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HOLY SHIT BOOK REC!!!!!!!
A woman and her dog fleeing their old life end up staying at her late aunt's house in the desert and discover Terry Pratchett's Small Gods are real. This is somewhat more alarming and violent than expected. Also the side characters all restored my faith in humanity. I would die for Grandma Billy. The dog lives.
I am about to ignore my whole currently reading pile to finally start the latest T. Kingfisher horror novel.
I am so ready to see the adventures of yet another woman with her trusty pet going to live in a new place just to experience the horrors™.
In a vaguely futuristic world, Selena runs away from her emotionally toxic relationship, with only her beloved dog Copper and a tiny horde of cash, hoping to find her aunt in the desert of Quartz Creek. Her aunt turns out to be dead, but her house is open and available. Cautiously, Selena moves in, making friends with the quirky denizens of the town...including a desert god that her aunt was reportedly a bit too close to by the end, the Roadrunner.
As always, T. Kingfisher's characters are the star of the show, richly built, fun, and believable. Grandma Billy is an iconic character, and her bold, chaotic personality is the perfect foil alongside Father Aguirre. Selena's journey to healing from her previous relationship, her fight to find her place and defend it in Quartz Creek, roots the story of eerie desert nights and strange creatures. Copper of course is a major protagonist, but the star of the show is the gentle squash spirit. I'm obsessed with him. Snake-Eater releases November 11 and fans of the author will be thrilled to have another volume for their shelves.
Content warnings for violence, animal cruelty/death, grief, emotional/domestic abuse, and mentions sexual assault and transphobia.
"Is it enough to know that it happened, and I got through it?"
-- Snake-Eater by T Kingfisher
Have you read Snake-Eater by T. Kingfisher (2025)?
yes
no
I didn't finish it
I've never heard of it
Sorry T Kingfisher but murderous bird spirit god will never be as scary as some guy who convinces you nobody else likes you and everyone at the party thought you were weird.
December Book Reviews: Snake-Eater by T Kingfisher
The latest T Kingfisher! I was wondering why it hadn't appeared at my library, and it turns out that it had been hiding as a kindle unlimited exclusive. In Snake-Eater, Selena flees her boyfriend to her estranged aunt's house deep in the desert. Once there, she finds that Aunt Amelia died a year ago—and that her house is full of small gods.
Despite a few scary scenes, Snake-Eater felt solidly like a fantasy novel rather than horror, with the exception of a setting that's slowly revealed to be decades in the future. To be fair, the lack of scares might be because Kingfisher failed to convince me that roadrunners are inherently eldritch horror. I wasn't convinced by the fundamental terror of rosebushes in her earlier books, either... Far scarier than any of Aunt Amelia's small gods is Selena's ex-boyfriend. Through Selena's perspective, we see how he kindly and reasonably leached away all of her confidence. But the genre here is set firmly to Cozy, and we get relatively little of him in the present storyline. The strongest presence in Snake-Eater is the desert of the Southwest and the tight-knit community that Serena finds there: lots of cholla and scrub and scorching days and town potlucks, with typical Kingfisher flair for a highly specific setting.
Pretty standard Kingfisher fare, which is to say, good. If you like her other books you'll also like this. I wouldn't say Snake-Eater is a particular favorite out of all her work, but I had fun.
Snake-Eater
By T. Kingfisher.
