A gripping blend of historical fiction and Southern gothic psychological horror, Our Sister’s Keeper is a fierce exploration of Black sisterhood, rage, and resistance.

“For fans of Octavia Butler’s 1979 classic Kindred or Erin Crosby Eckstine’s Junie.”—Booklist

Mississippi, 1927. The groanings are coming.

No town is perfect, but East Cobb comes close. It’s a wealthy all-Black Free Town—untouched by white oppression—where ambitious Thea Elliot and her husband plan to make good on their big dreams. Little do they know that the idyllic town teems with ghoulish, walking nightmares . . . that only the women can see.

Marah knows the groanings well. She is one of the carriers—women with the ability to pull traumatic memories from men. Populated by men entirely freed of their pain, East Cobb has flourished, even as the remnants of their memories haunt the town’s women. When an unexpected death drives Marah to discover more about her own power, Thea’s and Marah’s worlds collide. The sisters must confront the rotten core at the heart of East Cobb’s prosperity and choose what—and who—will survive the reckoning.

I’d heard great things about this book, and believe me when I say every bit of the praise is true. It’s creepy, it’s original, and it has a lot on its mind.

The book takes place in 1927 in East Cobb, Mississippi, a wealthy, all-Black Free Town where white oppression never reached. Thea Elliot and her husband have just moved to town full of hope and promise of a peaceful, prosperous life. What Thea doesn’t know is that the town is crawling with ghoulish, walking nightmares that only the women can see. Marah has lived with these horrors for a long time. She’s a carrier, one of the women who can pull painful memories out of men, and that’s exactly why the men of East Cobb are so successful. They’ve been relieved of their pain, but the leftover memories don’t just vanish. They haunt the women instead. When an unexpected death pushes Marah to dig into what her power really means, her path crashes into Thea’s, and the two of them have to face the rot underneath the town’s prosperity and decide who gets to survive the reckoning.

Reading this felt like watching a Jordan Peele movie in book form. The pacing was breakneck. I was riveted from the start and couldn’t put it down. The writing is exquisite, and every character was someone I could picture vividly. I loved how the author handles the idea of utopia and shows that a perfect place always comes with a price somebody else is paying. It also has a lot to say about the burdens Black women carry. The white savior message is loud and clear too. There is so much here to unpack that this one deserves a second read.

This is historical horror done right. It sits right alongside Tananarive Due’s The Reformatory for me, because the real horrors are scarier than the paranormal ones, and the supernatural elements only make the history hit harder.

If you love smart, unsettling horror with something to say, diversify your shelves and pick this one up.

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