Bad Cree

Today's post is on Bad Cree by Jessica Johns. It is 259 pages long and is published by Doubleday. The cover is white on top and red with trees reaching up into the sky on bottom. The intended reader is someone who likes slow burn horror and heavy topic plots. There is some foul language, no sex, and mild horror violence in this novel. The story is told from first person close of the main character, Mackenzie. There Be Spoilers Ahead.

From the dust jacket- In this gripping debut tinged with supernatural horror, a young Cree woman's dreams lead her on a perilous journey of self-discovery that ultimately forces her to confront the toll of a legacy of violence on her family, her community and the land they call home.
When Mackenzie wakes up with a severed crow's head in her hands, she panics. Only moments earlier she had been fending off masses of birds in a snow-covered forest. In bed, when she blinks, the head disappears.
Night after night, Mackenzie's dreams return her to a memory from before her sister Sabrina's untimely death: a weekend at the family's lakefront campsite, long obscured by a fog of guilt. But when the waking world starts closing in, too--a murder of crows stalks her every move around the city, she wakes up from a dream of drowning throwing up water, and gets threatening text messages from someone claiming to be Sabrina--Mackenzie knows this is more than she can handle alone.
Traveling north to her rural hometown in Alberta, she finds her family still steeped in the same grief that she ran away to Vancouver to escape. They welcome her back, but their shaky reunion only seems to intensify her dreams--and make them more dangerous.
What really happened that night at the lake, and what did it have to do with Sabrina's death? Only a bad Cree would put their family at risk, but what if whatever has been calling Mackenzie home was already inside?

Review- While this novel is a horror novel, the horror is very slow build. The main plot is really about Mackenzie dealing with her grief and guilt. When her sister suddenly dying, Mackenzie couldn't handle it and she  shut off everything from home. But now the past is coming for her and if she will not deal with it, the past will take all her family to. This was a really good read, interesting characters, and the horror is very slow building so when it hit the page, it is very strong. There is some body horror with the monster at the end but  it added to the over all dread and intensity. The family  dynamics are interesting and feel real, they add so much to the character development Mackenzie. This was a great debut novel and I look forward to reading what Johns writes next. 

I give this novel a Four out of Five stars. I get nothing for my review and I borrowed this novel from my local library.