All about the books we love

Lies on the Serpent's Tongue by Kate Pearsall

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This was SO close to being a 5 star read, if not with a few pacing issues it would have been. Caveat: you could probably read this book without book one but I don't recommend it as it builds on that foundation.

It opens several weeks past the end of Bittersweet in the Hollow and Rowan, one of the magical James women, learning that their former farmhand, Hadrian is technically a psychopomp they call the Moth-Winged Man (riffing off Point Pleasant's Mothman). This book feels steeped in Appalachian culture and lore (saying this as someone who lives there, very near the Mothman) though this time leans far less heavily on the chapter openers/closers of folk remedies that were in book one.

Rowan can taste lies so when people are lying about things that she knows are true without triggering her lie detector, she's confused. Worse, there's a podcaster/cryptid hunter in town irking her and she's already running on fury over events of last book (such as some towns people turning on them and wrecking the family restaurant). Grandma sends her off into the woods with Vernie, a forest ranger who needs help manning a fire observation station near the mystical (and currently injured) bone tree. Vernie sets her up with a less paranormal issue: wild ginseng poachers who may destroy the fragile ecosystem and cause this plant to go extinct (a real concern).

What Rowan encounters instead are several bizarre things, a young man who won't wake up, animals that don't belong in West Virginia and Hadrian, severely beaten up. She and Hadrian have to team up to figure out what is going on before the veil comes undone between this world and the other side.

There are plenty of good twists and turns in this. Grandma's unresolved search for her missing sister Zephyrine is not forgotten for example. The James women are fascinating and I love them. I enjoy Hadrian too though I think some of the interpersonal details with him and Rowan feel a bit rushed (ditto some of the disappearing plot threads, hence that pacing issue I mentioned)

Regardless I loved where this ended and what it hints is to come. I'll be there for it. Thanks to Netgalley for the arc.



View all my reviews