the curse of what a country builds when it decides certain deaths are the acceptable cost of other people’s comfort, and of what those deaths leave behind in the walls and alleys and north-facing units where the sun cannot be bothered to arrive. Thompson’s novel is serious, slightly uneven, and horrifying work. It knows what it is about. It earns its grief.

That stove is still lit somewhere.

[Wesley Wilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you to Booksparks for a copy of this novel. Here are my thoughts!

Nona is trying to raise her three boys in an impoverished community called Hester Gardens, in Michigan. Her husband is behind bars for drug affiliations, her oldest was killed due to gun violence, Marcus is almost free of Hester Garden’s clutches he just has to get through the summer. And her youngest Lance seems to be following in his father’s footsteps. In addition to the factors the family is navigating, there seems to be a haunting taking part in Hester Gardens, and Nona will go to great lengths to save her boys.

Wow. This book! I was expecting your standard horror novel, but what I got was a narrative on gun violence in the United States, particularly in black communities, wrapped in an incredibly creepy ghost story. There are so many layers to each of the characters in this book, and they are honestly each flawed but each trying their best. They feel human, like people you could easily meet any day of the week.

I knew from the beginning, that no character was safe and I tried to keep my heart at a distance. But I’m not surprised by the hurt I felt at some of the plot twists. I wanted this family to make it out unscathed and be the exception, but when dealing with a community that is so stricken by gun violence, that is rarely the case.

There are so many poignant details to take from this book. One that made me pause and think was a comment from Nona’s nephew, who is a journalist about how the media depicts white vs. black gun violence in the news. That there are certain ways each group need to be depicted to fit the societal “norm”. After reading this I looked at a few articles and the difference jumped out at me quickly.

I think this is a super important book to read, both for the societal commentary piece and the horror. It was fantastic, and probably my favourite read of March!

[Lauren Gebhard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nona McKinley grew up in the housing projects and as life had it (or as racist systems of oppression continued to work as they were made to) she raised her 3 sons in one as well—the Hester Garden section of Medford, Michigan. People say that when someone dies there, their spirits remain. After her husband is incarcerated and her eldest is gunned down at 18, she is determined to get her other two sons out of there to escape the oppression created by poverty/systemic racism as well as the gun violence that is a part of nearly everyday life. She soon realizes that systemic oppression and violence aren’t the only specters abound as she must also contend with the Curse of Hester Gardens? Or are they one and the same?

I had to sit with this one for some days. Social horror is my favorite because I think literary horror is an amazing vessel through which to demonstrate the real life horrors many people deal with each day. It’s a teaching tool, it’s a way to get out emotions and it’s a way to put on full display the horrors our society has created and continues to fuel. This one is heavy. Gun violence, including the inequities of its coverage, delineation, and who it affects, is obviously a huge part of the book. Other themes of poverty and racism (like the racism of poverty) are also displayed throughout this gut wrenching, important story. There are also more than a few truly scary scenes throughout the book that I still think about. I’m so grateful to NetGalley and Erewhon Books for allowing me to read this early.

[Ann · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Curse of Hester Gardens
By Tamika Thompson

This one is going to haunt me for a while. It’s a really gutting story of gun violence, evil, family, and curses. Nona is a mother of three boys, living in Hester Gardens. All she’s ever wanted is for her sons to escape Hester Gardens, but her oldest, Campbell killed before he can go to college around the same time her husband goes to prison for violence she never knew he was capable of.

Nona and her boys Marcus and Lance deal with the grief of losing Campbell while also living in an increasingly violent neighborhood. It seems the neighborhood has some other entity haunting them, a curse, if you will. Nona fights desperately to keep her boys safe in the midst of obstacles from all directions, along with the rest of Hester Gardens.

This book is one you will want to check to content warnings for, but it was very emotional for me to read. The author really captures subtle, but meaningful, dark changes that are experienced during grief. There is so much dread in this book and it’s a heavy read, but page turner nonetheless.

