Since Florrie’s leave-taking, there is no one with whom I may share my real feelings, no place in my life for candour and misery, save between the covers of this black book. My truth shall remain trapped on its pages, while my happy little lies travel the world.

I don’t know where to begin with this chilling book. I was sucked into it from the start, but not because it was immediately suspenseful. In the beginning, it reads like an historical novel about a school teacher in 1901. Ada is being placed in a new school with the help of her father and his connections. She should be grateful for her father’s help as he is saving her from the ruination of her life after her scandalous behaviour at her last post. She doesn’t feel grateful at all; she feels trapped.

Small towns are veritable factories of gossip, churning out thick black clouds of judgment that pall the landscape for miles around. How long before that cloud would hang over me?

Ada Byrd does not particularly like teaching, but what else can an unmarried woman of almost 30-years-old do? Especially if she wants to get away from her house where her father rules the roost. She’s also in a hurry to move forward after the recent death of her sister whom she is still grieving. Her sister thought she was marrying for love, but instead, it resulted in her death.

Ada’s not particularly interested in marrying, either; she has yet to meet a man she likes. Instead, she finds pleasure in nature. She shares this passion with her students, despite the fact that the nature of nature causes concern among the parents. (Ada keeps an owlet skull on her desk and allows the children to see a deer giving birth on one of their nature walks.)

But soon, Ada’s solitary walks through the woods begin to feel eerie; she feels as though she is being watched. Then she starts to come across gruesome objects unexpectedly: a bloody tail hidden in a bouquet of flowers; a dead chickadee in her path; and a crow’s wing on her doorstep.

As a result of these mysterious and gruesome assaults, Ada is less and less able to comport herself like a lady, and her inner wildness begins to seep out. The friends she has made become concerned about her, but give up helping her when her temper gets the better of her. Ada’s rage at her father, her situation, the oppressive way she is required to live comes to the surface as she is scrutinized by the villagers. What is worse: continuing to live under the oppression of her father and greater society? Or the entity that is calling to her from the wilderness?

I heard it again then, that sound that had throbbed beneath the music and pulled me into the snow. Two syllables more familiar to me than any in the world, and yet pronounced in a voice so strange and alien that my teeth began to chatter. It sounded as though it came from the trees itself, from the earth, from the dark and lowering sky. It made my very bones ache.

When I read the blurb: “A submersive literary horror novel that disrupts the tropes of women’s historical fiction with delusions, wild beasts, and the uncontainable power of female rage,” I knew I wanted to read this book. Grey Dog takes the story of a spinster schoolmarm from over a hundred years ago and gives it a spine-chilling (and oddly satisfying) twist. Read it.

A good woman. How odd that the phrase has such a particular meaning. One might say “a good man” and mean anything–there are as many ways of being a good man, it seems, as there are of being a man at all. But there is only one way to be a good woman. It is such a narrow, stunted, blighted way to be that I wonder any woman throughout history has been up to the task. Perhaps none of us ever have.

This is Elliott Gish‘s first book and I can’t wait to read more from her.

Thank you to ECW Press for sending me a copy of this book!