I read this novella for the indie novella competition, SFINCS. The following review is my own personal opinion as a judge and does not reflect the views of the team as a whole. Find out more about the competition here and my team, The WIPs, here, and read all my reviews for the competition here!
Reap, Sow by S. H. Cooper is a horror mystery novella that drops us into the middle of a creepy house with the protagonist Luci, who has no knowledge of where she is or how she’s gotten there. She’s trying to get out, but the building seems to intentionally force her to go in circles. A terrifying, screaming old woman is haunting her, and a group of strange monsters chase her through rooms that warp around her into a deadly trap. And her memory is strangely blurry, too: she remembers her family, perhaps a wedding, a lover that might expect her back, but…why would this place want to torture her? What’s going on? As Luci rushes through rooms and rooms that turn into her family barn, orchard, and kitchen, and confronts strangely twisted versions of her brother, mother, and father, a horrifying truth starts to unravel itself amond the pages.
Even though I did guess at one twist in the novella quite early, it didn’t take away from my enjoyment at all. I was glued to the pages to figure out what was going to be the answer, and the pacing and voice of the writing were perfect to convey the fever-dream strangeness that was happening. I compared the experience to playing one of those psychological indie horror games where the protagonist finds out about their own terrible past from the nightmarishly changing, familiar-unfamiliar environments around them that the player needs to survive, and this remained true all throughout. The payoff was also quite satisfying: the chapter with the revelations got under my skin. And the ending is horrifying in an existential but also very human way, playing on and magnifying fears that we all have, just like I prefer my horror.
Th story builds upon a relatively simple idea/twist and executes it skillfully, while giving its protagonist and her circumstances just the right amount of character and unique detail, and I had a great time with it. If I had to find one little bone to pick, it was that due to Luci not remembering much and figuring out things, “watching the show”, basically alongside the reader, there were times when it was harder to feel the emotional connection with her. Right until the revelations, most of her reactions were of confusion, fear, and despair: this was of course, logical, as she didn’t remember much else from her life, but this is where the chosen structure worked a little bit against my immersion and against getting to know her as a character. I wanted to see more from her somehow, connect better with her from the beginning. At the same time, the abovementioned revelation part did hit hard and by the end, I was right there with Luci.
Reap, Sow is a dark little novella with great imagery and a well-executed twist I can easily recommend to all psychological horror lovers. It was probably my first time experiencing a story like this in written form, and the author absolutely pulled it off. Very cool.
Helyna L. Clove 
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