Second paragraph of third chapter:

“Moses, you reckon that’s where a witch’s heart is?”

I had zero expectations of this book, which I acquired through the Hugo Voter packet two years ago (part of Kelly Lonesome’s submission in the Best Editor Long Form category). I had other things on my mind that year and didn’t get very far into the BELF folder of the packet, but now it’s starting to surface in my overall reading list.

I was very pleasantly surprised. It’s a tautly written folk horror story, set mainly in Kansas shortly after the US Civil War, with a group of stragglers on a quest to catch (or alternatively rescue) a witch. There are ghosts, there are cute animals which suffer gruesome fates, there are viewpoint characters who get killed off, there are horrible secrets lurking in plain sight in the towns and farmsteads. Horror is not usually my thing, but this caught my imagination. Not for the faint-hearted, though. You can get Red Rabbit here.

This was my top unread book acquired in 2024. Next on that pile is Septology, by Jon Fosse.