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Hemlock
A woman haunted by a dark inheritance returns to the woods where her mother vanished, in this queer Gothic novel.
Sam, finally sober and stable with a cat and a long-term boyfriend in Brooklyn, returns alone to Hemlock, her family’s deteriorating cabin deep in the Wisconsin Northwoods. But a quick, practical trip takes a turn for the worse when the rot and creak of the forest starts to creep in around the edges of Sam’s mind. It starts, as it always does, with a beer.
As Sam dips back into the murky waters of dependency, the inexplicable begins to arrive at her door and her body takes on a strange new shape. As the borders of reality begin to blur, she senses she is battling something sinister—whether nested in the woods or within herself.
Hemlock is a carnal coming-of-addiction, a dark sparkler about rapture, desire, transformation, and transcendence in many forms. What lives at the heart of fear—animal, monster, or man? How can we reject our own inheritance, the psychic storm that’s been coming for generations, and rebuild a new home for ourselves? In the tradition of Han Kang’s The Vegetarian, Hemlock is a butch Black Swan and a novel of singular style, with all the edginess of a survival story and a simmering menace that glints from the very periphery of the page.
Sam, finally sober and stable with a cat and a long-term boyfriend in Brooklyn, returns alone to Hemlock, her family’s deteriorating cabin deep in the Wisconsin Northwoods. But a quick, practical trip takes a turn for the worse when the rot and creak of the forest starts to creep in around the edges of Sam’s mind. It starts, as it always does, with a beer.
As Sam dips back into the murky waters of dependency, the inexplicable begins to arrive at her door and her body takes on a strange new shape. As the borders of reality begin to blur, she senses she is battling something sinister—whether nested in the woods or within herself.
Hemlock is a carnal coming-of-addiction, a dark sparkler about rapture, desire, transformation, and transcendence in many forms. What lives at the heart of fear—animal, monster, or man? How can we reject our own inheritance, the psychic storm that’s been coming for generations, and rebuild a new home for ourselves? In the tradition of Han Kang’s The Vegetarian, Hemlock is a butch Black Swan and a novel of singular style, with all the edginess of a survival story and a simmering menace that glints from the very periphery of the page.
416 pages, Paperback
Published January 20, 2026
58 people are currently reading
11881 people want to read
About the author
Melissa Faliveno
3 books157 followersAuthor of TOMBOYLAND: ESSAYS and the debut novel HEMLOCK, forthcoming January 20, 2026 from Little, Brown.
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July 9, 2025whoever coined this as a "butch black swan" in the marketing department deserves a raise i'm so serious
January 22, 2026
Hemlock is an atmospheric tale that delves into horror as an analogy for addiction. Melissa Faliveno writes lyrical sentences that go into great detail about the settings, which make it very vivid and immersive.I really enjoyed the main character, Sam, as well as the isolated Pacific Northwest setting.
However, I did find the elements of the story to be a bit muddled. I understand what the author was trying to convey with this one but I feel as if the book missed the mark. But overall, even though this one wasn't my favorite, I do think a lot of readers will enjoy it.
I alternated between reading the book myself and listening to the audiobook. The audiobook is narrated by Kira Fixx who did an excellent job.
Hemlock by Melissa Faliveno was published on January 20 so it's available now. Many thanks to Novel Suspects, Hachette Books, and Hachette Audio for the gifted copies!
However, I did find the elements of the story to be a bit muddled. I understand what the author was trying to convey with this one but I feel as if the book missed the mark. But overall, even though this one wasn't my favorite, I do think a lot of readers will enjoy it.
I alternated between reading the book myself and listening to the audiobook. The audiobook is narrated by Kira Fixx who did an excellent job.
Hemlock by Melissa Faliveno was published on January 20 so it's available now. Many thanks to Novel Suspects, Hachette Books, and Hachette Audio for the gifted copies!
January 20, 2026
I’m conflicted. I really wanted to like this more than I did. It just went in an entirely different direction than expected!
Let’s start with saying that this was not very plot heavy. The story was kind of all over the place, it focused much more on the single character that in this case is Sam. I’ll break it down.
Exhibit A: discussions on alcoholism and how it can be passed on from, in this case, mother to daughter. I don’t personally struggle with it, so you can just ignore my opinion if you want, but I thought this was done really well. One of the bits I actually liked. How her internal monologue (there’s a lot of that, so strap in) changes and becomes less and less clear as she downs one beer after the other. It is said that Sam’s mother struggled with it too and she has quite a bit of trauma stemming from that. At a point towards the end she asks herself how someone can look at a drink (or a plate of food, the like) and just say no to that, say they’re good, instead of just drinking all of it to the last drop. I found it important to mention that, because alcohol addiction can sometimes also be paralleled to food addiction, disordered eating. Again, I don’t personally struggle with any of that, but I still thought this was one of the best parts of the book.
Something else I liked, and I almost didn’t include this because it’s quite niche, is the very normal relationship she (queer woman) has with her (Italian) dad. It’s not every day that happens in books, so I treasure the moment when I come across it. Especially if the author is of Italian heritage, too, which I believe is the case with this book. Something else I want to add to this section is the relationship she has with religion/being raised Catholic, which is not talked about frequently here but when it is, it’s done well. Which brings me to the next section:
The writing. It almost single-handedly saved this book for me. I guess it can be described as flowery, and I agree, but in such a positive way. It didn’t pull me out of the story at all. And that can be the case sometimes, it can have you rolling your eyes, especially if it’s an audiobook! In this case it just worked.
Another part I thought was done well: the segments describing being “ethnic”-looking especially as a woman, and what that does to you. Those bits, I think, are very relevant to why the main character is how she is, how cleaning spit out of your hair as a young girl impacts your life well into your adulthood. Relevant to this book in general! She still thinks about what was being said about her, being called a beast, to the point that, in modern day, it still has repercussions. Horror comes with it.
I wasn’t a fan, on the other hand, of the talking deer/doe. Something about it didn’t work for me. It’s supposed to mean something, but I just feel like I would’ve gotten the meaning anyway? I seldom like talking animals in books, so it’s nothing new.
And finally, the plot could’ve used some work. While I liked it being character-driven, I would’ve liked some semblance of a storyline here. It, ultimately, lacked that spark for me.
Other trigger warnings, alcoholism aside: there are sexual harassment & assault descriptions, homophobia and animal death.
Audiobook notes: The narrator was very expressive without it being too excessive, and dramatic only when required (I’m thinking of one scene in particular). She did a great job, but I was not a fan of the voice of the doe. I just can’t imagine an animal talking like that? Also she gave me a fright at least once while acting the part of the animal! But overall, very solid narration.
I think I’m going to settle on a 3.5/5⭐️
Thank you to NetGalley for providing an ALC in exchange for an honest review.
Let’s start with saying that this was not very plot heavy. The story was kind of all over the place, it focused much more on the single character that in this case is Sam. I’ll break it down.
Exhibit A: discussions on alcoholism and how it can be passed on from, in this case, mother to daughter. I don’t personally struggle with it, so you can just ignore my opinion if you want, but I thought this was done really well. One of the bits I actually liked. How her internal monologue (there’s a lot of that, so strap in) changes and becomes less and less clear as she downs one beer after the other. It is said that Sam’s mother struggled with it too and she has quite a bit of trauma stemming from that. At a point towards the end she asks herself how someone can look at a drink (or a plate of food, the like) and just say no to that, say they’re good, instead of just drinking all of it to the last drop. I found it important to mention that, because alcohol addiction can sometimes also be paralleled to food addiction, disordered eating. Again, I don’t personally struggle with any of that, but I still thought this was one of the best parts of the book.
