October means it’s Spooky Season for a lot of us. As readers, the urge to read something spooky and atmospheric strikes with the colder weather and ghoulish activities being enjoyed around us. However, some of us (definitely not me) are scaredy cats likely to get nightmares from anything scarier than a Scooby Doo movie. Whether you are looking for your first horror book experience (like I was back in 2023 when I picked up Kingfisher for the first time) or just looking for something spooky and short to read for October, T. Kingfisher has a series meant for you.
T. Kingfisher’s Sworn Soldier series is a collection of novellas following Alex Easton, a former soldier of the fictional nation of Gallacia. Alex finds themself dropped in nightmarish scenarios in each book, after accidentally becoming a bit of an expert in the strange and supernatural via their experiences at the Usher house in the first book. These novellas run around 150 pages, give or take, and feature a different spooky setting and “creatures” (for lack of a better word) in each book.
What started as a retelling of The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar A. Poe in the first book quickly became its own peculiar and chilling universe, following Alex from location to location, with their acquaintances and mentor, as they try to unravel odd occurrences throughout their travels. The formatting and length of the novels reads similar to a Monster of the Week television series such as Scooby-Doo, Supernatural, and X-Files. I think what makes this series perfect for a first-time horror reader (or scaredy cat like myself) is Kingfisher never leaves the fear and the unknown unresolved—she always shows Alex an explanation of what caused the scary events, how it happened, and what the motivation was.
Spoiler Warning: Each of the sections below will give spoilers for each individual novella in the series. If you want to go into this series blind, I recommend skipping to the final paragraph of this review.
Book #1: What Moves the Dead
When Alex Easton, a retired soldier, receives word that their childhood friend Madeline Usher is dying, they race to the ancestral home of the Ushers in the remote countryside of Ruravia.
What they find there is a nightmare of fungal growths and possessed wildlife, surrounding a dark, pulsing lake. Madeline sleepwalks and speaks in strange voices at night, and her brother Roderick is consumed with a mysterious malady of the nerves.
Aided by a redoubtable British mycologist and a baffled American doctor, Alex must unravel the secret of the House of Usher before it consumes them all.
I picked up this book in the middle of “Popular Bookstore” based on the cover alone. I had been searching for something spooky that felt like it came straight out of an unnerving, supernatural forest akin to my Appalachian home, and while this book does not take place in Appalachia like I was hoping, it did not disappoint!
What I did not know going into this book was it is a retelling of The Fall of the House of Usher. In fact, it took Madeline Usher being introduced as a character before it finally “clicked”. Kingfisher makes this story and setting so completely her own, that only the bones of the original story are recognizable.
As we already have a review of this book written by Jayna, I will keep my take on this novel brief and instead link to their review. What I will add is this: I think it takes a master of the craft to take such a well-known and well-studied piece of literature and make it your own. Anyone who has read Kingfisher knows she is highly skilled at taking fairy tales and putting dark and thrilling spins on them, in titles such as Nettle & Bone and Hemlock & Silver. It is another thing entirely to take the king of horror’s work and adapt it in a new way while keeping it just as unnerving and chilling as the original.
The setting of the novel feels sickeningly cursed, and that is before the freaky staring hares and body horror kicks into high gear towards the middle of the novella. I found myself dreading what unhinged and disgusting thing Madeline’s corpse was going to do next, and was relieved when the entire estate and lake was firebombed at the end to keep the sentient fungus from spreading any further via the local wildlife or unsuspecting travelers.
Book #2: What Feasts at Night
When Easton travels to Gallacia as a favor to Miss Potter, they find their home empty, the caretaker dead, and the grounds troubled by a strange, uncanny silence.
The locals whisper of a strange breath-stealing being from Gallacian folklore that has taken up residence in Easton’s home… and in their dreams.
I was not prepared for book two to focus on one of my favorite word and myth origins. What Feasts at Night finds Alex and their companion traveling back to their home country of Gallacia only to find their friend Codrin gone and replaced by a strange woman and her son, caretaking the graveyard and experiencing strange and uncanny occurrences at the lodge. Throughout the book, they hear tell of a breath-stealing spectre who is terrorizing all the inhabitants of the area. Alex is horrified to find themself a victim as well, plagued with nightmares of their traumatizing war experiences, visions of their beloved horse Hobb disintegrating into ribbons of flesh and sinew, and maddening tinnitus as they try to rest at their home. By the end of the book, they discover that the culprit is a moroi—a malevolent spirit unable to rest that steals the dreams, peace, and breath of those sleeping nearby. Fun fact for you: this creature and its name are the etymological origin of the word nightmare!
I think from a purely objective standpoint, this book is the weakest in the series. I think it could have benefitted from being a little longer in length. While I think this series works perfectly as novellas, Kingfisher packs a LOT of backstory and information about Alex and Gallacia into this book, and I think the plot progression lacks as a result. What Kingfisher did well is the portrayal of a soldier’s PTSD—you really feel bad for Alex and all they have been through during this book. The gruesome portrayal of war via Alex’s nightmares and the constant feeling of being off-kilter due to their tinnitus and sleep-deprived fatigue is extremely effective, making this story feel like a hazy dream you just can’t wake up from.
Book #3: What Stalks the Deep
Alex Easton does not want to visit America.
They particularly do not want to visit an abandoned coal mine in West Virginia with a reputation for being haunted.
But when their old friend Dr. Denton summons them to help find his lost cousin—who went missing in that very mine—well, sometimes a sworn soldier has to do what a sworn soldier has to do.
I did not think that Kingfisher would write another Sworn Soldier story I adored more than the first two. I was wrong. My wish came true: Alex Easton and their companion Angus are on their way to Appalachia to deal with rumors of supernatural occurrences stemming around an old mining town and the abandoned mine shaft. I cracked open this book, equally excited and horrified to see what Appalachian horror Kingfisher selected to torment me with this time.
I was surprised to find Kingfisher came up with her own ghoulish creature (as far as I can tell via research) for this one! The creature itself in this story does not provide the horror like the previous books in the series. Instead, Kingfisher expertly uses a sense of total blindness, claustrophobia, and smothering from the tight mine shafts in order to torment her readers. The big reveal in this story is mesmerizing (and mildly gross), and I found myself very attached to the hive-mind cnidarian-type creature and its strange story.
I will say that I predicted the ending, or conflict, of this book. I do not think it was overtly obvious in nature. However, I was reading The Black Company: Books of the South by Glen Cook at the same time, and immediately clocked the strange guard dog following the town drunk was very similar to the inclusion of Toadkiller Dog’s character in Cook’s series. I find myself wondering if The Sentry dog was actually inspired by Toadkiller Dog, or just a horrifying coincidence cooked up in Kingfisher’s body horror brain.
End Spoilers: This review returns to being spoiler free from this point on!
In all, you can’t deny Kingfisher’s sickening use of classic literature, ancient myth, and Lovecraftian horror is a winning combination and highly effective. While these short stories are not meant to leave you questioning for long, they pack a very powerful punch for those first delving into the horror genre. I found myself finding comfort and reassurance that even though I was scared silly reading the books, all the mystery and conflicts would be resolved at the end, leaving me without nightmarish “what ifs” to dream about for nights to come. My hope is Kingfisher continues this series, and puts Alex through some of the horrors dreamt up by Native American tribes across the western hemisphere.
At the same time, I don’t know if my bedtime routine could take the hit that Indigenous storytelling has to offer Kingfisher’s horror adaptations.