I listened to this audio book and thought the narrator, Jasmin Walker, was fantastic. She captured Nona’s voice even in the third person and also varied narration for chapters not focused on Nona. I listened on about 1.5 speed and thought the production was great.

Thanks to Tamika Thompson, Kensington Books, and Recorded Books for the ARC and ALC.

[Bookaholic__Reviews · Rating 5 out of 5]

Man.... This was heartbreaking.

The Curse of Hester Gardens is listed as being gothic horror with supernatural elements.... I agree... But it also focuses really heavily on real-world issues and for me those are more horrific than any ghost will ever be.

Hester Gardens is essentially the projects... public housing. Poverty and gun violence are very real issues. As if that isn't hard enough Nonas partners mistakes are haunting their sons... And not just in a generational trauma sort of way ( albeit that's there too) but quite literally.

This is not an easy book to read/listen to. It's gut-wrenching and powerful. I wanted so badly for Nona and her boys to make it out. How horrible it must be as a mother to have to protect your children from both the dangers in your neighborhood AND the supernatural forces within the very walls of your home.

To be honest I'm still shocked that this was a debut, it is THAT powerful.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

Phenomenal mix of supernatural menace and generational trauma. The setting is a housing project haunted by actual ghosts and by the threat of gun violence. Layered, nuanced, heartbreaking...but not completely without hope. Easy to read and impossible to stop thinking about.

[Bree · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 ⭐️

this is such a harrowing story of poverty, gun violence and generational trauma. the writing is excellent and the narrator of the audiobook did a fantastic job. i was fully immersed in this story and characters. this was a real, raw and devastating book. absolutely recommend

[Nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75 stars

Not quite what I expected, but I still enjoyed the story and characters. I would have preferred more of an emphasis on the supernatural side of the story, but I found the sort of social commentary engaging and horrific in a different way.

[Emily Perkovich · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was not loving this at the very beginning, but I ended up loving this. Obsessed with Mable & would love a book about her & this made me angry and sad in the ways we should be right now.

[Emily C. C. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brutal, heartbreaking, and deeply moving. Loved this.

[Sydney · Rating 5 out of 5]

I feel like I could write a dissertation about this novel. It's haunting and grim, but so important because it highlights major issues in our society.

This is not a light read, this is true horror with lots of blood, violence and death. We're introduced to Nona, our main character, whose primary objective is raising her remaining sons. In the meantime, she's also trying to keep them out of trouble and get them away from Hester Gardens in the wake of her oldest son's murder and her husband's imprisonment.

Intergenerational trauma is also a constant theme. Nona and her husband's trauma became that of her children. Her neighbors' trauma is passed onto their children, etc. I thought the outlets they escaped to were very insightful and honest. The author shows how some characters lean into organized religion, drugs and alcohol, gangs, ancestral guidance and promiscuity.

Then there's the differences between how Black mass shootings and White mass shootings are covered in the news. Shootings with mostly young Black victims and assailants are almost always linked to gang violence, whether they are or aren't. School shootings with White gunmen have a "lone wolf" portrayal and the killer is humanized.

Then there's the curse: the ghosts that linger around the neighborhood and the systemic poverty & violence. To me, the real horror is the environment they live in and the cycles poverty, grief, and violence they can't escape. Even Harlan, Nona's nephew who works as a journalist and lives outside The Gardens, was repeatedly dragged back. And when Nona tries to escape, these curses repeatedly try to hold her back.

The real-life elements were just as scary as the supernatural element. I could feel the lack of control Nona felt trying to keep her sons on the right track in the midst of so much violence and death. Her grief over losing her oldest son Kendall was almost like it's own character because of how much it impacted her remaining sons. As someone whose family has been impacted by gun violence and the prison system, I think the author's portrayal of the feelings surrounding those events was incredible. The emotional depth throughout is raw and unflinching. It's guttural and heartbreaking. Even minor characters are developed emotionally without bringing the overall pace down.