Something else I liked, and I almost didn’t include this because it’s quite niche, is the very normal relationship she (queer woman) has with her (Italian) dad. It’s not every day that happens in books, so I treasure the moment when I come across it. Especially if the author is of Italian heritage, too, which I believe is the case with this book. Something else I want to add to this section is the relationship she has with religion/being raised Catholic, which is not talked about frequently here but when it is, it’s done well. Which brings me to the next section:
The writing. It almost single-handedly saved this book for me. I guess it can be described as flowery, and I agree, but in such a positive way. It didn’t pull me out of the story at all. And that can be the case sometimes, it can have you rolling your eyes, especially if it’s an audiobook! In this case it just worked.
Another part I thought was done well: the segments describing being “ethnic”-looking especially as a woman, and what that does to you. Those bits, I think, are very relevant to why the main character is how she is, how cleaning spit out of your hair as a young girl impacts your life well into your adulthood. Relevant to this book in general! She still thinks about what was being said about her, being called a beast, to the point that, in modern day, it still has repercussions. Horror comes with it.
I wasn’t a fan, on the other hand, of the talking deer/doe. Something about it didn’t work for me. It’s supposed to mean something, but I just feel like I would’ve gotten the meaning anyway? I seldom like talking animals in books, so it’s nothing new.
And finally, the plot could’ve used some work. While I liked it being character-driven, I would’ve liked some semblance of a storyline here. It, ultimately, lacked that spark for me.
Other trigger warnings, alcoholism aside: there are sexual harassment & assault descriptions, homophobia and animal death.
Audiobook notes: The narrator was very expressive without it being too excessive, and dramatic only when required (I’m thinking of one scene in particular). She did a great job, but I was not a fan of the voice of the doe. I just can’t imagine an animal talking like that? Also she gave me a fright at least once while acting the part of the animal! But overall, very solid narration.
I think I’m going to settle on a 3.5/5⭐️
Thank you to NetGalley for providing an ALC in exchange for an honest review.
January 21, 2026
I received a copy for review purposes. All opinions are honest and mine alone.
Let me start by saying, I HATE the publisher’s first sentence in the opening of the summary about this book: “…in this queer Gothic novel - a butch Black Swan.” What?!?!?
Not in a million years is this debut novel, by Melissa Faliveno, anything like that wretched description. Yes, main character, Sam, a woman who is doing battle with emotional demons, does have a lesbian experience during the course of the story. Is it so important it deserves top billing by the publisher? I don’t think so…
Sam is also a recovering alcoholic who is reevaluating her life; not quite a midlife crisis but a similar assessment. Her current 10+ year relationship with Stephen is not working for her. She loves him but is just not sure she wants to be with him anymore. Sam considers herself “androgynous” and has had relationships with men and women at various times. She’s a writer but not satisfied on that front, either. Sam has lots of questions about her mother who vanished in the woods surrounding her inherited cabin named HEMLOCK, in Wisconsin’s north woods, where she’s gone to sort her life.
Faliveno has a lovely way with descriptive prose. Her language is atmospheric and creates characters of HEMLOCK, (the rundown cabin), and surrounding woods. Readers will find much to ponder with the relationship between Sam, the cabin and their transformations.
Sam and the cabin are ponderable but there is a doe that visits with Sam and speaks to her that defies most rational thinking; or is there? It shows up a lot, (maybe it’s a function of alcoholism?), at all times of the day and night. Could it be dreaming? When she’s drunk and sober.
Do you believe in communication from those who have gone on before you? So many possibilities and this tiny mountain village has a few interesting neighbors that want to offer Sam a lending hand; or do they? Inquiring minds want…need to know about the doe.
I spent a bunch of time wondering if the title of the book was a clue. Do you know what hemlock can do? Main character, Sam, spends a lot of time thinking and wondering about her entire life. Her partner, Stephen, is wondering about her.
Recommended for readers who don’t need quick, easy answers, enjoy psychological conundrums, aren’t offended by R rated, sapphic sexual encounters and a full complement of foul language📚
Read and Reviewed from a NetGalley eARC via Kindle, with thanks to the publisher and author
Let me start by saying, I HATE the publisher’s first sentence in the opening of the summary about this book: “…in this queer Gothic novel - a butch Black Swan.” What?!?!?
Not in a million years is this debut novel, by Melissa Faliveno, anything like that wretched description. Yes, main character, Sam, a woman who is doing battle with emotional demons, does have a lesbian experience during the course of the story. Is it so important it deserves top billing by the publisher? I don’t think so…
Sam is also a recovering alcoholic who is reevaluating her life; not quite a midlife crisis but a similar assessment. Her current 10+ year relationship with Stephen is not working for her. She loves him but is just not sure she wants to be with him anymore. Sam considers herself “androgynous” and has had relationships with men and women at various times. She’s a writer but not satisfied on that front, either. Sam has lots of questions about her mother who vanished in the woods surrounding her inherited cabin named HEMLOCK, in Wisconsin’s north woods, where she’s gone to sort her life.
Faliveno has a lovely way with descriptive prose. Her language is atmospheric and creates characters of HEMLOCK, (the rundown cabin), and surrounding woods. Readers will find much to ponder with the relationship between Sam, the cabin and their transformations.
Sam and the cabin are ponderable but there is a doe that visits with Sam and speaks to her that defies most rational thinking; or is there? It shows up a lot, (maybe it’s a function of alcoholism?), at all times of the day and night. Could it be dreaming? When she’s drunk and sober.
Do you believe in communication from those who have gone on before you? So many possibilities and this tiny mountain village has a few interesting neighbors that want to offer Sam a lending hand; or do they? Inquiring minds want…need to know about the doe.
I spent a bunch of time wondering if the title of the book was a clue. Do you know what hemlock can do? Main character, Sam, spends a lot of time thinking and wondering about her entire life. Her partner, Stephen, is wondering about her.
Recommended for readers who don’t need quick, easy answers, enjoy psychological conundrums, aren’t offended by R rated, sapphic sexual encounters and a full complement of foul language📚
Read and Reviewed from a NetGalley eARC via Kindle, with thanks to the publisher and author
December 26, 2025
At first, things got off to a bit of a rocky start with this one. A lot of the sentences start with “She.” It seemed like the language didn’t have much variation. But as I read, I got into the flow of the language and didn’t really notice it as much, and pretty soon I found myself invested. I ended up thinking the writing was good, especially the descriptions.
The author is skilled at creating an atmosphere and describing things in a way that really puts you there. The feeling of slowly succumbing to the warmth of a strong alcoholic drink. A delicious and filling meal at a restaurant. (That happens twice, and god was I hungry both times.) A violent and frightening thunderstorm at an isolated cabin.
I’m not sure how I feel about the talking deer, even now. I liked the concept, but it wore thin after a while because the deer talked too much. It lost its mystery. I think I would have preferred a more unsettling, prolific approach to this idea instead of a very chatty animal that cracks jokes. At the same time, I eventually found myself invested in the welfare of the deer, and almost annoyed at the book for making me feel that way. There was clearly more going on also, in regards to the deer’s meaning, that I have theories about but I don’t think I grasped 100%. This seems like the sort of book that wants you to come up with your own answers.
There was one chapter near the end that was absolutely gut wrenching. Some of main character Sam’s memories in this story are so vivid and sad and detailed that part of me wonders if there is some truth to them. (I hope not.) They’re very raw and painful. I really felt for her and her struggle in the present day made sense to me.
