Taylor Grothe's adult debut is a distinctly squelchy sapphic horror romance, more flesh-ripper than bodice-ripper, but all the more satisfying for it.

After another incident, Marcella starts as a new assistant professor in the Classics department at Preston University, with a speciality in Old Norse and Icelandic mythology. One unique advantage to her studies is that she has personally lived through it all.
 

She is secretly a draugr, who has been moving through academia for centuries, slowly feasting on the worst parts of those institutions, and then quietly getting transferred away to be somebody else’s problem. Marcella is not even her real name, and her real face has significantly more teeth. However, while she might eat the occasional bad person, she does love her cat.

Lacie is another assistant professor in the same department, who is just trying to make her way in their male-dominated field, with an eye to getting tenure. Her friend Laurel has mysteriously vanished overnight, just as this annoyingly distracting Marcella has appeared. Worse, this woman has even taken Laurel’s room right next door. The timing is highly suspicious.

The thing is, Marcella didn’t kill Laurel. And if someone (or something) else did, that is going to be a problem. So, Marcella and Lacie end up investigating Laurel’s disappearance together, and slowly start to fall for each other. You really shouldn’t play with your food.

It’s rare that I read a book in one sitting, staying up late into the night, but that’s exactly what happened here. Taylor’s writing is both poetic and monstrous, in a way that was a breath of both fresh and fetid air. I loved the relationship at the heart of the book, seeing Marcella become protective and helping Lacie come into her own, as the secrets of the university are revealed. But really, there is just something deeply satisfying about a powerful woman taking a more hands-on approach to the misogyny she faces. The patriarchy isn’t going to eat itself…

If you enjoyed books like “Hungerstone”, or “Someone to Build a Nest In”, or just want something very different from the typical fantasy romance, I can thoroughly recommend this. One of the best things I’ve read this year!

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