TandeWrites

Hazelthorn is C.G. Drews’ return to the horror genre, and it’s a book I’ve been dying to get my hands on ever since I read the final page of Don’t Let the Forest In. This one is an unsettling yet hauntingly beautiful story of murder and botanical body horror, pitched as perfect for fans of Andrew Joseph White and We Have Always Lived in the Castle, or Knives Out meets Belladonna. 

Content warnings for this book include blood, gore, child abuse, medical abuse, ableism, eating disorders, murder, and body horror. 

Ever since he was taken in by his reclusive billionaire guardian, Evander has lived like a ghost in the forgotten corner of the Hazelthorn estate with three ironclad rules to follow: He can never leave the estate. He can never go into the garden. And, most importantly, he can never be left alone with his guardian’s charming grandson, Laurie, who tried to kill Evander seven years ago, and yet somehow Evander is still obsessed with him. When his guardian suddenly dies, Evander inherits Hazelthorn’s immense gothic mansion and acres of sprawling grounds, along with the entirety of the family’s vast wealth. But Evander is sure that the death was actually a murder, and Laurie may be the only one who can help him find the killer before they come for Evander next. As the family’s dark secrets unravel and their bloodthirsty garden grows, Evander needs to find out what he’s really inheriting before the garden demands to be fed once more. 

My main love about this book is the writing itself and how it is truly an ode to storytelling and the fairytale tone. Drews has a gorgeous writing style. The prose is still as beautiful as it was in their previous works, and I am now fully sold on their foray into the horror genre and will read as many books with these influences as Drews is willing to write. This book is hugely atmospheric and dreamlike with hauntingly beautiful imagery that I have taken infinite photos of the pages so I can read my favourite lines over and over again. There are also illustrations of the plants that Evander reads about in the Hazelthorn field guide that are interwoven throughout the story, and I’m so glad my physical copy arrived when I was in the mood to read so I could appreciate the artwork in person. 

The thing that means the most to me about this book is that it’s intrinsically about autistic rage, and about being treated like a monster for acting autistic, and about being told that your view of the world is ‘wrong’. It includes anxiety and meltdowns and spirals and sensory issues, and a lot of the horror in the book doubles as a metaphor for what autistics go through. Hazelthorn has a similar portrayal of the raw, angry, negative autism representation that we’ve seen in Drews’ The Boy Who Steals Houses trilogy, and it’s still a breath of fresh air to experience. 

I’ve noticed that this book is receiving some minor pushback from readers saying that they didn’t like it because they can’t relate or connect to the characters—specifically Evander—and it’s fine if you don’t like every autistic character or book by an autistic author, but you do need to check yourself for internalised ableism if it’s a recurring critique. Not every book needs to be a mirror of the reader’s experience. Some books are just windows for you to read about life through another perspective. And there will always be people who review negatively because the story doesn’t fully encapsulate their own experience, but that’s the whole point, to me at least. Hazelthorn and Evander represent an experience that is specific to the author, and also painfully reminiscent of my own, which is why I relate to the characters so much. But every reader’s experience is unique to themselves, and no author can hope to sum up or fully explore everyone’s individual experience. 

Hazelthorn is ultimately a love letter to grief, to coming to terms with the complexities of finding out who you truly are when you’ve been cut off from most defining experiences, and the dichotomy of warmth and brutality that I love about Drews’ works. It pays tribute to former weird little children who lived in their daydreams, and there’s something about the author’s horror works that makes me feel as if I’m going to come back to them again and again. Hazelthorn will leave you breathless and hesitant to venture deeper into the garden.