I don’t think I agree with the “Black Swan” comparison. “Hemlock” is more like a horribly depressing portrait of addiction with a slight touch of Lars Von Trier. But as always, these things are open to individual experience and interpretation.
What’s not up for debate is that this is a stark portrayal of alcoholism and how it can tear individuals and families apart. It also certainly does the “horror as metaphor” thing, as in addiction turns you into a monster, but it’s not quite so blatant about it. Which brings me to my biggest issue with the book: the message at large was too muddled for me because there were too many things mixed together. The Alcoholism causing blackouts and making Sam into something she knew well but didn’t want to be, while at the same time there was a bigger metaphor at play about gender nonconformity and sexual exploration. But that was also tied to references to becoming a literal monster, as Sam kept growing hair on her body and becoming aggressive. At one point there was even a conversation between characters about Cryptids and murderous creatures of the woods. Plus, there’s the talking doe. Every time I thought I had a grasp on what the author was saying, she would throw something else in.
This novel could potentially be very triggering for anyone who has struggled with Alcoholism or Suicidal ideation. Not the BEST choice for a Christmas read, honestly. (Merry Christmas, btw! I hope that whatever you celebrate, you had a safe and comforting holiday despite everything.)
My rating is 3.5 stars. The actual writing was quite good. I just think the some of it could have been more focused.
Thank you to Netgalley and to the Publisher for offering me this ARC in exchange for an honest review! All opinions are my own.
Biggest TW: Self-harm, *Alcoholism (including driving under the influence), Domestic Abuse, Suicidal Ideation, Homophobia/Slurs, Animal harm/death
The author is skilled at creating an atmosphere and describing things in a way that really puts you there. The feeling of slowly succumbing to the warmth of a strong alcoholic drink. A delicious and filling meal at a restaurant. (That happens twice, and god was I hungry both times.) A violent and frightening thunderstorm at an isolated cabin.
I’m not sure how I feel about the talking deer, even now. I liked the concept, but it wore thin after a while because the deer talked too much. It lost its mystery. I think I would have preferred a more unsettling, prolific approach to this idea instead of a very chatty animal that cracks jokes. At the same time, I eventually found myself invested in the welfare of the deer, and almost annoyed at the book for making me feel that way. There was clearly more going on also, in regards to the deer’s meaning, that I have theories about but I don’t think I grasped 100%. This seems like the sort of book that wants you to come up with your own answers.
There was one chapter near the end that was absolutely gut wrenching. Some of main character Sam’s memories in this story are so vivid and sad and detailed that part of me wonders if there is some truth to them. (I hope not.) They’re very raw and painful. I really felt for her and her struggle in the present day made sense to me.
I don’t think I agree with the “Black Swan” comparison. “Hemlock” is more like a horribly depressing portrait of addiction with a slight touch of Lars Von Trier. But as always, these things are open to individual experience and interpretation.
What’s not up for debate is that this is a stark portrayal of alcoholism and how it can tear individuals and families apart. It also certainly does the “horror as metaphor” thing, as in addiction turns you into a monster, but it’s not quite so blatant about it. Which brings me to my biggest issue with the book: the message at large was too muddled for me because there were too many things mixed together. The Alcoholism causing blackouts and making Sam into something she knew well but didn’t want to be, while at the same time there was a bigger metaphor at play about gender nonconformity and sexual exploration. But that was also tied to references to becoming a literal monster, as Sam kept growing hair on her body and becoming aggressive. At one point there was even a conversation between characters about Cryptids and murderous creatures of the woods. Plus, there’s the talking doe. Every time I thought I had a grasp on what the author was saying, she would throw something else in.
This novel could potentially be very triggering for anyone who has struggled with Alcoholism or Suicidal ideation. Not the BEST choice for a Christmas read, honestly. (Merry Christmas, btw! I hope that whatever you celebrate, you had a safe and comforting holiday despite everything.)
My rating is 3.5 stars. The actual writing was quite good. I just think the some of it could have been more focused.
Thank you to Netgalley and to the Publisher for offering me this ARC in exchange for an honest review! All opinions are my own.
Biggest TW: Self-harm, *Alcoholism (including driving under the influence), Domestic Abuse, Suicidal Ideation, Homophobia/Slurs, Animal harm/death
October 17, 2025
The concept for this novel was so cool…and it fell completely flat. The plot was weak and hinged entirely on the inner workings of the main character who was unreliable and unlikable but not in a dynamic and intriguing way—just in an insufferable way.
It feels like an endless stream of the character’s “self introspection” and recounting of past traumas that do almost nothing for the plot and somehow made me as a reader less interested in what was going on. About halfway through, I had this distinct feeling (and I’ve never felt this so starkly while reading a novel) that this main character wasn’t a character at all but just a slightly fictionalized version of the author, and one Google proved me right! The author looks the same as our character, had the same job, lived in the same places, you name it. Of course, elements of an author will show up in characters they write from time to time but it felt immediately clear that this character was not written to be an interesting main character, but instead to be a different version of the writer.
The book is clearly trying to be a metaphor for processing trauma and addiction and self identity but in the end it just felt like the author trying to process those things themselves while completely disregarding plot, character development, and all of the things that make a good novel.
Thank you to Little, Brown and Company and NetGalley for the ARC! Sorry I didn’t like the book!
It feels like an endless stream of the character’s “self introspection” and recounting of past traumas that do almost nothing for the plot and somehow made me as a reader less interested in what was going on. About halfway through, I had this distinct feeling (and I’ve never felt this so starkly while reading a novel) that this main character wasn’t a character at all but just a slightly fictionalized version of the author, and one Google proved me right! The author looks the same as our character, had the same job, lived in the same places, you name it. Of course, elements of an author will show up in characters they write from time to time but it felt immediately clear that this character was not written to be an interesting main character, but instead to be a different version of the writer.
The book is clearly trying to be a metaphor for processing trauma and addiction and self identity but in the end it just felt like the author trying to process those things themselves while completely disregarding plot, character development, and all of the things that make a good novel.
Thank you to Little, Brown and Company and NetGalley for the ARC! Sorry I didn’t like the book!
Want to read
September 20, 2025butch black swan??? say less
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
After a lifetime of addiction, Sam's finally sober and has a comfortable life in New York with her boyfriend and their cat. A trip to fix up her family's old cabin takes her back to the Wisconsin woods where her mother disappeared years ago, and as Sam works on the house, she finds herself haunted by her past and present alike.
Whew, what a book. Hemlock is a tough book to read; its subject matter gets very dark (please see content warnings below), and while I think it's more accurately described as a thriller, it does definitely veer into horror at several points. Faliveno's writing dances between sparse and poetic in a way that makes each creepy moment that much more jarring.
Hemlock is also a novel that does not provide easy answers, and often leaves the reader stumbling along just as confused as Sam is as her world becomes increasingly strange and untrustworthy. For most of the novel, this didn't bother me; I reveled in how that uncertainty wove such an eerie, tense atmosphere, and looked forward to the payoff of everything finally clicking into place. But as the novel neared its close, that moment of understanding never came. Instead the narrative was layered with progressively more open-ended questions: was it all just the alcohol? Mental illness? Werewolves? Cryptids? Gender dysphoria? Ghosts? I don't think that Faliveno really wanted to give a single answer and instead let the reader decide for themself. That will really work for some, but I found myself struggling to understand the intended meaning. Every time I thought I was piecing something together, something came along to contradict it.
