Spoiler-Free Review

While I’ve had some interesting reads, 2025 has so far been a relatively lackluster year as far as my ratings. But this weird little read is my first 5-star novel of the year. If you’re into atmospheric, slow-burn gothic horror with an Appalachian flare, you might like The Bog Wife.

What’s The Bog Wife about?

After their father dies, five isolated, codependent siblings, who were raised on cultish rituals in the bog lands of West Virginia, must face the possibility that their bog – which has produced a wife for every Haddesley heir for generations – may no longer be complying.

It won’t be for everyone, but it was definitely for me.

This is true gothic – slow, meandering, and creepy. But where most gothic tales feature a romance (problematic or not), this instead tells a story about a family. Five adult siblings who were raised so isolated from the outside world as to not even have social security numbers, some of whom having never even left the property, who must now contend with the death of their patriarch and (attempt to) carry on the family legacy.

The family legacy being to send the oldest male out into the bog to complete a ritual that (should) produce him a wife.

Something that was particularly interesting to me about this story was the odd combination of hope and horror that I experienced. I wanted the family to improve, to get healthy, to get out of that house. The siblings lurched along the road to recovery, but never at the same pace, and while one seemed to progress another would regress, and I was never truly sure how things would go next.

This story was thematically rich. The feminist themes were very clear, but there were many eco-horror moments that put the climate at the forefront. Generational trauma, family dysfunction, and sibling codependency were also consistent threads throughout.

This is also the kind of book with many interpretations. I, like most other readers, felt it was an allegory for the way humans treat Mother Nature, and the inevitability of climate change / climate crisis in the way we live now. But another reviewer saw the story as an allegory for the opioid epidemic in Appalachia – and I admit, that is a fascinating interpretation that I could get behind. Particularly when viewing the family dynamics.

Should you read The Bog Wife?

If gothic horror (aka, scary books set in an large, creepy, decrepit house) is your vibe, and you take interest in dysfunctional families and generational trauma, read this book. Bonus points for multi-POV storytelling with somewhat unreliable narrators, and the sense of not knowing what’s really real.