This book does an amazing job blending supernatural elements and real-life issues. It leaves a lasting impression and really makes you think. It deserves every single accolade I hope it earns. 5 stars!

I would like to thank NetGalley, Kensington Publishing and Erewhon Books for the eARC!

[Rex Stephens · Rating 3 out of 5]

Special thank you to #NetGalley and Erewhon Books for this eARC.

The projects are a great idea to explore horror and Tamika Thompson tackles it full on through the lens of a mother in THE CURSE OF HESTER GARDENS. Through grief and suffering, Nona has been raising her surviving two sons in the projects of Hester Gardens. There is trash everywhere. There are rats everywhere. There is misery everywhere. But there are other things (figures!) everywhere too, and their full on crabbuckit mentality seeks to drag Nona, her two sons (one of whom just accepted at a prestigious university) and everyone else in the community, whether it be gangs, mothers, church-goers, etc. down to the fiery depths that conceived Hester Gardens in the first place.

Getting to where Nona needs to go though, requires a ton of effort on the part of herself, her journey and her evolution as she struggles in discerning what is inflicting her kids, community and why. It also requires a ton of effort for the reader, as Nona is a highly sensitive person, or one of a high sensory processing sensitivity. When an event or a conversation begins, Nona literally considers and feels everything, a screenshot in the moment and has the reader consider every vantage point, every thought, every moment in emotion, for the betterment of or worse for our protagonist.

The same is also true of Hester Gardens itself. Like Wisteria Lane in Desperate Housewives, Prescott Road of Hester Gardens is a land of deep feeling where those who have come and gone also kind of influence the will and spirit of those who are living in the moment. That very essence will keep you turning the pages to discover Nona’s fate, however you just may end up feeling you are reading more words as you are discovering what is going on.

Altogether THE CURSE OF HESTER GARDENS is a solid effort and a fascinating read in itself, an important text on the horrors of the projects, the gun violence presiding within and the potential supernatural of why the never ending cycle of harm continues in some of our urban communities.

[Lucille Lannigan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I admire Tamika Thompson for writing a horror fiction book about gun violence, and especially youth gun violence in primarily Black communities suffering from poverty. It’s such an important issue to talk about and by turning it into a very readable horror book, I believe she’s inviting people who would otherwise turn their nose up, to read and join in on the conversation. I wrote quite a bit about youth gun violence and heard stories from real high schoolers whose everyday lives were impacted by it. I feel like they would’ve really loved this story, and that makes me happy!

That being said, there were a few reasons this book didn’t hit as hard for me. I feel that Thompson’s writing suffered because of her refusal to trust her reader with grasping the message. As another reviewer said on here, it resulted in a lot of inorganic moments as Thompson explicitly spelled out themes on the page. I think the novel was slightly too long and dragged on some plot lines. Especially with the pastor, I feel Thompson could’ve gotten the harmful church plot line along without making it an affair between Nona and the pastor. Nona was a bit of a frustrating character for me as well. I understood her helplessness, grief and the feelings of a single mother having to do it all on her own, but this novel had so much inaction from her. It started to feel repetitive. I think this story would’ve been stronger had the perspectives been split more between her and her sons, especially Marcus. He’s the key character of this book, but we get little understanding of his mind’s inner workings and his possession. This made his fate almost frustrating on top of devastating.

I did enjoy the supernatural elements of this book. They were well written and eerie. I wish there’d been more!

** Thank you to Erewhon/Kensington Books for sending me this copy! So excited to have finally won a Goodreads giveaway haha.

[Mr. Mccane · Rating 5 out of 5]

For me, this book hit on so many levels. It gave me some of the same feelings I had when I read The Reformatory by Tananarive Due, that social horror. The kind of horror that’s only relatable to certain groups of people, especially those who grew up in poverty-stricken neighborhoods. Imagine if S.A. Cosby and Tananarive Due wrote a book together.

