“There are some facts about the world that only your mother can teach you.”

I mainly read and review horror fiction. This puzzle box of a novel took me entirely by surprise. In its early pages, I was fascinated by its idiosyncrasies and portrait of late Victorian British eccentricity, but left wondering “at which point will the horror show its ugly head?”. I even began to wonder if I’d made a mis-step in requesting this book for review.

I needn’t have been so concerned. By the time this book was finished with me, I was left with no doubts. This is one of the most affecting books I’ve read in a long time. Parry’s rich prose is a barbed delight: I was amused, upset, disgusted, appalled and horrified - frequently all within the space of a few pages. The writing employs all five senses to thoroughly revolt you and there are some grotesque descriptions in this book that will stay with me for a long time.

Marguerite Périgord is engaged to marry Mr Lewis. Her disapproving mother Cécile confines her to the tiny attic of their dilapidated London home by way of preparation for her married life. Isolated from her family and with only the novels of Victor Hugo and Mrs Beaton’s Book of Household Management (“the thousand pages of prescribed femininity, the dictionary of what men wanted from women”) for company, Marguerite earnestly begins her education.

“It is the great shame of my life, Marguerite, that you have turned out the way you have, despite my best efforts. You will be the death of me, I think…”

As the novel discloses its secrets, we learn about Cécile’s life and the lengths her daughter must now go to for survival as her ostentatious meals are provided less and less frequently. This is a witty, scathing novel about scandal and unfulfilled promises, about what it means to be a mother, a daughter, and a wife at the mercy of a cruel patriarchy; but perhaps most of all it is about generational trauma.

I devoured the second half of this novel in a day, on a train back up north from (appropriately enough) London. My friend was surprised when I told her how horrible Carrion Crow was since she’d seen me chuckling to myself a lot whilst reading it. I hadn’t realised how much I’d laughed during this book until someone else pointed it out. This is a very witty novel: horrible things happen, but you would have to have a heart of stone not to laugh at the way in which some of them are described.

In terms of comparisons, the book that Carrion Crow reminds me of most is Perfume by Patrick Süskind, in terms of the sense(s) of the disturbing and macabre, the abundance of bodily fluids, and the sheer revulsion invoked by the prose. Fans of Carmila Grudova will also find a lot to enjoy here.

I would not recommend this book to everyone - please check trigger warnings before proceeding because there’s a lot here that could be damaging. For readers who can stomach it, this book will be a carton of mixed eggs, where the first one you choose will be a sweet chocolate fondant; the next, a sharp vinegared hard-boiled egg - and the third one you bite into just might contain a fragile baby bird beneath its crisp shell.

I’m off to devour the rest of Parry’s back catalogue like a boiled calf’s head that I must strip of every last scrap of meat from for sustenance.

Thank you to RandomHouse UK and Netgalley for providing a digital ARC of this book

Heather Parry’s devastating queer, gothic novel was partly inspired by Blanche Monnier, a French woman whose family locked her in an attic for close to 25 years. Set in late Victorian London, Parry’s narrative charts the gradual disintegration of Marguerite Périgord, offspring of a once-illustrious family, who has been similarly hidden away by her mother. Cécile, her mother, was born in Lancashire as Cecilia Hargreaves, the daughter of a self-made man – based on Lord Lever - who later made his fortune from soap manufacturing. A success that effectively enabled him to auction off his daughter to an aristocratic family in need of cash. Cécile’s experiences of living with a dissolute husband, who later abandoned her, has somehow culminated in her devising a particularly cruel and unusual punishment for her ‘wilful’ older daughter. As Marguerite slowly starves in a dilapidated, vermin-infested attic, Parry’s narrative deftly intertwines hers and Cécile’s stories chronicling the events that might have led to Marguerite’s imprisonment.

Parry’s exceptionally intense, visceral novel draws on histories of Empire and colonial exploitation, highlighting the contradictions and hypocrisy underlying Victorian society. It’s an era in which upper-class women are especially, ruthlessly, constrained. All aspects of their demeanour and behaviour heavily policed, partly symbolised here by the copy of Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management left in the attic for Marguerite to study. Mrs Beeton’s book was a bestseller in Victorian times, a thousand pages of” prescribed femininity, the dictionary of what men wanted from women…” Marguerite’s confinement is ostensibly meant to school her in these requirements, readying her for the marriage she apparently desires. But Cécile’s actions are clearly bound up with perceptions of Marguerite as ‘unnatural’ likely stemming from Marguerite’s passion for a woman known only as Alouette.

