She’s ignored at work, she’s single and has no prospects, and people tend treat her like she’s invisible.

Teaming up with Eleanor, a local teen fascinated by true crime podcasts, she uncovers ties between her ghosts and the serial killer Damon Cross. It ended up being one of my favorites of last year, and is genuinely one of the most unique/memorable reading experiences period. Like many fans of horror (and really all kinds of genres), I am someone who has topics and themes that really work for her, and other topics and themes that really don’t. Mary starts to see entities around her—mutilated and graphic, these entities are trying to speak to her. There, the perimenopausal symptoms get even worse, she's haunted by murdered women and her own past.

How clever, (I thought) to take what is already a difficult transition in a woman's life and turn it into a horror novel. I had my eye on it for awhile, as it touts being in similar veins as “Carrie” and “Midsommar”, which catch my eye for varying reasons. What you need to know: Mary's body has been going through some changes, she believes this is due to being perimenopausal. I won’t spoil anything, but there were three vivid moments where I was fairly put off by what I was reading on the page, and one in particular where I almost stopped reading altogether. NAT CASSIDY has been an off-off-Broadway playwright of speculative works that have been well-received by drama critics.

Especially since we had a ton of reveals that showed us who Mary really was as a kid before she got "sent away. Not because its about a woman going through peri-menopause, but because of its insight in to the female condition. I thought this was a novel about a woman who had suffered some trauma or breakdown in her life, now trying to cope with menopause and further emotional and physical upset.The Author's Note at the beginning and the Afterword at the end pretty much say everything I was trying to *do* with this book--and the former also offers some spoiler-free content warnings if you'd like them. In Arroyo, not only does she tackle her aunt who does nothing but tantalize her instead of helping but also a desert town full of religious freaks and a mysterious history involving a serial killer.