Pages & Pressings

NO SPOILERS

Synopsis:

The Maw doesn’t recruit.

It devours.

It finds you and takes your mind, then your body, until all that remains is a vessel for its spreading rot and decay.

Sage is a crime scene cleaner for The Coil, an illicit underground syndicate operating in the shadows of New York City under Demian’s command. There, she finds simple purpose laundering money through a bar-front named Velour & Vine and cleaning up the messes left in the Coil’s wake. When a string of corpses begins appearing on their streets, bodies butchered with ritual precision and draped in otherworldly flora, the Coil realizes that something ancient and ferocious has breached their territory.

Answers may lie with DeVille, a man with an elegance that feels more shadow than human. When he arrives at one of the scenes and regards the slaughter with unsettling reverence, Demian makes it clear that DeVille is not someone to be trusted. Yet, Sage feels a pull towards him she can’t explain. The deeper she’s pulled into DeVille’s orbit, the more her loyalties begin to fracture both inside herself and within the Coil.

At the scene of another ritualistic killing, Sage is marked with a strange sigil. Her world distorts into visions and fever, a descent laced with myth, madness, and something worse than death. The deeper she falls, the more she turns to DeVille not just for answers, but for understanding. He sees her darkness not as a flaw to be purged, but as something sacred. Where the Coil offers concern, DeVille offers a mirror. And beneath it all, something ancient is waking.

Because the Solvren Maw isn’t just a threat to the city, it’s a hunger that lives beneath the skin.

And once it sinks its teeth in you,

it devours.

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Ambient and abstract. This book is less of a story and more of a feeling. It’s dark, confusing, elegant, and unsettling all at once. Every scene was bursting with imagery, not just physically, but… spiritually? Silence speaks more than words and the silence is almost its own separate character.

The premise is what initially hooked me, but the further I read the more confused I was. The eery feeling persisted throughout the story until it felt almost psychological. It works in some instances, but the cynical voice inside me wants more answers and less riddles.

While it is incredibly descriptive and beautiful, it feels repetitive and slow-paced. The story is enveloped in the atmosphere, but it doesn’t move the plot along. I found myself skimming through paragraphs of descriptions, mainly because most descriptions were overused and previously established.

My biggest gripe lays in confusion, which this story largely relies on. There’s no backstory and limited information on the characters themselves. No ages. No motives. Just the implication of found family brought upon for a reason unknown. I was incredibly detached while reading, not really caring for or about anyone in particular, not even the “villain”. Which is why I’m so conflicted. I think there’s potential here, but the lack of connection for me personally was too egregious to look past.

I type this review out with a heavy heart because no one wants to be so critical, but I’m nothing if not honest. I do believe there’s something beautiful to be found here, but it needs work.

I think this book is better suited for readers who enjoy the abstract and lean into the “vibes” of a book because those were the brilliant aspects here.