When I started this book I didn’t think i would love it as much as i did.

Prose, sentences carefully crafted, religion pulled apart and stuck back together, the mullings of a young girl who caused a divorced (not really), slept with a vampire (really), and learned to accept parts of herself she was avoiding all wrapped into roughly 230 pages. I can not wait to get a physical copy and annotate the entire thing.

Because of the dense sentences, the metaphors, hyperboles, similes, imagery, and heavy mess of emotion this is a slower read. I was never once bored, I never was tired, I never thought about DNF-ing. I would throw caution if slow books put you in a reading slump, but otherwise I have found an author I will be looking for more of their writing from. And I hope others do too.

What a dense maze of a book that plunges the reader into the paranoia, anxiety and wholly human qualities of the mind in such a visceral and rich way. Wholly unique and unlike anything I have read before and yet so believable and engrossing. Jagger does not shy away from the gore of humanity nor the fragility of being human. Based around a girl in her young twenties, Noelle, who has arrived on a remote Scottish island on an impromptu holiday, the book slowly and insidiously unfurls what has led her to attempt such an escape both in exploring her childhood trauma and how this has followed her through life.

At the core of this book is the impact of faith, and being raised 'brutally Catholic' on the human mind, and it is painful to read as Noelle ties herself in frantic knots trying to decode whether her actions will condemn her to hell or whether she is worth of forgiveness. Jagger powerfully conveys this internal torment both through the twisting, question-driven internal narrative and the jarring, sudden references to her self-harming, both actively cutting herself, and a disregard for her health and hygiene. The plot draws a powerful link between religious approval and the approval of her emotionally distant, hyper religious mother (cleverly given a capitalised pronoun akin to God himself), and the challenges of functioning when appear to fail to gain both the approval of a social and societal hub like the Church and of a fundamental foundation of your family structure. Both are divine beings in the eyes of a child and both can control and shape your outlook on life irrevocably. Over the course of the novel, through unnerving references towards prior events and the slow unwinding of her past, you learn what led to Noelle breaking with the church, and with her mother, and the ways these twist and align.

Jagger also powerfully explores the legacy of Catholicism in relation to the LGBTQ+ community, and this is where Noelle as a walking contradiction plays out most powerfully. She adores her 'almost uncle', Lorne, who is a gay man and yet refers to being gay as 'having it' like it's a catchable disease. Her relationship with Loamie, which is similarly slowly unpicked, is also where she becomes the most unreliable narrator. both in presenting their dynamic, her role in it, and her feelings towards her 'half flatmate'. Repeatedly, Noelle presents herself as powerless, Loamie leading the the physicality of the relationship, and her flatmate even being the one to give Loamie a key, and yet, as the story unravels, the complexity of Noelle's psyche, and her own issues are seen to play a much larger role in the relationship than she immediately admits.

Upon arrival at the island, Noelle stays in a B&B with the owner, Cairstine, and an elusive man, Moses. Moses presents himself as a vampire and a taxidermist, and his dynamic with Noelle is perhaps one of the most interesting and engaging aspects of the book. Despite repeatedly claiming that she is 'too open', it appears that Moses is the one to unfurl many aspects of her trauma that others, including Loamie, are not as privy to, and the raw, animalistic nature of their attraction and behaviour towards one another is so charged and absorbing. Perhaps the most powerful moments are not when they are physical, but rather as they navigate the spaces in their relationship, and engage in the tug and pull dynamic. If anything, I simply would have enjoyed more time delving into this dynamic, and its complexities. He represents the sin that she is both constantly drawn to and yet eternally repulsed by. His supposed immortality suggests that he may never meet the fate or final judgement that Noelle fears so much. Their ending, although perhaps fitting, is almost stinging in how it leaves the reader with more questions and a desire for more.

