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Small Angels
Goodreads Choice Award
Nominee for Best Horror (2022)SMALL ANGELS updates the classic ghost story for the 21st century: a wedding in a Suffolk village sees the woods begin to stir with an unsеttling magic, and forces a troubled family´s secrets out into the open.
´A twisting gothic tale of darkness, intrigue, heartbreak and revenge... gorgeously atmospheric and gripping!´ Jennifer Saint, author of ARIADNE
When Chloe turns the key to Small Angels, the church nestled at the edge of Mockbeggar Woods where she is to be married, she is braced for cobwebs and dust. What she doesn´t expect are the villagers´ concerned faces, her fiance´s remoteness, or the nagging voice in her head that whispers to her of fears she didn´t even know she had.
Something in the woods is beginning to stir, to creep closer to the sleeping houses. Something that should have been banished long ago.
Whatever it is, it´s getting stronger, and pretending it´s not there won´t keep the wedding, or the village - or Chloe - safe.
´A twisting gothic tale of darkness, intrigue, heartbreak and revenge... gorgeously atmospheric and gripping!´ Jennifer Saint, author of ARIADNE
When Chloe turns the key to Small Angels, the church nestled at the edge of Mockbeggar Woods where she is to be married, she is braced for cobwebs and dust. What she doesn´t expect are the villagers´ concerned faces, her fiance´s remoteness, or the nagging voice in her head that whispers to her of fears she didn´t even know she had.
Something in the woods is beginning to stir, to creep closer to the sleeping houses. Something that should have been banished long ago.
Whatever it is, it´s getting stronger, and pretending it´s not there won´t keep the wedding, or the village - or Chloe - safe.
400 pages, Hardcover
First published August 2, 2022
About the author
Lauren Owen
9 books331 followersLAUREN OWEN studied English Literature at St. Hilda's College, Oxford, before completing an MA in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia, where she received the 2009 Curtis Brown prize for the best fiction dissertation. 'The Quick' is her first novel. She lives in Durham, England.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,214 reviews
June 29, 2022
im in the middle with this one.
mainly, this bored me. its slow and the writing is dense. but the thing is - this is classic gothic ghost story narration. so its true to the genre and provides a lot of atmosphere. if you like more literary mysteries, then this kind of pacing shouldnt bother you. i just couldnt personally connect with it and it never really captured my attention.
so while my personal reading experience was probably closer to the lower end, im rounding up because i understand this is more of a “its me, not you” kind of thing.
thanks, random house, for the ARC.
↠ 2.5 stars
mainly, this bored me. its slow and the writing is dense. but the thing is - this is classic gothic ghost story narration. so its true to the genre and provides a lot of atmosphere. if you like more literary mysteries, then this kind of pacing shouldnt bother you. i just couldnt personally connect with it and it never really captured my attention.
so while my personal reading experience was probably closer to the lower end, im rounding up because i understand this is more of a “its me, not you” kind of thing.
thanks, random house, for the ARC.
↠ 2.5 stars
March 4, 2022
“He walks amongst the whispering trees
And this will ever be so
No help of ours could set him free
From the woods where roses grow”
Chloe and Sam are due to get married at St Michael and All Angels church, known in the village as Small Angels, and they’re both looking forward to sharing their special day with their family and friends, this is the village where Sam grew up, and Chloe wants to see it all. At the local pub, the Albatross, one of Sam’s childhood friends, Brian, starts to tell the crowd about the story of the Mockbeggar woods and the Gonne family. This is a story that all of the villagers are familiar with, it’s their history after all. Lucia, the youngest of the Gonne’s, tells us a lot of the story throughout the book, alternating with chapters told from Chloe and Kate’s (Sam’s sister) perspective. Lucia tells us the story of her family, of the bargain they had made to keep the village safe all these years. This is the story of Harry Child, a man murdered by his closest friend out of jealously, forever alone in the Mockbeggar woods, taking out his rage on anyone that’s happy.
“- your heart will feed my hungry dogs
And your eyes will feed my crow
And your blood will spill on the thirsty ground
In the woods where roses grow”
Lucia tells us how she was probably known as Lucia the bad, because she always struggled with the rules, she befriended Harry and spent time with him in Mockbeggar, something she should never have done. But she felt that they understand each other, better than anyone else. Harry saw her ugly side and he didn’t care about it, he still liked her anyway. The trouble with only having one close friend? They get jealous when someone else takes their attention away from you. And that’s what happened when Lucia saw Kate, she fell for her hard, and she started spending time with her and forgetting to spend time in Mockbeggar with Harry.
Chloe goes into Mockbeggar because she feels something is weird, and no one in town will talk to her about what happened in Mockbeggar, and to Harry Child. Chloe stumbles across the Rose House, Harry’s childhood home, and finds a big tree growing inside the house, and there are cooper coins hammered into the tree, trying to kill it. She gets them out of the tree so that it can come back to life, but what she doesn’t realise at that time is that the tree is Harry’s life force. She has finally set him free again after the Gonnes’ sisters tried to hard, and gave up so much, to make sure he couldn’t come back. That’s how they lost poor Elphine, she died taking an axe to the tree and making sure Harry was dead. That’s something poor Lucia feels the entire family blame her for, if it wasn’t for her making friends with Harry when she wasn’t supposed to, Elphine would still be alive and plaited her hair in that gentle way of hers.
Now that Harry is back to terrifying the town, and at full strength, he’s set his sights of Chloe, the happy bribe to be. After all, she had no right to get married in his church, no right to enter the woods he calls home, how dare she bring her happiness there. He sets out to terrorise her, and goes so far as to attack her, suddenly her mouth fills with soil and she’s choking and can’t breathe, she’s going to die, and then Harry stops. He let’s her live, but only for a little while longer. Chloe and Sam seek Kate’s help, afterall, she’s got the most experience with the Mockbeggar from her childhood spent with the Gonnes’ children. They devise a plan to get Chloe and Sam out of the village after the wedding, Harry seems to be weakest at noon, so on the day of their wedding they turn up and go through with the ceremony and try their hardest to pretend like nothing is wrong. But chaos soon erupts when Chloe and Sam try to flee, Harry’s there and he’s come to claim Chloe’s life.
So does everyone make it out alive? Will Kate and Lucia get their happy ever after? Or will Lucia have to honour the bargain she struck as a child, to stay with Harry forever as long as he leaves the village alone.
“But maybe one day things will change
And he’ll be free to go
And history will be laid to rest
In the woods where roses grow”
READ THIS BOOK. Pre order it, read it, scream about it. I love this book, it’s gripped me and it won’t let me go. I could not put it down. The descriptions in this book are phenomenal. The dual timeline is obviously a favourite of mine, and I do love a good book with multiple POVs. My next walk in the woods is sure to be a nervous one, afterall, the trees listen to all of our stories.
