Jenny Greenteeth is a mythical water creature that rarely engages with humans. The moment the local villagers decide to drown a witch in her lake, she has to change. The initial objective of returning the witch Temperance to her family evolves into a deeper commitment to defend the village, Jenny's lake, and potentially all of Britain from a malevolent mythical entity.
The characterization of the mythical creatures was remarkable, particularly that of Jenny. I greatly appreciated her as a character; her bewilderment towards the world was conveyed with such endearing detail. The portrayal of Jenny and the Fae at court exuded a captivating sense of otherworldliness and monstrosity, contributing to a rich atmosphere of ancient, disconnected myths throughout the narrative.
While the character development and the friendship between the two women were well executed. Sadly, it felt like all the other characters and relationships lacked depth. Overall, I found the book to be quite enjoyable, particularly due to its themes of female friendship and motherhood.
I am eagerly looking forward to reading the next book by Molly O'Neill. Her work demonstrates a profound understanding and appreciation of folklore, and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in myth retellings or fantasy with more relatable stakes.

This book was very enjoyable. I especially appreciated as a British reader how the landscape and folklore of the British Isles was incorporated into the story.

The characters were likable and the villain felt genuinely ominous. The story adhered to the traditions within the fantasy and fae genres, at times perhaps a little too closely. My one criticism is that some of the twists in the story were easy to guess as a reader very familiar with this genre.

The motivations of the Faye Queen were not particularly clear given that the fae have a reputation for being cruel and uncaring. I’m not sure why they gave the group the dog, but he was adorable and really nicely written, he added a lot of fun elements to the story. The dog and Jenny’s personality (eating rotten fish and generally lacking self awareness) meant that there was some nice comic relief, without the jokes being overworked or two on the nose which I really enjoyed. I often find fantasy books really belabour jokes at the cost of the story, this book did not do that and really benefited as a result.

I didn’t feel that there was a lot of literary analysis that could be applied (for example feminist or Marxist readings), so it feels like quite a light hearted read. There didn’t seem to be a lot of deep subtext or symbolism happening. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, this book was a really fun cozy, recreational experience.

I would absolutely recommend it to readers who enjoy stories based on folklore stories with female protagonists and stories involving fae legends.

The narration of the audiobook was excellent and all of the characters had a clear voice and personality, the pacing was very good and it was very professionally produced I found listening to this audiobook very pleasurable experience and the narrator suited the text wonderfully.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to enjoy this audiobook and review it via NetGalley.

Greenteeth reads like a whimsical fairytale. It’s filled with British folklore and creatures. It has elements of cosy fantasy, like the slower pace, detailed descriptions of nature, and the constant homesickness of main characters, but I wouldn’t call a quest to save one’s family and village low stakes.

The story captured my attention early on. I loved reading about Jenny’s quiet, organised, solitary life and how it was disturbed by the arrival of Temperance. Their friendship and their conversations about love, family and motherhood were my favourite part. Also, I should mention that this novel has no romantic subplot, as the narrative focuses on friendship and family, which is refreshing.

To sum up, I enjoyed this novel and would recommend it to the fans of whimsical fantasy.

This was an absolute pleasure of an audiobook. I loved how an anti-hero became the main story of a quest and the travelling around the British Isles with beautiful folklore woven in was presented. I loved it. The narrator was great too.

Many thanks to Hachette UK Audio, Little Brown Audio, and Molly O’Neill for the advanced audio copy of Greenteeth via NetGalley, in return for my honest and unbiased review. Quick note: I don’t recap plots in my reviews, as it’s easy enough to read the book’s synopsis and blurbs, I purely focus on my feelings & opinions of how the books makes me feel.
Greenteeth was a lovely, richly woven narrative of British folklore and fantasy. Rather than using the popular, well-known tales, O’Neill has explored the lesser known myths and legends of England, Wales, and Scotland and then used small excerpts of lots of them to make one cohesive story – and she has done it well.
The story is one of loss and sadness, bitterness and mystery. It will particularly be enjoyed by those with an interest in folklore, but will also perhaps appeal to those with strong parental feelings.
I enjoyed Catrin Walker-Booth’s narration greatly and will definitely be seeking out her work in future.
Moods: adventurous, challenging, dark, emotional, mysterious, reflective, sad, tense
Tropes: folklore/myth retelling
Pace: medium
Character development: medium
Plot or character driven: plot
Diversity: high
Spice: 0/5
Trigger warnings: Blood/Gore, Death, Death of a family member, Physical or mental abuse, Violence
Rating
Story: 4/5
Audio: 5/5

What happens when a hedgewitch, a hobgoblin, and a lake guardian enter a faerie court? This was a delightful fairtale in which our characters are sent on a quest to save their village. This story is slow paced, and it doesn’t reach many points of high tension. An enjoyable read for those who favour atmospheric stories, over action and pace.

