Our Sister’s Keeper by Jasmine Holmes is a haunting Southern Gothic that demands to be felt

Some horror novels rely on monsters lurking in the shadows. Others understand that the most terrifying things are the systems people willingly protect. Our Sister’s Keeper by Jasmine Holmes, releasing June 9, 2026, is a Southern Gothic horror novel that understands this completely. Beneath its ghostly atmosphere and supernatural elements lies a brutal examination of generational trauma, misogyny, power, and the impossible expectations placed upon women to absorb suffering quietly so that everyone else can remain comfortable.

Recently, I’ve seen discussions online asking readers to name books they’ve loved that were written by authors of color. Inevitably, there are always people who respond with things like, “I don’t pay attention to the race of the authors I read,” as though being “colorblind” is somehow the ideal approach to literature. But stories like Our Sister’s Keeper are exactly why intentionally seeking out voices different from our own matters. This is a novel that forces readers to confront lived experiences they may never have otherwise considered. It explores generational trauma, gendered expectations, institutional abuse, and the long shadow of racism in ways that feel both deeply personal and horrifyingly systemic. It’s impossible to walk away from this novel unchanged if you are willing to truly engage with what it is saying.

Set in Mississippi in 1927, the story unfolds in East Cobb, an all-Black Free Town that initially appears almost utopian. Wealthy, thriving, and seemingly untouched by white oppression, the town represents the dream of safety and prosperity so many characters have spent their lives chasing. But underneath that polished surface lurks something rotten. The women see it literally in the form of the groanings—ghoulish manifestations of pain and trauma that haunt the town—and part of their role within East Cobb is to ensure the men remain protected from those burdens. The men move through the town insulated from horrors the women are expected to absorb, conceal, and endure on their behalf.

The novel follows both Thea Elliot and Marah, whose lives eventually collide in devastating ways. Thea arrives in East Cobb with her husband, the town’s new school principal, expecting opportunity and equality. Instead, she quickly realizes that whatever freedom East Cobb offers its men comes at an enormous cost to its women. Women are expected to shoulder the emotional burdens of their husbands while suppressing their own suffering entirely. Thea is not someone naturally inclined toward obedience or silence, which makes watching her gradual compromise of her own boundaries particularly painful and compelling. Holmes captures the slow erosion of resistance so well that readers can feel Thea wrestling with herself page by page.

Meanwhile, Marah lives among the carriers, a group of women isolated outside town and used as vessels to absorb men’s traumatic memories. The role of the carriers becomes one of the novel’s most disturbing and effective metaphors. Though their labor is not sexual, they are treated with the same suspicion, shame, and contempt often directed toward women whose bodies are seen as existing for public use. The carriers themselves have been brought to East Cobb under mysterious circumstances, and because their memories are regularly wiped by the house matron, Clothilde, many barely understand their own imprisonment.

Marah stands out as someone unusually resilient, and the tension surrounding her storyline becomes almost unbearable as she begins questioning the system controlling them. Others before her have tried to resist and disappeared. Holmes turns this realization into a constant undercurrent of dread. As readers, we are left wondering whether Marah will survive long enough to uncover the truth or become yet another casualty sacrificed to preserve East Cobb’s illusion of perfection.

One of the most fascinating aspects of the novel is how East Cobb itself reflects cycles of power. Many residents escaped lives of crushing poverty or exploitation. They came from worlds where they were expected to remain trapped in generational labor, never aspiring beyond survival. Yet once they attain power and comfort in East Cobb, many become willing participants in maintaining the town’s cruelty. Some of the same social structures that once oppressed them are recreated here under different leadership. Positions once occupied by wealthy white women are now occupied by affluent Black wives who enforce the same systems of silence and hierarchy. Holmes refuses to flatten her characters into easy heroes or villains, and that complexity gives the novel enormous weight.

And then there is Dr. Grimm.

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The presence of Dr. Grimm—a white physician whose family owns the land East Cobb occupies—adds another layer of horror to the story. Though he presents himself as a generous benefactor, his involvement in the town’s creation is rooted in exploitation and experimentation. Through his work and the work begun by his father, women’s bodies and minds have become sites of medical abuse without informed consent. The novel draws clear inspiration from the horrifying history of medical experimentation on Black communities in America, and those parallels make the story feel terrifyingly grounded despite its supernatural elements.

The groanings themselves are brilliantly handled. At first, Thea is made to feel irrational for seeing them, and Holmes captures the specific horror of being dismissed and gaslit when you know something is wrong. The groanings become more than monsters; they are embodiments of buried trauma, ignored suffering, and the emotional wreckage women are expected to quietly carry for others. The horror in this novel works because it is never just horror for spectacle. Every frightening element serves a thematic purpose.

Holmes also excels at structure and foreshadowing. Tiny details that seem insignificant early on return later with startling clarity. Every conversation, gesture, and strange moment feels intentional. There is a level of precision to the writing that makes the payoff especially satisfying because the groundwork has been laid so carefully from the beginning. This is the kind of novel that rewards close reading, and I suspect many readers will find themselves thinking back on earlier chapters once the full picture comes into focus.

What makes Our Sister’s Keeper especially powerful is that it succeeds both as a gripping story and as a deeply thoughtful examination of history and oppression. Readers can absolutely devour it for its eerie atmosphere, suspenseful plotting, and emotional intensity alone. But there is so much more beneath the surface for those willing to sit with its questions. Holmes examines how trauma is inherited, how societies normalize cruelty, how women are expected to absorb pain for the comfort of others, and how systems of power reproduce themselves even among marginalized communities.

This story pulls together so many themes and issues from our country’s dark history, from the generational trauma left behind after the abolishment of slavery to the placement of women into institutions for speaking their truth, to the medical experimentation that was so often done on Black bodies without their consent. There is much to be learned from this story in addition to it being a well-written story with lots of plot to keep it moving. It’s one of those books that can be read as entertainment and enjoyed for the story alone while also offering deep lessons that push the reader to think critically and question what they think they know. I hope that most readers will be the latter—taking time with the story and taking more from it than just an entertaining read.

This is not a comfortable novel, nor should it be. It is challenging, emotional, and often enraging. But it is also beautifully written and impossible to ignore. Our Sister’s Keeper is the kind of book that sparks discussion long after the ending, and it deserves to be read thoughtfully and widely.

If you pick this one up when it releases on June 9, 2026, don’t rush through it. Sit with it. Think about it. Let it unsettle you. And then come back and tell me your thoughts in the comments, because this is absolutely the kind of book people are going to need to talk about.

An advance reader copy of this book (ARC) was provided to me by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Related Content

• A long, vital tradition: Nine books that imagine what a Black utopia could be (Lit Hub)
• Here’s what’s become of a historic all-Black town in the Mississippi delta (NPR)
•  A place apart: Mound Bayou (Mississippi Folklife)
• Why Mound Bayou, MS, and historic Black towns matter (Medium)

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