Okay, I really liked this one. It’s considered a literary horror novel, but it has elements of possession/satanic horror. It’s got female rage. It’s got witchy vibes. It’s got “don’t go into the woods” vibes. It’s got “is she crazy or is this real?” vibes. It’s got pretty much everything I love in a novel!

The book is set in the early 1900s. It’s slow paced, but deliciously so. It takes its time. It keeps its secrets. The main character’s past is given to us in glimpses until finally her life is laid out before us like a decomposing feast. There’s scandal. There’s intrigue. There’re moments your heart breaks for the main character and moments you question if she’s as likable as you originally thought.

The writing and storytelling are excellent, especially for a debut novel. There were so many beautiful lines. I was highlighting like crazy. I will definitely be looking forward to more books by this author!

The only thing that kept me from giving Grey Dog a perfect 5-star rating was the ending. The story is told in journal entries, which I loved in the beginning, but towards the end of the book, I started to feel like this format actually held the book back. There were so many things I wanted to see at the end, but I was left to assume instead because the main character hadn’t written them in the journal. I wanted more. The ending just didn’t hit as strongly as I think it would have had we been given another scene or two.

Nonetheless, I really enjoyed this book. When I wasn’t reading it, it was calling out to me, and it was impossible to ignore. Don’t ignore the Grey Dog’s call. Go to it. Embrace it. Read it, and then let me know what you think!

Ratings:

Plot: 👹👹👹👹👹 /5
Characters: 💁‍♀️💁‍♀️💁‍♀️💁‍♀️💁‍♀️ /5
Atmosphere: 🦉🦉🦉🦉🦉 /5
Scare level: 💀💀💀 /5
Ending: 📝📝📝📝
Overall: 🐺🐺🐺🐺 /5

Really enjoyed this book and I can't wait to pick up other books by the author. Really creepy, but equally wonderful and fast paced.

Seeking a fresh start, Ada moves to a quiet village in 1901. Very quickly it seems that something isn't quite right however, and many of the residents seem to have something to hide. As time goes on, the reader and Ada both will begin to question whether anything is truly amiss, or if she is simply going insane.

Told through Ada's diary entries, "Grey Dog" immediately immerses you in its world. The dated language, vivid environments, and puritanical townsfolk made me feel like I had been transported to the past instead of alienating me as a reader.

"Grey Dog" is a perfectly paced, psychological slow burn. Odd things appear almost immediately, capturing your interest and curiosity from the first pages. As the story progresses, more questions arise than answers, and even the well culminated ending leaves you with a few more.

The main themes throughout center around independence, misogyny, female rage, societal expectations, and the self-fulfilling prophecies that can come from these. The plot, setting, and themes all drew a very close comparison to Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" and Robert Eggers's "The Witch." "The Witch" is a very strong comparison. Despite being set nearly 300 years apart, it almost felt like a companion piece.

My only critique comes from the ending, where I just wanted a bit more. With about 10 more pages, I would have felt more satisfied. Though, I don't believe this was unintentional. The story was paced perfectly, but just stopped a bit short for me. Regardless, if you enjoyed "The Witch" or slow burns in general, I am almost certain that you will enjoy "Grey Dog," which truly has its own story to tell.

Thank you to ECW Press for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

An entrancing slow burn, that is so atmospheric it doesn’t drag at all.

I’m very keen to see what this author does next!

𝟯.𝟱 𝗦𝗧𝗔𝗥𝗦 𝗥𝗢𝗨𝗡𝗗𝗘𝗗 𝗗𝗢𝗪𝗡
This book had it’s ups and downs but it was pretty good overall.

I do think that this book could have been a bit shorter. If it were shaved down a little, it would’ve made for better pacing overall. I enjoyed the second half much more than the first half. The vibes were immaculate throughout, I just felt like the plot was lacking in its intensity in the first half. I know that this could be intentional to pack a bigger punch in the climax, but it just felt dragged on in this case.

I do, though, absolutely love the whole unreliable narrator thing we’ve got going on. Are the things she is experiencing real? Is she experiencing hallucinations? Is she alone in this or have others experienced the same things? I also really liked the grotesque imagery we are fed throughout the novel.