It’s beautifully written, capturing so much British folklore. The audiobook narrator, Catrin Walker-Booth, does a brilliant job capturing each character’s voice and bringing the story alive.

Oddly, while reading this book, I was struck for the first time by how much I’d have preferred it to have been written in third (rather than first) person. For the first half of the book, it felt as though our main character was Temperance rather than Jenny, as we gained little insight into Jenny’s thoughts from a first person perspective. It almost felt that Jenny was a narrator of someone else’s story, and I found that I kept have to remind myself who’s mind we were in. Jenny Greenteeth came into her own in the last third, bringing the story to a much more satisfying close!

A story of friendship, overcoming pride and grief, and working to a common goal. I absolutely recommend it to anyone after a warm, comforting read!

A warm thank you to Hachette UK Audio, Little, Brown Audio, and NetGalley for sending me an Advanced Reader Copy of this book for an honest review.

What starts as the slightest ripple in a pond somewhere in mystical-mythical England takes on a life of its own and starts to ripple and flow to reach the sea and rather epic proportions.

Loved the non-human main character and the companions she finds on her quest. And what a quest it is. It takes the reader to places, some imagined, some taken from myth and folklore and creates a retelling that is very satisfying and an enjoyable read from beginning to end.

I listened to the audiobook received from the publisher and found the narration top notch and very well done.

A fantastic read! This book is a must-read for fans of folklore, adventure, and beautifully crafted character relationships. The story follows Jenny Greenteeth, a swamp witch and reluctant protagonist, as she navigates a world that both fears and misunderstands her. At its heart is Temperance Crump, a witch cast out of her village after a zealous abbot accuses her of sorcery and attempts to drown her.

The narrative is gripping, packed with unexpected twists that keep you on the edge of your seat. The worldbuilding is immersive, blending eerie folk elements with heartfelt moments of friendship and resilience. The writing shines through its richly developed characters, making their journey both compelling and emotionally resonant. Fans of T.J. Klune’s In the Lives of Puppets or anyone who loves fae lore and epic adventures will adore this book.

The audiobook is especially engaging, with a narrator who brings the characters to life brilliantly. Highly recommended!

A huge thank you to Netgalley and Hachette Audio for the free audiobook ARC in exchange for an honest review! All views and opinions are, of course, my own. The narration by Catrin Walker-Booth is lovely.

I enjoyed this SO much. A lonely (and house proud) lake monster. An ancient evil. An epic quest. Characters from folklore and legend galore! Heartwarming and humorous, Greenteeth captured my imagination and my heart and had me grinning like a fool at the end.

The plot was heaps of fun but the characters were without a doubt the highlight of this novel, at least for me! Jenny is an absolute treasure. Suitably ambivalent yet also an empathetic narrator who occasionally had me giggling, her character gained depth as we learned more about her through the events in the story.

The supporting characters were wonderful as well, with Brakus Marsh (a goods-peddling hobgoblin) being my particular favourite. Even the characters we met briefly along the way were interesting enough that I could have read a whole book of Molly O'Neill's take on them (including Gwyn ap Nudd and his Lady, Creiddylad).

An absolutely wonderful debut and a book I highly recommend, especially if you are a folklore lover wanting a feel-good read with a heroic quest. This is the second ARC I've requested and received after it's release date, so you are in luck because this one is already out in the world!

💚

Jenny Greenteeth is a monster who lives in a lake. One day, a witch is thrown in, and instead of eating her, Jenny decides to save her. They become friends and soon they have to set off on a quest to try to save their lake and the local village, along with their hobgoblin friend.
Fabulous tale of adventure, quests, fables and legends.
Cozy, charming fantasy with a found family you can’t help but root for 💚

Thank you NetGalley and Little Brown Audio for the ALC

This is an easy 5 stars for me. The story was so captivating while there was a lot of whimsy and humour too. The characters were all very interesting and the pacing was great plus I never felt any boredom at all
I absolutely loved Jenny greenteeth, she was such a funny and interesting main character with a unique voice

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the arc

DNF - I got this audiobook ARC from the publisher on release day, and while I am grateful for the opportunity this one just wasnt for me.
The premise of this book sound quite interesting and I would love to read more fantasy from the monster's perspective but somehow with this one I felt disengaged from the characters and story. Especially the audiobook made it feel veeeery long with nothing interesting happening.
My thoughts immediately went to Someone You Can Build a Nest In: where the main character is a scary, snarky monster. I loved that monster's perspective. With this one it just felt a bit too flowery and the monster did not have a lot of monstrous thoughts. She things about her daughter living in another pond, she just gives away gold to the first person in need because she doesnt need it. A humanitarian monster is just not what I am looking for hahahha. But hope someone else will find it cosy and loves it!

