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Little Wild
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Expected 23 Jun 26Win a free print copy of this book!
8 days and 09:00:29
100 copies available
U.S. only
Suffolk, 1937. As the English countryside swelters in a historic heat wave, preparations for a party at Snare House are in full swing. The Winthers’ only daughter, Joanie, is returning from a summer in Europe, a flying visit before she leaves for university in Oxford. Only Margaret, long-time ward of the family and Joanie’s closest friend, knows the Joanie won’t be going to Oxford. Instead, the two will be leaving the stultifying society they know to live together in London, as lovers.
Then the pair is discovered, and everything goes wrong. Banished to a cabin in the nearby woods, Margaret is alone with her estranged father. As summer curdles into fall and magpies throng the forest, Margaret begins to lose herself. Her dreams turn dark and terrifying, and she wakes from them with dirt on her soles and scratches on her back. Everything suggests that a perverse power is awakening within her—perhaps the very one which led to her mother’s ostracism and eventual death. If she can harness it, Margaret may be able to secure an approximation of the love she’s always craved—but at what cost?
Little Wild is at once a feminist fairy tale, a haunting meditation on the dangers of desire, and a gripping debut from a talented new voice.
Then the pair is discovered, and everything goes wrong. Banished to a cabin in the nearby woods, Margaret is alone with her estranged father. As summer curdles into fall and magpies throng the forest, Margaret begins to lose herself. Her dreams turn dark and terrifying, and she wakes from them with dirt on her soles and scratches on her back. Everything suggests that a perverse power is awakening within her—perhaps the very one which led to her mother’s ostracism and eventual death. If she can harness it, Margaret may be able to secure an approximation of the love she’s always craved—but at what cost?
Little Wild is at once a feminist fairy tale, a haunting meditation on the dangers of desire, and a gripping debut from a talented new voice.
320 pages, Hardcover
Expected publication June 23, 2026
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 57 reviews
November 22, 2025
This was such a poetically well written novel about forbidden love on a beautiful setting in the countryside of England. Joanie and Margaret have a special bond that is so thoroughly expressed by the author. I was emotional as I read and when the affair is discovered I was so sad for Margaret. The book reads like a fairy tale but with raw emotion and a deep look into the characters lives. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Given the madness and magic motifs, I felt the author could've gone a lot further. It never felt 'mad' enough that I fully distrusted the unreliable narrative, but it was also layered a top a fairly conventional story. I didn't feel convinced the love affair wasn't one sided because Meg's neuroses overpowered any sense of Joanie.
December 16, 2025
Thank you to Henry Holt & Company for providing this ARC for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
Little Wild by Laura Evans is a magical realism story set during the interwar period in a rural area of England. Meg, our narrator, has spent the bulk of her childhood being raised with her friend Joanie, who she is in love with. After being caught kissing, she is thrown out of the house, and reconnects to the magical roots of her late mother and traumatized father.
Evans creates a narration that is descriptive in a deeply descriptive and poetic ways. Certain paragraphs and chapters straddle the line between poetry and prose. The story relies heavily on the atmospheric descriptions of the forest and dilapidated lodge. The author really effectively creates a mystical effect, that underlies the magic coursing through Meg and her surroundings. While this is lovely, at times the descriptive sentences outstrip the plot. At times the pacing of the narrative versus the active is out of balance. There were chapters that felt like the reader is waiting for something, anything, to happen.
I did appreciate that Meg is a slightly unreliable narrator. Throughout the book, it’s never entirely clear what she fully knows about her own family, or whether she’s exaggerating the relationship with Joanie. I think at times this gives her an obsessive, unhinged reasoning. Ambiguity is present throughout the novel, with several plot lines being not fully clear at the end of the story. Even those that do have a more concrete final answer are all slightly unsatisfying or disappointing. This isn’t a criticism of the story, rather to say that the book is not necessarily neatly wrapped up.
Personally, I did find myself underwhelmed by the story. I found that the plot line, while interesting, was overwhelmed by the set dressing. I would say that it’s a good option for lovers of magical realism, but not one of my personal top recommendations. 3/5.
Little Wild by Laura Evans is a magical realism story set during the interwar period in a rural area of England. Meg, our narrator, has spent the bulk of her childhood being raised with her friend Joanie, who she is in love with. After being caught kissing, she is thrown out of the house, and reconnects to the magical roots of her late mother and traumatized father.
Evans creates a narration that is descriptive in a deeply descriptive and poetic ways. Certain paragraphs and chapters straddle the line between poetry and prose. The story relies heavily on the atmospheric descriptions of the forest and dilapidated lodge. The author really effectively creates a mystical effect, that underlies the magic coursing through Meg and her surroundings. While this is lovely, at times the descriptive sentences outstrip the plot. At times the pacing of the narrative versus the active is out of balance. There were chapters that felt like the reader is waiting for something, anything, to happen.
I did appreciate that Meg is a slightly unreliable narrator. Throughout the book, it’s never entirely clear what she fully knows about her own family, or whether she’s exaggerating the relationship with Joanie. I think at times this gives her an obsessive, unhinged reasoning. Ambiguity is present throughout the novel, with several plot lines being not fully clear at the end of the story. Even those that do have a more concrete final answer are all slightly unsatisfying or disappointing. This isn’t a criticism of the story, rather to say that the book is not necessarily neatly wrapped up.
Personally, I did find myself underwhelmed by the story. I found that the plot line, while interesting, was overwhelmed by the set dressing. I would say that it’s a good option for lovers of magical realism, but not one of my personal top recommendations. 3/5.
Want to Read
December 29, 2025tbr for 2026 anyone ?
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
The Girl in the Woods, the Girl in the Mind, and the Life That Cannot Hold Them Both
In “Little Wild,” Laura Evans turns doubling, desire, and rural menace into something more corrosive than a gothic trick: a novel about the fantasy of loving someone without having to endure their separateness.
By Demetris Papadimitropoulos | April 16th, 2026
At the edge of field and wood, Margaret appears as a small figure before a landscape already holding its verdict.
Some novels of forbidden love ask whether desire can survive the world. Laura Evans’s “Little Wild” asks a nastier question: what love becomes once it can no longer bear the beloved’s separateness.
That is the novel’s real disturbance. Not simply that Margaret Goodall, the gamekeeper’s daughter at Snare House, loves Joanie Winther, the estate owner’s daughter, in 1937 Suffolk, where class hierarchy and sexual panic can ruin a life. It is that Margaret does not merely love Joanie. She rehearses her. She arranges a future for them so thoroughly that when Joanie returns from Europe changed – bronzed, sharpened, newly social, newly difficult to script – Margaret experiences not ordinary disappointment but something closer to authorial injury. The girl who comes home is still Joanie. That is precisely the problem. She is also more fully herself.
Evans is exquisitely alert to the humiliating ingenuity of obsession. Margaret has already furnished the future in her head: London, rooms, curtains, a lamp, a bed, the two of them stepping neatly into a shared life that feels to her less like fantasy than like overdue fact. So when Joanie comes back from the Riviera and Oxford glimmers on the near horizon, Margaret’s desire turns instantly theatrical. She is not only waiting for Joanie. She is waiting for a scene to happen correctly. The first third of “Little Wild” is brilliant on this distinction. Plot can count the calamities. Evans is after the smaller, uglier shift underneath them – the moment longing stops wanting a person and starts wanting a response.
The book’s great early set piece is Joanie’s homecoming and the party that follows, where everything Margaret has imagined curdles in her hands. Joanie does not rush to her. She is absorbed into the house’s social machinery, into family display, into beauty as performance, into the sort of glamorous return that leaves Margaret stranded in her own expectation. The resulting collapse is psychological, erotic, theatrical, and classed all at once. Margaret’s humiliation is not abstract heartbreak. It is physical, specific, sticky. Evans understands that shame arrives through objects: a slip, a hairbrush, a spoon, a scent, a dress, a letter, a sweet. “Little Wild” is a novel in which material things do not decorate feeling but conduct it.
Under the rose canopy, tenderness and surveillance occupy the same narrow bench.
That gift for conduction is one of Evans’s greatest strengths. Her prose is lush without slackness, sensuous without prettification. It has the tactile insistence of private misery: pear drops, stale linen, sweat, broth, goat’s milk, old flowers, soap flakes, dust, overripe fruit, perfume drifting where it should not, breath gone sour in a closed room. Beauty in this novel rarely stays clean. It clings. It ferments. It turns. Evans writes the body as if emotion were always already a substance – something sticky, rancid, bruising, or over-sweet. Margaret’s voice, in particular, is a marvel of self-exposure. She is grandiose, acid, funny in ways that make one wince a second later, pitiless about other people’s poses and nearly blind to her own. The comedy is never imported from above. It grows naturally from desperation, vanity, and hurt.
After the party, the novel loosens into dated entries, but the diary form does not tidy Margaret. It makes her more dangerous. These entries do not march. They gum up. Time in “Little Wild” does not steadily pass so much as congeal around fixation. Margaret circles, revises, contradicts herself, touches the same charged objects over and over, worries a memory until it loses one meaning and acquires another. The drought that grips Suffolk during this period is not merely symbolic, but Evans knows exactly how to let environment and psyche contaminate each other. Fabian Winther’s grandiose plans for his rewilded estate, his terror of blight and failure, his fury at a world that will not obey him, begin to answer Margaret’s private derangement across the same scorched ground. The weather becomes less backdrop than public inscription. Private obsession has found a way to write itself onto the landscape.
Fabian’s plea to the sky turns drought into spectacle and authority into farce.