And this will ever be so
No help of ours could set him free
From the woods where roses grow”
Chloe and Sam are due to get married at St Michael and All Angels church, known in the village as Small Angels, and they’re both looking forward to sharing their special day with their family and friends, this is the village where Sam grew up, and Chloe wants to see it all. At the local pub, the Albatross, one of Sam’s childhood friends, Brian, starts to tell the crowd about the story of the Mockbeggar woods and the Gonne family. This is a story that all of the villagers are familiar with, it’s their history after all. Lucia, the youngest of the Gonne’s, tells us a lot of the story throughout the book, alternating with chapters told from Chloe and Kate’s (Sam’s sister) perspective. Lucia tells us the story of her family, of the bargain they had made to keep the village safe all these years. This is the story of Harry Child, a man murdered by his closest friend out of jealously, forever alone in the Mockbeggar woods, taking out his rage on anyone that’s happy.
“- your heart will feed my hungry dogs
And your eyes will feed my crow
And your blood will spill on the thirsty ground
In the woods where roses grow”
Lucia tells us how she was probably known as Lucia the bad, because she always struggled with the rules, she befriended Harry and spent time with him in Mockbeggar, something she should never have done. But she felt that they understand each other, better than anyone else. Harry saw her ugly side and he didn’t care about it, he still liked her anyway. The trouble with only having one close friend? They get jealous when someone else takes their attention away from you. And that’s what happened when Lucia saw Kate, she fell for her hard, and she started spending time with her and forgetting to spend time in Mockbeggar with Harry.
Chloe goes into Mockbeggar because she feels something is weird, and no one in town will talk to her about what happened in Mockbeggar, and to Harry Child. Chloe stumbles across the Rose House, Harry’s childhood home, and finds a big tree growing inside the house, and there are cooper coins hammered into the tree, trying to kill it. She gets them out of the tree so that it can come back to life, but what she doesn’t realise at that time is that the tree is Harry’s life force. She has finally set him free again after the Gonnes’ sisters tried to hard, and gave up so much, to make sure he couldn’t come back. That’s how they lost poor Elphine, she died taking an axe to the tree and making sure Harry was dead. That’s something poor Lucia feels the entire family blame her for, if it wasn’t for her making friends with Harry when she wasn’t supposed to, Elphine would still be alive and plaited her hair in that gentle way of hers.
Now that Harry is back to terrifying the town, and at full strength, he’s set his sights of Chloe, the happy bribe to be. After all, she had no right to get married in his church, no right to enter the woods he calls home, how dare she bring her happiness there. He sets out to terrorise her, and goes so far as to attack her, suddenly her mouth fills with soil and she’s choking and can’t breathe, she’s going to die, and then Harry stops. He let’s her live, but only for a little while longer. Chloe and Sam seek Kate’s help, afterall, she’s got the most experience with the Mockbeggar from her childhood spent with the Gonnes’ children. They devise a plan to get Chloe and Sam out of the village after the wedding, Harry seems to be weakest at noon, so on the day of their wedding they turn up and go through with the ceremony and try their hardest to pretend like nothing is wrong. But chaos soon erupts when Chloe and Sam try to flee, Harry’s there and he’s come to claim Chloe’s life.
So does everyone make it out alive? Will Kate and Lucia get their happy ever after? Or will Lucia have to honour the bargain she struck as a child, to stay with Harry forever as long as he leaves the village alone.
“But maybe one day things will change
And he’ll be free to go
And history will be laid to rest
In the woods where roses grow”
READ THIS BOOK. Pre order it, read it, scream about it. I love this book, it’s gripped me and it won’t let me go. I could not put it down. The descriptions in this book are phenomenal. The dual timeline is obviously a favourite of mine, and I do love a good book with multiple POVs. My next walk in the woods is sure to be a nervous one, afterall, the trees listen to all of our stories.
April 16, 2023
After chasing the plot from the beginning and getting hopelessly lost around p50, twice! --because I actually started over, thinking I was missing something-- I've concluded that I don't get it.
Update 3/4/23
Well I tried a third time! Quit at 95% and i didn't know anymore than I did when I stopped at 50 pages🤷♀️ This book is just a mess!
Update 3/4/23
Well I tried a third time! Quit at 95% and i didn't know anymore than I did when I stopped at 50 pages🤷♀️ This book is just a mess!
January 4, 2022
This book was primarily a paranormal, fantastical story that I wasn't expecting it to be. Some interesting characters, especially the Gonne sisters. At times I did struggle to understand the "why" of a lot of the story I would have preferred for the book to move at a better pace. The writing was bogged down in unnecessary detail and leaned towards repetition so I found it hard to stay focussed and had to push myself to finish it. Not sure who the target audience is for this one, it felt like a YA story but too long and wordy for that market. Overall I felt it was 2.5 stars. Thanks to NetGalley and the Publisher for the advance copy of this book.
Read
August 21, 2022DNF @ 45% - The combination of lengthy chapters, dense prose and immensely slow pacing did nothing to help what could've been a beautifully atmospheric gothic fantasy/horror. Although seeing as how others loved it? Perhaps I should chalk it up to it being a 'it's me, not you' type situation
May 17, 2022
The moment I held Small Angels, I felt drawn to it. Something about the Mockbeggar woods, the mystery surrounding it, the uncanny narrative and the unspoken danger all came to life at once. A secluded church at the edge of Mockbeggar, a wedding, a disaster waiting to happen. What happens when one tries to shake the cobwebs of a past that is untamed and dangerous? It's Sam and Chloe's wedding, and the entire village is invited to the church of Small Angels. But with an ancient rage threatening to spill over the edges of Mockbeggar, how safe are things going to be? I loved how the entire story has been carried out, alternating between the past and the present. The villagers say when it comes to Mockbeggar, you must "leave it to the Gonnes". It's their business to deal with the malicious and it's okay to look the other way. However, they're now about to pay the price for their ignorance. Lucia Gonne isn't really a likable character, but I get her, eventually. She isn't really Lucia-the bad as her Nan portrays her to be, she's just curious. But sometimes the price to curiosity is life itself and she learns that the hard way. I loved Kate the most. She doesn't appear to be the protagonist at first, but she grips her ground soon, establishing her importance. Chloe is a timid character but she means well. When the Gonnes were described from the pov of the villagers, I found them weird. But when I read their povs, I found they're very human too. We judge people so often without realising the stuff they're probably going through. The relationship that the Gonnes have with the other villagers is somewhat based on this ideology. They're seperated, isolated, left to deal with the unknown on their own when it should have been their collective responsibility. I would say I was teeny-bit disappointed with that ending though. I guess I wanted more.
Small Angels is a gothic horror that tells the story of love, betrayal, sacrifice and loss through an essence that is otherworldly yet starkly human.
PS : I received an invitation card to Sam and Chloe's wedding. I think I'll skip it though 🤭 Kudos to @headlinebooks for the innovative idea 😍 I used it as a bookmark and it felt like I was indeed invited to the wedding.
Small Angels is a gothic horror that tells the story of love, betrayal, sacrifice and loss through an essence that is otherworldly yet starkly human.
