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“Who knew there was a Southern Gothic mystery novelist hiding up here in Toronto? Caitlin Galway's novel is splashed with bayou water and laden with New Orleans scenes, all of them working well with a finely honed plot about a missing girl and the secrets she carries. It's 1955 and Bonavere Fayette is the youngest of three sisters growing up in the French Quarter of New Orleans. While her parents entertain to the strains of jazz and the sip of cocktails, Bonnie and her sisters are sequestered to their bedroom.
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... The journey [to find her sister Connie] takes her from her safe little world in the Quarter to places she never dreamed her sister knew. But Connie's secrets are like Russian dolls, and each clue seems to unravel just another mystery. And the crime that may or may not have happened. There's always a historical root to the genre, and Galway plays fair and keeps it, but it's the characters and setting that keep one reading. Galway is a dab hand at Southern dialogue, too. This is a writer to watch.”
-Margaret Cannon, The Globe and Mail
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“The language of this Southern Gothic mystery is swamp-sticky and poetic. Galway's writing is image-filled to the brim, rife with similes that are striking and evocative in their precision ... Galway's prose plays out as a battle between the mental fogs of grief and exhaustion and the urgent logic needed to solve a puzzle of life-or-death.
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... a truly singular reading experience, and left me puzzling over the story long after I had finished it.
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... Galway's mystery is not devoid of a lesson that engaging in spiritual practices that are not your own, without due care or knowledge, is not only violent in its colonial implications, but dangerous for those who do so ... an engrossing read, and a strong debut.”
-Elizabeth Holliday, Room Magazine
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“...a testament to the Gothic as a genre still alive and well today. Secrets, swamps, and a hazy, southern heat-induced madness that will leave you seeing ghostly apparitions. It's all here. At its heart, though, this book is about the strength of sisterhood—one with a boundless power that drives it to the darkest reaches of mind and place in order to reclaim its lost bond.”
-All Lit Up
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“Caitlin Galway’s Bonavere Howl is an astonishing debut novel. This story’s lush world, pulsing through ghostly spaces, will hook you. The sheer layered sensuousness of Galway’s story will draw you in and make it difficult to put down this book’s haunted swamp-world of family secrets. Galway is an extraordinary writer. Gothic deep south, in the hands of a poet. Totally gorgeous.”
- Jeanette Lynes, Giller-nominated author of The Factory Voice and The Small Things that End the World
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“Caitlin Galway's Bonavere Howl is Bayou Gothic, filled with beautiful and atmospheric writing.”
- Alix Hawley, author of All True Not A Lie In It, Giller-nominated book and winner of the Amazon.ca First Book Award
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“In true Southern Gothic tradition, Caitlin Galway manages to both unnerve and enchant, cloaking the reader in the perilous sticky heat of the Bayou. This gorgeously layered tale, the story of two mesmeric sisters – one who disappears, and the brave, audacious Bonnie who goes in search of her – haunted me for days.”
- Carolyn Smart, author of Hooked and Careen
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“Sisters, folklore, violence, and madness in 1950s New Orleans. Meticulously researched and capriciously imagined, Caitlin Galway has created an entire world for Bonavere and her sisters.”
- Cathy Marie Buchanan, New York Times bestselling author of The Painted Girls
Staff Pick at All Lit Up!
"Maybe it's one of those take-me-back moments after reading Interview with the Vampire so long ago, but I'm itching to get back into the dark mystery of New Orleans and Bonavere Howl promises to take me there. This time, though, it's 1955 and I'll be hanging out with the Fayette sisters instead of vampires. The story follows the youngest sister Bonnie through the swamps of Louisiana to uncover the deep secrets behind her sister's mysterious disappearance—linked to a disturbing history of half-mad girls found in the Red Honey Swamplands. Violence and madness are two sure stops on this journey, and I've already got my bag packed." - All Lit Up
Interview with Open Book!
Speculative Chic recommends Bonavere Howl: "Lyrically written and eerie, it hooks you from page one."