Fairy by Shane McKenzie
(Cover picture courtesy of NetGalley.)
Cecilia will do anything to have a baby. Anything.
Cecilia has tried everything to have the one thing she wants most—a baby. She’s been through every procedure, taken every medication. Nothing seems to work. Her body simply refuses to grow the life she so desperately yearns for. Her jealousy is making her lash out at the pregnant women around her. She’s starting to worry about her sanity.
But all is not lost. There is still one way. And Cecilia will do whatever it takes.
Even if it means inviting an ancient creature into her bedroom.
[Full disclosure: I received a free ebook through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.]
I know the blurb sounds like it belongs to a crappy erotic novel, but I swear to you that this is straight up horror. It’s actually quite terrifying.
I don’t find Cecilia incredibly sympathetic but she is interesting and held my attention. She’s so desperate for a baby that she’s willing to try anything and she’s especially tortured by seeing new life come into the world as a midwife. It’s hard for her, especially when she runs into her ex-husband with his new pregnant wife. You can kind of see where Cecilia would try something so ridiculous and so horrifying that it’s hard to even read about. I don’t want to spoil too much, but let’s say the ending was very much in character for her.
This is a novella which is good because I don’t think it would be possible to sustain this level of suspense over an entire novel. In the beginning things are only kind of sad, but then the mood gets darker and darker as Shane McKenzie takes the novella to its terrifying (but believable conclusion). The pace is quite fast but not at the expense of readers getting to know Cecilia and feel at least a little bit for her plight.
I like that Shane McKenzie stuck with the darker fairy mythology rather than making this into a shameless erotic novel that has a wonderfully happy ending where everyone goes about their merry way. No, this really is horror and although the ending was rather predictable to my mind, I think it will be a shock for some people who pick this up. If you’re big on horror I wouldn’t recommend it because you’ve probably read a novel just like this already but if you’re a newbie like I am this is a good sample of what the genre has to offer.
Basically, Fairy was everything a horror novella should be: short, dark and terrifying. What more can you ask for?
I give this novella 4.5/5 stars.