Marguerite’s growing awareness of her mother’s failings and true intentions is partly spurred by observing a carrion crow nesting in the rafters. The crow’s apparent spontaneity and dedication towards her chicks is in stark contrast to Cécile’s increasingly-toxic brand of parenting. Parry’s portrayal of Cécile deliberately counters a recent slew of books about harried but essentially loving mothers. Instead, she’s intent on examining, and exposing, the destructive projections and forms of violence that mothers may inflict on their daughters. But Parry skilfully repels possible readings of Cécile as somehow inherently evil, instead she emphasises the social and cultural pressures that may have made her like this. The result is haunting and powerful but it could also be an incredibly challenging read. The descriptions of Marguerite’s decaying mental and bodily state are often unflinching, nauseatingly graphic. As her body deteriorates, bleeding, seeping, oozing and flaking, she digs into it, fascinated by its excretions, testing its limits and vulnerabilities, the only territory left under her control. Parry has a pretty distinctive voice but, if I had to compare, her approach and preoccupations, her startling imagery, are strongly reminiscent of writers like Mónica Ojeda and Camilla Grudova.

Carrion Crow is one of my most anticipated reads of 2025, following Heather Parry’s grisly gothic debut, Orpheus Builds a Girl, which became my favourite book of 2022. Parry’s distinctive style of warped gothic storytelling is truly one-of-a-kind. Her novels have a remarkable quality that makes them feel both of their time and timeless—able to evoke the sensibilities of 150 years ago, while resonating with contemporary themes.
Carrion Crow is a single-location story that explores two lives constrained and degraded by societal expectations of women and the confines of polite society. Set in a small attic, we follow Marguerite, who is both excited and apprehensive about her engagement to a much older—and potentially penniless—man. She is grateful to her mother, Cécile, who has confined her to the attic in order to prepare her for the best possible start to domestic life.

Left with only her own thoughts, a copy of Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management, a carrion crow nesting in the rafters, and her changing body, Marguerite’s days and weeks slowly blur together. As she begins to question when she will be freed, she watches as her body (and mind) warps and frays before her eyes.

At the same time, the reader is given a glimpse into Cécile’s own engagement and marriage through a parallel narrative, revealing the humiliation she endured as a young woman—experiences that have ultimately driven her to take such extreme measures with Marguerite.

Carrion Crow is a captivating story that explores themes of polite society, class, generational trauma, gender roles, the mind-body connection, and the haunting metaphor of ‘the mad woman in the attic.’ For readers drawn to visceral body horror with strong Gothic undertones, this novel delivers in full. Marguerite’s physical degradation is depicted in unsettling detail: horrifying, grotesque, and profoundly pitiful. Like Orpheus, you’ll be left both repulsed and fascinated, yet ultimately, enraged.

This book won’t be for everybody, but it was perfect to me. In every way. Heather Parry has done it again, providing horror in the sheer normality of humanity and in their simple demons; but also revelling in the beauty of trying to survive against such. Simply the most interesting book I have read on mother daughter relationships, the writing was poetry, and the central motif of the crow had me sort of sobbing by the end. This book was so raw and heartbreaking, and I simply couldn’t turn away. I was intrigued by all that was left unsaid in this book, which was also a novel that said so very much. This is my favourite quote: ‘Had Cecile entered her daughter’s attic cocoon at that moment, she would have found a thin-boned creature bent almost in half, her hair falling in patches from her head to her crotch, no face to be found in the structure as the girl stared as far as she could inside herself, looking for where the promise of her future had gone, seeking eggs with her fingertips and finding none.’

Okay, I love a disturbing read and parts of this book are deeply unsettling and dark.

I enjoyed the use of dual POVs and it allows us to see how both women are trapped in their own way. Cécile forced to marry into a family with high expectations, certain social forms and a husband that only cares for his sexual needs. Marguerite, trapped by her mother in an attic, forced to eat cows heads, live in her own filth, with only a carrion crow and her sewing machine for company. Heather Parry’s writing is brilliant in the way we have no idea of time frame and the unease, loss of clear thinking and cabin fever this creates.