PS : I received an invitation card to Sam and Chloe's wedding. I think I'll skip it though 🤭 Kudos to @headlinebooks for the innovative idea 😍 I used it as a bookmark and it felt like I was indeed invited to the wedding.
August 7, 2022
So the premise of this book intrigued me as soon as I saw it as an August @bookofthemonth selection. Woods that are living? A bride in danger? A dead boy haunting those woods? Sign. Me. Up. Unfortunately though, this one felt a little too drawn out for me and I didn't really get overly interested until the very end.
There once was a young boy named Harry who died a tragic death at the hands of his brother and cursed their family. Mockbeggar Woods loved Harry and protected him after his death. He was born and raised in those woods after all. Ever since his passing, his family members have had to pay homage to his memory every evening and once a month. It's the only way they can live with any peace. Outsider Chloe doesn't know any of this. She sees a gorgeous woods and abandoned church called Small Angels in her fiance's hometown and books it as a surprise. Now all the locals are keeping the truth from her about Mockbeggar and what happened at Small Angels. How can she have a picture perfect wedding with so much mystery surrounding her at every turn?
I think I saw this classified as a horror book somewhere, but I didn't get that. Is it a little eerie in parts? Sure, but horror seems a bit extra. This was well written and the story was decent but it never really grabbed me. By the end I was sort of skimming along.
⭐⭐
There once was a young boy named Harry who died a tragic death at the hands of his brother and cursed their family. Mockbeggar Woods loved Harry and protected him after his death. He was born and raised in those woods after all. Ever since his passing, his family members have had to pay homage to his memory every evening and once a month. It's the only way they can live with any peace. Outsider Chloe doesn't know any of this. She sees a gorgeous woods and abandoned church called Small Angels in her fiance's hometown and books it as a surprise. Now all the locals are keeping the truth from her about Mockbeggar and what happened at Small Angels. How can she have a picture perfect wedding with so much mystery surrounding her at every turn?
I think I saw this classified as a horror book somewhere, but I didn't get that. Is it a little eerie in parts? Sure, but horror seems a bit extra. This was well written and the story was decent but it never really grabbed me. By the end I was sort of skimming along.
⭐⭐
Read
September 23, 2022DNF Small Angels was too paranormal for me. I did not realize this when I requested the book. I will not rate or review.
August 24, 2022
The similarity between the different voices of this novel made it extremely confusing to read. There are chapters in two different time periods and many different character POVs, but because they all sound the same, I found myself constantly forgetting who (and when) I was reading about. This made the novel nearly unreadable, and it wasn't tempered with anything close to good storytelling, character, or plot. Just not worth it.
October 29, 2022
"Every family has its strange, painful place, Chloe had thought, just as every house has one drawer full of chaos, crammed with nails and knotted string, orphaned keys and half-burned candles."
Mockbeggar Woods is timeless, alive and full of deep magic. It holds its stories deep in the heart of its elements.
The forest holds onto its memories and the families that grew up on the edges are bound to its foreboding requirements, for thou shalt not fail to uphold thier promises. Its love runs so deeply, it does not ever let go. It keeps its stories and it remembers.
"The trees in the woods remembered; they could whisper to one another of things past and days long gone. They were hungry for human dramas, and they loved to hear stories from the village below."
A story that goes back for hundreds of years. The dark whispering Mockbeggar Woods and the Gonnes family held in its clutches. The love of brothers and shadowy secrets buried within. A haunting past forever held onto by the families and villagers wanting to forget the terrifying past. But it will always be there and will always haunt their memories. Small Angels is always watching and the woods are always listening.
A story of heartache and finding the strength to love while facing your fears.
"Small Angels" is steeped in magical realism and hauntings, vivid imagery and foreboding darkness, beautiful prose and deep mystery.
Very darkly atmospheric, I really enjoyed getting lost in this one!
Mockbeggar Woods is timeless, alive and full of deep magic. It holds its stories deep in the heart of its elements.
The forest holds onto its memories and the families that grew up on the edges are bound to its foreboding requirements, for thou shalt not fail to uphold thier promises. Its love runs so deeply, it does not ever let go. It keeps its stories and it remembers.
"The trees in the woods remembered; they could whisper to one another of things past and days long gone. They were hungry for human dramas, and they loved to hear stories from the village below."
A story that goes back for hundreds of years. The dark whispering Mockbeggar Woods and the Gonnes family held in its clutches. The love of brothers and shadowy secrets buried within. A haunting past forever held onto by the families and villagers wanting to forget the terrifying past. But it will always be there and will always haunt their memories. Small Angels is always watching and the woods are always listening.
A story of heartache and finding the strength to love while facing your fears.
"Small Angels" is steeped in magical realism and hauntings, vivid imagery and foreboding darkness, beautiful prose and deep mystery.
Very darkly atmospheric, I really enjoyed getting lost in this one!
February 6, 2022
Thank you, NetGalley, for letting me read this book.
I absolutely loved this book. What would you call it? Folk horror, I guess. Or not quite horror - though there is some gruesome stuff and a fine evocation of dread. Dark folk fantasy?
The book centres on three women, Chloe, Kate and Lucia; and on Mockbeggar Wood. Kate and Lucia grew up on the edge of the wood, but Chloe is an outsider, here to get married to Kate's brother Sam in the church of Small Angels, right on the edge of the woods. What Chloe doesn't know is that there's a reason Small Angels has been abandoned, and that Mockbeggar harbours something dark.
As a child, Lucia and her three sisters knew Mockbeggar well - the danger, but also the beauty. They took Kate there - and out of that, something terrible happened.
I don't want to say any more. You need to read it for yourself. However, Lauren Owen is great at invoking the beauty of the English countryside, and the insularity of English village life. Some disturbing things happen - it's genuinely creepy in places - but there's real beauty here as well. I would thoroughly recommend this book.
I absolutely loved this book. What would you call it? Folk horror, I guess. Or not quite horror - though there is some gruesome stuff and a fine evocation of dread. Dark folk fantasy?
The book centres on three women, Chloe, Kate and Lucia; and on Mockbeggar Wood. Kate and Lucia grew up on the edge of the wood, but Chloe is an outsider, here to get married to Kate's brother Sam in the church of Small Angels, right on the edge of the woods. What Chloe doesn't know is that there's a reason Small Angels has been abandoned, and that Mockbeggar harbours something dark.
As a child, Lucia and her three sisters knew Mockbeggar well - the danger, but also the beauty. They took Kate there - and out of that, something terrible happened.
I don't want to say any more. You need to read it for yourself. However, Lauren Owen is great at invoking the beauty of the English countryside, and the insularity of English village life. Some disturbing things happen - it's genuinely creepy in places - but there's real beauty here as well. I would thoroughly recommend this book.
