Slewfoot

I wanted to love this book so badly.

When October hit, Slewfoot was at the absolute top of my TBR. I had seen it everywhere (BookTok, Goodreads lists, spooky recommendation videos) and everyone kept describing it as the ultimate dark fantasy/folk horror read for fall. A witchy tale set in 1666 New England, complete with Puritan paranoia, an ancient forest spirit, and full-color artwork by Brom himself? Say no more.

And to be fair, the aesthetic is 10/10. Brom’s artwork scattered throughout the book is stunning, and the atmospheric dread of the dark colonial woods in autumn is palpable. But once the initial hype settled, I found myself bumping into a lot of narrative speed bumps.

Here is where it lost me a bit:

-The Pacing Drag

For a book with such a wild, explosive premise, the middle section felt like a massive slog. What could have been a tight, tense 300-page folk horror story was stretched out over 400+ pages. So much of the plot gets bogged down in Puritan village politics, legal land disputes, and Wallace being insufferably terrible. While I get that establishing the oppressive, claustrophobic atmosphere of 17th-century Connecticut was necessary, watching Abitha fight over goats, property deeds, and church accusations over and over started to feel repetitive.

-The Identity Crisis

My biggest issue was that the book couldn't quite decide what genre it wanted to lock into. It kept bouncing back and forth between two very different stories:

-A grounded, historical The Crucible-style drama about Puritan misogyny and witch hysteria.

-A bloody, high-fantasy creature feature about an ancient woodland god discovering his powers.

Because it kept toggling between these two modes, Samson (Slewfoot) felt caught in a perpetual identity crisis. One chapter he’s a gentle, amnesiac forest guardian who just wants to listen to nature; the next, he’s a terrifying, bloodthirsty devil figure; then he's back to being a misunderstood creature. That constant back-and-forth gave me narrative whiplash and made it really hard to figure out what the story was actually trying to say about him or Abitha's bond with him.

Don't get me wrong: the final act delivers on the bloody, satisfying revenge fantasy that everyone promises, and the visual imagery of Samson in all his antlered glory is incredible. Abitha is a resilient protagonist, and you will definitely root for her against the awful townspeople.

If you are reading purely for autumnal vibes, gorgeous illustrations, and a dark pagan-versus-Puritan showdown, you'll probably enjoy skimming through it. But as a cohesive novel, it just felt bloated and indecisive. It’s a decent 3-star spooky read, but definitely a case where the hype and aesthetic outshone the actual plotting.