I have to say, it took me a while to get into this one, potentially due to me being too dumb to understand the prose it was written in lol. BUT, there are these perfect moments that will blow your mind, showing the cruel and inhumane conditions Marguerite is living in. There’s moments I felt physically sick (body horror being a main theme) and had to take a moment to recompose myself.

I struggled with the ending, but that’s a me problem, I’m always wanting more answers and I wanted to see how the characters lives proceeded. Definitely one for all those who love a darker read and weird family dynamics.

A quite dark and uncomfortable gothic novel with an overwhelmingly unflinching look at psychological trauma and confinement. Despite the fact the main protagonist spends the whole time in the attic of the family home, it never feels claustrophobic partly due to the intricate description of the attic’s minutiae, but mainly down to the presence of the resident crow family who can leave at will and spread their wings, live a life and decide if and when to return.
The parallel decrepitation of the attic roof alongside the state of Marguerite’s failing body is such a cleverly utilised plot device.
Not for the faint of heart as it gets pretty graphic and gruesome. If you’re ok with that, you will find an incredibly accomplished piece of writing.

My thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley. This review was written voluntarily and is entirely my own unbiased opinion.

CARRION CROW is a masterfully crafted Gothic novel with a narrative voice that feels as though it could have been plucked right out of the 18th century, yet this story remains strikingly fresh. Heather Parry’s characteristically unflinching approach to body horror is both visceral and deeply introspective, and is served well through the fractured character of Marguerite. At times, the novel’s descriptions are so vivid that they evoked straight-up nausea in me - a true testament to the strength of this prose! The shifting perspectives between Marguerite and Cécile add sumptuous depth to the narrative, while the exploration of queerness echoing a freedom, a breaking of the rigid bindings of class, gender, and societal expectation, is particularly striking. Uncompromising in its distressing moments yet with an undercurrent of sympathy providing a foundation for its wider social critiques, CARRION CROW is a haunting and unforgettable cautionary tale against conformity and the strictures of a suffocating society.🐦‍⬛

Carrion Crow is a dark, unsettling novel that weaves folklore, body horror, and psychological tension into something truly haunting. Heather Parry’s prose is rich and atmospheric, pulling the reader into a world where decay (both literal and metaphorical) lurks beneath the surface. The novel explores themes of transformation, obsession, and the blurred boundaries between the human and the monstrous.

While the pacing occasionally slows, the eerie imagery and creeping dread make for an engrossing read. Parry’s talent for unsettling storytelling shines, making Carrion Crow a must-read for fans of gothic horror and the grotesque.

A gothic horror novel following a woman shut up in an attic by her mother to learn how to be a good wife, exploring themes of gender, class and sexuality. Beautiful writing with a cleverly claustrophobic atmosphere, but very slow in the first two-thirds and a slog to get through. Not one for me.

Ooh guys I really struggled with this one.

The second book I’ve read recently which was too gross to read while eating.

The plot is intriguing - a young woman trapped by her mother in the attic while she prepares for marriage..

But it descends and descends and gets more and more disgusting as the book goes on.

Some of the descriptions and incidents are so visceral I still feel sick thinking about them.

But hey, it shows they were effective!

I love a bit of gross and gothic but this was a bit much even for me.

A very Gothic and claustrophobic story told in two POVs. We start with Marguerite, Cécile's daughter named after a French princess, but we also see a lot of Cécile's POV later on in the story, which makes this a story in two timelines.

Marguerite is trapped in the attic, sent her by her mother, who wishes her to prepare for being a good wife before Cécile allows her to marry. And Marguerite is eager to be finished with her education and get out, daydreaming about a life she will live with her kind older husband, and with her lover while her husband is at work. Her only company in the attic is a crow that has moved in through a hole in the roof.

Cécile is trapped in a different way. The daughter of a rich businessman, trapped in an arranged marriage to a member of the aristocracy, among people who see her as an outsider. Trapped by her three children and her husband's increasing disrespect and antics. There are horrors and cruelty in Cécile's POV that almost shocked me more than Marguerite's, because they felt more real - things like Cécile's mother always being in bed because she's either pregnant or recovering, or how the whole thing ends with her husband's family.

