Dawn Kurtagich has penned some terrific horror tales. Her latest effort, THE SEVENTH SISTER, is a gothic throwback featuring complex familial relationships.

The storyline reminded me a lot of the series “Yellowjackets,” which also revolved around a group of young ladies stranded in a strange place. In this novel, the Ward sisters moved to the remote forest island of Beltane to live with their grandmother following their parents’ tragic deaths. Granny Alys is happy to take them all in and join her in an isolated form of living that also may include some truly creepy supernatural forces that exist on the island.

"...a gothic throwback featuring complex familial relationships.... THE SEVENTH SISTER is classic gothic horror that maintains a deep unsettling feeling from start to finish."

Decades later, the surviving sisters receive a cryptic letter summoning them back to the island. It is sent in an envelope containing a single dried juniper berry.

Juniper, Hazel, Clementine, twins Holly and Ivy, Willow and Poppy first arrive on Beltane in 1999. Clem is the only one who is immediately suspicious of their surroundings and feels that her grandmother is sowing the seeds of discord between herself and her sisters as a result.

Granny teaches the girls about the existence of the being she worships, Daudir, the Forgotten God of the Wood. Juniper buys fully into this mythology, and all but Clem follow suit. When the unthinkable happens and Granny passes away, Juniper steps up to take the lead. But instead of buring the body, they live with it in their small space as it rots away. Meanwhile, they follow the initial instructions that Granny had given them, which includes not going outside at night as the woods seem to creep closer to the house during this time.

Not all of the girls will make it out of Beltane alive, setting the stage for the eventual reunion of those who are still living. Juniper never left and now presides over the island and its supposed lore in the same way that Granny once did. Her siblings realize that not only has nothing seemed to change, but she may be more deeply intertwined in the mythology of the island than even their grandmother was.

Secrets will be revealed among the sisters that only increase the dangerous void between them and adds to the bizarre reunion that perhaps none of them will survive.

THE SEVENTH SISTER is classic gothic horror that maintains a deep unsettling feeling from start to finish. Kurtagich indicates in the prologue that the idea of children moving freely through a wild, unstructured landscape has always stirred something deep within her. She also wishes to leave her readers with a question: Did the magic leave, or did I?