The Lamb is a gothic folktale that is beautifully, hauntingly written. It is told from the perspective of Margot, a young girl whose life we follow as she grows up, and it’s hard not to become attached to her. The Lamb is a mother-daughter cannibalism story with queer awakening and sapphic elements woven throughout.
For me, this book was a true page-turner. I didn’t want to put it down, and since I’ve finished it, I can’t stop thinking about it. It’s gorgeous, unsettling, and unforgettable - how I’d love to experience it for the first time again!
10/10

This novel descends very quickly into wilder and wilder territory, all through the lens of a young girl who has been raised in a very complicated set of surroundings. What follows is an exploration of love, violence and finding yourself, in a way I found utterly captivating.

I received a digital copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Simply not for me. That said, I felt the book did in fact have some merit. It’s overwritten and the horror becomes tedious through repetition, but the narrative is well developed and cleverly incorporates a number of relevant themes – motherhood, family bonds, outsiders coming in to disrupt the family dynamics, coming-of-age with a bit of lesbianism thrown in for good measure – but I remained unconvinced overall. Cannibalism just isn’t my cup of tea and the gory details palled after a while. It tells the story of eleven-year-old Margot who lives with her mother in a relatively remote wooded area – but not so remote that Margot doesn’t go to school picked up every day by the school bus. They are cannibals and survive by capturing strays who live (or die) to regret the place they have strayed to. One day Eden arrives and disrupts Margot’s happy childhood home. It’s a gothic folk tale, a work of gothic horror and quite frankly it bored me. However, if this is the sort of thing you enjoy, then you will no doubt enjoy the book and shudder at regular intervals, right up to the unconvincing end, which for me was one step too far and somewhat predictable.

The Lamb is absolutely one of the best books I have read and has earned it's place in being one of my favourite books which I will always recommend.

A folk horror which has the best opening paragraphs I have ever read. I was hooked from then on in! This tragic, dark tale is full of love, hate and everything there is inbetween and beyond both these emotions. Margot and Mama live alone in the woods and have a very particular diet of "strays" - we're not talking cats and dogs here, we're talking people. If you stray from the path to close to this cottage you'll end up in a delicious stew!

A story full of heart (and fingers) - highly recommend!!

I hated this book in places and it infuriated me so much but this is what the book set out to do and i respect it for that. I'm good with horror and normally consider myself to have a very strong stomach but this made me feel so uneasy and troubled in places. Margot, Mama and Eden were all compelling characters and they all added very distinct flavours to the story. I loved Margot's friends as well and thought they were a much needed edition to the story. This is a book i'd recommend to people who want to be disturbed and the contents is not for those with a sensitive disposition.

Okay, so I was in love for the majority of the book. The writing style was beautiful and poetic and kept me reading through the short chapters (hurrah) but so many implausible things kept happening.

Margot and Ruth are reclusive who live in the woods. Margot goes to school and comes home where her and her mama drink tea and wait for strays to knock on their door. Then they will tear them to pieces and get them in stews and soups.

Things that didn't work :

When Eden turned up, the mama completely changed virtually overnight.

Eden just walked into their home and straightaway negan cooking strays in pies... Like excuse me?

Why wasn't there any investigation into the strays disappearances? Did they not have mobile phones that pinged at their house.

The ending and these issues brought it down to a 3 star and I'm quite mad about it

A good and gory coming of age tale perfect for "weird" girls. Will post a longer review on my Goodreads when I have the time to put my thoughts in order.
Thank you to Netgalley and Orion Publishing Group | W&N for a copy in exchange for my honest review.

Please take the cannibalism trigger warnings seriously. I mean it. The descriptions of human meat are very graphic, so if you can’t deal with those – this book is not for you.

And if you are a weird person like me and love the theme of cannibalism in your books then this one is perfect for you! I devoured this (pun intended)! I loved the characters, the plot, the setting and the writing style. I am going to read anything Lucy Rose is going to write; this is such an amazing debut novel.