August 19, 2022
Small Angels by Lauren Owen has depth and themes that are interwoven within the pages of a creepy forest and the family it haunts the most. Fantasy and magic overlap and the forest wants what it wants. Love, friendship, legacy, history, choices and destiny. I like the characters but can't say I love them. The love between the sisters was very strong and easily felt within the pages. Overall a good, spooky read!
July 12, 2022
Audio ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review
I initially rated this as 4 stars but it's played on my mind a lot since I finished, and I decided I was being parsimonious.
Audio review: Great narrators - they brought life and nuance to the characters and the narrative.
Small Angels is everything a good Gothic novel should be - peopled with slightly larger than life characters, containing a love story robed in the borrowed trappings of horror, set in a place that's just not quite like the world we know but could very well exist in a hidden corner of it, and showing flashes of folk horror too as an added bonus.
Above all, the Gothic concerns itself with the interconnectedness of things - people, places, events - delivering everything through a dark mirror so that what should be mundane is subtly shifted. Like many Gothic novels, Small Angels contains a murder - several in fact - but the focus is on one specific one, between two brothers hundreds of years before. The land and the woods are wild and untamed, growing up close around the village and begetting a set of rules the locals know to obey - never stray into Mockbeggar for example. And as is the way, one family knows the truth and is both forced and willingly embraced in to the position of custodianship.
So yes, all the ingredients for great gothic/ folk horror are there. What I found especially intriguing was the way the idea of story was used. That stories define us and what are memories except stories? That the land, the wood remembers if it likes the story enough. In addition, the love story element is nuanced and complex; the innocent young girl common to the Gothic is both the victim and at times the antagonist. Finally, the powerful message is that while we may grow up believing the stories told of us, letting them define who we are, we can change the story anytime we like. We don't have to be defined by what other people believe. This was a great book with a compelling narrative and relatable characters. Highly recommend.
I initially rated this as 4 stars but it's played on my mind a lot since I finished, and I decided I was being parsimonious.
Audio review: Great narrators - they brought life and nuance to the characters and the narrative.
Small Angels is everything a good Gothic novel should be - peopled with slightly larger than life characters, containing a love story robed in the borrowed trappings of horror, set in a place that's just not quite like the world we know but could very well exist in a hidden corner of it, and showing flashes of folk horror too as an added bonus.
Above all, the Gothic concerns itself with the interconnectedness of things - people, places, events - delivering everything through a dark mirror so that what should be mundane is subtly shifted. Like many Gothic novels, Small Angels contains a murder - several in fact - but the focus is on one specific one, between two brothers hundreds of years before. The land and the woods are wild and untamed, growing up close around the village and begetting a set of rules the locals know to obey - never stray into Mockbeggar for example. And as is the way, one family knows the truth and is both forced and willingly embraced in to the position of custodianship.
So yes, all the ingredients for great gothic/ folk horror are there. What I found especially intriguing was the way the idea of story was used. That stories define us and what are memories except stories? That the land, the wood remembers if it likes the story enough. In addition, the love story element is nuanced and complex; the innocent young girl common to the Gothic is both the victim and at times the antagonist. Finally, the powerful message is that while we may grow up believing the stories told of us, letting them define who we are, we can change the story anytime we like. We don't have to be defined by what other people believe. This was a great book with a compelling narrative and relatable characters. Highly recommend.
August 10, 2022
This is one of my favorite books of the year so far. The story is engrossing and just spooky enough to give me some shivers. I loved the chilly atmosphere created by the author’s words. I also appreciated the positive LBGTQ representation. Gothic horror is one of my favorite genres and this book did not disappoint. Great pick BOTM!
August 22, 2022
I made it half way through and every page was drudgery. Fell asleep multiple times and then lost track of plot lines. I am giving up on this one life is too short to read books you dread picking up.
December 7, 2022
wow i don't remember the last time i was this relieved to be done with a fucking book.
May 29, 2023
A ghostly forest, a wedding, a gothic tale of darkness, and family secrets, what more could you want in a story!???
Anything and everything is the answer. This book was terrible. I’m struggling with how to review it. I was intrigued in the beginning as it was mysterious but then it was a whole lot of nothing. When I tell you nothing happens I mean it. You read and reread pretty much the same thing 😴. You know already what is going to happen 😴 but you read on… because if you’re anything like me you’re not a quitter. I dreaded reading this book but every time I picked it up I told myself you’re that closer to finishing. I suggest not reading this book. The only good thing about it is it’s synopsis which makes it SOUND so entertaining. Predictable and a whole lot of nothing happening throughout the 400 page book. SKIP!
1.5 ⭐️ ⭐️ rounded up
Anything and everything is the answer. This book was terrible. I’m struggling with how to review it. I was intrigued in the beginning as it was mysterious but then it was a whole lot of nothing. When I tell you nothing happens I mean it. You read and reread pretty much the same thing 😴. You know already what is going to happen 😴 but you read on… because if you’re anything like me you’re not a quitter. I dreaded reading this book but every time I picked it up I told myself you’re that closer to finishing. I suggest not reading this book. The only good thing about it is it’s synopsis which makes it SOUND so entertaining. Predictable and a whole lot of nothing happening throughout the 400 page book. SKIP!
1.5 ⭐️ ⭐️ rounded up
May 18, 2022
This book was a drag to read. It took me forever to get into it and it was only the last 40 pages or so that I got interested in the characters and the story.
February 26, 2022
In ‘Small Angels’, Lauren Owen demonstrates an irresistibly direct style. Her words find poetry in clipped, often blunt, sentences, that drive the reader right to the point. In this way, she quickly establishes situation and atmosphere and lends a really gratifying earnestness to her prose:
Owen also has a great way of stacking up information in the same, direct way, which is unfussy and easy to digest. For example, from the preface, 'Mockbeggar':
There are many voices in ‘Small Angels’, each one not only convincing, but compelling. Lucia (one of the four sisters of the family cursed to live always at the edge of the Mockbeggar woods, and to bear the burden of wardenship of it) and Selina (her grandmother) have particularly engrossing narratives, not unlike – say, the split narrative in Sara Collins’s ‘The Confessions of Frannie Langdon’ or ‘The Corset’ by Laura Purcell. Their chapters have something lush about them, as if you’re at a literature festival and are listening to an oral storytelling session. The chapters from Kate’s perspective and Chloe’s perspective (respectively, the sisters’ childhood friend and the young woman – Kate's future sister-in-law – who is marrying into the village community), are more contemporary. These two women’s stories are told in a bold and nervy style, more like Sarah Winman or Polly Clark. Elphine’s chapters (the ephemeral character, Lucia’s not-quite-there sister) are pure, intoxicating fairytale. Each point-of-view is perfectly placed (and paced) in the author's deliberate trickling of information.
