If you’re looking for a haunting, atmospheric read to carry you through the end of #spooktober, Johanna van Veen’s Blood on Her Tongue offers the perfect blend of gothic unease and creeping dread. Set in the Netherlands in 1887, this novel follows Lucy, whose twin sister Sarah has fallen into a disturbing illness that blurs the line between madness and possession. As Sarah’s behavior becomes more erratic—and more violent—Lucy must decide how far she’ll go to protect her sister, even as something monstrous seems to take hold of her.
The story unfolds in shadow and candlelight, in grand halls filled with whispers and secrets. Van Veen’s prose feels appropriately decadent and claustrophobic, wrapping the reader in the same feverish confusion that grips Lucy. The decaying corpse unearthed on Sarah’s husband’s estate provides more than a physical mystery—it becomes a mirror for the moral rot beneath the surface of polite society, particularly the suffocating gender expectations that hem Lucy and Sarah in.
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