This story follows a mother who has recently lost one of her three sons to gun violence and is desperately trying to protect her other two from suffering the same fate. It takes place in a public housing project in Medford, Michigan (a fictional setting), and includes a supernatural element that makes it stand out.

What’s beautiful about this book is the top-tier storytelling, which perfectly captures the feel of these environments. I was born and raised on the South Side of Chicago, and this book felt so real that I kept having flashbacks to my childhood. Terrible memories of horror, and reoccurring and generational trauma.

The author captures not only how dangerous it can be to grow up as a young Black male, but everything that comes with it: a mother’s screams after losing a child, the emptiness left by absent fathers, the constant feeling of not mattering, and the always present risk of gun violence from guns that seem endlessly accessible for reasons we still don’t fully understand.

I was very impressed by this author. The ending was wild and left me sitting with my thoughts for about 30 minutes.

This isn’t a book filled with jump scares. Instead, it focuses on the horror of living in Hester Gardens. I immersive-read this one, switching between the audiobook and the physical copy. The narrator did an amazing job. This will definitely be one of my top reads of 2026.

[domsbookden · Rating 3 out of 5]

*3.5

The Curse of Hester Gardens reads much more like a dark thriller with supernatural elements than a horror novel, which is fine, but it isn’t what it’s being advertised as.

A lot of the story focuses on the personal and spiritual dynamics within a Black community living in a rundown housing project. The paranormal elements come through the presence of deceased residents, all victims of the violence that has shaped the complex in one way or another. Those aspects are where the book feels the most intentional and impactful.

The most effective moments for me were the episodic recounts of the violence different residents experienced and how that trauma manifests in the present through supernatural means. I also really liked the scenes where residents gather, encounter the spirits of those who were lost, and talk through the events that led to their deaths. Those moments were excellently written and provoke both sadness for the victims and unease at the thought of their trapped souls.

This novel does have clear strengths, but I think marketing it as horror ultimately works against it. It creates a mismatch between expectation and execution. Economic depression and gun violence are horrific, but that doesn’t automatically make something a horror novel. There’s a difference between something being horrific and something functioning as horror in a genre sense, and this sits pretty firmly in the former. Because of that, it ends up in an awkward spot where a strong story with an important message gets overshadowed by what readers expect it to be.

I did enjoy Thompson’s writing and the character dynamics, and I’m interested in what she does next—I’ll just be approaching future releases with a bit more skepticism depending on how they’re marketed.

Readers looking for a similar read to Indigent by Briana N. Cox, but with paranormal elements rather than body horror, The Curse of Hester Gardens is a great read to pick up.

[Kim’s Kindle Reads. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really, really wanted to love this. My hopes were HIGH. This was a SLOW burn "horror", although for me it didnt really give horror in the traditional sense.. but maybe that was the point? (idk) The horrors of poverty, project living, crime and gun violence was noticeable and kind of overshadowed the horror of the supernatural aspects. But again, maybe that was the point? As a Black mother, I wanted to feel more while reading this. While I did feel certain emotions, once it started to feel repetitive, most of them subsided quickly. This felt more like a mystery with little supernatural elements sprinkled throughout. For me, alot of these characters were unlikeable, almost annoying. I mean, how many times do you need to see something right before your eyes before you stop being indenial and stop asking stupid questions and actually start doing something?!
 
The pacing in the first half was VERY drawn out and repetitive. Some of the scenes were creepy and eerie and that helped to keep my attention, until it didnt. This was rather depressing honestly, not so much spooky or scary. While its a decent debut, I don't think anything will stick with me after I finish this review. That being said, I do however think I would read more from Tamika Thompson to see how her storytelling improves.
 
The audio/narration was pretty good so, points for that.

[Sanya Ruggiero · Rating 5 out of 5]

‘The Curse of Hester Gardens’ by comes out March 31st and it is already on my best books of 2026 list. I listened to the audiobook version from @netgalley and the narrator, Jasmin Walker was impeccable!