There is a lot of focus on food and eating, which is also mixed up with bodily functions and body horror as Marguerite slowly loses the plot in the attic. It's very slow-paced and inward-focused, which wasn't really my style, but it fits the genre and the story. There is sooo much focus on eating and the proper way to prepare meals, which of course ties into the proper way to be a wife. I would like to try a turtle soup once, though.

I have to admit, at the end I was left asking WHY. I read all of Cécile's POV, but I still didn't /fully/ understand why she would do this to her eldest daughter and not the others, and how it would go on for so long. But that very drastic overreaction is the whole premise of the story, so I won't question it too much.

tldr; Overall a bit slow for me personally sometimes, but I love how it unfolds. Marguerite's daydreams about the life she will live once she's out of the attic with Alouette were my favorite parts.

Marguerite Périgord is engaged. To prepare her for Victorian married life, her mother locks her in the attic above their London home with little more than a sewing machine and Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management. At first she’s eager to learn, memorising the entire book, shedding weight ahead of the big day. But as days (and months? Or years?) stretch on, starving, hallucinating, Marguerite realises her mother might never let her go. Then a crow takes up residence in the attic wall, and soon has a clutch of chicks. Jealousy’s talons are sharp. And in the background of all this is her lover, alias Alouette of lark-plucking fame, often yearned for, always absent.

A grisly little Gothic fairytale complete with its own crumbling castle, Marguerite’s tottering, towering house in a Chelsea street makes a good joint between the more fanciful elements it recalls and the very real, very simple horrors of isolation and disregard. Much like Camilla Grudova’s recent collection of short stories, this fragmented narrative delights in casually presenting the banal horrors of the human body and its (self-)destruction, whether it’s ripping out hair by the roots or scratching away skin or cleaning blood from the carpet with Marguerite’s own vomit or even the stink of the Thames wafting in through the cracks. Interspersed with extracts from Mrs Beeton’s book (the “thousand pages of prescribed femininity”), each chapter ominously titled with a small snippet from the same (e.g. Chapter 15, “to the foetor and darkness”), there’s a slick, oily layer of satire here which is rarely particularly subtle but is undeniably effective.

While Marguerite festers in her attic, she thinks of her own parents’ upbringings, dwelling on the seamy sordid details. It’s never quite clear how much of this is true; her mental state is hardly pristine, and she loses time, forgets things, invents others. But she’s been lied to for a long time, punished for no crime at all. Perhaps rewriting the past is the only way to get back at those responsible. Or perhaps there’s another way, with claws and beaks and feathers…

Carrion Crow is another entry in a current of queer historical horror: Elliott Gish’s Grey Dog; T. Kingfisher’s What Moves the Dead. Like those books, this one draws on familiar Gothic tropes while working in a contemporary vein of thought, tying them together in ways which never feel too startlingly modern. After all, the crimes committed against the marginalised, the spurned, and the ‘weird’ in the past are little different to those today. We just like to pretend they’ve gone away.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

Carrion Crow is incredibly unique with an incredibly unique setting that sets the tone of the novel. I'm not positive how to describe my experience with the novel, because it's simultaneously a psychological horror, body horror, and commentary on society. It's gruesome and claustrophobic - these are usually two themes that I connect with but for some reason I just couldn't seem to get drawn into this story. I think I may have felt a bit too disconnected from the main character, but if you're the type of reader who likes gothic, unsettling books that prioritise atmosphere over a fast moving plot, I think you'll really like this one.

I’ve never read anything quite like this book and am not sure I’ll be able to describe it adequately, but I’ll do my best! It’s not Heather Parry’s first novel – she has written a previous one, Orpheus Builds a Girl – but it’s the first I’ve read and I didn’t really know what to expect.

Marguerite Périgord, who lives in London with her mother, Cécile, has just become engaged to George Lewis, a man thirty-five years her senior. Although he’s a respectable solicitor and Marguerite is sure he’ll make her happy, Cécile disapproves of the engagement because Mr Lewis comes from a humble background and doesn’t have a lot of money. Telling her that if she really must go ahead with the marriage, she first needs an education on how to be a good wife, Cécile locks Marguerite in a tiny attic room with a sewing machine and a copy of Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management. Although it seems obvious to the reader that Cécile’s true intentions are simply to keep her daughter hidden away to prevent the marriage, Marguerite is sure she’ll be released as soon as she has made enough progress.

