Sometimes, when I choose books to read I get on a hot streak. Everything I pick up ends up falling into the four or five star category. The books are obviously very good, but I also think it’s a matter of being in the right place at the right time. Some books I read at a time when my brain needs a certain kind of book. To be honest I love when I read a book that fits perfectly with where my brain is at the moment because I read it fast and enjoy every second of it. That is the case with Catfish Lullaby by A.C. Wise.

I’ve been on a stretch of reading really good, and/or highly entertaining books but after reading Doll Crimes by Karen Runge, I needed a book with more of the supernatural element involved. Catfish Lullaby ended up being the perfect choice. It’s a blend of folk horror and swamp horror and it fell squarely in my wheelhouse.

The story follows Caleb at various points in his life in the small southern town of Lewis. The first part of the novella features Caleb as a young boy around 11 or 12 years old. His father is the sheriff of the town. There is a house fire and Caleb ends up going with his father to try to save the family that lives inside the house. The only person to leave the house alive is the mysterious Cere, daughter of the man who lived there with her two older brothers. Cere is about the same age as Caleb and the two grow close over time. The second part of the story takes place years later, Caleb has grown up and follows in his father’s footsteps to become Sheriff of Lewis. There is a death in town and Caleb notices a similarity between that death and ones that his father had been investigating years before. Cere, who had since disappeared, reappears and helps Caleb connect the dots between events he witnessed as a child and the ones that he was investigating as an adult. The climax comes when Caleb comes face to face with a local legend known as Catfish John.

The story is intriguing and my curiosity was piqued from the very beginning. The supernatural elements in this story are strong and are weaved seamlessly into the narrative. Wise does a tremendous job of making the supernatural elements fit in with the story and her descriptions bring the events to life and make them seem real even in light of the fantastic way they occur

Her characters are also well developed and jump off the page in a way that make me feel as if I’ve known them for a while. We get to know the characters in a way that makes this novella feel more like a longer novel because we become invested in them, especially Caleb and Cere, from very early on in the story.

This story hit all the right points for me at the exact right time I needed them to be hit. The supernatural element is woven into the story perfectly and it struck all the right cords with me. The folk horror feel to the whole story only adds to the atmosphere of dread. The entire time you read this you know something isn’t right, but you don’t know who or what is behind the events that are happening. You think Cere is there to help Caleb but you don’t know for sure. The legends about Catfish John make him out to be a villain, but is he? The questions and mystery make it impossible to put this book down.