Bad Cree: A Novel by Jessica Johns
Mackenzie wakes up gripping a severed crow head. While shocked, she begins to realize that this is just another escalation in a series of vivid nightmares she's been having.
These nightmares began some time after Mackenzie fled her hometown after her sister Sabrina died. She knows her family wanted her to stay, but she just couldn't. She didn't even return for Sabrina's funeral.
After consulting a local friend and her family back home, she decides to make a trip to visit her family to find answers. Her family does still love her, but some are resentful that she has only returned to help herself--not support them. After some tough conversations, Mackenzie realizes her visceral and disturbing dreams are not the only thing haunting her family. With their help, she works to uncover what happened to Sabrina not long before her death, and, perhaps, what happened to her after.
With fall finally here, I had a hankering for a horror novel. I had heard of Bad Cree: A Novel by Jessica Johns and finally decided to give it a go. I was not disappointed. I was, in turns, frightened, intrigued, and regretful.
Johns blends indigenous folklore, culture, and generational trauma with vivid prose and complex characters. I had one prediction for what had happened to Sabrina before her death, but I was completely wrong. As someone who often recognizes predictable story beats, I was appreciative to find myself unable to see what was coming next. That is not to say that the story is difficult to decipher or takes a route that does not align with tone, genre, or how the characters have been portrayed. Any changes in tone are for effectively showing the emotions of the characters. There is some jumping around in time, but it was always clear where I was as a reader. Additionally, characters act in realistic ways even given supernatural circumstances.
I am not always a fan of horror novels (often because I'm too much of a scaredy-cat), but Bad Cree was masterful.
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