Alexandra Pierce Reviews Bittersweet in the Hollow by Kate Pearsall

Bittersweet in the Hollow, Kate Pearsall (Putnam 978-0-59353-102-0, $18.99, 384pp, hc) October 2023. Cover by Imogen Oh.

Linden James is the third of four sisters, and like all the James women, she and her sisters have some sort of magical ability. Linden can taste and recognize other people’s emotions; her second sister can tell when some­one is lying, while the fourth sister can contact the spirits of the dead. These talents are vital in this story of secrets – keeping and uncovering, their destructiveness and pervasiveness and longevity.

Secrets, gossip, and rumor are classical nar­rative hallmarks of a small town, and Caball Hollow is no exception. Rumors abound regard­ing the town’s main claim to fame, the folkloric Moth-Winged Man, who is said to live in the area and whom locals occasionally claim to sight. He experienced a resurgence of interest two decades earlier when a young child from the town went missing, and the Moth-Winged Man was rumored to be connected to that. More immediately for Linden, she has personally been caught up in gossip and rumors because of her overnight disappearance a year ago, on the night of the summer solstice and the local history festi­val named for the Moth-Winged Man. She barely remembers what happened, but that doesn’t stop people spreading stories, often to her detriment. And now, on the anniversary of her disappear­ance, the rumor-mill is additionally fed by the fact that she is the person to discover the body of Dahlia Calhoun: popular, back in town for the Moth Festival, once Linden’s friend but recently estranged – and now murdered. Finding Dahlia’s body drives Linden to figure out what happened both to her friend and herself, and in doing so also uncovers other secrets, including those of her own family.

Kate Pearsall’s debut novel Bittersweet in the Hollow is set in Appalachia – West Virginia, to be precise, where Kate Pearsall’s mother grew up. As an Australian, I can’t speak to the veracity of Pearsall’s depiction, but the placeness is certainly important to the story. The mountains, the forest, the isolation of Caball Hollow all figure in the narrative. (I also had to check whether the Moth-Winged Man was a figure from actual folklore: I learned that the late 1960s saw reported sightings of the ‘‘Mothman’’ in West Virginia, and that a town in that state has a ‘‘Mothman Festival.’’) Food is also a significant part of the story. All the women in Linden’s family work at the diner they own, which is the site of crucial narrative moments; food is shared at funerals, for healing, and as gifts. I particularly liked these moments where food is significant; Pearsall is evocative with scents and tastes, but not overwhelmingly so.

Bittersweet in the Hollow is aimed primarily at younger readers; the publisher suggests ages 12 and up, and that seems about right. It’s a fast-paced novel and does a very good job at showing both the attachment and the angst of relationships that often seem to pervade the adolescent experi­ence. There are some elements that a sophisticated reader may find a little frustrating; the talents of the James sisters seem a bit too discretely defined and haven’t required much practice, while some elements of the final denouement are a bit too neat. Overall, however, this is a lovely debut, and I hope we can expect more from Pearsall.

This review and more like it in the December and January 2023 issue of Locus.

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