I do really love the conclusion of the book and the sort of eerie-ness that comes with it. Just wish it was paced better overall, and with maybe a few less characters to keep track of.

A slow-burn, turn-of-the-century, small town paranormal-horror story that left me with questions about the power of female rage.

Before I get into the book review, to me, this story was almost identical to Diavola by Jennifer Thorne in terms of our main character, the pacing and the beats of the haunting. Even the main characters' names are almost the same. I actually referenced my review of Diavola to write this review. So if you liked Diavola, this is a good one to go with. Unfortunately, neither of these books was for me.

I like that the format of this book is in diary entries from our main character, Ada. We follow her from the moment she arrives as a school teacher in a one-room schoolhouse in a small village and follow her through to her last diary entry before she stops writing.

Strange things start happening around the town such as a swarm of bees, a rabbit biting off its own tongue and more. I like how Elliott Gish builds the setting. I felt like I was right beside Ada, shadowing her as she experiences these strange happenings. The pacing is very slow, but if you like vibes in your horror stories, then you'll appreciate the time Elliott is taking here.

We spend a lot of time experiencing the haunting, but I wished our characters, especially our main character had more agency earlier in the book. Between the meanness of people in the village, and the haunting, it felt like the story was happening to Ada instead of Ada leading the story. I liked the ending. We get some real bad girl energy from Anna which I resonated with and wished for more of.

Thank you to NetGalley and ECW for this ARC.

This book is best read while trying to identify headless creatures on your iNaturalist app. If people start looking at you strangely, growl.

Grey Dog is a slow burn horror that is all about female rage. The uneasiness creeps up on the reader and slowly becomes more and more terrifying. Told through the journal entries of Ada, we are as inside of her thoughts as we can be, experiencing secondhand the terrors that she experiences. I do wish this one was a bit shorter and got to the horror a little quicker but overall this is going to be a must read in the horror community.

Did I just read the perfect slow descent into madness???

Grey Dog is filled with female rage, literary goodness, and subversive witchy horror. Ada is a disgraced school teacher who has taken a post in a small community to appease her abusive father. As she starts to lose sense of reality, we also pick up pieces of her past and understand her history.

Grey Dog is filled with female rage, literary goodness, and subversive witchy horror. This was just SO good. I loved that this started as a very classic, woman in a new town story and ended in something much wilder. This is a love letter for fans of classics who also love a bit of wilderness horror. Think of LM Montgomery meets The Ritual.

Thanks Elliott Gish for the wild ride!

Well, This delves into female rage, oppression of women in the early 1900s. and mental health. It's a creepy descent for Ada, a woman who suddenly finds herself seeing horrible things (or does she?) I was pulled in and kept reading - it's a page turner. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. For fans of literary horror novels.

This book was interesting enough at first, but never really got going for me. The final 10% was more what I would expect from the middle third. It was slow and didn't really dive in to the horror that much at all. I just kept wanting it to get weirder or spookier. The beginning pulls you in with little mysteries about the narrators past, and while they aren't dragged out as much as the rest of the book, they are teased a bit too long for what they end up being. The writing and format were fine enough, I just wish there was more here to compel you to keep reading.

In 1901, spinster Ada Byrd accepts a reaching post in the isolated town of Lowry's Bridge. Ada tries to adjust to her new life and town and befriends both the preacher's wife and an outcast widow. Soon, Ada starts to experience strange things (dead animals, insect swarms), and she can't tell if they are natural phenomena or hallucinations. Ada starts to become more isolated as she loses her grip on reality .

This was a very, very, very slow burn literary horror that didn't quite work for me. The author did a great job at gradually building dread and slowly making Ada more and more unhinged. The pacing was very slow, and while a detailed account of daily life in 1901 demonstrated how terrible life could be for women in that period, the plot was so uneventful at times that it was boring. This was not my favorite, but fans of literary horror and historical fiction will likely enjoy this one.

Many thanks to NetGalley for the ARC of this book.

A stomach churning and delicious exploration of a woman's rage, it was beautiful and heartbreaking. I swear I could feel the woods closing in around me.