Character-creation is one of the triumphs of the novel, with a harmony and cohesion of tone Owen achieves with her cast of disparate personalities. Owen maintains a clip and pace that is brisk and lively, despite the fact that the reader is tugged from one timeframe into another, and chapter-by-chapter, the plot we are following is disrupted as we’re pulled between viewpoints, which could whisk us back ten years or two hundred years, or transport us to another location, another drama. The intrusion of Chloe’s internalised story voice is a particularly effective technique when it comes to fragmenting the reader’s sense of continuity, tapping into that horror-genre mood of apprehension:
Many familiar symbols and archetypes are made use of here, but motifs are handled delicately, with a light touch not unlike Emily Tesh’s Greenhollow duology. Roses and briars, choking on earth, hounds of death, a church as sanctuary, a bride in bridal dress, the bond between sisters, a black sheep in the family, the grandmother/crone figure, and a vengeful spirit that can’t be laid to rest: all these well used tropes are made to read as startlingly new.
Where Owen exceeds Emily Tesh’s achievement, is in the LGBT representation in ‘Small Angels’, which is rarefied and pitch-perfect. It’s impossible to overestimate the significance of the positive portrayal of lesbian relationships. Chloe and Sam’s wedding might supply the critical plot drive, but the heart of the novel is Kate and Lucia's story.
Particularly memorable points in this remarkable novel are Chloe’s visits to the woods, as well as her pre-wedding ‘garland night’ at the Tithe Barn next to Small Angels church, in the chapter ‘Mockbeggar Bacchus’, which calls to mind the Dionysian ritual the students perform in Donna Tartt’s 'The Secret History':
In terms of comparisons, this novel’s narration recalls Donna Tartt's 'The Little Friend', where all we witness is coloured through the psyche of a young female protagonist. I’d also recommend this to fans of Jeanette Winterson’s style (especially ‘The Daylight Gate’). ‘Small Angels’ gave me the same reading pleasure as Sarah Waters’s ‘The Little Stranger’ or 'The Paying Guests', particularly the tantalising section after Frances and Lilian have murdered Leonard and are awaiting the consequences. Surprisingly, I found myself also recalling the mood of Daphne du Maurier’s ‘Rebecca’: there's something reminiscent of the scene during the inquest, where the second Mrs de Winter (and the reader) is full of the knowledge of what Maxim has done, and is humming with fright and dashing through consequences and alternative courses of action in her mind, to save him, before she faints.
In conclusion, Lauren Owen’s ‘Small Angels’ is a wonder of a novel. I don’t hesitate to rate it five stars, and it goes straight to my favourites shelf. I know it will be a sensation upon publication, when I will likely seek out a copy to read it again. My thanks are due to Headline for an advanced copy of the book via Netgalley.
‘This was a pleasant place, but outside it would soon be growing dark. Her happiness felt like a very small island. Through the open door she saw that the sky had changed. A chill was creeping in like a touch of cruelty.’
Owen also has a great way of stacking up information in the same, direct way, which is unfussy and easy to digest. For example, from the preface, 'Mockbeggar':
‘[it] was widely agreed that the trees in the wood remembered; they could whisper to one another of things past and days long gone. They were hungry for human dramas, and they loved to hear stories from the village below.It’s not easy to give a plot summation of ‘Small Angels’; the narrative centres around the titular church, as well as Blanch Farm and Mockbeggar woods, where the Gonne family are the latest in a genealogy of village outcasts obligated to perform certain rites to keep the feeble villagers safe from an ominous threat linked to the death of Harry Child two centuries ago.If you whispered your tale by moonlight (the trees listened best by moonlight) you might hear Mockbeggar whisper back. The story would rustle from leaf to leaf, branch to branch, all the way to the shadowed, thorny heart of the woods where no human had ever existed.
When the trees listened, a story lived – it became vivid, it took possession. You’d be there at its centre, watching it all unfold. It was worth braving the dark and the cold for this subtle magic.’
There are many voices in ‘Small Angels’, each one not only convincing, but compelling. Lucia (one of the four sisters of the family cursed to live always at the edge of the Mockbeggar woods, and to bear the burden of wardenship of it) and Selina (her grandmother) have particularly engrossing narratives, not unlike – say, the split narrative in Sara Collins’s ‘The Confessions of Frannie Langdon’ or ‘The Corset’ by Laura Purcell. Their chapters have something lush about them, as if you’re at a literature festival and are listening to an oral storytelling session. The chapters from Kate’s perspective and Chloe’s perspective (respectively, the sisters’ childhood friend and the young woman – Kate's future sister-in-law – who is marrying into the village community), are more contemporary. These two women’s stories are told in a bold and nervy style, more like Sarah Winman or Polly Clark. Elphine’s chapters (the ephemeral character, Lucia’s not-quite-there sister) are pure, intoxicating fairytale. Each point-of-view is perfectly placed (and paced) in the author's deliberate trickling of information.
Character-creation is one of the triumphs of the novel, with a harmony and cohesion of tone Owen achieves with her cast of disparate personalities. Owen maintains a clip and pace that is brisk and lively, despite the fact that the reader is tugged from one timeframe into another, and chapter-by-chapter, the plot we are following is disrupted as we’re pulled between viewpoints, which could whisk us back ten years or two hundred years, or transport us to another location, another drama. The intrusion of Chloe’s internalised story voice is a particularly effective technique when it comes to fragmenting the reader’s sense of continuity, tapping into that horror-genre mood of apprehension:
’The breeze tugged at the flowers and the dog roses shed petals over her head.She reached out to one of those sweet pink and white flowers, but just before she was about to pick it she had a feeling that she shouldn’t, that it would be a huge mistake –
The small storytelling voice had crept back into her mind – she had been too distracted by the woods to guard against it.
Many familiar symbols and archetypes are made use of here, but motifs are handled delicately, with a light touch not unlike Emily Tesh’s Greenhollow duology. Roses and briars, choking on earth, hounds of death, a church as sanctuary, a bride in bridal dress, the bond between sisters, a black sheep in the family, the grandmother/crone figure, and a vengeful spirit that can’t be laid to rest: all these well used tropes are made to read as startlingly new.
Where Owen exceeds Emily Tesh’s achievement, is in the LGBT representation in ‘Small Angels’, which is rarefied and pitch-perfect. It’s impossible to overestimate the significance of the positive portrayal of lesbian relationships. Chloe and Sam’s wedding might supply the critical plot drive, but the heart of the novel is Kate and Lucia's story.
Particularly memorable points in this remarkable novel are Chloe’s visits to the woods, as well as her pre-wedding ‘garland night’ at the Tithe Barn next to Small Angels church, in the chapter ‘Mockbeggar Bacchus’, which calls to mind the Dionysian ritual the students perform in Donna Tartt’s 'The Secret History':
’The night was warm as summer. Moonlight was coming in through the open barn door, and the dancers’ shadows made strange shapes in the light – like tree branches, Chloe thought, if you looked out of the corner of your eye. She found herself dancing, though she couldn’t remember when she had joined the others. […] The bride’s wreath was tight against her hair, flower stems scratching, but she would not take it off.’