The rest of the novel follows Marguerite through the period of her confinement in the attic, while also giving us some glimpses into Cécile’s own history and her relationship with the man who was Marguerite’s father. The Cécile sections of the book do help to explain how she became the woman she is and why she so desperately wants to stop her daughter from making the same mistakes she did – but at the same time, her treatment of Marguerite is inhumane and cruel. Even more chilling is the way Marguerite just seems to accept that she has been sent into the attic for her own good and makes no attempt to escape. She tells herself that it will all be worth it in the end when she completes her ‘training’ and can become the perfect wife to Mr Lewis.

If Marguerite already seems mentally unstable when she enters the attic, she becomes even more so as her confinement continues. With little to occupy her mind and only a crow nesting in the roof above for company, she becomes obsessed with her own body and the changes she sees in it as she remains shut away from the fresh air outside and the meals delivered to the attic become smaller and more sporadic. The book gradually becomes stiflingly claustrophobic, as well as increasingly disturbing and uncomfortable to read. It reminded me a lot of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper with a touch of Virginia Andrews’ Flowers in the Attic, although more gruesome and horrifying than either. As Marguerite is an unreliable narrator and it’s sometimes difficult to know what’s real and what’s imaginary, the ending of the book both confused and surprised me, and I was left with the overall impression that I’d read something very powerful.

This is not a book that I could really say I ‘enjoyed’, but I do recommend it. Just be prepared for something very, very dark and unsettling!

Marguerite Périgord is to be married to an older man but before she can be allowed to do that, her mother locks her in the attic to prepare her for the life of a wife.

This book was terribly difficult to read. At times it was so horrifically gruesome that it turned my stomach. But at the same time I could not put it down.

I loved that we get the story of both Marguerite and her mother. That we get to explore this toxic relationship between the two women. Especially with Cecile's side of the story, it's so brilliantly done because it would be so easy to see her only as a monster. But instead we see a woman who took the hatred she feels towards herself and what her life became and turns it towards her daughter who, she believes, is about to make the same mistakes she did when she was younger. It's her twisted way of protecting her daughter and at the same time punishing this version of herself.

Marguerite's pov is certainly the hardest to read, and you want to let yourself get lost in this fantasy she's creating for herself but everything in the story is telling you things are so much worse than we can see. And I love that the ending manages to be beautiful in the most heartbreaking way.

This is certainly not an easy book to read, but it was worth every moment.

Carrion Crow is a creepy gothic that will make you feel like you're losing your mind. Suffocatingly claustrophobic, tense and weird. Enjoyable read

Beautifully written! Heather parry the woman you are !!!

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the chance to read this early.

An incredible second novel from Heather Parry, following 2022's excellent ORPHEUS BUILDS A GIRL, CARRION CROW perfectly captures the Victorian Gothic, with poor Marguerite going mad in the attic. Holed up by her mother, with just a crow and Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management for company, Marguerite is patiently waiting for Cecile to decide that she is adequately prepared for her upcoming marriage to Mr Lewis, a kind and fine-tempered lawyer, many years Marguerite’s senior. Cecile, however, is hoping to permanently postpose a marriage she fears will bring the downfall of her family’s hard-earned reputation, as Mr Lewis is neither wealthy nor well-standing. As the days turn into weeks turn into months, Marguerite’s physical and mental health begin to fray. 


Perfect perfect perfect; she’s done it again.

'Carrion Crow' is unlike any historical fiction I've read before. Marguerite Périgord had been confined to the attic by her mother, who wants to prepare her daughter for her impending betrothal. Except this is a lie, and in fact Cecile wants to prevent her daughter's wedding to an older, poorer solicitor, who will lower their family name. Gradually, day by day, Marguerite becomes less human and more animal, her only contact with the outside world the erratic visits from her deranged mother, and a carrion crow roosting in the roof of her attic cell. The only distraction Marguerite has is a copy of Mrs Beeton's cookbook, and as she slowly starves she becomes obsessed with imaginary meals, including that of her own body as it inexorably eats itself. This novel was weird, and vivid,and disturbing, and immersive, and thought-provoking. But not for the faint-hearted!

Beautifully written and perfectly plotted, I devoured Carrion Crow in one sitting and will be recommending this to customers