If all this sounds perilously close to high literary gothic apparatus, that is because Evans is happy to use the apparatus – the big house, the servants, the brooding patriarch, the maddened parent, the half-sacred woods, the village suspicion, the magpies, the clocks, the drought, the whispers of witchcraft. What makes “Little Wild” more than a deft exercise in atmosphere is that its horror is household horror. The uncanny does not descend nobly onto the domestic. It crawls out of it. The novel’s most unsettling scenes are not the ones of overt rupture, but the ones organized around feeding, washing, dressing, covering, instructing, putting to bed, waking, correcting, and making use. Evans understands that domination often first appears not as melodrama but as management.
This is where the book takes its largest artistic risk, and where it becomes much more than an elegantly nasty queer gothic. Margaret, through an act of wild and half-comprehending making, produces another Joanie – a pale, helpless, initially near-speechless double she must teach almost everything. The counterfeit Joanie is a remarkable invention not because she is uncanny in any ordinary sense, though she is, but because of what she allows Evans to expose. This new creature is at once beloved, pupil, daughter, doll, accomplice, rehearsal body, and fantasy of perfect response. Margaret teaches her to chew, swallow, fasten hooks and eyes, wash herself, use a chamber pot, answer questions, move through a room, kiss back. Those scenes are almost unbearably intimate. They are also disgusting in the most artistically productive sense. Care and coercion become impossible to separate. The tenderness remains visible. That is what makes it so ugly.
The counterfeit beloved arrives as miracle, theft, and accusation at once.
Many novels would either sentimentalize Margaret’s suffering or pathologize it into a neat moral diagnosis. Evans does neither. She is too exact for consolation and too intelligent for simplification. Margaret’s desire is shaped by queer isolation, by economic dependence, by class humiliation, by grief, by maternal trauma, by the punitive arrangements of the household that raised and used her. All of that matters. None of it absolves her. “Little Wild” is unusually clear on a point many novels prefer to blur: pain does not purify appetite. Margaret does not merely want Joanie near. She wants a Joanie who can be steadied, cued, instructed, hidden, improved, kept. Beneath the rhetoric of union lurks the fantasy of editability.
That may be the book’s most underdiscussed strength. Evans is willing to say that the dream of perfect intimacy often contains a wish to revise the beloved into legibility. She is also willing to say that queer suffering does not automatically ennoble queer desire. That is a serious risk – artistic, emotional, even intellectual – because it denies readers an easy allegiance. Margaret is not a monster in a simple sense, but neither is she merely the victim of a brutal world. She is both damaged and damaging. “Little Wild” does not ask to be admired for making her pitiable. It asks to be read closely enough that pity becomes only one response among several.
The novel is not without costs. Its atmosphere is so potent that, in the middle stretch, Evans occasionally lingers a beat too long in recurrence. One or two entries accumulate mood faster than consequence. The repetition is thematically defensible – obsession repeats, grief repeats, fantasy repeats – but even defensible repetition can slightly deaden momentum. There is also a real question about Joanie. Some of that is built into the design: Margaret experiences her as projection surface, prize, wound, accomplice, refuge. Full access to Joanie’s interior would alter the novel’s center of gravity. Even so, there are moments when Joanie feels less fully bodied than the book’s argument finally requires. She matters immensely, but not always with equal texture. The asymmetry is partly intentional. It is still an asymmetry.
Still, “Little Wild” keeps wriggling free of its nearest comparisons. One can invoke Shirley Jackson for moral weather, Angela Carter for appetite and theatrical menace, Sarah Waters for the charged social arrangements of queer historical fiction. All of those references illuminate something, and then they stop helping. Evans is doing something ranker and more domestic than any of them. Her world smells of bad tea and soap flakes, overripe fruit and dust, bedding aired too long, sweat under formal clothes, a room gone close with breath. Her comedy is sharper than one first expects, and her cruelty less ornamental. She does not merely stage obsession. She follows it into chores, routines, embarrassment, maintenance, and minor household tyrannies.
That is also why the novel feels current without any anxious scramble for topicality. Its deepest recognitions are not about 1937 alone. “Little Wild” is acutely alive to a fantasy that has hardly vanished: not simply to be loved, but to be loved by someone teachable, manageable, available on cue, responsive without remainder. It understands how domination often disguises itself as help, guidance, protection, or knowledge of what the other “really” wants. The book’s violence, before it becomes spectacular, is frequently administrative. It lives in correction, scheduling, concealment, routine.
Then Evans does something even bolder. She refuses to end where a cleaner gothic would end. Instead she carries Margaret and the real Joanie onward into Oxford, secrecy, compromise, sulks, routines, erotic continuance, petty resentment, and the drab afterlife of damaged love. This coda is not an appendix. It changes the whole novel behind it. What first looked like a queer rural gothic about obsession and doubling turns out also to be a book about what happens after fantasy fails and life keeps going anyway. Not redemption. Not judgment. Not even exactly punishment. Arrangement. Shared rooms. Tea going cold. Irritation. Dependency. Forgiveness that may or may not be wisdom. The humiliating persistence of love after revelation.
Rain, tea, and a magpie at the sill turn the Oxford aftermath into a room of suspended reckoning.
That ending is the book’s central achievement. Evans denies herself grandeur when grandeur would have been easy. She does not finish with a clean tragic stroke, or a final flourish of supernatural certitude, or a morally stabilizing explanation. She gives us aftermath instead – compromise, secrecy, weather, domestic coexistence, unease. The final movement sharpens the entire novel’s argument. The counterfeit girl in the woods no longer reads as a singular gothic marvel. She becomes the most literal expression of a temptation the book has been tracing all along: to replace the difficult beloved with a more manageable draft. Once the ending makes that plain, the whole book snaps into harsher focus.
I land at 89/100, which translates to 4/5 stars. That score reflects a novel that is often brilliant, occasionally overinsistent, and never tame. Its excellence is mainly artistic and emotional, though it is also intellectually shrewd in ways that do not announce themselves with lectures or prestige solemnity. What impresses me most is that Evans’s strengths are not generic strengths. She is not merely “good on atmosphere” or “good on voice,” though she is. She has written a novel with its own particular stain. It lingers.
What I will remember is not only the pale girl in the woods, though that image is ghastly enough, nor Fabian screaming into the heat for rain as if the sky itself had joined the conspiracy against him. It is the colder recognition beneath them. Disillusionment does not necessarily kill love. Sometimes it domesticates it. It sends it onward into rooms, habits, bargains, warmed nightclothes, hidden sweets, withheld letters, awkward breakfasts, and the long work of living beside what one has done. By the time the rain returns and the magpies begin again, innocence is long gone. Love, in its compromised and damaging form, remains. So does damage. What Evans leaves us with is not a purified feeling, but a life built out of both – and the sound, still carrying through the weather, of something wild refusing to stay fully housed.
Early compositional thumbnails testing distance, exposure, enclosure, and the woman’s scale against the land.
The graphite underdrawing lays in the emotional architecture before color begins to stain it.
First washes establish heat, shadow, and threshold tension while much of the image still remains uncertain.
A cover-derived palette study maps the dry golds, bruised browns, and muted greens of the series.
Border experiments search for a margin language of thorns, feathers, seedpods, and parched ornament.
All watercolor illustrations by Demetris Papadimitropoulos.
In “Little Wild,” Laura Evans turns doubling, desire, and rural menace into something more corrosive than a gothic trick: a novel about the fantasy of loving someone without having to endure their separateness.
By Demetris Papadimitropoulos | April 16th, 2026
At the edge of field and wood, Margaret appears as a small figure before a landscape already holding its verdict.
Some novels of forbidden love ask whether desire can survive the world. Laura Evans’s “Little Wild” asks a nastier question: what love becomes once it can no longer bear the beloved’s separateness.
That is the novel’s real disturbance. Not simply that Margaret Goodall, the gamekeeper’s daughter at Snare House, loves Joanie Winther, the estate owner’s daughter, in 1937 Suffolk, where class hierarchy and sexual panic can ruin a life. It is that Margaret does not merely love Joanie. She rehearses her. She arranges a future for them so thoroughly that when Joanie returns from Europe changed – bronzed, sharpened, newly social, newly difficult to script – Margaret experiences not ordinary disappointment but something closer to authorial injury. The girl who comes home is still Joanie. That is precisely the problem. She is also more fully herself.
Evans is exquisitely alert to the humiliating ingenuity of obsession. Margaret has already furnished the future in her head: London, rooms, curtains, a lamp, a bed, the two of them stepping neatly into a shared life that feels to her less like fantasy than like overdue fact. So when Joanie comes back from the Riviera and Oxford glimmers on the near horizon, Margaret’s desire turns instantly theatrical. She is not only waiting for Joanie. She is waiting for a scene to happen correctly. The first third of “Little Wild” is brilliant on this distinction. Plot can count the calamities. Evans is after the smaller, uglier shift underneath them – the moment longing stops wanting a person and starts wanting a response.
The book’s great early set piece is Joanie’s homecoming and the party that follows, where everything Margaret has imagined curdles in her hands. Joanie does not rush to her. She is absorbed into the house’s social machinery, into family display, into beauty as performance, into the sort of glamorous return that leaves Margaret stranded in her own expectation. The resulting collapse is psychological, erotic, theatrical, and classed all at once. Margaret’s humiliation is not abstract heartbreak. It is physical, specific, sticky. Evans understands that shame arrives through objects: a slip, a hairbrush, a spoon, a scent, a dress, a letter, a sweet. “Little Wild” is a novel in which material things do not decorate feeling but conduct it.
