Book Review

Title: My Throat an Open Grave by Tori Bovalino

Genre: Fantasy, Horror

Synopsis:

Labyrinth meets folk horror in this darkly romantic tale of a girl who wishes her baby brother away to the Lord of the Wood

Growing up in the small town of Winston, Pennsylvania feels like drowning. Leah goes to church every Sunday, works when she isn’t at school, and takes care of her baby brother, Owen. Like every girl in Winston, she tries to be right and good and holy. If she isn’t the Lord of the Wood will take her, and she’ll disappear like so many other girls before her.

But living up to the rigorous standards of the town takes its toll. One night, when Owen won’t stop screaming, Leah wishes him away, and the Lord listens. The screaming stops, and all that’s left in the crib is a small bundle of sticks tied with a ribbon.

Filled with shame and the weight of the town’s judgment, Leah is forced to cross the river into the Lord of the Wood’s domain to bring Owen back. But the devilish figure who has haunted Winston for generations isn’t what she expects. He tells her she can have her brother back—for the price of a song. A song that Leah will have one month to write.

It’s a bargain that will uncover secrets her hometown has tried to keep buried for decades. And what she unearths will have her questioning everything she’s been taught to fear.

Content Warning: Religious trauma, violence

Rating: 3.5 Stars

The opening of My Throat an Open Grave was interesting and while not necessarily intriguing it presents a creepy premise. We are introduced to Leah Jones who lives in the town of Winston which seems to be cursed/haunted by something called the Lord of the Woods. The Lord of the Woods steals children from the town and being the religious zealots they seem to be, the town sends those responsible for the loss of the children after them but none have ever returned.

We can see that Leah doesn’t have a good home-life since something happened in her past which drastically altered her relationship with her family and the town. I believe this event also made her social as she thinks about it more than once. One night while she is caring for her baby brother he is taken while Leah is sleeping and her mother is furious when she finds out. At dawn Leah is taken to the Pastor and cleaned before being sent into the woods. Even at this point I had ideas that the evil is in the town not the woods as there are creepy vibes from several men that Leah has encountered so far but I don’t really know what is happening. During the cleansing it seems Leah is transported to an alternate dimension where the Lord of the Woods lives. Upon entering the woods she walks for hours without encountering anyone but soon meets a boy Tristan who takes her to where she needs to go. Upon arriving she is cleaned again before being presented to the Lord of the Woods at twilight and he is Tristan.

Tristan explains that he didn’t steal Owen but he was offered by Leah and now she wants him back which means she has to bargain. Leah offers to write him a song in exchange for Owen which he accepts, the terms of the deal give Leah one moon cycle to complete her end of the bargain but it isn’t going to be simple. If she doesn’t complete the task she will be bound to Tristan’s realm which she agrees to. During her first few days there, Leah tries her best to begin composing her song but nothing seems to come easy to her as she tries to understand the world around her but nothing makes sense. After Tristan takes her to see Owen for the first time since her arrival, it brings the truth rushing to Leah that she offers Owen to Tristan and he was unable to resist even though he tries staying away for months before eventually giving in to the compulsion.

It seems that Tristan’s land and Leah’s exist on different planes of time meaning when she crosses the river back to her world she is essentially a ghost and ghosts or echoes also exist in the forest. One goat Leah encounters is Maria, another girl sent into the forest but she learns that Maria completed her bargain and returned but it was never enough. Given everything we have learnt I’m thinking that Maria returned home with her baby but she was murdered by the people of Winston before her baby was given to someone else to raise. Even at halfway through I have so many questions about the different worlds, the things that happened in Leah’s past and the suspicious number of references to death, dying and suicide. I do have to say though that the pace of this book is much faster than The Devil Makes Three which had a slow start but it is equally compelling.

Honestly at this point I don’t think the novel knows what it wants to be since until this point it has been a version of labyrinth with some darker elements and some very slight religious ones. Now it has huge religious theme, the labyrinth tale and a potential murder mystery all thrown together with little cohesion between them. From Bovalino’s first book I think her speciality lies in her simplicity and this is definitely too complex of a narrative for her writing style to really shine. I think if it had just been a labyrinth story or a paranormal mystery then it would have been better and I also could have done without the heavy religious elements unless there’s actually a point to it. We still aren’t even close to getting any answers to the mountains of questions I have which has me concerned since there are only 100 pages left. To round this book off nicely it will have to be an outstanding ending that blows me away to get anywhere above a 3 stars.

The ending actually helped redeem some of the book especially where the confused plot was concerned as it finally made sense by religious, fantasy and horror were all coming together but I still felt the book didn’t know what it intended to be until the end. I wish that the elements surrounding the murder mystery were brought in earlier as well as understanding the relationship between Leah and Owen as that would have helped understand Leah as a character. Overall, it was a good book with some important message but I’d still recommend The Devil Makes Three over this.

About the Author:

Tori Bovalino is originally from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and currently lives in London. She holds a BA in English and anthropology from the University of Pittsburgh and an MA in Creative Writing from Royal Holloway, University of London. She is currently a student in Royal Holloway’s Creative writing

and practice-based PhD program. Tori is obsessed with chai tea, oversized sweaters, and talking about Pittsburgh.

Author Links: Website Twitter Instagram Goodreads

Buy it here: Barnes & Noble IndieBound

Paperback/Hardcover: amazon.co.uk                            amazon.com

Kindle Edition: amazon.co.uk                                       amazon.com

I received this review copy for consideration from TBR and Beyond Tours.