I did enjoy how the novel paints solitude as both a refuge and a horror, contrasting the freedom of being alone and hidden from societal judgment, with the fear of having to fend for oneself and fight one's demons alone. I also enjoyed the exploration of Sam's genderqueerness and how expertly Faliveno made even Sam's most frustrating decisions empathetic.
I'm grateful for my time with the book because it helped me deeply understand a point of view very different from my own - but admittedly, I'm also glad to have its harrowing pages behind me.
Thank you to NetGalley and Little, Brown for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Content Warnings for graphic depictions of alcoholism, suicidal ideation and suicide attempts, as well as moderate depictions of stalking, homophobia and animal death.
After a lifetime of addiction, Sam's finally sober and has a comfortable life in New York with her boyfriend and their cat. A trip to fix up her family's old cabin takes her back to the Wisconsin woods where her mother disappeared years ago, and as Sam works on the house, she finds herself haunted by her past and present alike.
Whew, what a book. Hemlock is a tough book to read; its subject matter gets very dark (please see content warnings below), and while I think it's more accurately described as a thriller, it does definitely veer into horror at several points. Faliveno's writing dances between sparse and poetic in a way that makes each creepy moment that much more jarring.
Hemlock is also a novel that does not provide easy answers, and often leaves the reader stumbling along just as confused as Sam is as her world becomes increasingly strange and untrustworthy. For most of the novel, this didn't bother me; I reveled in how that uncertainty wove such an eerie, tense atmosphere, and looked forward to the payoff of everything finally clicking into place. But as the novel neared its close, that moment of understanding never came. Instead the narrative was layered with progressively more open-ended questions: was it all just the alcohol? Mental illness? Werewolves? Cryptids? Gender dysphoria? Ghosts? I don't think that Faliveno really wanted to give a single answer and instead let the reader decide for themself. That will really work for some, but I found myself struggling to understand the intended meaning. Every time I thought I was piecing something together, something came along to contradict it.
I did enjoy how the novel paints solitude as both a refuge and a horror, contrasting the freedom of being alone and hidden from societal judgment, with the fear of having to fend for oneself and fight one's demons alone. I also enjoyed the exploration of Sam's genderqueerness and how expertly Faliveno made even Sam's most frustrating decisions empathetic.
I'm grateful for my time with the book because it helped me deeply understand a point of view very different from my own - but admittedly, I'm also glad to have its harrowing pages behind me.
Thank you to NetGalley and Little, Brown for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Content Warnings for graphic depictions of alcoholism, suicidal ideation and suicide attempts, as well as moderate depictions of stalking, homophobia and animal death.
January 21, 2026
My first 5-star read of the year is in!
I'm sticking to the point I made about 40% through the book: this is going to be a marmite-read. Not everyone is going to love the style, but I absolutely ADORED it.
Hemlock is a haunting, unsettling and strange tale of transformation, identity, trauma and addiction in the niche-subgenre of gothic literary-weird novels that I'm apparently a sucker for. Pitched as "Butch Black Swan" (which, I have to say: accurate!), this is for fans of Melissa Broder's Death Valley, Leila Motley's Nightcrawling and had some vibes of Kit Mayquists Tripping Arcadia.
A full review is in the making, once I've had time to digest this properly. And get my hands on a physical copy to support the author and enable myself for a reread!
Many thanks to Hachette & Little Brown for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
I'm sticking to the point I made about 40% through the book: this is going to be a marmite-read. Not everyone is going to love the style, but I absolutely ADORED it.
Hemlock is a haunting, unsettling and strange tale of transformation, identity, trauma and addiction in the niche-subgenre of gothic literary-weird novels that I'm apparently a sucker for. Pitched as "Butch Black Swan" (which, I have to say: accurate!), this is for fans of Melissa Broder's Death Valley, Leila Motley's Nightcrawling and had some vibes of Kit Mayquists Tripping Arcadia.
A full review is in the making, once I've had time to digest this properly. And get my hands on a physical copy to support the author and enable myself for a reread!
Many thanks to Hachette & Little Brown for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
January 21, 2026
Because no matter how far you run, she knew—no matter how hard you try to shed your old skin and become something else—the place you come from stays with you. It always calls you back. And sometimes, when you hear stories about yourself early enough, and long enough, they work their way into your skin. They live inside your still-growing bones and run in your blood. They become a part of you.
The whole time I was reading Hemlock, I felt like I was waiting for the book to start - for something, anything to happen to formulate a plot. But it turns out, Hemlock isn’t one of those plot-forward books; it’s a vibe-y, metaphor-heavy story about addiction, generational trauma, grief, identity, and self-discovery.
I appreciated what this book was trying to do a lot more than I enjoyed the book itself. I loved the setting: an isolated run-down cabin in the Northwoods of Wisconsin, where the protagonist, Sam, is forced to reckon with her past, her present, and her alcoholism. Melissa Faliveno’s writing is evocative; she really succeeded at creating an unsettling, sinister sort of atmosphere, as Sam gives in to her addiction and begins having strange, otherworldly experiences. There’s a talking deer involved. The reader isn’t sure what’s going on, just as Sam isn’t sure.
The problem is, we never really find out what’s going on. The book spends a lot of time introducing new ideas and never really doing anything with them, and there are no definitive answers at the end. What Hemlock becomes, then, is a pitch-black journey into the psyche of a damaged, struggling woman, with no real resolution for her or for the reader. It’s intriguing and certainly emotionally engaging, but too muddled to be truly satisfying or redemptive.
If there is horror here (and I’m not sure I’d classify this book as horror at all), it’s of the metaphorical variety - how addiction, grief, unhealed trauma, and isolation can make monsters of us. I can certainly appreciate that message, but the execution of these ideas left something to be desired for me. Thank you to Little, Brown and Company and Hachette Audio for the early reading opportunity.
October 20, 2025
I received a free copy of, Hemlock, by Melissa Faliveno, from the publisher and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Sam is an addict, she goes to Hemlock, her family's cabin in the woods and starts drinking. This book was way to depressing for me.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
This was such an interesting read for me. The Netgalley blurb had me thinking this would be somewhat gothic horror, but I was really pleasantly surprised by the direction it took! It had some horror elements sprinkled in, but the real meat of the book was something so poignant and full of life that I found myself feeling very reflective by the end (and almost brought to tears lol).
Hemlock follows Sam, who is returning to her family's cabin to restore and sell it as her father is growing older and her mother disappeared mysteriously several years ago. As she works on the cabin and exists in near-isolation - a stark contrast to her previous bustling NYC life - Sam's grip on reality begins to unravel and she begins to slip back into her prior drinking habits.
This book was such a beautiful yet visceral exploration into gender, nature, generational trauma, addiction, mental health, and so many other elements. Everything blended so well throughout the story that at some point I realized I had no idea where it was going, but I didn't really care, because I trusted the book to deliver me to where I needed to be.
I see a lot of myself in Sam. Sorrow aimed at a tumultuous childhood, self-destructive tendencies, and not quite knowing who you are outside of the body you happen to inhabit.
This was an incredibly powerful debut from Faliveno, and her voice and prose was so refined I was certain I was reading something from an author with several books under their belt. I will absolutely be looking out for future work from them!
Thank you to Netgalley and Little, Brown and Company for this ARC in exchange for an honest review!! 🤎
Hemlock follows Sam, who is returning to her family's cabin to restore and sell it as her father is growing older and her mother disappeared mysteriously several years ago. As she works on the cabin and exists in near-isolation - a stark contrast to her previous bustling NYC life - Sam's grip on reality begins to unravel and she begins to slip back into her prior drinking habits.