Under the rose canopy, tenderness and surveillance occupy the same narrow bench.
That gift for conduction is one of Evans’s greatest strengths. Her prose is lush without slackness, sensuous without prettification. It has the tactile insistence of private misery: pear drops, stale linen, sweat, broth, goat’s milk, old flowers, soap flakes, dust, overripe fruit, perfume drifting where it should not, breath gone sour in a closed room. Beauty in this novel rarely stays clean. It clings. It ferments. It turns. Evans writes the body as if emotion were always already a substance – something sticky, rancid, bruising, or over-sweet. Margaret’s voice, in particular, is a marvel of self-exposure. She is grandiose, acid, funny in ways that make one wince a second later, pitiless about other people’s poses and nearly blind to her own. The comedy is never imported from above. It grows naturally from desperation, vanity, and hurt.
After the party, the novel loosens into dated entries, but the diary form does not tidy Margaret. It makes her more dangerous. These entries do not march. They gum up. Time in “Little Wild” does not steadily pass so much as congeal around fixation. Margaret circles, revises, contradicts herself, touches the same charged objects over and over, worries a memory until it loses one meaning and acquires another. The drought that grips Suffolk during this period is not merely symbolic, but Evans knows exactly how to let environment and psyche contaminate each other. Fabian Winther’s grandiose plans for his rewilded estate, his terror of blight and failure, his fury at a world that will not obey him, begin to answer Margaret’s private derangement across the same scorched ground. The weather becomes less backdrop than public inscription. Private obsession has found a way to write itself onto the landscape.
Fabian’s plea to the sky turns drought into spectacle and authority into farce.
If all this sounds perilously close to high literary gothic apparatus, that is because Evans is happy to use the apparatus – the big house, the servants, the brooding patriarch, the maddened parent, the half-sacred woods, the village suspicion, the magpies, the clocks, the drought, the whispers of witchcraft. What makes “Little Wild” more than a deft exercise in atmosphere is that its horror is household horror. The uncanny does not descend nobly onto the domestic. It crawls out of it. The novel’s most unsettling scenes are not the ones of overt rupture, but the ones organized around feeding, washing, dressing, covering, instructing, putting to bed, waking, correcting, and making use. Evans understands that domination often first appears not as melodrama but as management.
This is where the book takes its largest artistic risk, and where it becomes much more than an elegantly nasty queer gothic. Margaret, through an act of wild and half-comprehending making, produces another Joanie – a pale, helpless, initially near-speechless double she must teach almost everything. The counterfeit Joanie is a remarkable invention not because she is uncanny in any ordinary sense, though she is, but because of what she allows Evans to expose. This new creature is at once beloved, pupil, daughter, doll, accomplice, rehearsal body, and fantasy of perfect response. Margaret teaches her to chew, swallow, fasten hooks and eyes, wash herself, use a chamber pot, answer questions, move through a room, kiss back. Those scenes are almost unbearably intimate. They are also disgusting in the most artistically productive sense. Care and coercion become impossible to separate. The tenderness remains visible. That is what makes it so ugly.
The counterfeit beloved arrives as miracle, theft, and accusation at once.
Many novels would either sentimentalize Margaret’s suffering or pathologize it into a neat moral diagnosis. Evans does neither. She is too exact for consolation and too intelligent for simplification. Margaret’s desire is shaped by queer isolation, by economic dependence, by class humiliation, by grief, by maternal trauma, by the punitive arrangements of the household that raised and used her. All of that matters. None of it absolves her. “Little Wild” is unusually clear on a point many novels prefer to blur: pain does not purify appetite. Margaret does not merely want Joanie near. She wants a Joanie who can be steadied, cued, instructed, hidden, improved, kept. Beneath the rhetoric of union lurks the fantasy of editability.
That may be the book’s most underdiscussed strength. Evans is willing to say that the dream of perfect intimacy often contains a wish to revise the beloved into legibility. She is also willing to say that queer suffering does not automatically ennoble queer desire. That is a serious risk – artistic, emotional, even intellectual – because it denies readers an easy allegiance. Margaret is not a monster in a simple sense, but neither is she merely the victim of a brutal world. She is both damaged and damaging. “Little Wild” does not ask to be admired for making her pitiable. It asks to be read closely enough that pity becomes only one response among several.
The novel is not without costs. Its atmosphere is so potent that, in the middle stretch, Evans occasionally lingers a beat too long in recurrence. One or two entries accumulate mood faster than consequence. The repetition is thematically defensible – obsession repeats, grief repeats, fantasy repeats – but even defensible repetition can slightly deaden momentum. There is also a real question about Joanie. Some of that is built into the design: Margaret experiences her as projection surface, prize, wound, accomplice, refuge. Full access to Joanie’s interior would alter the novel’s center of gravity. Even so, there are moments when Joanie feels less fully bodied than the book’s argument finally requires. She matters immensely, but not always with equal texture. The asymmetry is partly intentional. It is still an asymmetry.
Still, “Little Wild” keeps wriggling free of its nearest comparisons. One can invoke Shirley Jackson for moral weather, Angela Carter for appetite and theatrical menace, Sarah Waters for the charged social arrangements of queer historical fiction. All of those references illuminate something, and then they stop helping. Evans is doing something ranker and more domestic than any of them. Her world smells of bad tea and soap flakes, overripe fruit and dust, bedding aired too long, sweat under formal clothes, a room gone close with breath. Her comedy is sharper than one first expects, and her cruelty less ornamental. She does not merely stage obsession. She follows it into chores, routines, embarrassment, maintenance, and minor household tyrannies.
That is also why the novel feels current without any anxious scramble for topicality. Its deepest recognitions are not about 1937 alone. “Little Wild” is acutely alive to a fantasy that has hardly vanished: not simply to be loved, but to be loved by someone teachable, manageable, available on cue, responsive without remainder. It understands how domination often disguises itself as help, guidance, protection, or knowledge of what the other “really” wants. The book’s violence, before it becomes spectacular, is frequently administrative. It lives in correction, scheduling, concealment, routine.
Then Evans does something even bolder. She refuses to end where a cleaner gothic would end. Instead she carries Margaret and the real Joanie onward into Oxford, secrecy, compromise, sulks, routines, erotic continuance, petty resentment, and the drab afterlife of damaged love. This coda is not an appendix. It changes the whole novel behind it. What first looked like a queer rural gothic about obsession and doubling turns out also to be a book about what happens after fantasy fails and life keeps going anyway. Not redemption. Not judgment. Not even exactly punishment. Arrangement. Shared rooms. Tea going cold. Irritation. Dependency. Forgiveness that may or may not be wisdom. The humiliating persistence of love after revelation.
Rain, tea, and a magpie at the sill turn the Oxford aftermath into a room of suspended reckoning.
That ending is the book’s central achievement. Evans denies herself grandeur when grandeur would have been easy. She does not finish with a clean tragic stroke, or a final flourish of supernatural certitude, or a morally stabilizing explanation. She gives us aftermath instead – compromise, secrecy, weather, domestic coexistence, unease. The final movement sharpens the entire novel’s argument. The counterfeit girl in the woods no longer reads as a singular gothic marvel. She becomes the most literal expression of a temptation the book has been tracing all along: to replace the difficult beloved with a more manageable draft. Once the ending makes that plain, the whole book snaps into harsher focus.
I land at 89/100, which translates to 4/5 stars. That score reflects a novel that is often brilliant, occasionally overinsistent, and never tame. Its excellence is mainly artistic and emotional, though it is also intellectually shrewd in ways that do not announce themselves with lectures or prestige solemnity. What impresses me most is that Evans’s strengths are not generic strengths. She is not merely “good on atmosphere” or “good on voice,” though she is. She has written a novel with its own particular stain. It lingers.
What I will remember is not only the pale girl in the woods, though that image is ghastly enough, nor Fabian screaming into the heat for rain as if the sky itself had joined the conspiracy against him. It is the colder recognition beneath them. Disillusionment does not necessarily kill love. Sometimes it domesticates it. It sends it onward into rooms, habits, bargains, warmed nightclothes, hidden sweets, withheld letters, awkward breakfasts, and the long work of living beside what one has done. By the time the rain returns and the magpies begin again, innocence is long gone. Love, in its compromised and damaging form, remains. So does damage. What Evans leaves us with is not a purified feeling, but a life built out of both – and the sound, still carrying through the weather, of something wild refusing to stay fully housed.
Early compositional thumbnails testing distance, exposure, enclosure, and the woman’s scale against the land.
The graphite underdrawing lays in the emotional architecture before color begins to stain it.
First washes establish heat, shadow, and threshold tension while much of the image still remains uncertain.
A cover-derived palette study maps the dry golds, bruised browns, and muted greens of the series.
Border experiments search for a margin language of thorns, feathers, seedpods, and parched ornament.
All watercolor illustrations by Demetris Papadimitropoulos.
April 25, 2026
Laura Evans’ Little Wild tells a story of heartbreak and desperation where the reader can never quite take the page at face value. And for the most part, Evans does it well.
I love an unreliable narrator - this is one of my favorite things when done well. And generally, I think the author did a good job with this. Little Wild is narrated entirely by Margaret, who recognizes that she isn’t a reliable source. The start to this downturn felt a bit abrupt but then carried through at a relatively consistent pace until the end where narration flattened to me. I still enjoyed the writing and was still intrigued about the character - to me this was more of a pacing issue.