The story is told from the perspective of Margot, who lives with her cannibal mother in the woods. As Margot grows up, she starts to understand that what she and her mom are doing may not be as acceptable as her mother makes her believe. This is a coming-of-age story with a much deeper meaning than just cannibalism, it’s about mother-daughter relationship, female rage, and hunger to be loved and recognized. This book is beautiful and horrifying at the same time! The ending was heartbreaking.

The Lamb is my favorite book of 2025 and definitely one of my favorite books of all time!

Dark and enthralling, the lamb had me hooked from the outset. This novel is gothic horror at its finest, slowly building a twist of unease and suspense that grows into disturbing horror. Beautifully written and including themes of isolation, thisbreads more like a folk tale than a modern story, incorporating a sense of isolation that works so well in the British gothic cannon.

What a book. Lucy Rose’s debut is a tense, dare I say beautiful, novel about maternal love and all its pitfalls. I read the last half in one tense sitting hoping for a different ending, and finished it at 2am in shock. Wonderfully written, both clearly influenced by the Gothic and writers such as Angela Carter but also clearly having her own style, I can’t wait to see what else Lucy Rose will write.

This novel delivers more than just shocking twists—it’s a dark, gripping exploration of fractured maternal bonds and the weight of inheritance. With gothic undertones and complex character dynamics, it masterfully examines love, control, and the lingering impact of family, making it impossible to put down.

This is an incredibly written debut, tragic and terrifying. It was spine-chilling and nauseating in its horror. I loved the main character and her childish interpretation of the horrors she lives in. The relationship between her and her mother is twisted and terrifying, heartbreaking in how it devolves.

Unsettling folktale on obsession—not for the squeamish
—
You might forget that the folktales collected by the Grimms and others are gruesome and gory: the witch who eats the lost children, the stepsisters who cut off their toes to fit the cast-off shoe. In Rose’s The Lamb, Margot lives in the woods with her mother, fed by the occasional lost traveller who knock on their cottage door. So far, so fairy tale. But one day, the traveller is not lost, she has come to find the secret in the woods, and having found them, she’s not leaving again, upsetting the delicate balance between Margot and her mother.

No spoiler, but from almost the first page this is about cannibalism, so any reader of a squeamish nature should look away now. The descriptions of human butchery and cooking are visceral but captivating, making this an unsettling read for anyone, even strict horror buffs. Margot’s calm but horrifying narration is sustained throughout with well-planned peaks and troughs, but when the ending arrives as swiftly as it does, it comes as a side-swipe, a final denouement that makes sense in the run-up but which questions the shape of the book overall.

INCREDIBLE. A raw, unflinching and strangely beautiful folk horror tale that hooked me from the first page. I've recommended this to so many people.

Margot and her mother have always lived in a cozy cottage homestead, overlooking an ancient forest with all the resources the wilds can provide. But Mama has a hunger that can only be satiated by the flesh of wanderers she calls ‘strays’. Told from the point of view of Margot, she tells the story of her mothers love, hatred and all encompassing hunger.

The story unfolds at an incredible pace, throwing you into the deep end of this tragically macabre family from the first moment. The vague prose leaves you wondering where and when the story is being told from, only getting the gruesome details of the cannibalistic rituals the mother takes part in.

The story twists into a dark romantic tale when the mysterious Eden comes across their home and ingrains herself on the pair, enamoured by the . This new dynamic threatens to shift Ruth's focus from her daughter to a deeper hunger for flesh and blood. You’ll find yourself rooting for the ever-underdog Margot as she navigates the complexities of her average looking school days and harrowing home life.

The Lamb is a deeply haunting debut and is a great example of the new wave of folk body horror trending in the fiction market right now.

Lucy Rose writes about yearning and desire with clear prose and a cunning eye for detail. The contents of this book are hard to stomach at times (sorry - for the bad cannabilism joke) but the character of Margot shines through as she deals with growing up under the shadow of her mother and learns to understand her own wants and needs. I can't wait to see what Lucy Rose writes next.