This book was such a beautiful yet visceral exploration into gender, nature, generational trauma, addiction, mental health, and so many other elements. Everything blended so well throughout the story that at some point I realized I had no idea where it was going, but I didn't really care, because I trusted the book to deliver me to where I needed to be.
I see a lot of myself in Sam. Sorrow aimed at a tumultuous childhood, self-destructive tendencies, and not quite knowing who you are outside of the body you happen to inhabit.
This was an incredibly powerful debut from Faliveno, and her voice and prose was so refined I was certain I was reading something from an author with several books under their belt. I will absolutely be looking out for future work from them!
Thank you to Netgalley and Little, Brown and Company for this ARC in exchange for an honest review!! 🤎
January 8, 2026
Got an arc from Libro.fm
This isn’t the kind of thing I normally read but overall I think I liked it. The audiobook is very well done I felt, in a way that feels intimate, like you’re out alone in the woods with the MC. Some of the sentences are a bit repetitive in a way I’m not sure I would’ve noticed if I weren’t listening to the audiobook, but I can chalk that up to it being a debut novel.
Large swaths of this book made me nostalgic for childhood trips to visit my godparents’ farm in the middle of the Pennsylvania woods and I loved the atmosphere of it all. There’s so much Gender going on here and I’m a sucker for transformation™️ as a metaphor for figuring out your gender shit, though I wish we could’ve used the word pan/bisexual since, even though Sam is clearly figuring out some gender stuff, she seems pretty comfortable in liking multiple genders.
So while a little rough around the edges, I can see this being a big hit with people who like the trippy, surreal, sapphic nature of like…Our Wives Under the Sea, just without the weirdly ableist undertones.
This isn’t the kind of thing I normally read but overall I think I liked it. The audiobook is very well done I felt, in a way that feels intimate, like you’re out alone in the woods with the MC. Some of the sentences are a bit repetitive in a way I’m not sure I would’ve noticed if I weren’t listening to the audiobook, but I can chalk that up to it being a debut novel.
Large swaths of this book made me nostalgic for childhood trips to visit my godparents’ farm in the middle of the Pennsylvania woods and I loved the atmosphere of it all. There’s so much Gender going on here and I’m a sucker for transformation™️ as a metaphor for figuring out your gender shit, though I wish we could’ve used the word pan/bisexual since, even though Sam is clearly figuring out some gender stuff, she seems pretty comfortable in liking multiple genders.
So while a little rough around the edges, I can see this being a big hit with people who like the trippy, surreal, sapphic nature of like…Our Wives Under the Sea, just without the weirdly ableist undertones.
January 12, 2026
Generational trauma, soaked in beer
Arc from NetGalley
Arc from NetGalley
January 16, 2026
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the advance copy in exchange for my honest review. I could not wait for this book to be over. It was depressing, there was no plot, but there is a talking deer, so I guess do with that what you will.
July 31, 2025
This is a lovely, bittersweet book about Sam--newly sober--who leaves boyfriend Stephen behind when she travels to her family's cabin in the woods that's been abandoned since her mom took off and was never found. She's determined to fix it up and sell it to give the money to her aging father. But it's lonely and the bars are calling; eventually she hears a doe "speaking" to her. But she continues on her quest to repair things and even at times when it's painful to read, we know Sam has a good heart and will hopefully find a way to live fully!
Thanks to NetGalley for this ARC!
January 22, 2026
thank you to NetGalley, Little, Brown and Company, and Hachette Audio for the advanced digital and ebook copies!
--
i went into this one with high expectations. melissa faliveno's essay collection tomboyland absolutely wrecked me in the best way so when i heard that there was a novel coming, i was ready. but hemlock is a different beast entirely, and while there's a lot here that's worthwhile, the reading experience felt uneven, and part of that comes down to how it was packaged.
this isn’t a horror novel. it's not "butch black swan." i don't know who decided to use that, but it sets entirely the wrong tone. instead, what we get is a deeply internal, melancholy, queer character study with gothic trappings and heavy themes of addiction, generational trauma, and inherited grief. if you go in expecting psychological horror or something plot-heavy, you'll spend most of the book confused or disappointed. i think i spent the first half waiting for the story to start, which ultimately isn't fair to the book, but it's a result of mismatched expectations.
taken on its own terms, hemlock is often beautiful. faliveno writes with atmosphere and emotional precision. the prose is textured and moody in a way that completely mirrors sam's inner world. she's a recovering alcoholic, returning alone to her family's cabin in rural wisconsin, trying to reckon with the legacy of her vanished mother. there's rot in the floorboards and static in her memory, and over the course of the novel, the line between internal and external realities begins to blur. she hears things. sees things. has full conversations with a talking deer that may or may not be her mother. that's where the novel gets slippery and whether or not you're willing to follow it down that rabbit hole will determine how well it lands for you.
what faliveno does do incredibly well is explore the embodied reality of addiction and trauma. sam's sobriety and relapse are rendered in such a tactile, granular way that it's clear that this part of the story is personal, maybe even exorcistic. the way drinking is described was not just as an impulse but as something almost creaturely, parasitic. the catholic guilt, the legacy of silence, the confusion around sexuality, gender, and the body - all of it adds up to something raw and vulnerable, even when the plot itself feels abstract or uncertain.
i'm not sure the surreal elements totally worked for me and i do wish the ending had landed harder. the talking doe veered into metaphor territory that felt a little too on-the-nose. but the writing kept me in it. faliveno knows how to build a sentence and how to haunt a character.
this wasn't the novel i thought i was picking up. but even if the execution wobbled, the ambition is clear and i'll be reading whatever faliveno writes next.
--
i went into this one with high expectations. melissa faliveno's essay collection tomboyland absolutely wrecked me in the best way so when i heard that there was a novel coming, i was ready. but hemlock is a different beast entirely, and while there's a lot here that's worthwhile, the reading experience felt uneven, and part of that comes down to how it was packaged.
this isn’t a horror novel. it's not "butch black swan." i don't know who decided to use that, but it sets entirely the wrong tone. instead, what we get is a deeply internal, melancholy, queer character study with gothic trappings and heavy themes of addiction, generational trauma, and inherited grief. if you go in expecting psychological horror or something plot-heavy, you'll spend most of the book confused or disappointed. i think i spent the first half waiting for the story to start, which ultimately isn't fair to the book, but it's a result of mismatched expectations.
taken on its own terms, hemlock is often beautiful. faliveno writes with atmosphere and emotional precision. the prose is textured and moody in a way that completely mirrors sam's inner world. she's a recovering alcoholic, returning alone to her family's cabin in rural wisconsin, trying to reckon with the legacy of her vanished mother. there's rot in the floorboards and static in her memory, and over the course of the novel, the line between internal and external realities begins to blur. she hears things. sees things. has full conversations with a talking deer that may or may not be her mother. that's where the novel gets slippery and whether or not you're willing to follow it down that rabbit hole will determine how well it lands for you.
what faliveno does do incredibly well is explore the embodied reality of addiction and trauma. sam's sobriety and relapse are rendered in such a tactile, granular way that it's clear that this part of the story is personal, maybe even exorcistic. the way drinking is described was not just as an impulse but as something almost creaturely, parasitic. the catholic guilt, the legacy of silence, the confusion around sexuality, gender, and the body - all of it adds up to something raw and vulnerable, even when the plot itself feels abstract or uncertain.
i'm not sure the surreal elements totally worked for me and i do wish the ending had landed harder. the talking doe veered into metaphor territory that felt a little too on-the-nose. but the writing kept me in it. faliveno knows how to build a sentence and how to haunt a character.
this wasn't the novel i thought i was picking up. but even if the execution wobbled, the ambition is clear and i'll be reading whatever faliveno writes next.