While Jagger handles the questions and tensions within the novel masterfully, perhaps equally engaging and haunting is her prose. She has a distinct command of the language, and her words often read like poetry as Noelle navigates both her physical and mental landscape. Every word is chosen with care, and every image is striking, precise and evocative: 'He feels objects like a hound: tongue first.' The flashbacks built around the church and her family home are rich, and adopt a strangely childlike reminiscence even as these memories are poisoned by what comes after. As Noelle's sense of self blurs and cracks, the confusing blend of first and third person narration as her mind splits from her body is also ingenious and delivers the reader into the same confusion and blur of action and thought that the protagonist herself is feeling.

This is a memorable, haunting, beautiful book that I will think back to and revisit often. The ending feels perfect in its incompleteness, and, while I will always want to delve back into Noelle's complex existence, I am more than excited to see what Jagger comes up with next.

I’m speechless? This book was like nothing I’ve ever read before. It was gothic, gory, gorgeous and heartbreaking. I don’t think I can even sum it up well enough for a review, it was truly mesmerising. While I didn’t love it at first, but about 20% into the story I was hooked. I adored the characters, their personalities and flaws. I especially loved the writing style and the switch between short passages, longer sentences. The inclusion of faith, Catholicism, sin and what this all means in the grand scheme of things was fascinating, plus the inclusion of vampires and what that means in terms of God really made this book a stand out.

The author has a truly unique way with words. The pace kept up even if the action didn't, switching from short and long phrases, combining words to create interesting and attention-grabbing sentences. For example, "The sky won't hold it's weight and the fields are minding their own business." - unusual and intriguing. Chapters are mixed in length, some are just a page or two, the earlier ones ending in a tantalising foreshadowing sentence, hinting at what's left to unravel.

Noelle, our protagonist, was brought up "extremely brutally Catholic". Her mother was "forced into it" as a result of her relationship with Noelle's dad. Through flashbacks, we are drip-fed the events that led to Noelle's departure from the Church, and through this, her relationships with her family. "My father gave it up when I was a teenager. His decision. Not mine. I've been baptised and everything."

As it seems it was not her choice to leave her religion, she is constantly referencing Him in her narrative voice, indicating that although she is 'out', He still has His fingers in her. "It's Sunday and she's taking His name in vain. I don't mind, it's kind of funny, but I do fear that He's listening. Tracking me like Santa Claus but more sinister. Bigger implications than just a piece of coal." She makes judgments and internal commentary based on indoctrination and experiences that have influenced her perspective. Yet what she experienced and how she lived her life after her parents divorced was not Catholic. She is a walking contradiction, mindful of how she's been brought up to Catholic values but often acting in defiance of this.

There is lots to be deduced from the work, open to the reader's interpretation. There's hesitancy to dispel the notion that Moses is a vampire. Noelle does little to argue or question it, there's a lack of disbelief, lack of emotion, such as fear or panic. Could her belief in God make her so easily suggestible to the existence of another immortal being?

I enjoyed the comparative use of He/Him (God) and She/Her (Noelle's mother), both proper nouns almost suggesting that there are two divine/controlling beings in Noelle's life that have shaped her and moulded her experiences. There is a lower case 'she' in reference to Noelle's mother near the end. I am unsure if this is intentional and indicating that through Noelle's processing of her trauma, she has dispelled some of the weight her mother has put on her, or whether it's unintentional and is simply a typo (I hope it's the former).

Based on the blurb, "a sexual relationship with vampire", there was less sexual interaction between the two than I was expecting. The relationship beforehand is how we come to understand Noelle's character and learn of the steps that brought her to this point. It could be considered a unsatisfactory ending between the two of them.

I loved the eventual relationship between Noelle and Cairstine. It felt like the two were joining jigsaw pieces, missing from the bigger picture, bringing them together to give the other what they needed.

Features LGBT+ rep, morally grey protagonist, self-harm, sexual abuse...

I would read more by this author.

‘She’s licking herself to taste God’

Sexy, haunting and blasphemous - a quick read with beautiful prose that I didn’t want to end.

That you NetGalley for my AR copy!