A Book A Week

There's one in every family. The kid who couldn't wait to leave home. The one people still ask about, even though they already know the answer. They're long gone. The moment they turned eighteen, they packed their bags, ran, and never looked back.

Vesper was that kid.

She couldn't wait to leave. Growing up in the shadow of her mother was enough to overwhelm anyone. Her mom was a movie star—a scream queen extraordinaire and cult horror icon. But it wasn't just fame that loomed over Vesper. It was something far more oppressive.

Religion.

The isolated community where she was raised expected her to carry on its traditions, but the first chance she got, Vesper escaped. She hasn't been back since.

When we meet her, Vesper is stuck working a dead-end job at one of those forgettable chain restaurants we've all eaten at but can never remember the name of. You know the kind. Wooden booths. Servers in stiff polo shirts that look uncomfortable before you even put them on. Forced renditions of "Happy Birthday" accompanied by a complimentary slice of frozen cheesecake.

Vesper has resigned herself to the fact that this is simply her life. After one particularly miserable shift—and one ill-advised decision to sneak a customer an unauthorized side of molten cheese in hopes of earning a better tip—she finds herself fired and heading back to the rundown apartment she's no longer sure she can afford.

Then she finds an envelope waiting for her. Inside is an invitation to her cousin Rosie's wedding, back at the family farm. The one place Vesper swore she'd never return. Every instinct tells her to throw the invitation away. Instead, she goes home. There, Vesper is forced to confront everything she spent years trying to escape, and, in the process, begins to uncover the truth behind the secret that's haunted her for her entire life.

Black Sheep sees Rachel Harrison write a darkly comic novel about family, faith, and the struggle to discover who we are in spite of both. The book is billed as horror, but I wouldn't call it horror in the traditional sense. Instead, Harrison uses elements of the genre to craft a story that is far more interested in its characters than in frightening its readers.

I went into the novel completely blind, picking it up solely on the recommendation of Sarah at All the Book Blog Names Are Taken. At first, I wasn't entirely sure what to make of it. The story seemed to meander. It was obvious that Vesper was miserable and desperately trying to outrun her past, but I kept wondering where it was all leading.

Then she returns home.

As the true nature of her family—and, let's call it what it is, the religious cult they belong to—comes into focus, everything that came before suddenly clicks into place. I won't spoil the revelation because discovering it is part of the novel's fun, but it's a wonderfully clever turn that completely reframes the story.

By the end, Black Sheep had won me over. What begins as an offbeat family drama evolves into a timely, darkly funny meditation on how family, religion, and tradition shape our identities, and what it takes to finally break free from them.

For more information, visit the author's website, Amazon, and Goodreads. 

(2026, 54)