Curdle Creek

For fans of “The Lottery” and The Hunger Games, this novel set in a small town with a sinister tradition is chilling in the best possible way.

Welcome to Curdle Creek, a place just dying to make you feel at home. Osira, a 45-year-old widow, is an obedient follower of the strict conventions and practices of Curdle Creek, an all-Black town in rural America stuck in the past and governed by sinister rules and rituals practiced in the name of tradition. Considered blessed, Osira's luck changes when her children run off, she comes second in the running of the widows and her father flees when his name is called in the annual moving-on ceremony. Forced to jump into a well in a test of allegiance, Osira finds herself transported back in time then into another realm where she must answer for crimes committed by Curdle Creek. Exile forces her to make another jump that lands Osira even farther away from home in a rural town in England. Safe, as long as she sticks to the rules, she quickly learns there are consequences for every kindness. Will another jump lead Osira anywhere but back home?

Curdle Creek is a unique novel exploring themes of home, belonging, motherhood, and what we inherit from society in a highly inventive way. This American gothic offers a mash-up of the surreal and literary horror that will appeal to fans of Ring Shout, The Underground Railroad and Lovecraft Country. Battle-Felton’s fever-dream of a tale is strange and layered and quite unlike anything else.