January 18, 2026
Shoutout to Little, Brown and Company and Netgalley for the ARC e-book and audiobook!
1.5 ⭐️
This is my first ARC review and it’s unfortunately not positive! I wanna say the prose is quite good, but the narrative told was quite bad.
- First gripe: whoever labeled this “Butch Black Swan” please step forward!! Is said butch black swan in the room with us? I’m not going to play label police but we all know the term “butch” has such a weight and history with it that our main character never sold me on so I really want to know who came up with that as a “selling point” for this book because they should at least rewatch Black Swan?
- Second gripe: a queer author implementing a known harmful queer stereotype about bisexual/pansexual/queer people with no nuance or subversion is lazy at best, harmful at worst. Honestly, what are we doing!!! The dynamic between the main character and their boyfriend of 10+ years (who did nothing but show them grace and understanding as they battled alcoholism) was so obnoxious like don’t make me go to bat for a random man. Cheating on him with a girl is not the queer slay win it was written as and I’m still confused what the point of it was to the story? To reinforce that Sam self-destructive in every sense of the word?
- Third gripe: the talking deer as mommy issues personified. Wow the talking deer talks JUST like your mom (which Sam didn’t even seem to realize til previously mentioned boyfriend pointed it out… when he wasn’t even in the same state as Sam… make that make sense!). The talking deer wasn’t creepy or convincing me that “Sam is losing it”, it was just… there.
Again, thank you Netgalley for this arc, I am sad that this was such a flop for me!
1.5 ⭐️
This is my first ARC review and it’s unfortunately not positive! I wanna say the prose is quite good, but the narrative told was quite bad.
- First gripe: whoever labeled this “Butch Black Swan” please step forward!! Is said butch black swan in the room with us? I’m not going to play label police but we all know the term “butch” has such a weight and history with it that our main character never sold me on so I really want to know who came up with that as a “selling point” for this book because they should at least rewatch Black Swan?
- Second gripe: a queer author implementing a known harmful queer stereotype about bisexual/pansexual/queer people with no nuance or subversion is lazy at best, harmful at worst. Honestly, what are we doing!!! The dynamic between the main character and their boyfriend of 10+ years (who did nothing but show them grace and understanding as they battled alcoholism) was so obnoxious like don’t make me go to bat for a random man. Cheating on him with a girl is not the queer slay win it was written as and I’m still confused what the point of it was to the story? To reinforce that Sam self-destructive in every sense of the word?
- Third gripe: the talking deer as mommy issues personified. Wow the talking deer talks JUST like your mom (which Sam didn’t even seem to realize til previously mentioned boyfriend pointed it out… when he wasn’t even in the same state as Sam… make that make sense!). The talking deer wasn’t creepy or convincing me that “Sam is losing it”, it was just… there.
Again, thank you Netgalley for this arc, I am sad that this was such a flop for me!
January 23, 2026
i tried really hard, twice, to get into this book - but it’s a DNF for me. i made it to 7% in the audiobook (about an hour) before i had to call it. i’m sure this was going to be a really interesting story, a woman arriving at her abandoned family cabin out in the woods, her mum has been missing for a while from that same cabin, but after an hour of it i couldn’t take the way it was written.
the very beginning had me struggling to imagine exactly where the main character was, what she was doing. it had me gaslighting myself that i just needed to *listen* and it would be okay. i didn’t even know the main character’s name for a good portion of the part that i read.
every action by the main character has a long winded back story - the simple act of getting a beer took (what felt like) several paragraphs because we had to hear the entire backstory of the beer and how her father had built the deck and her mother had fed the birds. this may all seem well and good until it turns into this for every action the main character (her name is sam) takes. you want to know every city she drove through to get to her destination? you got it. you want to know her entire back story before she opens the basement door? you got that too.
i’m not meaning to be scathing, but i tried so hard and it’s just not for me. i really wanted to read this one, a queer gothic horror, but i don’t think ill be picking it up again in the future.
thank you netgalley and hachette audio for the opportunity to read this book.
the very beginning had me struggling to imagine exactly where the main character was, what she was doing. it had me gaslighting myself that i just needed to *listen* and it would be okay. i didn’t even know the main character’s name for a good portion of the part that i read.
every action by the main character has a long winded back story - the simple act of getting a beer took (what felt like) several paragraphs because we had to hear the entire backstory of the beer and how her father had built the deck and her mother had fed the birds. this may all seem well and good until it turns into this for every action the main character (her name is sam) takes. you want to know every city she drove through to get to her destination? you got it. you want to know her entire back story before she opens the basement door? you got that too.
i’m not meaning to be scathing, but i tried so hard and it’s just not for me. i really wanted to read this one, a queer gothic horror, but i don’t think ill be picking it up again in the future.
thank you netgalley and hachette audio for the opportunity to read this book.
December 3, 2025
I'm not entirely convinced that 'a butch Black Swan' captures the full scope of this novel, but the description was intriguing enough to pull me in. I'm glad it did.
Hemlock follows Sam, a longtime alcoholic who returns to her parents' remote Wisconsin cabin. When she leaves for the cabin, she intends to stay for a few weeks to repair the cabin before returning to New York. New York. But as she falls back into drinking and sinks deeper into the isolation of the woods, her plans and sense of self begin to unravel. Her 10+ year relationship with Stephen, her career as a writer, and her identity all feel increasingly uncertain as she spends time in the forest.
Melissa Faliveno's writing is vivid and atmospheric. Her prose transports you to these damp, eerily quiet Wisconsin woods, where Sam undergoes her slow, uncanny transformation. My favorite parts of this novel were the horror and magical realism elements. There is a doe who speaks with Sam, and Sam wakes in the woods multiple times with no memory of how she got there. Because Sam is an unreliable narrator through her alcoholism, every strange moment carries a question: what's real, and what's the booze? I also loved that Faliveno didn't answer all the questions that arose. Hemlock is a haunting novel that leaves you thinking long after you read the last page.
Hemlock follows Sam, a longtime alcoholic who returns to her parents' remote Wisconsin cabin. When she leaves for the cabin, she intends to stay for a few weeks to repair the cabin before returning to New York. New York. But as she falls back into drinking and sinks deeper into the isolation of the woods, her plans and sense of self begin to unravel. Her 10+ year relationship with Stephen, her career as a writer, and her identity all feel increasingly uncertain as she spends time in the forest.
Melissa Faliveno's writing is vivid and atmospheric. Her prose transports you to these damp, eerily quiet Wisconsin woods, where Sam undergoes her slow, uncanny transformation. My favorite parts of this novel were the horror and magical realism elements. There is a doe who speaks with Sam, and Sam wakes in the woods multiple times with no memory of how she got there. Because Sam is an unreliable narrator through her alcoholism, every strange moment carries a question: what's real, and what's the booze? I also loved that Faliveno didn't answer all the questions that arose. Hemlock is a haunting novel that leaves you thinking long after you read the last page.
