"If the Dead Belong Here"

Book Review

Thanks to NetGalley, Penguin Random House, and Viking Books for this free copy of “If The Dead Belong Here” by Carson Faust.

This gorgeously rich story asks what earth magic the Native ancestors knew and taught that is being lost through the generations? But those on the “other side” haven’t forgotten and what happens when they come to claim a generational bond?

It’s every family’s nightmare: 6-year-old Laurel is taken from her home. And she had been talking to invisible people and isolating herself in the family treehouse where she drew these imaginary friends on the walls.

To find Laurel, her family will need to revisit five generations of herbal medicine healers to piece together what’s needed to retrieve her. And maybe they can heal the spirit wounds in themselves along the way.

Without giving any spoilers, I wish that some of the rituals had been described in more detail. During these, the lines between reality and healer state were blurred like a dream and it was sometimes hard to follow.