Pacing comes back again with the overall story. A lot of it felt like it dragged - I was intrigued, waiting for the next plot point and then felt like I just kept waiting. Some of this I think was intentional to illustrate Margaret’s descent but it still felt drawn out only to be wrapped up extremely quickly with very little to support the finale.
And the finale. I can’t say I loved it. I don’t regret reading the book - it was an interesting take but unfortunately some of what makes it memorable is what I found it lacking. I don’t have too much to say here without spoiling the ending except that the ending is really what lowered the rating (2.5/5) for me. The pacing I can accept as a stylistic choice made for what the author was trying to demonstrate to the reader. The ending though just felt….flat in comparison to the rich plot and setting of the rest of the book.
Finally, the magic system. A good magic system does wonders for me. A good magic system (in my opinion) should have defined logic or rules to govern it - even if it isn’t spelled out as such to the reader. Based on context and usage, you can usually tell if the author has created a system or just thrown magic into the mix and let it propel the plot/characters as needed. I’m truly not sure which it is here. Because our narrator isn’t reliable, the lack of systemic development could be a very specific choice to highlight her lack of understanding. Or the magic may have been a prop - I’m truly not sure.
Overall, I did enjoy the book and if you enjoy very poetic prose mixed with a little magic and light horror, then this book might be a good fit for you.
Thank you to Net Galley and Henry Holt & Company for the opportunity to read to Little Wild in exchange for providing an honest review.
I love an unreliable narrator - this is one of my favorite things when done well. And generally, I think the author did a good job with this. Little Wild is narrated entirely by Margaret, who recognizes that she isn’t a reliable source. The start to this downturn felt a bit abrupt but then carried through at a relatively consistent pace until the end where narration flattened to me. I still enjoyed the writing and was still intrigued about the character - to me this was more of a pacing issue.
Pacing comes back again with the overall story. A lot of it felt like it dragged - I was intrigued, waiting for the next plot point and then felt like I just kept waiting. Some of this I think was intentional to illustrate Margaret’s descent but it still felt drawn out only to be wrapped up extremely quickly with very little to support the finale.
And the finale. I can’t say I loved it. I don’t regret reading the book - it was an interesting take but unfortunately some of what makes it memorable is what I found it lacking. I don’t have too much to say here without spoiling the ending except that the ending is really what lowered the rating (2.5/5) for me. The pacing I can accept as a stylistic choice made for what the author was trying to demonstrate to the reader. The ending though just felt….flat in comparison to the rich plot and setting of the rest of the book.
Finally, the magic system. A good magic system does wonders for me. A good magic system (in my opinion) should have defined logic or rules to govern it - even if it isn’t spelled out as such to the reader. Based on context and usage, you can usually tell if the author has created a system or just thrown magic into the mix and let it propel the plot/characters as needed. I’m truly not sure which it is here. Because our narrator isn’t reliable, the lack of systemic development could be a very specific choice to highlight her lack of understanding. Or the magic may have been a prop - I’m truly not sure.
Overall, I did enjoy the book and if you enjoy very poetic prose mixed with a little magic and light horror, then this book might be a good fit for you.
Thank you to Net Galley and Henry Holt & Company for the opportunity to read to Little Wild in exchange for providing an honest review.
Review of advance copy received from Author
I received my copy from a giveaway hosted on LibraryThing.
This book took a turn that I hadn't expected and I enjoyed every turn of the page.
Suffolk, 1937
Were introduced to a young women named Margaret. Her situation is a lucky one.
As a young girl her mother had passed away and while her father was still alive (more or less a drunk living in their home in the woods) she was taken to live with a childhood friend.
They grew quite close in their young years and as they got older her friend went away for the summer. Before leaving they made the choice of running away together. When Joanie returned she wouldn't be going exactly where her parents thought her to go - instead her and Margaret would find their own lives to live.
Things didn't go as planned.
A kiss beneath the bushes was discovered by the father and he would not have Margaret bewitching his daughter. Many thought her mother was a witch and it's said that sort of thing passes down the female line of the family. Margaret is a peculiar girl. As I got to know her and read about her days you could being to wonder if there was something not quite there with her.
The book makes me think i'm reading a diary. It was very well written in that aspect. To read one day into the next...or a few days later. It was quite fun. The book takes over at it's core a few months.
Things only get worse when her father shows up raging about how he's owed money. Maybe she should have mentioned there was a welcoming home party for Joanie and he should stay home. Margaret is taken home, to live in the woods in a very run down cottage.
Her heart is broken but she still is very determined to think that Joanie does love her. That she was just afraid to speak out. She falls into her routine of being back in a home that she hadn't lived in for some time. Roams the forest at night. There's the practice of a craft that she hasn't fully convinced herself that is real- but tries anyway.
- I don't want to spoil the book but it was such a good read. There were times I was wondering what she was getting herself into. What she was thinking. Shaking my head thinking she's a bit crazy.
I would read this book again.
The ending is a good one. Things fall back into place. A little bump in the road happens in life and that's the thing that happened.
Shy of 300 pages this book was a fairly quick read for me.
This book took a turn that I hadn't expected and I enjoyed every turn of the page.
Suffolk, 1937
Were introduced to a young women named Margaret. Her situation is a lucky one.
As a young girl her mother had passed away and while her father was still alive (more or less a drunk living in their home in the woods) she was taken to live with a childhood friend.
They grew quite close in their young years and as they got older her friend went away for the summer. Before leaving they made the choice of running away together. When Joanie returned she wouldn't be going exactly where her parents thought her to go - instead her and Margaret would find their own lives to live.
Things didn't go as planned.
A kiss beneath the bushes was discovered by the father and he would not have Margaret bewitching his daughter. Many thought her mother was a witch and it's said that sort of thing passes down the female line of the family. Margaret is a peculiar girl. As I got to know her and read about her days you could being to wonder if there was something not quite there with her.
The book makes me think i'm reading a diary. It was very well written in that aspect. To read one day into the next...or a few days later. It was quite fun. The book takes over at it's core a few months.
Things only get worse when her father shows up raging about how he's owed money. Maybe she should have mentioned there was a welcoming home party for Joanie and he should stay home. Margaret is taken home, to live in the woods in a very run down cottage.
Her heart is broken but she still is very determined to think that Joanie does love her. That she was just afraid to speak out. She falls into her routine of being back in a home that she hadn't lived in for some time. Roams the forest at night. There's the practice of a craft that she hasn't fully convinced herself that is real- but tries anyway.
- I don't want to spoil the book but it was such a good read. There were times I was wondering what she was getting herself into. What she was thinking. Shaking my head thinking she's a bit crazy.
I would read this book again.
The ending is a good one. Things fall back into place. A little bump in the road happens in life and that's the thing that happened.
Shy of 300 pages this book was a fairly quick read for me.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Thank you Netgalley and Macmillan Audio for an ARC of Little Wild by Laura Evans with narrator Tamaryn Payne.
All thoughts and feelings expressed are my own and are provided freely.
3 Stars (4.5 Stars Narration by Tamaryn Payne)
Synopsis:
Margaret has lived at Snare House since her father fell into the drink after her mother’s death. A ward of the Winthers family, she waits for Joanie, the Winthers’ only daughter, to return from a summer on the Continent before they flee to London together, as lovers.
Then they are discovered, Meg is banished from Snare House to her father’s cabin in the woods while Joanie is sent to University. Alone in the forest with the magpies and the memories, Margaret begins to lose herself to the wild. To her broken heart with its shattered pieces that pierce her mind and soul or to the power her mother was said to have, she doesn’t know.
Review:
Tamaryn Payne’s voice is a soothing balm that works so beautifully with this lyrical story. Even in the times of madness when we shouldn’t know reality from possible fantasy, Tamaryn gives us a heightened mania with depth of character. A wonderful performance!
Little Wild is a remarkably lyrical story that reads like poetry. I would get lost in the imagery that was evoked, regardless if the imagery was beautiful or grotesque. Evans did a magnificent job of using words to move your soul. This was the primary reason I continued to read all the way to the 45% mark as the story was slow with no real action. The initiating event, the girls caught together, doesn’t even happen until nearly halfway through the book.
Once the story truly began, it blended reality and fantasy in the way Meg held the world. You were never sure if what was happening was real or part of Meg’s fantasies. How much could you believe of what was shared, seen, felt?
In the end, I recommend Little Wild for the writing and overall story. It will test your patience to get to the heart of it, but if you can enjoy the time before I think you’ll enjoy the story.
All thoughts and feelings expressed are my own and are provided freely.
3 Stars (4.5 Stars Narration by Tamaryn Payne)
Synopsis:
Margaret has lived at Snare House since her father fell into the drink after her mother’s death. A ward of the Winthers family, she waits for Joanie, the Winthers’ only daughter, to return from a summer on the Continent before they flee to London together, as lovers.
Then they are discovered, Meg is banished from Snare House to her father’s cabin in the woods while Joanie is sent to University. Alone in the forest with the magpies and the memories, Margaret begins to lose herself to the wild. To her broken heart with its shattered pieces that pierce her mind and soul or to the power her mother was said to have, she doesn’t know.
Review:
Tamaryn Payne’s voice is a soothing balm that works so beautifully with this lyrical story. Even in the times of madness when we shouldn’t know reality from possible fantasy, Tamaryn gives us a heightened mania with depth of character. A wonderful performance!
Little Wild is a remarkably lyrical story that reads like poetry. I would get lost in the imagery that was evoked, regardless if the imagery was beautiful or grotesque. Evans did a magnificent job of using words to move your soul. This was the primary reason I continued to read all the way to the 45% mark as the story was slow with no real action. The initiating event, the girls caught together, doesn’t even happen until nearly halfway through the book.