January 4, 2026
Let me start by saying that this book was not what I expected. I thought it was going to be more bog horror, and that's on me. "butch black swan" suits it well as a descriptor. What it actually is is a reflection on the inheritance of alcoholism, identity, and place. Falveno's writing really brings you close to the main character - her struggles are frustrating but presented in such a way that you empathize rather than detach. I found the writing around the place - rural Wisconsin - to be very accurate - the people felt authentic and the writing was immersive. While I was expecting more of the struggles to be horror-esque tropes of, like, the impacts of rot on the psyche, that is not what this is. I particularly enjoyed her relationship with an older neighbor, Lou-Ann, and ached for her relationship with her father. It was a tough read, but not one that forced me to set the book down for a time. I was able to continue reading it because I was really just invested in where the author was taking us, and I'm still sort of at a loss for what the ending meant, but if you are prepared to read about some authentic struggles with alcoholism in particular, this is a solid read. Thanks to Little, Brown and Company and NetGalley for the ARC. All opinions mine.
January 19, 2026
this being marketed as a “butch black swan” sounded like a dream and I will be forever chasing that as a genre from now on. The execution was ok/pretty good, I did enjoy it but I have some qualms (mainly flow, pacing, the ending, and some missed plot points etc) the central characters were pretty well rounded, although some definitely fell to the wayside. I think if you want a queer and spooky book about wild women and wild people with a tiny drop of lesbianism (I will be honest I thought it would be more prevalent) this is a good one
3.5🌟
3.5🌟
September 4, 2025
Dark introspection in the Northwoods. This novel caught my eye as a fellow Wisconsinite. I loved the queries into identity, addiction, and one's relationship with nature. The nods to having formerly been religious and the way that absence lingers were some of my favorite excerpts.
The atmosphere and internal reflections were rich, while secondary characters and the practicalities of life were lacking details and order.
The atmosphere and internal reflections were rich, while secondary characters and the practicalities of life were lacking details and order.
October 14, 2025
I devoured this book in one sitting, which is highly unusual for me. I couldn’t put it down. I first fell in love with this author’s prose and nuanced take through Tomboyland, and Hemlock has all of that and more, and it’s the more that resonates for those of us who recognize the particular monsters that haunt this spectacular debut novel. Also: What a MOOD. I loved every exquisite page.
October 16, 2025
This one surprised me! It’s quiet but heavy, and the writing pulls you in little by little. I liked following Sam as she went back to the cabin and started slipping between grief, memory, and something she couldn’t explain. It’s sad, eerie, and raw in a way that sticks with you!
October 21, 2025
The premise is gothic and haunting, but the prose is so grounded and the emotions so relatable. I had no idea where the story was taking me, in the best way. I want to give this book to everyone I love and to anyone who's ever had to fight to feel at home in their body or in this world.
January 23, 2026
Thank you to Little, Brown & Company and Hachette Audio for the ARC/ALC!
Sam is finally sober and stable, living in New York with her boyfriend and their cat. He decides to take a trip back to Hemlock, her family’s old cabin in the Wisconsin Northwoods. But what begins as a trip to close a chapter of her life, quickly turns into something Sam can’t tear herself away from.
This story was dark, introspective and very thought-provoking. It almost read like a fever dream, or stream of consciousness where Sam was processing her childhood grief and trauma. She also was an alcoholic, having battled that demon for a long time. I truly felt the author did a very respectful job at describing just what this disease can do to a person (and their loved ones). But I felt like the story kind of lost its way towards the end. Still an entertaining read, particularly on audio.
“Henmlock” is out NOW! This review will be shared to my instagram blog (@books_by_the_bottle) shortly :)
Sam is finally sober and stable, living in New York with her boyfriend and their cat. He decides to take a trip back to Hemlock, her family’s old cabin in the Wisconsin Northwoods. But what begins as a trip to close a chapter of her life, quickly turns into something Sam can’t tear herself away from.
This story was dark, introspective and very thought-provoking. It almost read like a fever dream, or stream of consciousness where Sam was processing her childhood grief and trauma. She also was an alcoholic, having battled that demon for a long time. I truly felt the author did a very respectful job at describing just what this disease can do to a person (and their loved ones). But I felt like the story kind of lost its way towards the end. Still an entertaining read, particularly on audio.
“Henmlock” is out NOW! This review will be shared to my instagram blog (@books_by_the_bottle) shortly :)
June 13, 2025
Quick very high level summary.
This story follows a woman (Sam) who has worked hard to remain sober when she returns to the family cabin in the woods where her mom disappeared. She returns to the dilapidated cabin with the hopes of restoring it for her dad. While there Sam begins to crack around the edges and fall apart just like the cabin. She begins drinking again, feels like she is being watched and starts hearing then eventually talking to a doe she has been feeding. She begins to question her sanity and relive her memories of her mother and grandmothers mental deterioration.
My Take.
he writing was so well done I could actually feel the emotions that the MC was going through. It has a dark and decaying feel to the writing with supernatural elements leaving an ambiguity surrounding events taking place. This ambiguity contributing to the mystery and the feeling of unease. There is so much ambiguity or uncertainty is going on in the environment around Sam as well as within Sam. Sam seems to struggle with her gender identity, sexuality and feelings of acceptance. Our MC Sam also struggle with secrets from her families past that play a crucial role in the story. Often blurring the lines between past and present.
This story explores themes like oppression, guilt, madness, and decay. All the beautifully macabre and darker aspects of human nature and I enjoyed every minute of it.
This story follows a woman (Sam) who has worked hard to remain sober when she returns to the family cabin in the woods where her mom disappeared. She returns to the dilapidated cabin with the hopes of restoring it for her dad. While there Sam begins to crack around the edges and fall apart just like the cabin. She begins drinking again, feels like she is being watched and starts hearing then eventually talking to a doe she has been feeding. She begins to question her sanity and relive her memories of her mother and grandmothers mental deterioration.
My Take.
he writing was so well done I could actually feel the emotions that the MC was going through. It has a dark and decaying feel to the writing with supernatural elements leaving an ambiguity surrounding events taking place. This ambiguity contributing to the mystery and the feeling of unease. There is so much ambiguity or uncertainty is going on in the environment around Sam as well as within Sam. Sam seems to struggle with her gender identity, sexuality and feelings of acceptance. Our MC Sam also struggle with secrets from her families past that play a crucial role in the story. Often blurring the lines between past and present.
This story explores themes like oppression, guilt, madness, and decay. All the beautifully macabre and darker aspects of human nature and I enjoyed every minute of it.
December 2, 2025
So I kind of hate books that are like “is this person going insane or is it the alcohol” they just don’t really do it for me. That said I didn’t hate this book, but I didn’t really like it either. Very middle of the road for me. “Butch Black Swan” is genius marketing but your book has gotta live up to that title and this one just didn’t.
January 23, 2026
BWAF Score: 6/10
TL;DR: Hemlock is crisp, readable, and tense, running on that deliciously reliable engine where someone returns to a remote place, thinks they’re fixing a house, and instead gets slowly unstitched by grief, booze, and whatever the fuck lives in the trees. It lands more often than not, but it stops just short of going fully fucked up BWAF-banner savage.
Melissa Faliveno comes to fiction from nonfiction and editing, and you can feel that control in the sentences. She’s the author of the essay collection Tomboyland and has worked as a senior editor at Poets & Writers; she also teaches creative writing (including at UNC-Chapel Hill and Vermont College of Fine Arts). That resume matters here because Hemlock reads like somebody who knows how to pace a scene, land an image, and tighten a paragraph until it squeals.