I thought this was a very cute and cosy fantasy quest story. It had a lot of charm and I especially liked the mythology and folklore aspects of it! I thought the audiobook narrator was really good at bringing all the characters to life, especially the POV character Jenny. Jenny was such a wonderful main character with so much wit, bravery, and compassion and I thought her POV was so funny and endearing. The found family aspect of this book was also great and I enjoyed the idea of a group of outcasts and mythical beings going on a quest together through Britain. The prose was great and overall this was just a fun little, romance-free story that I don’t think will disappoint fans of cosy fantasy.

However, this just didn’t quite win me over. It was very sweet and charming, but sometimes to the point of being sickly or eye-rolling. Maybe I’m just being cynical, but lots of moments just felt a little immature in their moralising. Jenny is supposed to be thousands of years old, but she if often spoken to like a child by the other characters, being told she has to apologise even when she feels like she wasn’t wrong, or learning about the power of friendship and teamwork. I’ve mentioned that I enjoyed the found family trope, but it just felt like it was done in a really childish and obvious way here. It didn't help that I found Temperance a little annoying, selfish, and hypocritical as a character so her often being the one to teach Jenny these lessons didn't work for me. This has been compared a lot to T.J.Kingfisher, and while I absolutely understand why, I feel like this was just missing the darkness and intrigue that makes me love Kingfisher’s books. Everything was kept so palatable and easy here, where what I love most about Kingfisher’s quest stories are that they aren’t afraid to be a little more sinister or complicated. The pace was also a lot slower and the stakes much lower, making it feel so much less layered and interesting than the books it’s been compared to. While other similar books have a sense of progression or increasing stakes, this being structured as just a series of fetch-quests made it lose almost all momentum. If you’re a fan of a more relaxed, slow-paced story, then this is perfect! But for me it became a little boring and repetitive.

I’m not necessarily saying any of this is a bad thing, and if you want a book that is completely warm, gentle, and cute that is a very fun read that I would definitely recommend. I just found that I was unable to completely fall in love with this story because I felt it was a little surface-level and didn't leave me with much to reflect on or think about.

Thanks to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for providing me with this audio ARC in return for my honest review.

"Greenteeth" is a beautiful and mysterious fairy tale about a lake creature named Jenny Greenteeth. The day she saves the witch Temperance is the day a grand adventure begins! I loved this book and its classic take on fables, fairy tales, and fantasy. It felt like being a child again, listening to a captivating story I could lose myself in. The narrative is relatively slow-paced, without major action scenes, but this suits the tale perfectly! I loved following Jenny's quest across Britain, where she encounters magical beings and must solve challenges to ultimately defeat evil. I thoroughly enjoyed this audiobook and recommend it to both young and old. It's perfect for families who want to share an epic adventure together, or for anyone who wants to escape to a magical world. The audiobook was beautifully narrated, and the story has excellent language and flow.

It was my first 5 star read of this year. It's overall a light read that might work really well for fans of T. Kingfisher and Someone You Can Build a Nest in by John Wiswell. It has folklore elements and mixes elements of horror with a sense of humor and cozy moments.

I love the trope of looking at the world and humanity through the eyes of what people deem to be a monster, and found family is one of my favorite things in books so it definitely was a story for me. It also has a dog and Kingfisher-like sense of humor.

I'd only say, don't expect a highly convoluted plot or high action, it was more of a light, palate cleanser type of read, reminiscent of a fairy tale for adults,and I very much enjoyed it for that. I started caring for the characters quite a lot and the ending made me tear up.

I'll admit, I might have been hoping for a sapphic storyline, but it wasn't the case - it made me a bit sad but I also appreciate how it was actually done.

Jenny Greenteeth: English myth, legend, and cautionary tale. You may know her from being walloped with a frying pan by Terry Pratchett's Tiffany Aching, or blamed for the harassment of villagers in Clare Chase's second Antiques Store Detective novel. She's a lake dwelling creature of folklore, said to grab children who stray too close to the water's edge.

In Molly O'Neill's novel, we get to hear from Jenny herself. She's minding her own business in her lake, tending to it with care, keeping it clean and tidy, when a mob of villagers thrown in a manacled woman to drown. Temperance Crump is from a line of Cunning Ladies, with the knowledge of herbs and witchy powers used to the advantage of the village, but a new parson in the village turns the people against Temperance, condemning her to a watery death.