In terms of comparisons, this novel’s narration recalls Donna Tartt's 'The Little Friend', where all we witness is coloured through the psyche of a young female protagonist. I’d also recommend this to fans of Jeanette Winterson’s style (especially ‘The Daylight Gate’). ‘Small Angels’ gave me the same reading pleasure as Sarah Waters’s ‘The Little Stranger’ or 'The Paying Guests', particularly the tantalising section after Frances and Lilian have murdered Leonard and are awaiting the consequences. Surprisingly, I found myself also recalling the mood of Daphne du Maurier’s ‘Rebecca’: there's something reminiscent of the scene during the inquest, where the second Mrs de Winter (and the reader) is full of the knowledge of what Maxim has done, and is humming with fright and dashing through consequences and alternative courses of action in her mind, to save him, before she faints.
In conclusion, Lauren Owen’s ‘Small Angels’ is a wonder of a novel. I don’t hesitate to rate it five stars, and it goes straight to my favourites shelf. I know it will be a sensation upon publication, when I will likely seek out a copy to read it again. My thanks are due to Headline for an advanced copy of the book via Netgalley.
‘A story wears a groove if it’s told often enough. It wears you away like pacing feet on stone.'
August 14, 2022
A wonderfully dark, atmospheric, gothic ghost story, set around Saint Michael and All Angels church, known to the locals as Small Angels, which is perched on the outskirts of the very creepy Mockbeggar woods. The woods which are said to listen to your stories.
When Chloe and Sam decide to get married in the small village where he grew up, they find their church is double booked and Chloe is offered the chance to get married in Small Angels church instead. Small Angels has not been used for many years, since the last funeral of one of the Gonnes family who used to use Small Angels for themselves, controlling the key, and throwing it open to the rest of the village only when they held their family funerals there. Many of the funerals were ‘empty box’ funerals for family members who had gone into Mockbeggar woods and were never seen again.
Chloe does not know the history of the church, but one of the locals is eager to tell her a story on her first night in the local pub. The rest of the locals don’t talk about Mockbeggar, preferring to turn a blind eye and not venture near it. No one will tell her more so she decides to take a look for herself.
Chloe goes out for a run and finds herself in the middle of the woods, at a ruin of a small house which has been overrun with thorns and brambles, despite being told to stay away from the woods. She had to see for herself what the fuss was about as no one would tell her the history of Mockbeggar. She finds a tree which has been mostly cut down and almost dead, with copper coins pushed into its trunk. She wants to save the tree and pulls the coins out getting a splinter from the wood in her hand.
A young boy, Harry, was murdered 200 years ago and buried in the woods, but Mockbeggar loved him and refused to let him go.
As Chloe and Sam’s wedding approaches and the church is now thoroughly cleaned and aired, something bad is awakening in the woods; something which is gaining strength.
Will Lucia Gonnes, the only family member to be left on Blanch Far, the family farm, and the only person left in the village to know the full secret of Mockbeggar, step in and help save Chloe?
I found the pace slowed down a little in the middle of the book and I wondered where it was all going but now I have finished I understand the need to slowly reveal the stories of Harry’s murder, the lives of the Gonnes family who were the only ones to walk in Mockbeggar and protect the village from the bad things within it. and the possibly doomed wedding preparations.
I love a dual timeline and different POV’s, all adding their pieces to the jigsaw of the story. The book was completely absorbing and the descriptive writing was amazing. I lived within the pages of this book for just under a week. This is not a book to be rushed but to be savoured. It is going to stay with me for a long time. And I’ll not be venturing into any woods any time soon!
When Chloe and Sam decide to get married in the small village where he grew up, they find their church is double booked and Chloe is offered the chance to get married in Small Angels church instead. Small Angels has not been used for many years, since the last funeral of one of the Gonnes family who used to use Small Angels for themselves, controlling the key, and throwing it open to the rest of the village only when they held their family funerals there. Many of the funerals were ‘empty box’ funerals for family members who had gone into Mockbeggar woods and were never seen again.
Chloe does not know the history of the church, but one of the locals is eager to tell her a story on her first night in the local pub. The rest of the locals don’t talk about Mockbeggar, preferring to turn a blind eye and not venture near it. No one will tell her more so she decides to take a look for herself.
Chloe goes out for a run and finds herself in the middle of the woods, at a ruin of a small house which has been overrun with thorns and brambles, despite being told to stay away from the woods. She had to see for herself what the fuss was about as no one would tell her the history of Mockbeggar. She finds a tree which has been mostly cut down and almost dead, with copper coins pushed into its trunk. She wants to save the tree and pulls the coins out getting a splinter from the wood in her hand.
A young boy, Harry, was murdered 200 years ago and buried in the woods, but Mockbeggar loved him and refused to let him go.
As Chloe and Sam’s wedding approaches and the church is now thoroughly cleaned and aired, something bad is awakening in the woods; something which is gaining strength.
Will Lucia Gonnes, the only family member to be left on Blanch Far, the family farm, and the only person left in the village to know the full secret of Mockbeggar, step in and help save Chloe?
I found the pace slowed down a little in the middle of the book and I wondered where it was all going but now I have finished I understand the need to slowly reveal the stories of Harry’s murder, the lives of the Gonnes family who were the only ones to walk in Mockbeggar and protect the village from the bad things within it. and the possibly doomed wedding preparations.
I love a dual timeline and different POV’s, all adding their pieces to the jigsaw of the story. The book was completely absorbing and the descriptive writing was amazing. I lived within the pages of this book for just under a week. This is not a book to be rushed but to be savoured. It is going to stay with me for a long time. And I’ll not be venturing into any woods any time soon!
September 14, 2022
Unlike anything I’ve read. Don’t read at night if you scare easy. It was spooky and thoughtful. Full of strong, unique relationships and strange family traditions.
It was hard to follow at times and the ending was little bit of a let down but overall a good escape into a different time and world.
It was hard to follow at times and the ending was little bit of a let down but overall a good escape into a different time and world.
December 25, 2022
3.5 ⭐️ rounded up
October 7, 2022
Small Angels was my August BOTM selection and I really enjoyed it. It was a ghost story but it was also very magical (in a creepy kind of way). Mockbeggar Woods had to be my favorite character. I would highly recommend this for fans of magical realism as it is very well written.
September 1, 2022
4.75 stars
This book was an unexpected burst of joy for me. It was a perfectly chilling and spooky (yet somehow cozy) fall read. It made me want to light a candle and make something warm to drink while reading it.
Small Angels opens with bride-to-be Chloe getting ready for her impending nuptials in the charming village where her fiancée, Sam, and his sister, Kate, grew up. Chloe is enchanted by the idyllic atmosphere of the village, and by the charm of St. Michael and All Angels church (Small Angels church, to the villagers), where she and Sam plan to hold their wedding. In the days leading up to the event, however, Chloe’s naive fondness for the village dissipates into fear and dread as secrets about the mysterious woods at the village’s edge come to light. Chloe soon learns that Mockbeggar woods have an ominous magic about them, stemming from the mysterious history of the Gonne family, who have lived at the edge of the woods for generations. Due to tradition and vague superstition, everyone in the village steers clear of Mockbeggar, leaving the woods and Small Angels church entirely to the care of the Gonnes. However, when the youngest Gonne sibling, Lucia, gets a little too close to both the woods and her ancestors’ tragic history, Mockbeggar becomes more dangerous than ever. As Chloe and Sam’s wedding draws near, the woods loom, and Lucia must reconnect with her first love, Kate, to fight catastrophe.
