The Deceiver, by Melanie Tem

Melanie Tem's The Deceiver is a lush work, poetic and lyrical. In a word, the writing is fantastic. It's a generational story about how a mysterious figure haunts a particular family and all its branches, showing up at just the right times in their lives to dispense much-needed advice. But this is advice is....dark. Thoughtless and cruel. And oftentimes, sinister.

The only downside to this novel is the menacing figure doesn't work as well as it should as a throughline. And this is quiet horror, but the rather vague purposes of this figure could make the story too vague for some readers. Regardless, Tem's characters are three-dimensional; they live and breathe, and the writing is top-notch. Check it out today.