Once the story truly began, it blended reality and fantasy in the way Meg held the world. You were never sure if what was happening was real or part of Meg’s fantasies. How much could you believe of what was shared, seen, felt?
In the end, I recommend Little Wild for the writing and overall story. It will test your patience to get to the heart of it, but if you can enjoy the time before I think you’ll enjoy the story.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
I definitely enjoyed this book, but I must admit I'm having trouble putting my thoughts into proper words here. Something that I can't quite put my finger on made this novel feel unique and I think it's something readers will have to just dive in and experience themselves to really understand.
I'll start off by saying if you're a reader that likes faster paced novels or plots with a lot of action—this book is definitely not for you. But it will be perfect for the readers who are happy to sit down with a slow-burn story full of atmospheric writing and can, at times, feel a bit like a character study.
In a tale that's absolutely stuffed with longing, as well as anger, grief, classism, and a pinch of witchcraft, we follow alongside a girl named Margaret who just so happens to be a bit in love with Joanie—the girl she considers her best friend. Although coming from different walks of life—Margaret from a poor family and Joanie from wealth—due to a certain series of events, Margaret has ended up in the care of Joanie's family and lives with them instead of her father. But after the pair is discovered in a rather compromising situation by Joanie's father, Margaret is cast out of the house and has no choice but to return to her father's house of squalor. The bulk of the novel really focuses on Margaret's feelings and general state of being after she's been torn away from her love—and let's just say she doesn't exactly handle it well.
As I mentioned before, this is a rather slow-paced novel, but Evans' prose sets the tone so well that I felt as if I was being pulled into a trance while reading it. You can really feel Margaret's pain and the great amount of tension she has between herself and pretty much every other character in the story. There's also really great insight into Margaret's state of mind as well as her motivations for the actions she does (and doesn't) take. With a bit of witchiness thrown in as an extra level of intrigue, this really stood out to me as a story that I haven't quite read anything like before.
(I received an advance review copy of this book from the publisher, Henry Holt and Co., via NetGalley and I am leaving this review voluntarily. All opinions are my own.)
I'll start off by saying if you're a reader that likes faster paced novels or plots with a lot of action—this book is definitely not for you. But it will be perfect for the readers who are happy to sit down with a slow-burn story full of atmospheric writing and can, at times, feel a bit like a character study.
In a tale that's absolutely stuffed with longing, as well as anger, grief, classism, and a pinch of witchcraft, we follow alongside a girl named Margaret who just so happens to be a bit in love with Joanie—the girl she considers her best friend. Although coming from different walks of life—Margaret from a poor family and Joanie from wealth—due to a certain series of events, Margaret has ended up in the care of Joanie's family and lives with them instead of her father. But after the pair is discovered in a rather compromising situation by Joanie's father, Margaret is cast out of the house and has no choice but to return to her father's house of squalor. The bulk of the novel really focuses on Margaret's feelings and general state of being after she's been torn away from her love—and let's just say she doesn't exactly handle it well.
As I mentioned before, this is a rather slow-paced novel, but Evans' prose sets the tone so well that I felt as if I was being pulled into a trance while reading it. You can really feel Margaret's pain and the great amount of tension she has between herself and pretty much every other character in the story. There's also really great insight into Margaret's state of mind as well as her motivations for the actions she does (and doesn't) take. With a bit of witchiness thrown in as an extra level of intrigue, this really stood out to me as a story that I haven't quite read anything like before.
(I received an advance review copy of this book from the publisher, Henry Holt and Co., via NetGalley and I am leaving this review voluntarily. All opinions are my own.)
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
2 Stars
Synopsis: Margaret desperately awaits the return of Joanie to Snare House. But the reunion is not the idyllic and passioned filled return she expects. Margaret finds herself having to live in the woods with her father and his magpies, away from Joanie and all they could have been.
Rep: Lesbian MC/Sapphic LI
CW/TW: Death/blood/homophobia/others may be present.
Some Mild Spoilers Ahead
I very rarely write negative book reviews but I was so excited for Little Wild when I received the eARC and was so disappointed that it was not what I expected. IM SORRY. Margaret's character comes off as intensely creepy and obsessed to the point that it is just wrong. Her obsession with Joanie is a mess and Joanie's character was so flat that it just felt unreasonable - she didn't seem to have any affection for Margaret let alone love for her.
Margaret's life in the woods is equally messy. Her mother died when she was young and the past comes back to haunt Margaret as well. But, again it was a mess. Her mother killed herself or was murdered? Her mother had magic and was a witch but also a bird who loved and hated her own daughter? The magpies were sentient but not? Honestly, I don't even know. It was nonsensical. Then you have Margaret and her magic? Is she also a witch? Maybe? Is her magic real? who even knows? And the creepy creation she makes is just downright weird.
Maybe you BookNerds will enjoy this but it was not the book for me. It felt incomplete, messy and far too creepy (in the obsessive way rather than horror way) for me to enjoy it.
*I received an eARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review - thank you!*
Synopsis: Margaret desperately awaits the return of Joanie to Snare House. But the reunion is not the idyllic and passioned filled return she expects. Margaret finds herself having to live in the woods with her father and his magpies, away from Joanie and all they could have been.
Rep: Lesbian MC/Sapphic LI
CW/TW: Death/blood/homophobia/others may be present.
Some Mild Spoilers Ahead
I very rarely write negative book reviews but I was so excited for Little Wild when I received the eARC and was so disappointed that it was not what I expected. IM SORRY. Margaret's character comes off as intensely creepy and obsessed to the point that it is just wrong. Her obsession with Joanie is a mess and Joanie's character was so flat that it just felt unreasonable - she didn't seem to have any affection for Margaret let alone love for her.
Margaret's life in the woods is equally messy. Her mother died when she was young and the past comes back to haunt Margaret as well. But, again it was a mess. Her mother killed herself or was murdered? Her mother had magic and was a witch but also a bird who loved and hated her own daughter? The magpies were sentient but not? Honestly, I don't even know. It was nonsensical. Then you have Margaret and her magic? Is she also a witch? Maybe? Is her magic real? who even knows? And the creepy creation she makes is just downright weird.
Maybe you BookNerds will enjoy this but it was not the book for me. It felt incomplete, messy and far too creepy (in the obsessive way rather than horror way) for me to enjoy it.
*I received an eARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review - thank you!*
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April 29, 2026
REVIEW ALSO ON MOONSTRUCK LIBRARY
actual rating — 4.75
When I say I devoured this one, I truly mean it. I had the hardest time setting this book down and was constantly thinking about it when I wasn’t reading. The cover was the very first thing that caught my attention while I was scrolling through Netgalley, but it was for sure the synopsis that sucked me in completely, so I was very happy that I got approved for an early copy.
I normally rate books based on my enjoyment while reading a book, so, yes, I did have a great time with Little Wild despite it having a few slow moments thrown into the mix which did slow down my reading pace a bit more than usual, but that did not ruin my enjoyment while reading, and honestly, the writing style was partially the reason. Laura Evans’ beautifully descriptive writing made it easy to visualize the scenes in each chapter and as a somewhat visual reader, that definitely made my reading experiance better the deeper I got into the story.
Even though the plot did slow down once I reached the halfway point of the story, I found myself flying through the last 100 to 150 pages as the plot began to pick up again and found myself wanting to stay up late to just find out how the book ends.
Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the entirety of this novel and had a great time with these characters, however the pacing is primarily the reason why I wasn’t able to give it a full five star. I still plan on going out and getting my hands on a finished copy once the book is offically out in the world. Lastly, I do look forward to this author’s future works because the writing style for Little Wild was hands down my favorite.
actual rating — 4.75
When I say I devoured this one, I truly mean it. I had the hardest time setting this book down and was constantly thinking about it when I wasn’t reading. The cover was the very first thing that caught my attention while I was scrolling through Netgalley, but it was for sure the synopsis that sucked me in completely, so I was very happy that I got approved for an early copy.
I normally rate books based on my enjoyment while reading a book, so, yes, I did have a great time with Little Wild despite it having a few slow moments thrown into the mix which did slow down my reading pace a bit more than usual, but that did not ruin my enjoyment while reading, and honestly, the writing style was partially the reason. Laura Evans’ beautifully descriptive writing made it easy to visualize the scenes in each chapter and as a somewhat visual reader, that definitely made my reading experiance better the deeper I got into the story.
Even though the plot did slow down once I reached the halfway point of the story, I found myself flying through the last 100 to 150 pages as the plot began to pick up again and found myself wanting to stay up late to just find out how the book ends.
Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the entirety of this novel and had a great time with these characters, however the pacing is primarily the reason why I wasn’t able to give it a full five star. I still plan on going out and getting my hands on a finished copy once the book is offically out in the world. Lastly, I do look forward to this author’s future works because the writing style for Little Wild was hands down my favorite.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Little Wild is the type of horror for the reader that wants to start in the genre but doesn't know where to start.
The elements present are typical of the genre and may cause some discomfort as is the premise, but nothing that causes excessive fear or anxiety. There are some reasonably descriptive scenes, but nothing that I consider too much for those who don't like gore. Little Wild will create just the right amount of tension and attention to keep you wanting.
The writing is lovely, props to Laura Evans that was perfectly descriptive and worked the imagery so well and Margaret so visceral, intense and willing to do what to look for her love that I couldn't put it down as her she moved across the story.
I did feel like things slowed down a tad too much towards the middle, it wasn't a problem to me because I loved the author's style but it's worth the mention.