Sam, living in Brooklyn, drives back to her family’s cabin deep in Wisconsin’s Northwoods, arriving at night with the dark pressing in like a physical thing. She tells herself she’s here for a practical mission: repair the place, clear it out, sell it, and get her father unstuck. But the cabin is where her mother went for a walk and never came back, as if the woods swallowed her whole. Sam is also carrying fresh wreckage of her own, including a relationship shaped by tenderness and loss (Stephen, Monster the cat, the life she is trying to keep from collapsing). Out here, the obstacles are not just rot and repairs. It’s the locked basement door, the local lore, the sense of being watched, and the creeping suspicion that “fixing the cabin” is actually the cabin fixing her.
The best thing Faliveno does is turn familiar horror furniture into emotional ammunition. A locked basement door should be a cliche, but she writes it with such lived-in dread and self-awareness that it feels like your brain doing that late-night inventory of every true-crime nightmare you ever swallowed for fun. The cabin isn’t a haunted house in the theme-park way. It’s a place weighted with absence, a grief object, a working-class artifact built by a father who believed naming something was a form of love. And then she threads in the double-meaning of “hemlock,” both tree and poison, with a scene where Lou-Ann riffs on Macbeth and Socrates, basically handing Sam a bouquet of doom wrapped in literature. There’s also a killer recurring vibe of the Northwoods as something ancient, storied, and hungry, where people vanish and the land does not apologize.
|“It was a place of many names. To the locals, though, it was known only as the Northwoods.”
The prose is clean but not sterile. It’s got that sharp sensory edge: rot-sweet air, musty rooms, the woods sounding “loud” in silence, the sky full of stars that make the city feel like a bad dream. Faliveno’s biggest strength is momentum. Chapters come quick, and she uses repetition like a spell, especially around addiction. The relapse sequence, starting with “It started with a beer,” hits like a trap snapping shut, with Sam narrating her own rationalizations while the book calmly tightens the rope. The voice is intimate and unsparing, and the horror is often psychological first, supernatural second, which is exactly how it should be for this story. The downside is that when it’s time to go full clawing-at-the-wall bonkers, Faliveno often chooses restraint. That’s tasteful, sure, but sometimes you want the novel to stop being polite and start being a fucking problem.
Two big threads linger: grief as a geography, and addiction as a haunting. The woods become a physical map of what’s missing, especially with the mother’s disappearance hovering over every task Sam does to “set things right.” And alcohol functions like the book’s most reliable demon, seductive and familiar, with sobriety framed as something Sam has to rebuild daily in a place designed to make you disappear. The aftertaste is damp pine and dread, plus that specific next-day question: if you go back to the place that broke your family, are you reclaiming it, or volunteering to be swallowed too?
|“It started with a beer. Just one beer, on a warm night, not long after she arrived. She hadn’t planned it.”
As Faliveno’s debut novel after Tomboyland, Hemlock feels like a genre vehicle built to carry the same obsessions: home, identity, class, the Midwest, the body as a battleground, and the way “nature” can feel both holy and predatory. It sits in the queer Gothic lane of “return-to-origin-and-it-bites,” and it does it with enough craft that you can hand it to a mainstream reader without apologizing for it.
A tight, tense, satisfying descent where the cabin breathes and the bottle whispers, but it holds back just enough that it never becomes the full-on feral nightmare it keeps daring itself to be.
Read if you want “cabin-in-the-woods” horror with real emotional bruises and working-class texture.
Skip if you hate relapse narratives or fiction that sits in messy interior space for long stretches.
TL;DR: Hemlock is crisp, readable, and tense, running on that deliciously reliable engine where someone returns to a remote place, thinks they’re fixing a house, and instead gets slowly unstitched by grief, booze, and whatever the fuck lives in the trees. It lands more often than not, but it stops just short of going fully fucked up BWAF-banner savage.
Melissa Faliveno comes to fiction from nonfiction and editing, and you can feel that control in the sentences. She’s the author of the essay collection Tomboyland and has worked as a senior editor at Poets & Writers; she also teaches creative writing (including at UNC-Chapel Hill and Vermont College of Fine Arts). That resume matters here because Hemlock reads like somebody who knows how to pace a scene, land an image, and tighten a paragraph until it squeals.
Sam, living in Brooklyn, drives back to her family’s cabin deep in Wisconsin’s Northwoods, arriving at night with the dark pressing in like a physical thing. She tells herself she’s here for a practical mission: repair the place, clear it out, sell it, and get her father unstuck. But the cabin is where her mother went for a walk and never came back, as if the woods swallowed her whole. Sam is also carrying fresh wreckage of her own, including a relationship shaped by tenderness and loss (Stephen, Monster the cat, the life she is trying to keep from collapsing). Out here, the obstacles are not just rot and repairs. It’s the locked basement door, the local lore, the sense of being watched, and the creeping suspicion that “fixing the cabin” is actually the cabin fixing her.
The best thing Faliveno does is turn familiar horror furniture into emotional ammunition. A locked basement door should be a cliche, but she writes it with such lived-in dread and self-awareness that it feels like your brain doing that late-night inventory of every true-crime nightmare you ever swallowed for fun. The cabin isn’t a haunted house in the theme-park way. It’s a place weighted with absence, a grief object, a working-class artifact built by a father who believed naming something was a form of love. And then she threads in the double-meaning of “hemlock,” both tree and poison, with a scene where Lou-Ann riffs on Macbeth and Socrates, basically handing Sam a bouquet of doom wrapped in literature. There’s also a killer recurring vibe of the Northwoods as something ancient, storied, and hungry, where people vanish and the land does not apologize.
|“It was a place of many names. To the locals, though, it was known only as the Northwoods.”
The prose is clean but not sterile. It’s got that sharp sensory edge: rot-sweet air, musty rooms, the woods sounding “loud” in silence, the sky full of stars that make the city feel like a bad dream. Faliveno’s biggest strength is momentum. Chapters come quick, and she uses repetition like a spell, especially around addiction. The relapse sequence, starting with “It started with a beer,” hits like a trap snapping shut, with Sam narrating her own rationalizations while the book calmly tightens the rope. The voice is intimate and unsparing, and the horror is often psychological first, supernatural second, which is exactly how it should be for this story. The downside is that when it’s time to go full clawing-at-the-wall bonkers, Faliveno often chooses restraint. That’s tasteful, sure, but sometimes you want the novel to stop being polite and start being a fucking problem.
Two big threads linger: grief as a geography, and addiction as a haunting. The woods become a physical map of what’s missing, especially with the mother’s disappearance hovering over every task Sam does to “set things right.” And alcohol functions like the book’s most reliable demon, seductive and familiar, with sobriety framed as something Sam has to rebuild daily in a place designed to make you disappear. The aftertaste is damp pine and dread, plus that specific next-day question: if you go back to the place that broke your family, are you reclaiming it, or volunteering to be swallowed too?
|“It started with a beer. Just one beer, on a warm night, not long after she arrived. She hadn’t planned it.”
As Faliveno’s debut novel after Tomboyland, Hemlock feels like a genre vehicle built to carry the same obsessions: home, identity, class, the Midwest, the body as a battleground, and the way “nature” can feel both holy and predatory. It sits in the queer Gothic lane of “return-to-origin-and-it-bites,” and it does it with enough craft that you can hand it to a mainstream reader without apologizing for it.
A tight, tense, satisfying descent where the cabin breathes and the bottle whispers, but it holds back just enough that it never becomes the full-on feral nightmare it keeps daring itself to be.
Read if you want “cabin-in-the-woods” horror with real emotional bruises and working-class texture.
Skip if you hate relapse narratives or fiction that sits in messy interior space for long stretches.
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