The Lamb was the first book I read in 2025, and I’m confident that it will still be one of the best at the end of the year. Stunningly atmospheric, utterly horrifying but with a unmistakeable tinge of hope, no matter how dark the story turned.

The Lamb is a good book that I don't think is for me even though it has every element I tend to love: cannibalism, gore, a mother wound, etc. The imagery is great from start to finish and it is an unnerving read, but something didn't quite click for me. I still urge others to give it a try if it sounds appealing.

Thank you Netgalley for the ARC.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a cover that lulls the reader into a false sense of security more than with Lucy Rose’s already acclaimed debut, ‘The Lamb’.

It may be beautifully written, but it’s also horrific and uncomfortable, and ultimately heartbreaking. It’s not an easy book to read, and yet the prose is effortless and being sucked in Margot and Mama’s world is immediate and claustrophobic.

A FOLK TALE. A HORROR STORY. A LOVE STORY. AN ENCHANTMENT.
Margot and Mama have lived by the forest since Margot can remember. When Margot isn't at school, they spend quiet days together in their cottage, waiting for strangers to knock on their door. Strays, Mama calls them. Mama loves the strays. She feeds them wine, keeps them warm. Then she satisfies her burning appetite by picking apart their bodies.

But Mama's want is stronger than her hunger sometimes, and when a white-toothed stray named Eden turns up in the heart of a snowstorm, little Margot must confront the shifting dynamics of her family, untangle her own desires and make a bid for freedom.

With this tender coming-of-age tale, debut novelist Lucy Rose explores how women swallow their anger, desire and animal instincts - and wrings the relationship between mother and daughter until blood drips from it.

For the months leading up to the release of this book all I saw were the glowing reviews and it made me nervous. How could ‘The Lamb’ possibly live up to that? It turns out it did.

With the layering of folklore and fairytale, there’s an almost dreamlike feeling to the novel that leads us through the twisted idyll of Mama and Margot’s life in the countryside of the Northwest of England, and the horrors underlying it are sharp and vivid, bursting out with glimpses of Margot’s reality when it’s least expected.


There is, of course, the kidnapping, murder and cannibalism of the ‘strays’ that wander too close to the cottage, but there’s also Mama’s experience of being forced into being a mother and a wife and her resentment of the way is changed her, her body and her life. Though what she does to people and especially to Margot is evil, I id have some sympathy for her at some moments; she was desperately in need of help and support, but instead she was forgotten, ignored and dismissed. The system failed her, but it failed Margot even more.

Less fortunate children who have problems at school and at home are always the ones who need help the most, and a lot of them time, they’re the ones that get forgotten and left behind. They are disregarded as trouble makers and even the people who have identified something as wrong are reluctant to reach out, even though everything is screaming at them that something is wrong, before it’s too late. It’s heartbreaking and a shot of reality in this dreamlike world that screams to the inequalities of the children that are left behind and utterly, utterly failed by everyone around her. It all works into the fairytale-esque nature of ‘The Lamb’.

You know those novels that you want to devour (how appropriate) because they’re just so good, but you have to take it slow because your heart is in your throat? That’s what the last section of ‘The Lamb’ was like. I was hoping, hoping, hoping that what I knew was coming would somehow be magically prevented, even though I knew that’s not how the story would go because this novel is structured around folktales and fairytales. The dark kind, the Grimm’s and the Perrault’s, not the Disney ones, and those end in a weird type of hopeful tragedy, but the tragedy does happen.

‘The Lamb’ is an incredibly powerful and evocative debut that I think will linger all year until those 2025 favourites lists start to appear at the end of this year. Margot, Mama and Eden will dig themselves under your skin and refuse to leave.

‘The Lamb’ by Lucy Rose is out now. Thank you to Weidenfeld & Nicolson and NetGalley for the review copy.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for this advanced reader's copy and the opportunity to this early. Review has been posted on Waterstones and Amazon.