It's precisely then though, that we get time with her father, the lodge and the forest and things get deliciously strange. The narrative was unsettling at times, especially when Margaret showed us her almost all consuming desire for Joanie and her longing to know and understand the nature around her and how deep the roots of it all went inside her.
Tamaryn Payne was spectacular as a narrator, the perfect amount of emotion at the perfect moment; the prose was made even more beautiful by her contribution.
Thank you to Netgalley and Macmillan Audio for sending me this ALC in exchange of an honest review.
The elements present are typical of the genre and may cause some discomfort as is the premise, but nothing that causes excessive fear or anxiety. There are some reasonably descriptive scenes, but nothing that I consider too much for those who don't like gore. Little Wild will create just the right amount of tension and attention to keep you wanting.
The writing is lovely, props to Laura Evans that was perfectly descriptive and worked the imagery so well and Margaret so visceral, intense and willing to do what to look for her love that I couldn't put it down as her she moved across the story.
I did feel like things slowed down a tad too much towards the middle, it wasn't a problem to me because I loved the author's style but it's worth the mention.
It's precisely then though, that we get time with her father, the lodge and the forest and things get deliciously strange. The narrative was unsettling at times, especially when Margaret showed us her almost all consuming desire for Joanie and her longing to know and understand the nature around her and how deep the roots of it all went inside her.
Tamaryn Payne was spectacular as a narrator, the perfect amount of emotion at the perfect moment; the prose was made even more beautiful by her contribution.
Thank you to Netgalley and Macmillan Audio for sending me this ALC in exchange of an honest review.
April 8, 2026
Intricate writing with a slower pace and poetic telling. Little Wild is about the love that Margaret and Joanie have for each other and how that love gets tested.
The reader sees through the eyes of Margaret, a young woman who lost her mother years earlier and after witnessing the distress the death has on her father goes to live with Joanie’s family. The two women have grown up together, developing a deep connection that only tips into romance right before Joanie is to leave on a long summer trip.
Margaret is anxious to see Joanie again and rekindle their romance. Their reunion becomes disastrous and Margaret is banished from the home she has known for years and sent to live with her father on the far side of the property. Heartbroken and confused, Margaret must now come to terms with her new life, her misunderstood father, and her mother’s past.
But the longer she spends in the woods, the more she feels a certain power within her. Things are happening that she can’t quite explain and soon her constant yearning for Joanie turns into something she never could have imagined.
This was quite an interesting read for me. I enjoyed the style
of writing and was intrigued about which way the plot would go. I do wish that the author went into greater detail about how Margaret was slowly becoming more connected to her roots. I also feel that even though shes got what she wanted, she wasn’t entirely happy at the end….. but maybe that is also the point.
The reader sees through the eyes of Margaret, a young woman who lost her mother years earlier and after witnessing the distress the death has on her father goes to live with Joanie’s family. The two women have grown up together, developing a deep connection that only tips into romance right before Joanie is to leave on a long summer trip.
Margaret is anxious to see Joanie again and rekindle their romance. Their reunion becomes disastrous and Margaret is banished from the home she has known for years and sent to live with her father on the far side of the property. Heartbroken and confused, Margaret must now come to terms with her new life, her misunderstood father, and her mother’s past.
But the longer she spends in the woods, the more she feels a certain power within her. Things are happening that she can’t quite explain and soon her constant yearning for Joanie turns into something she never could have imagined.
This was quite an interesting read for me. I enjoyed the style
of writing and was intrigued about which way the plot would go. I do wish that the author went into greater detail about how Margaret was slowly becoming more connected to her roots. I also feel that even though shes got what she wanted, she wasn’t entirely happy at the end….. but maybe that is also the point.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC
In the years right before the start of WWII, a teenage girl , Margaret, has been taken in and raised by the local gentry in the English countryside. She is motherless and has a drunken father so the wealthy family has taken her in as a companion for their daughter. The daughter , Joanie is just returning from a trip to "the continent" and Margaret is swooningly awaiting her return and party. It becomes increasingly clear that she is quite obsessed and Joanie may return some of her sexual attraction. The lead up to the party is told in an overly mannered tale of the wealthy in the prewar English countryside. But at the party, Margaret and Joanie are discovered in a passionate embrace and the story veers into the realm of magical realism. Margaret is banned from the estate, Joanie is sent off to college and Margaret is sent to live with her alcoholic father in a dilapidated cabin in the woods. There Margaret continues to obsess over Joanie but also begins to embrace her mother's witchy legacy and the spirits of the cabin. There's a bit of English witchery, a dash of Voodoo practices and a pinch of Jewish mystical rituals in the form of a (sort of) golem.
I have to admit, the slow burn beginning almost put me off, but I'm glad I muddled through the long twee descriptive beginning to get to the weird meat of the story
In the years right before the start of WWII, a teenage girl , Margaret, has been taken in and raised by the local gentry in the English countryside. She is motherless and has a drunken father so the wealthy family has taken her in as a companion for their daughter. The daughter , Joanie is just returning from a trip to "the continent" and Margaret is swooningly awaiting her return and party. It becomes increasingly clear that she is quite obsessed and Joanie may return some of her sexual attraction. The lead up to the party is told in an overly mannered tale of the wealthy in the prewar English countryside. But at the party, Margaret and Joanie are discovered in a passionate embrace and the story veers into the realm of magical realism. Margaret is banned from the estate, Joanie is sent off to college and Margaret is sent to live with her alcoholic father in a dilapidated cabin in the woods. There Margaret continues to obsess over Joanie but also begins to embrace her mother's witchy legacy and the spirits of the cabin. There's a bit of English witchery, a dash of Voodoo practices and a pinch of Jewish mystical rituals in the form of a (sort of) golem.
I have to admit, the slow burn beginning almost put me off, but I'm glad I muddled through the long twee descriptive beginning to get to the weird meat of the story
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Little Wild by Laura Evans is deep, atmospheric, dramatic and compelling. Take note of TWs
Joanie and Margaret are in love, that is, until Joanie goes on a trip to Europe, returning with a completely different mindset, ready to go to University and begin afresh.
It is 1937 and intolerance is rife and this, coupled with Joanie's trip causes her to distance hersef from Margaret, further compounded when her father finds out, sending Margaret packing to her fathers lodge in the woods
This is daunting in itself, leaving everything behind to go live with your estranged father in disgrace, surrounded by a parliament of Magpies, living in a house in rack and ruin and suffering a steamer of a heatwave. It is no wonder that Margaret starts to turn a little bt feral, becoming wilder (as the name of the book suggests) Not the type of summer people write jolly old postcards about that is for sure
Evans' elegant use of metaphor creates a narrative that envelopes the reader and I was fully absorbed throughout. The deep dive into the deterioration of Margarets mind was fascinating as it devolved in tandem with the intensity of the weather, her surroundings, her nightmares and the fear of her own feelings
An intriguing novel
Thank you to Netgalley, the author, Pan Macmillan | Mantle for this fascinating ARC. My review is left voluntarily and all opinions are my own
Joanie and Margaret are in love, that is, until Joanie goes on a trip to Europe, returning with a completely different mindset, ready to go to University and begin afresh.
It is 1937 and intolerance is rife and this, coupled with Joanie's trip causes her to distance hersef from Margaret, further compounded when her father finds out, sending Margaret packing to her fathers lodge in the woods
This is daunting in itself, leaving everything behind to go live with your estranged father in disgrace, surrounded by a parliament of Magpies, living in a house in rack and ruin and suffering a steamer of a heatwave. It is no wonder that Margaret starts to turn a little bt feral, becoming wilder (as the name of the book suggests) Not the type of summer people write jolly old postcards about that is for sure
Evans' elegant use of metaphor creates a narrative that envelopes the reader and I was fully absorbed throughout. The deep dive into the deterioration of Margarets mind was fascinating as it devolved in tandem with the intensity of the weather, her surroundings, her nightmares and the fear of her own feelings
An intriguing novel
Thank you to Netgalley, the author, Pan Macmillan | Mantle for this fascinating ARC. My review is left voluntarily and all opinions are my own
January 20, 2026
3.5 ⭐️
I was sent this book in exchange for my honest review and feedback!
This book was very interesting, yet heartbreaking. I loved the plot of the book, however, I think this book just wasn’t for me and that’s okay! The pacing is very slow, but not in a bad way that takes away from the story, just not my taste. I will include though, the author does an amazing job with details, but I found that in the beginning all the details at once made me confused in some parts and made it read very overwhelmingly in others.
It’s hard to put my thoughts and feelings about this book into words. I sadly wasn’t fond of the authors writing style, but that is just personal preference! It felt like it gave me everything and nothing at the same time. There were moments I truly loved and felt immersed in, but there were also parts where I struggled to fully connect with the story. The love story was really well done but the rest of the book didn’t do it for me.
All that being said, I do believe you’d enjoy this book if you love sapphic love stories with a true slow burn, tender yearning, touches of forbidden love, melancholic family dynamics, and detailed ambience, this book is definitely for you 🙌🏼
I was sent this book in exchange for my honest review and feedback!
This book was very interesting, yet heartbreaking. I loved the plot of the book, however, I think this book just wasn’t for me and that’s okay! The pacing is very slow, but not in a bad way that takes away from the story, just not my taste. I will include though, the author does an amazing job with details, but I found that in the beginning all the details at once made me confused in some parts and made it read very overwhelmingly in others.
