Empire of Wild by Cherie Dimaline

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This is such an engrossing novel that I read it in one afternoon. Dimaline is a masterful storyteller, combining horror, supernatural elements, mystery, and legend into a dark tale of love, loyalty and family.

After a heated argument with his wife Joan, Victor walks into the woods to calm down. Nearly a year later, Victor still hasn’t come back. After countless hours of searching, Joan still isn’t ready to give up on him, even with her family pushing her to move on. After a hard night of drinking, Joan finds herself drawn to a revival tent set up at the local Walmart and is shocked to see her husband leading the service. But when Joan confronts him, he doesn’t recognize her and believes she is still drunk from the night before. As Victor, now Reverend Eugene Wolff, tries to convince her she’s mistaken, Joan loses consciousness and awakens to a disturbing man who tells her her husband is dead. After being taken away by paramedics and spending the night in a hospital, Joan wakes up to a flurry of messages from her family. A wolf has attacked and killed her grandmother. As the community searches for the wolf, Joan seeks comfort from a family friend, Ajean. Loud mouthed and swearing like a sailor, Ajean is an expert in the history of their community and is convinced that it wasn’t a wolf that attacked Mere, it was a rogarou. She also believes that Victor is still inside the Reverend and Joan is the only one who can remind him of who he is. Armed with the teachings of Ajean and with help from her twelve year-old nephew Zeus, Joan sets out to track down the church who has captured her husband. 

Reading more Indigenous authors has been a priority this year. Dimaline explores the history of the Métis people, their strength, and the stories they pass on from generation to generation. I was especially interested in the way she explores the effects of the Christian religion manipulating the local politics and economy. The traveling church is blatantly using its services to sow discord between the white settler population and the native people over land rights. 

The rogarou myth was new to me. A rogarou can enter the body of someone who betrays a person they love. The rogarou myth was used to frighten children into behaving and was a warning to rebellious teenagers to watch themselves after dark. When Joan went to Ajean for help with her husband, Ajean offered up some less than conventional-to white girl me-about how to save her husband. And Joan just goes along with it, placing her trust in Ajean without much question. I’ve read a few other books lately that take place outside of white America and it’s always so interesting to see young people follow the orders of their elders without question. There isn’t that hubris that the young people know better and there isn’t any question about the elder’s judgement.

There is a great scene where Joan has a less than pleasant interaction with a white guy at a bar and the way that she puts racism in its place-amazing. Empire of Wild gives us an unflinching view of the impacts of racism, colonialism, and the stereotypes inflicted upon Indigenous peoples. 

This book was a great read. The story moved quickly and the characters felt real and true. If you like horror that’s on the less bloody side-this is a good pick for you.

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Start Your Library Holds for Spooky Season

If you are the type of Reader who loves to fill the month of October with spooky, magical stories, like I am, you need to start your Library Holds now. Here are six books that I have read recently with elements of horror, magic, all things supernatural, and a book series that takes place in a Library in Hell. Click on the covers for more information about each title and ordering information.

Set in a strict, religious colony led by a feared polygamist patriarch, Immanuelle Moore was born a crime. Her mother was one of the many wives of the leader and her betrayal led to the death of her lover and her banishment from the colony. A dark forest on the edge of the colony is rumored to be inhabited by dark witches and when Immanuelle finds herself drawn to it, she discovers her mother’s ties to the darkness and inadvertently releases a plague upon her colony.

Claire is the Head Librarian of the Unwritten Wing of the Library in Hell. Yep, a Library in Hell. Charged to protect the books of the Unwritten, books unfinished by authors and whose characters are always trying to escape the Library, her retrieval of a missing character goes horribly wrong when fallen angels interfere. I loved this book and the second book, The Archive of the Forgotten, comes out on October 6.

This one gave me nightmares! Four high school friends go on a hunt that violates their tribal law. Now, ten years later, something is hunting them. It is bloody, gory, intensely graphic, and absolutely terrifying. It’s so good.

One of the best books I’ve read this year! When her cousin sends her a cryptic letter fearing for her life, Noemí is sent to determine if it’s just new marriage nerves or an actual crisis. Noemí discovers her cousin horribly ill and surrounded by her in-laws that give Noemí the absolute creeps. What the family doesn’t understand, is Noemí is far from a shrinking violet and is more than willing to do whatever it takes to free her cousin. Set in a dark, damp mansion, this is one of the most atmospheric books I’ve ever read.

This is a fabulous collection of short stories that will leave you terrified. I love short stories for when you have limited time but still need to get some reading in. Each story in this collection is unique and chilling and Machado’s writing is so deceptively beautiful. Beautiful words should not terrify you, but she does it.

Told through multiple points of view, this book tells the story of a mother and daughter who have the ability to heal through magic and the lengths they will go to survive through the tumultuous years of the Civil War. This is a heavy one-enslavement, torture, kidnapping, and dark secrets that could tear apart an entire community. At the core, this story is about the secrets women keep to protect those that they love.

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