I loved the gothic atmosphere of Small Angels. It’s my favorite type of book (spooky and sapphic), so I think I was bound to enjoy it. Owen’s writing is lushly descriptive and drew me in completely, and I felt like she described the haunting yet enchanting essence of Mockbeggar in a really effective way. I also loved the gothic story-within-a-story elements in Small Angels. After starting out with Chloe’s wedding preparations, Small Angels begins to excavate layers and layers of deeper stories, from Lucia’s troubled past, to the origin story of the betrayal that shaped the Gonne family’s connection to the woods, to the sweet, compelling romance between Lucia and Kate. This book was intricately crafted, and I enjoyed each carefully rendered reveal up until the novel’s close. I especially loved the history between Lucia and Kate and their deep tenderness toward each other, as well as the complicated dynamic between Lucia and her three older sisters.
I truly enjoyed this book, and I think it makes an excellent spooky season read. If you are looking for a gothic story with a compelling sapphic relationship at its heart, this one is definitely for you!
This book was an unexpected burst of joy for me. It was a perfectly chilling and spooky (yet somehow cozy) fall read. It made me want to light a candle and make something warm to drink while reading it.
Small Angels opens with bride-to-be Chloe getting ready for her impending nuptials in the charming village where her fiancée, Sam, and his sister, Kate, grew up. Chloe is enchanted by the idyllic atmosphere of the village, and by the charm of St. Michael and All Angels church (Small Angels church, to the villagers), where she and Sam plan to hold their wedding. In the days leading up to the event, however, Chloe’s naive fondness for the village dissipates into fear and dread as secrets about the mysterious woods at the village’s edge come to light. Chloe soon learns that Mockbeggar woods have an ominous magic about them, stemming from the mysterious history of the Gonne family, who have lived at the edge of the woods for generations. Due to tradition and vague superstition, everyone in the village steers clear of Mockbeggar, leaving the woods and Small Angels church entirely to the care of the Gonnes. However, when the youngest Gonne sibling, Lucia, gets a little too close to both the woods and her ancestors’ tragic history, Mockbeggar becomes more dangerous than ever. As Chloe and Sam’s wedding draws near, the woods loom, and Lucia must reconnect with her first love, Kate, to fight catastrophe.
I loved the gothic atmosphere of Small Angels. It’s my favorite type of book (spooky and sapphic), so I think I was bound to enjoy it. Owen’s writing is lushly descriptive and drew me in completely, and I felt like she described the haunting yet enchanting essence of Mockbeggar in a really effective way. I also loved the gothic story-within-a-story elements in Small Angels. After starting out with Chloe’s wedding preparations, Small Angels begins to excavate layers and layers of deeper stories, from Lucia’s troubled past, to the origin story of the betrayal that shaped the Gonne family’s connection to the woods, to the sweet, compelling romance between Lucia and Kate. This book was intricately crafted, and I enjoyed each carefully rendered reveal up until the novel’s close. I especially loved the history between Lucia and Kate and their deep tenderness toward each other, as well as the complicated dynamic between Lucia and her three older sisters.
I truly enjoyed this book, and I think it makes an excellent spooky season read. If you are looking for a gothic story with a compelling sapphic relationship at its heart, this one is definitely for you!
August 11, 2022
For more of my reviews, check out my blog.
Thank you to Netgalley and Random House for providing an ARC copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.
Small Angels is a slow, creeping horror story of a novel. You aren’t quite sure where the author is trying to take you, until all the sudden — you’re there, right at the heart of it. It’s a spooky tale at the heart of this book, but it’s not particularly scary. I thoroughly enjoyed Lauren Owen’s debut, The Quick, back when I read it years ago. With Small Angels, though, I found myself wanting more. Just a tiny bit more of something.
At the heart of this story is Mockbeggar — a slightly sentient forest. It wants to feel loved, it wants stories and to be a part of something. Two hundred years before the book starts, Mockbeggar falls in love with a young boy named Harry Child. Harry has, to put it simply, an awful life. He comes to a horribly tragic end, and Mockbeggar basically keeps him as part of itself. Harry haunts the woods. (I love the idea of a haunted forest, but there wasn’t enough here to really do it for me. I wanted something extra, another entity, something else in the forest.) Harry becomes our story’s villain.
And to start, you feel bad for him, but as the book goes on and on…you start to resent him. You resent him badly. Because as a part of his haunting, he has held the Gonne family captive for hundreds of years. They live their entire lives around his happiness, making Harry-the-ghost pleased or content with their misery. It’s the Gonne family that are the other main characters of this story. Lucia, in particular, is one of the stars of the story.
It’s Lucia that I did not understand. She’s told time and time again not to mess with Mockbeggar, not to go looking for trouble, or playing with Harry. So what does she do, time and time again? It was so frustrating as a reader to sit and have to read about her completely ignoring people who told her what not to do. It is Lucia that brings about everything that happens in this book.
Small Angels is very well written, but the end of the book really left me wanting more. I don’t want to spoil anything, but the way the end is written feels very much like a cop-out. It all ends way, way too neatly for me. Despite that, Small Angels is atmospheric, spooky, and haunting. A perfect read for someone who doesn’t like being frightened, but wants something at least somewhat Halloween-y when the season comes about.
Thank you to Netgalley and Random House for providing an ARC copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.
Small Angels is a slow, creeping horror story of a novel. You aren’t quite sure where the author is trying to take you, until all the sudden — you’re there, right at the heart of it. It’s a spooky tale at the heart of this book, but it’s not particularly scary. I thoroughly enjoyed Lauren Owen’s debut, The Quick, back when I read it years ago. With Small Angels, though, I found myself wanting more. Just a tiny bit more of something.
At the heart of this story is Mockbeggar — a slightly sentient forest. It wants to feel loved, it wants stories and to be a part of something. Two hundred years before the book starts, Mockbeggar falls in love with a young boy named Harry Child. Harry has, to put it simply, an awful life. He comes to a horribly tragic end, and Mockbeggar basically keeps him as part of itself. Harry haunts the woods. (I love the idea of a haunted forest, but there wasn’t enough here to really do it for me. I wanted something extra, another entity, something else in the forest.) Harry becomes our story’s villain.
And to start, you feel bad for him, but as the book goes on and on…you start to resent him. You resent him badly. Because as a part of his haunting, he has held the Gonne family captive for hundreds of years. They live their entire lives around his happiness, making Harry-the-ghost pleased or content with their misery. It’s the Gonne family that are the other main characters of this story. Lucia, in particular, is one of the stars of the story.