It’s hard to put my thoughts and feelings about this book into words. I sadly wasn’t fond of the authors writing style, but that is just personal preference! It felt like it gave me everything and nothing at the same time. There were moments I truly loved and felt immersed in, but there were also parts where I struggled to fully connect with the story. The love story was really well done but the rest of the book didn’t do it for me.
All that being said, I do believe you’d enjoy this book if you love sapphic love stories with a true slow burn, tender yearning, touches of forbidden love, melancholic family dynamics, and detailed ambience, this book is definitely for you 🙌🏼
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
First off...that cover! This book also has an interesting hook, but it kept losing me in the execution and I'm not entirely sure why. Maybe a 3.5 for me.
The book didn't start off very strong, for me personally. There were a lot of micro details about a rich family planning a party for their daughter who is soon to leave for college. The family's ward is in love with the daughter and the two plan to instead run away together. The basics of the plot were all there but I felt like I was sifting through a lot of exposition to get to it.
Then, there is a series of standout scenes the night of the party when the drama comes to a head. I was jazzed during these sections and glad I'd kept reading. This is followed by some quieter scenes that feel a bit mystical, but still moved along at a nice pace.
But toward the end, the book started to lose me again, diving into more fanatical elements. This is normally my jam, but for some reason it wasn't working for me here (maybe because the tonal swings felt too wide?) Overall, I liked a lot of the elements in this story and enjoyed the ending, but the ride was a bit hit or miss for me.
Thank you to the author and NetGalley for granting me the opportunity to read this in exchange for an honest review.
The book didn't start off very strong, for me personally. There were a lot of micro details about a rich family planning a party for their daughter who is soon to leave for college. The family's ward is in love with the daughter and the two plan to instead run away together. The basics of the plot were all there but I felt like I was sifting through a lot of exposition to get to it.
Then, there is a series of standout scenes the night of the party when the drama comes to a head. I was jazzed during these sections and glad I'd kept reading. This is followed by some quieter scenes that feel a bit mystical, but still moved along at a nice pace.
But toward the end, the book started to lose me again, diving into more fanatical elements. This is normally my jam, but for some reason it wasn't working for me here (maybe because the tonal swings felt too wide?) Overall, I liked a lot of the elements in this story and enjoyed the ending, but the ride was a bit hit or miss for me.
Thank you to the author and NetGalley for granting me the opportunity to read this in exchange for an honest review.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Through the blazing hot autumn of 1937, Margaret has been anxiously awaiting the return of her friend and lover, Joanie, the daughter of the wealthy family who have kept her as a ward since childhood. Though the town members find her odd, and keep their distance due to her strange father and dead mother, Margaret is content with waiting for Joanie’s return, and to fulfill their plan of running away together to London. Unfortunately, the two are discovered, and Margaret is forced to return to the woods where her father lives. And, maybe, a dark magic lives there as well.
I found this to be a really unique and well-written novel, especially for a debut. I found the world Evan’s created to be rich and beautiful, and her lush descriptions really bring Snare House and the Lodge to life! I also liked the sense of doubt around the magical, as I felt like it gave the novel some added depth. I also found all of the characters to be well written and compelling. Though I was quite fond of the first half, I did find that the pacing of the second was better executed, and, personally, more engaging. I really loved the tone of this novel, and the way it managed to convey a sense of gloom and the gothic; I found it really entrancing.
Personally, I greatly enjoyed this work and believe it shows a lot of promise. I would definitely be interested in reading more by Laura Evans in the future!
Thank you to Henry Holt & Company and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my fair and honest opinion!
I found this to be a really unique and well-written novel, especially for a debut. I found the world Evan’s created to be rich and beautiful, and her lush descriptions really bring Snare House and the Lodge to life! I also liked the sense of doubt around the magical, as I felt like it gave the novel some added depth. I also found all of the characters to be well written and compelling. Though I was quite fond of the first half, I did find that the pacing of the second was better executed, and, personally, more engaging. I really loved the tone of this novel, and the way it managed to convey a sense of gloom and the gothic; I found it really entrancing.
Personally, I greatly enjoyed this work and believe it shows a lot of promise. I would definitely be interested in reading more by Laura Evans in the future!
Thank you to Henry Holt & Company and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my fair and honest opinion!
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio. All opinions are my own.
3.25 Stars
Little Wild by Laura Evans is a magical realism story about Meg and her love for long time friend Joanie. Meg lives with Joanie and her family after her mother death and her father is an outcast to society. Meg is treated like family until her and Joanie are caught kisses in the hedges. This is when Meg must return to her father's home, learn the truth of her mother's death and reconnect to the magic that her mother once had.
While the premise of this was interesting I found myself losing interest due to the pacing of the story. The being is quite slow and dragged out. Once you do get the part of the story where things are actually happening it still feels to slow and not enough happening to truly captivate and make me want to love the characters. I also did not believe the love between Meg and Joanie. It felt more like Meg was obsessed and disillusioned about the relationship.
The writing and descriptions were beautifully done and I wish I had loved this story more. I do believe the audiobook was well done.
While this book was not for me that doesn't mean others won't love it. If it sounds interesting give it a try!
3.25 Stars
Little Wild by Laura Evans is a magical realism story about Meg and her love for long time friend Joanie. Meg lives with Joanie and her family after her mother death and her father is an outcast to society. Meg is treated like family until her and Joanie are caught kisses in the hedges. This is when Meg must return to her father's home, learn the truth of her mother's death and reconnect to the magic that her mother once had.
While the premise of this was interesting I found myself losing interest due to the pacing of the story. The being is quite slow and dragged out. Once you do get the part of the story where things are actually happening it still feels to slow and not enough happening to truly captivate and make me want to love the characters. I also did not believe the love between Meg and Joanie. It felt more like Meg was obsessed and disillusioned about the relationship.
The writing and descriptions were beautifully done and I wish I had loved this story more. I do believe the audiobook was well done.
While this book was not for me that doesn't mean others won't love it. If it sounds interesting give it a try!
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Thanks NetGalley for this ARC audio!
I wanted to love this book, but it fell so flat for me. It is beautifully written, but there is absolutely no plot. I barely got through this I was so bored, as literally nothing happened. I kept waiting for something, but it just basically ends abruptly, which left me even more disappointed. Not to mention it got super confusing at times. I honestly wish I hadn’t wasted my time - life is too short to slog through a drowsy read.
The love between Margaret and Joanie felt totally one sided - Joanie felt like the biggest asshole who never returns affections and Margaret was just obsessed. So, nothing about that relationship had me rooting for it to work out for either of them. Another book (I’ve read several this spring) with not one single likeable character. Someone needs to resonate with the reader and they were all such horrible and unlikeable humans.
I had such high hopes for this one because it truly had all the things I typically love in a novel, but it was a huge disappointment for me.
I wanted to love this book, but it fell so flat for me. It is beautifully written, but there is absolutely no plot. I barely got through this I was so bored, as literally nothing happened. I kept waiting for something, but it just basically ends abruptly, which left me even more disappointed. Not to mention it got super confusing at times. I honestly wish I hadn’t wasted my time - life is too short to slog through a drowsy read.
The love between Margaret and Joanie felt totally one sided - Joanie felt like the biggest asshole who never returns affections and Margaret was just obsessed. So, nothing about that relationship had me rooting for it to work out for either of them. Another book (I’ve read several this spring) with not one single likeable character. Someone needs to resonate with the reader and they were all such horrible and unlikeable humans.
I had such high hopes for this one because it truly had all the things I typically love in a novel, but it was a huge disappointment for me.
December 6, 2025
Review of eBook
Despite the oppressive heat, everyone at Snare House . . . including the Winthers’ long-time ward, Margaret . . . is busy getting ready for Joanie’s return. She’s been touring Europe; now she’s coming home before heading off to Oxford.
But Joanie and Margaret have a secret.
What will happen if anyone finds out what they’ve planned?
=========
Set in the English countryside in 1937, this story is part fairy tale part haunting tale of love and desire, of betrayal and revenge. The lovely setting is in contrast to the deeply emotional story. The unfolding story takes some unexpected twists and turns as the story takes an unexpected dark turn.
Readers who enjoy historical fiction or LGNYQIAP+ stories will find much to appreciate here.
I received a free copy of this eBook from Henry Holt & Company / Henry Holt and Co. and NetGalley and am voluntarily leaving this review.
#LittleWild #NetGalley
Despite the oppressive heat, everyone at Snare House . . . including the Winthers’ long-time ward, Margaret . . . is busy getting ready for Joanie’s return. She’s been touring Europe; now she’s coming home before heading off to Oxford.
But Joanie and Margaret have a secret.
What will happen if anyone finds out what they’ve planned?
=========
Set in the English countryside in 1937, this story is part fairy tale part haunting tale of love and desire, of betrayal and revenge. The lovely setting is in contrast to the deeply emotional story. The unfolding story takes some unexpected twists and turns as the story takes an unexpected dark turn.
Readers who enjoy historical fiction or LGNYQIAP+ stories will find much to appreciate here.
I received a free copy of this eBook from Henry Holt & Company / Henry Holt and Co. and NetGalley and am voluntarily leaving this review.
#LittleWild #NetGalley
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
This book is a slow, atmospheric story rooted in magical realism, following multiple characters whose lives are loosely connected through a vividly described setting. The focus is much more on mood, imagery, and poetic language than on an action packed plot.
Unfortunately, this just wasn’t for me. I had a really hard time getting drawn into the story and just felt lost. While I can appreciate the lyrical, poetic writing style on a technical level, it didn’t translate into an engaging reading experience for me. The pacing was extremely slow, and I found myself bored and struggling to stay focused.