🖤Set in a decaying housing project, the story follows Nona, a mother already grieving the loss of one son, as her youngest begins to change in ways she can’t explain. What starts as subtle unease spirals into something far darker—something that feels both supernatural and devastatingly real.

🖤This is Black Gothic horror at its most powerful. The “curse” isn’t just a ghostly force—it’s poverty, violence, generational trauma, and the impossible choices forced onto those trying to survive it. Hester Gardens itself feels alive, oppressive, inescapable.

🖤Nona is such a compelling, morally complex character. Her love is fierce, but it’s tangled with guilt, desperation, and the weight of everything she’s had to do to protect her family. This book asks a brutal question: what if love isn’t enough to save your children?

🖤The horror here is slow, creeping, and deeply psychological. It’s not about jump scares—it’s about inevitability. About cycles you can’t break. About being haunted by where you come from.

👉 I also want to make a note here of how much I learned from this book. For example, Gun violence among young Black men is often framed as an individual failing, but history tells a different story. In the 19th century, gun duelling culture—particularly among white men—was socially sanctioned violence, tied to honour, masculinity, and reputation. It was ritualised, even romanticised.

Today, echoes of that same logic remain: respect must be defended, status must be maintained, and violence becomes a language when other forms of power are denied. But unlike duels, this violence is criminalised, pathologised, and stripped of context—divorced from the structural inequalities that shape it.

✨ Recommended for: Readers who appreciate literary horror, social horror, and deeply character-driven narratives that explore grief, trauma, and the complexities of motherhood.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐️

[Holly · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Curse of Hester Gardens by Tamika Thompson is a devastating story. It broke my heart. It’s pretty easy to make me emotional and start crying but this was so raw and real that it truly hurt to read at times.

It’s set in a housing project and shines a light on what inner city living is like. It’s about a woman who is just trying to protect her kids from the real world she lives in with everything kind of fighting against her. Gun violence, oppression, and generational trauma are scary enough but when you add to that, that not just the building that they live in but the whole neighborhood is haunted, or cursed, you have a really terrifying situation.

This book was powerful, and emotionally draining at times as well. It’s so intense and tragic. This is really dark and serious, as opposed to my more normal reads which float toward comedy horror, or campy but I enjoyed this and it was a good change of pace.

Thank you netgalley for the ARC copy of this book.

[Lynnae · Rating 4 out of 5]

*3.75 stars

An interesting take on (and dare I say, retelling of) We Need To Talk About Kevin with complex characters. Excellent audiobook performance by Jasmin thee Walker. But I do feel like it dragged on for quite a while. And Nona got very annoying as the book wore on like yeah you expect a bit of "Not my baby" in a story like this, but it gets to a point.....She did a whole lot of thinking and talking and asking other people for advice and asking other people for help and wringing her hands, but wasn't doing much to help herself or her sons in my opinion. When Mabel said "Why do always think you need a man to save you, Nona?" she really ate that.

[Hannah 📚📚 · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5⭐️

i enjoyed this. the real horror in the book was the hopelessness of living in poverty. i loved the supernatural aspect although i think it could’ve been done a little differently. i loved that it was a happy ending but also not a happy ending i think too many books don’t feel like the stakes are high enough. i also love that the answer also wasn’t god and it kind of exposed churches in a way as well.

thank you to libro.fm and bloomsbury book for this ALC!!

[Candace · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars, actually. I am generally not a fan of "oh no the real horror is real world systemic oppression", but this was done well.

Spoiler: So was the monster that possessed Marcus...what? Leftover from when the land was taken from Black residents a long time ago? But why does it have wings? Is it a person? That vagueness knocked it down a half star for me.

[Jonna Langston · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found it hard for this book to hold my attention which is why it took me so long to read. It was at times slow and it wasn’t until Part 4 that it really started to pick up. Overall, not a bad book, just not one that I was drawn in to.