Picking up the drowning woman in the water, Jenny is drawn to her and... saves her.

The two form a tentative bond, each learning about the other. Investigating the Parson, and the villagers sudden turn against witchcraft, Jenny is shocked to find that a more powerful force has taken up residence in the village, one that she alone can not banish, and it may even begin to threaten her water.

A Hag, A Witch and a Goblin walk into a Fae Court...

Teaming up with a hobgoblin travelling salesmen, Jenny and Temperance head off to see the current king and queen of the high fae for assistance in banishing the evil, and are sent on three quests to retrieve key items for the battle ahead.

The quests see the new found family travel through England to Wales and Scotland, weaving in folklore tales from each country, bringing to life the myths and legends, testing our three characters and forcing them to look at who they really are, and challenging the friendship.

The novel feels like a new fairytale, a cosy fantasy based on folklore. Full of warmth, humour and heart, I completely lost myself to this book.

I loved the voice that the author gave to Jenny. She's not good, she's not evil, she's just a Jenny Greenteeth, and her true power lies in knowing exactly who she is. A story of found family and friendship, and remaining true to what is important.

Catrin Walker-Booth was the perfect narrator for the audiobook, conveying the personalities of all the characters beautifully, and it was a joy to listen to.

Many thanks to the author, NetGalley and Little, Brown Audio for the advance copy of the audiobook for review.

“That sounds like a classic love story to me…It would be an epic romance or an ordinary act of motherhood.”

This was such a wholesome cozy story of a group of unlikely magical beings going on a quest to save their home.
The narrator did such a great job at bringing the story to life & keeping me hooked throughout the book.

Jenny was such a wonderful character, we see her go from being someone who prefers isolation to fighting for the family she has made.
Temperance, a witch, was also a great character, fuelled by her love for her husband and children she embarks on a quest to save her home & family.
We see them make mistakes & be vulnerable but we also see their strength & resilience.

This story is about motherhood & the deep love you have for your loved ones & the lengths you will go to, to protect them.
Finding help in the most unexpected places & people & wanting to safe place for everyone you love.

I loved the folklore woven into the world & story, including the legends of King Arthur. We get to meet fae & unicorns & more mythological creatures who leave an impression on our trio & how they see the world.

It has a nice pace where we get to follow them on the journey which I loved. The descriptions are so vivid that you can imagine being there with them as they travel all over Britain.

I loved the plot twists at the end too, some of which I did not see coming but made me love the story even more.
There isn’t any romance in this book but it is so full of love.

If you love low stales cozy fantasy, fairytales & folklore, mythological creatures, a found family & discussions on motherhood then you should definitely read this!

A lake monster, a witch and a goblin battle the oppressor. Magical quest meets Arthurian legend. Fun. Superficially this is cosy fantasy, but it also has surprisingly sad moments and is deeper than expected, tense and a little scary at times. If you know your way around the folklore and mythology of the British Isles, you might get a clue early on where this is headed, but it didn‘t harm the story telling. I kept me hooked and guessing. Nice mesh with German folklore and myth. A rather shocking event towards the end. Nicely done debut.

I would definitely read more by the author. Thoroughly enjoyable. Found family, female empowerment, unlikely friendship, a cute dog and the fair folk. And musn‘t forget the pike and the underwater scenes.

For the first 40% and 10 chapters I read the ebook and then started to alternate between ebook and audio. Well done audio, I liked the narrator.

Pretty cover!

I received an advanced copy of this book in ebook and audio format from the publisher through NetGalley. All opinions are my own and I was not required to give a positive review.

This book is nothing shy of PERFECTION
Jenny Greenteeth is the morally gray protagonist we were all waiting for and we all deserve.
She is what one/herself would call a monster. Or rather a real fairy.
And she leads us through her world, her beautiful lake.

This book is a journey through the mythologies of Europe with a beautiful, gruesome take. These are not the faires from a Disney movie. They are also not the blood lusting monsters they seem. They are MORE.

And so is this book.

This is easily one of my favorite fantasies ever.
It has found family and no romantasy plot but it is so, so rich.

Read it.

Thoroughly enjoyed this fun exploration of British myth and folklore interspersed tied together in a traditional quest that invoked thoughts of Dungeons and Dragons campaigns and choose your adventure games. The characters are easy to love, even when they are doing stupid things and the overall effect is a cozy fantasy adventure.
I do think that the narrator of the audiobook helped me to more fully enjoy the book as it allowed me to imagine the world in a way that I do not think I would have been able to had I been reading myself.