What’s disappointing is that the idea behind the book really intrigued me, but the execution felt underwhelming. I can absolutely see how readers who love magical realism and very prose-heavy, atmospheric novels would connect with this, but as someone who needs faster character momentum, this one missed the mark.
Unfortunately, this just wasn’t for me. I had a really hard time getting drawn into the story and just felt lost. While I can appreciate the lyrical, poetic writing style on a technical level, it didn’t translate into an engaging reading experience for me. The pacing was extremely slow, and I found myself bored and struggling to stay focused.
What’s disappointing is that the idea behind the book really intrigued me, but the execution felt underwhelming. I can absolutely see how readers who love magical realism and very prose-heavy, atmospheric novels would connect with this, but as someone who needs faster character momentum, this one missed the mark.
Review of advance copy received from Author
This book is absolutely fantastic: really captures the intensity of feeling of youth and first love, and how the strength of feeling can exist even when there are real ambiguities about the object of that passion (and indeed about the person feeling it). Just the familial+romantic interactions could make this a headier, sapphic version of something like I Capture the Castle, but the layering in of (real or perceived?) supernatural elements and the increasing darkness and ambiguity as it continues creates something even more rich and compelling. The prose is absolutely fantastic and really makes you feel like you're in the middle of things - there's a scene fairly early on of a large, crowded, noisy party which the protagonist Margaret is moving through while pumping with emotional uncertainty that I think almost anyone could identify with, even if their versions probably have less dramatic conclusions.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
Margaret and Joanie have plans to run away together but are soon discovered and Margaret is sent to live with her estranged father in a cabin in the woods. She then begins to have terrifying nightmares and wakes up with dirt on her feet and scratches on her back. And this is just the beginning. She's determined to find answers at any cost.
Oh my gosh this book was so good! It was dark it was creepy it was atmospheric the writing was so lyrical and beautiful. The characters were absolutely amazing you really feel the emotions that Margaret is going through throughout the course of this book. I wanted like 10 more of this I needed more of the story because it was just that good!
The emotions that are portrayed during the relationship of this book are just so strong when it gets exposed I actively found myself crying. It takes a lot for me to cry in a book but this one did it, it got me.
Oh my gosh this book was so good! It was dark it was creepy it was atmospheric the writing was so lyrical and beautiful. The characters were absolutely amazing you really feel the emotions that Margaret is going through throughout the course of this book. I wanted like 10 more of this I needed more of the story because it was just that good!
The emotions that are portrayed during the relationship of this book are just so strong when it gets exposed I actively found myself crying. It takes a lot for me to cry in a book but this one did it, it got me.
May 13, 2026
With a haunting atmospheric prose, we are thrust into a heatwave in 1937 Suffolk England.
While the heat beats down, a budding romance between two women is discovered throwing all plans out the window. Margaret is a ward of the Winthers and best friend to Joanie, their outgoing daughter. Upon discovery, Joanie is whisked to Oxford University leaving Margaret behind. Expelled from the house and reunited with her estranged and disgruntled father who lives on a shack on the grounds, Margaret soon discovers her Mothers history and starts to wonder if a power is awakening in her too.
The writing was lyrical and beautiful. Blending the lines between reality and dream, Margaret is an unrealistic narrator and it is soon unclear what is really happening.
Magical realism with a mysterious past, the heatwave permeates through the pages reading like a fever dream.
4.5⭐️
Thank you to @henryholt books and @macmillonaudio for the book and ALC. all opinions are my own.
While the heat beats down, a budding romance between two women is discovered throwing all plans out the window. Margaret is a ward of the Winthers and best friend to Joanie, their outgoing daughter. Upon discovery, Joanie is whisked to Oxford University leaving Margaret behind. Expelled from the house and reunited with her estranged and disgruntled father who lives on a shack on the grounds, Margaret soon discovers her Mothers history and starts to wonder if a power is awakening in her too.
The writing was lyrical and beautiful. Blending the lines between reality and dream, Margaret is an unrealistic narrator and it is soon unclear what is really happening.
Magical realism with a mysterious past, the heatwave permeates through the pages reading like a fever dream.
4.5⭐️
Thank you to @henryholt books and @macmillonaudio for the book and ALC. all opinions are my own.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Thank you to NetGalley and Henry Holt & Company for providing this ARC!
A slow-burning, atmospheric novel steeped in longing and unease. Set in the oppressive heat of the English countryside in 1937, Little Wild follows Margaret as she navigates class, desire, and something darker stirring beneath the surface.
This is a character-driven story that prioritizes mood and inner turmoil over plot. The writing is lush and often dreamlike, and the setting feels alive and ominous. The emotional tension, quiet repression, and touches of witchcraft and magical realism create a haunting sense of ambiguity.
The pacing is deliberately slow and some threads remain unresolved, which will not work for every reader. Still, this is a haunting, feminist-leaning fairy tale about desire and power, rewarding for those who enjoy literary, atmospheric fiction that lingers in discomfort.
A slow-burning, atmospheric novel steeped in longing and unease. Set in the oppressive heat of the English countryside in 1937, Little Wild follows Margaret as she navigates class, desire, and something darker stirring beneath the surface.
This is a character-driven story that prioritizes mood and inner turmoil over plot. The writing is lush and often dreamlike, and the setting feels alive and ominous. The emotional tension, quiet repression, and touches of witchcraft and magical realism create a haunting sense of ambiguity.
The pacing is deliberately slow and some threads remain unresolved, which will not work for every reader. Still, this is a haunting, feminist-leaning fairy tale about desire and power, rewarding for those who enjoy literary, atmospheric fiction that lingers in discomfort.
Review of advance copy received from Goodreads Giveaways
I won this ARC through Goodreads in February. Overall, I liked the story, it was pretty good. I honestly don’t have much to say about it though. I wasn’t enjoying it until 100 pages in. I truly became interested once Margaret’s character was introduced. The romance between her and Joanie and the happens between them is what caught my attention. Plus, the magic was interesting as well. Never knowing if it is real or just Joanie’s imagination and coincidences.
What I struggled with was the run on sentences throughout the whole book. Not sure if it was intended or not, but it caused me to lose my focus on the story more than once. I also have to say that this was an uncorrected proof, so maybe it will be better before publication. If the writing had been better, I think I would have loved it completely. I usually don’t have many complaints about books.
What I struggled with was the run on sentences throughout the whole book. Not sure if it was intended or not, but it caused me to lose my focus on the story more than once. I also have to say that this was an uncorrected proof, so maybe it will be better before publication. If the writing had been better, I think I would have loved it completely. I usually don’t have many complaints about books.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
I really enjoyed Little Wild. I haven’t read much horror historical fiction, but this absolutely made me want to pick up more of it. I received the ALC through NetGalley and Macmillan Audio, and Tamaryn Payne did such a good job bringing the beautiful, lyrical prose to life.
The unreliable narrator worked perfectly for the story and added this unsettling layer beneath the softer moments. I was expecting heavier gothic vibes, but it leaned cozier in a way I actually really loved. The lgbtqa2s+ relationship was tender and beautifully done, and the atmosphere felt haunting without losing that emotional warmth.
Also… the cover absolutely got me. It was the reason I picked this up in the first place, and thankfully the story delivered. Overall, such a lovely read with eerie vibes, gorgeous writing, and a quietly haunting story that stuck with me after I finished.
The unreliable narrator worked perfectly for the story and added this unsettling layer beneath the softer moments. I was expecting heavier gothic vibes, but it leaned cozier in a way I actually really loved. The lgbtqa2s+ relationship was tender and beautifully done, and the atmosphere felt haunting without losing that emotional warmth.
Also… the cover absolutely got me. It was the reason I picked this up in the first place, and thankfully the story delivered. Overall, such a lovely read with eerie vibes, gorgeous writing, and a quietly haunting story that stuck with me after I finished.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
I received an ARC of this book. These thoughts and opinions are completely my own.
This was an interesting read for me. The main character Margaret is making plans to run away from the life she being pushed towards with the girl she loves, only their plans get interrupted. Margaret is then forced to move back in with her not completely sane father while mourning the sudden loss of her dreams. That's when strange, almost magical, things start happening and she learns "the truth" about her mother's death. Then after everything she goes through, she still ends up wondering, if what she got was actually what she wanted.
The defying of societal and familial expectations, plus the blend of magical (and underlying mental health struggles), make for an almost dark and definitely twisted tale.
Brief language, brief spice.
This was an interesting read for me. The main character Margaret is making plans to run away from the life she being pushed towards with the girl she loves, only their plans get interrupted. Margaret is then forced to move back in with her not completely sane father while mourning the sudden loss of her dreams. That's when strange, almost magical, things start happening and she learns "the truth" about her mother's death. Then after everything she goes through, she still ends up wondering, if what she got was actually what she wanted.
The defying of societal and familial expectations, plus the blend of magical (and underlying mental health struggles), make for an almost dark and definitely twisted tale.
Brief language, brief spice.
Review of advance copy received from Goodreads Giveaways
This book was honestly slightly outside my typical reads due to its periodic nature (set in the past). Overall the book was very enjoyable and at times had me reading without break just to see what would happen next. I will say my only issue with it that left it at 4 stars instead of 5 was that the initial change in the character Margaret (Meg/Meggie) seemed to be particularly sudden rather than gradual. I had initially been expecting a change over the span of many days or weeks, rather than what was described as a drastic change in character from morning to night. After that initial sudden change the rest of the book appeared to be paced very well with an otherwise original and entertaining story
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