“On my fourth birthday, I plucked six severed fingers from the shower drain” - with an opening line like that, you know you’re in for something special. What follows is a folktale about mothers and daughters that will set your teeth on edge and make you cringe with disgust and much as it makes your heart ache.
Margot and Mama live quietly by the forest, only leaving for school on the bus and to lay traps to catch their food. They hunt strays, those who have wandered off the beaten track, lost souls who won’t be missed. Sometimes, they don’t even have to hunt as the strays come knocking at their door. This makes for an easy meal. Cannibalism is all Margo has ever known. With descriptions of boiling bones and meat pie recipes that will make your blood run cold, this is not a novel for the faint of heart but if you’re a fan of the gothic and exploring girlhood through the lens of horror, you’ll find your own personal gold among these pages. Lucy Rose has debuted with a phenomenal piece of ‘weird girl fiction’ that has already reached incredible heights of critical acclaim. Her young protagonist, Margot, comes of age in a lonely and desperate house and, as family dynamics shift, we see how violent desires and animal insticts come into play. With short chapters and beautifully penned prose, I ate this novel up and wanted to lick my fingers afterwards. It is rich with exploration of motherhood and how mother/daughter relationships can sour but Rose also looks at consumption, female rage and sexuality here in a way that will have you tabbing every other page. Young Margot licking the mould off the cottage walls, for example, is a visceral and sickening image that will stay with me forever.
We had the pleasure of interviewing the author for The Debut Digest Christmas Party back in December 2024 and there Lucy opened up to us about her history with horror, learning latin and researching cannibalism by chopping carrots and pretending they were fingers. It was such a pleasure to gain an insight into the crafting of this novel and those who preordered on the night are in for a wild ride because the hype around this release doesn’t even begin to sratch the surface.
The Lamb feels like a debut that has been a long time coming and it is one of 2025's highly anticipated releases for a reason. There is true genius here that is hard to do justice in a short review but Lucy Rose is a literary mind like no other and I can’t wait for more where this meaty, heartbreaking tale came from. With the author’s background in film, maybe we’ll even see it on the screen in future...
Reviewed by Abi.
Published on 30/01/25 by Orion
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