Told entirely through diary entries, Grey Dog is the story of a nature-loving teacher (or spinster, depending on the year) who gets an assignment in a small town on the heels of a scandal. There's a very quick feeling of unease, as our FMC, Ada, is a strong, independent woman in a time when it was heavily frowned upon. While Ada's closest friend is the preacher's wife, the story doesn't rely too heavily on religious control to build the chilling vibes, but rather uses it as a subtle baseline to strange, unexplainable things that Ada begins seeing in the forest.

While I love a good decline from sanity and display of feminine rage, there was something that I found lacking in my connection with Ada to really make it hit home for me. However, I would still recommend this to someone who's looking for a story that delves into femininity, creatures in the woods, and how uncomfortable it can be during the journey to get to know your truest self!
(3.25 stars)

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for an eARC in exchange for an honest review!

A slow-building, atmospheric historical horror; this one requires patience. If only we could stop Ada's unraveling!

Thank you to NetGalley and ECW Press for providing a review copy.

This is a very interesting historical horror book that I feel would best be described as "backwoods gothic." It is slow as molasses, but I found Miss Ada Byrd to be a fascinating, well-rounded character. The book is written in an epistolary style, told through diary entries. That said, I wanted a bit more from the ending, but due to the style it is rather abrupt. 4 stars

There is not enough queer historical horror so I'm always excited when a book comes out in that subgenre. I was also pleasantly surprised that the story didn't revolve around a romance -- it's nice to have queer characters who don't have to prove their queerness through relationships. The vibe was pleasantly weird and while slow, it was well paced to keep up the creeping dread. I do wish the protagonist had doubled down on exploring outside of gender roles a bit more -- it felt like her main rebellion was smelling bad, which is fine but I wanted more.

𝘎𝘳𝘦𝘺 𝘋𝘰𝘨 by Elliott Gish is out April 9 ✨⁣
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Ada is a nearly 30-year-old spinster who is sent to teach in an isolated English town following a scandal at her last post. It’s the early 1990s, and as an unmarried woman, the only acceptable role for her is as a teacher. ⁣
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𝘎𝘳𝘦𝘺 𝘋𝘰𝘨 investigates an unmarried woman’s place in a patriarchal society when she is not a mother or a wife. As the book progresses and Ada’s friendship with the local preacher’s wife as well as the resident witchy widow grows, her actions and desires become more and more unacceptable to the rules that bind women. Ada is drawn more and more to the woods, where something dark is watching her.⁣
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If you like the trope of women slowly descending into madness because society doesn’t have room for them, but with some horror elements thrown in, then this is the book for you!⁣
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Trigger Warnings: Body and animal horror, rape & SA

Dang. I'm sad but I had to DNF this one because it just was too slow-burn for me to keep focused. I am still really appreciative to ECW Press, Dreamscape Media, Elliott Gish, and Netgalley for this one before it hits shelves, but it just wasn't for me.

Grey Dog is such a haunting, nauseating, story, and I am truly afraid that parts of it will never leave me. If you’re looking for a true sapphic horror, this is perhaps not the book for you - it leans much more heavily towards literary/historical fiction for the first 300 pages - but if you’re hoping for a gruesome portrait of womanhood (motherhood, sisterhood, complex friendships) at the turn of the 20th century, Gish absolutely delivers.

The beginning is soft and captivating, and the end comes on in such a fever that I accidentally stayed up far later than I intended in my rush to finish the book. I’m calling this a solid 4.5/5 - the reasoning for the half point off being that the middle section definitely drags quite a bit, but there were several occasions in the latter third of the book when I found myself holding my breath without realizing it, so it’s more than worth it to push through.

Far grander and more cinematic than I expected from a novel composed of journal entries, Grey Dog is Sister Carrie meets Jane Eyre meets Midsommar. Stunning debut from Elliot Gish, and I cannot wait to see what she writes next!

Thank you so much to NetGalley and ECW Press for the ARC!!

Thank you NetGalley and ECW Press for an advanced copy of Grey Dog.
This was everything I wanted in a very uncomfortable, checking-over-my-shoulder type of read. The atmosphere Gish has created fit the time and setting of Grey Dog perfectly. I found my self questioning a lot of what was happening to Ada, which felt very intentional and added greatly to the eerie feeling throughout this book.
There were moments that felt a bit slow, but I wasn't bored or upset by this. If anything, these moments seemed to add to the story quite well. Overall, perfect creepy vibes.