It’s Lucia that I did not understand. She’s told time and time again not to mess with Mockbeggar, not to go looking for trouble, or playing with Harry. So what does she do, time and time again? It was so frustrating as a reader to sit and have to read about her completely ignoring people who told her what not to do. It is Lucia that brings about everything that happens in this book.
Small Angels is very well written, but the end of the book really left me wanting more. I don’t want to spoil anything, but the way the end is written feels very much like a cop-out. It all ends way, way too neatly for me. Despite that, Small Angels is atmospheric, spooky, and haunting. A perfect read for someone who doesn’t like being frightened, but wants something at least somewhat Halloween-y when the season comes about.
August 28, 2022
10 stars. 20. I didn’t want it to end.
This book was creepy. It’s a classic gothic ghost story and I had actual nightmares multiple times.
I loved the writing style; it’s quite the slow burn—you’re finding out chilling details from each person’s narrative to piece together the dark history of the woods, and it’s just excellent.
Other reviews have said it’s too dense, I actually liked it being dense. I was so sucked into the story that I felt like I was living out what was happening, and the detail in the writing really made that happen.
Touching, sincere, dark, heartwarming, creepy, beautiful. It’s like warm midsummer mixed with a chilly autumn night. Definitely a great option for spooky season. I will be rereading at some point.
This book was creepy. It’s a classic gothic ghost story and I had actual nightmares multiple times.
I loved the writing style; it’s quite the slow burn—you’re finding out chilling details from each person’s narrative to piece together the dark history of the woods, and it’s just excellent.
Other reviews have said it’s too dense, I actually liked it being dense. I was so sucked into the story that I felt like I was living out what was happening, and the detail in the writing really made that happen.
Touching, sincere, dark, heartwarming, creepy, beautiful. It’s like warm midsummer mixed with a chilly autumn night. Definitely a great option for spooky season. I will be rereading at some point.
August 29, 2022
Honestly, this is the first book I ever added to a DNF list. I couldn’t get into and I tried so hard. 160 pages in i was still left asking when it would make sense. I had high hopes, real world mixed with some paranormal fantasy sounded great. However this book proved to be too much of a drag and too much to make sense of.
August 26, 2022
One of the great pleasures of Gothic fiction lies in its insistence that the past (to quote Faulkner) isn’t dead, it isn’t even past. In a Gothic novel, dark histories linger in gloomy castles, musty antiquarian bookshops, crumbling graveyards and dusty attics, just waiting to attach themselves to the living.
Lauren Owen’s moody second novel, Small Angels, has a perfect Gothic setting: Mockbeggar Woods, a place as brooding and ominous as the Brontës’ moors. “In the village they were used to Mockbeggar and its ways. It was well known that a story told there — even a game of imagination played beneath its shifting, leafy shadows — might stick like a burr. The stories could cling in that subtle way that pollen clings, invisible in the throat.” At the edge of Mockbeggar lies Small Angels, an abandoned private chapel “used to strange goings-on.” After years of decay, Small Angels has been rented for a local wedding, inciting long-dormant spirits.
The structure of Owen’s novel mimics its setting: There is no straight road through it. And while the meandering pathways and twisting story lines can at times feel disorienting, this beautifully written modern ghost story is an enchanting place to get lost.
Lauren Owen’s moody second novel, Small Angels, has a perfect Gothic setting: Mockbeggar Woods, a place as brooding and ominous as the Brontës’ moors. “In the village they were used to Mockbeggar and its ways. It was well known that a story told there — even a game of imagination played beneath its shifting, leafy shadows — might stick like a burr. The stories could cling in that subtle way that pollen clings, invisible in the throat.” At the edge of Mockbeggar lies Small Angels, an abandoned private chapel “used to strange goings-on.” After years of decay, Small Angels has been rented for a local wedding, inciting long-dormant spirits.
The structure of Owen’s novel mimics its setting: There is no straight road through it. And while the meandering pathways and twisting story lines can at times feel disorienting, this beautifully written modern ghost story is an enchanting place to get lost.
September 4, 2022
This book has a whole lot of promise, but never has a chance to deliver, which is a shame because I would have loved to have seen all the potential inside the pages come to fruition.
My grandma, when she first met the man who would become my husband, said, “This one’s still too green,” meaning that he wasn’t quite finished ripening yet. Hadn’t quite grown all the way up yet. She was right. That’s how I feel about this book. It has the feeling of not quite being done. It still needs some time in the oven.
The reason I say this is because there’s just so much going on in this book: non-linear timelines, shifting POVs, shifting of characters at the wheel, shifting of POVs within the same character’s section, and more. And yet, this book has very uneven pacing and I have a feeling that which character you like reading about most will be different for different readers (I liked reading Chloe’s POV the most, but someone else might like reading Kate the most). Usually, uneven pacing is a sign the book is either too long or that it’s too busy giving attention to some sections while not giving enough attention to others. Either way, it’s an editing issue.
While the story itself is compelling, the way it’s told is not. I just couldn’t sink myself into it like I have other ghost stories and horror tales that have been released this year. It just wasn’t my cup of tea.
Thanks to NetGalley and Random House for granting me access to this title. Due to the 3 star or lower rating this review will not appear on social media or bookseller websites.
My grandma, when she first met the man who would become my husband, said, “This one’s still too green,” meaning that he wasn’t quite finished ripening yet. Hadn’t quite grown all the way up yet. She was right. That’s how I feel about this book. It has the feeling of not quite being done. It still needs some time in the oven.
The reason I say this is because there’s just so much going on in this book: non-linear timelines, shifting POVs, shifting of characters at the wheel, shifting of POVs within the same character’s section, and more. And yet, this book has very uneven pacing and I have a feeling that which character you like reading about most will be different for different readers (I liked reading Chloe’s POV the most, but someone else might like reading Kate the most). Usually, uneven pacing is a sign the book is either too long or that it’s too busy giving attention to some sections while not giving enough attention to others. Either way, it’s an editing issue.
While the story itself is compelling, the way it’s told is not. I just couldn’t sink myself into it like I have other ghost stories and horror tales that have been released this year. It just wasn’t my cup of tea.
Thanks to NetGalley and Random House for granting me access to this title. Due to the 3 star or lower rating this review will not appear on social media or bookseller websites.
August 1, 2022
I absolutely adored this book. It's told with the flair of an old gothic murder ballad and the tenderness of a fairy tale, and as soon as I finished it I wanted to start over from the beginning. The gorgeous prose contains literally a laundry list of my favorite things in books: ghosts, revenge, sentient trees, queer pining, the power of storytelling, bad things afoot at the local church, a beautiful satisfying ending. (Also, spoiler: Hector the horse is fine in the end, and thank goodness.) SMALL ANGELS is a delight for people who like a spooky tale well told. Sincere thanks to the publisher for sending me a link to an eARC under the suspicion I might enjoy it—I very very much did!
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