I received this book for free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Voice Like A Hyacinth by Mallory Pearson Series: Standalone
Published by 47North on 2025 February 01
Genres: Horror
Pages: 333
Format: E-Arc
Source: Netgalley
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Five young women eager for success rely on the unspeakable to make their dreams come true in a chilling novel about martyrdom, ritual, and obsession by the author of We Ate the Dark.
Art student Jo Kozak and her fellow classmates and best friends, Caroline, Finch, Amrita, and Saz, are one another’s muses—so close they have their own language and so devoted to the craft that they’ll do anything to keep their inspiration alive. Even if it means naively resorting to the occult to unlock their creativity and to curse their esteemed, if notoriously creepy, professor. They soon learn the horrible price to be paid for such a transgressive ritual.
In its violent aftermath, things are changing. Jo is feeling unnervingly haunted by something inexplicable. Their paintings, once prodigious and full of life, are growing dark and unhealthy. And their journey together—as women, students, and artists—is starting to crumble.
To right the wrong they’ve done, these five desperate friends will take their obsession a step too far. When that happens, there may be no turning back.
As soon as I finished Voice Like A Hyacinth, I immediately went into a contemplative mode. I truly wondered whether I read this book wrong because it did not seem like neither a horror nor a thriller story. It’s more of a psychological story told by lesbians whose friendship was really weird.
In Voice Like A Hyacinth, we follow the story of passionate art students Jo, Saz, Caroline, Finch, and Amrita who are not only lesbians but also whose friendship is as weird as they come. Perhaps, artists and their relationships are really eccentric. As the story constantly tells us, the girls’ friendship is really strong and how they love and would die for each other. Except for their love of painting, nothing can surpass the girls love for each other. Their passion and love for their craft have led them to resort to some kind of magic that will give them an advantage to be better painters and open an opportunity for them to go Solo (a competition in school wherein the best painter will be able to showcase her paintings publicly). The ritual was a success but as they say, everything has a price in exchange for something so good.
The beginning of the story started really slow what with the elaboration about the girls and their art. I did not enjoy the journey as much because I could not relate to any one of the characters. I am pansexual myself and I am loyal to my friends but I was just not convinced about the Voice Like A Hyacinth’s portrayal of friendship. There was a lot of telling instead of showing. Their friendship kind of weirded me out and their declaration on how they love each other was quite repetitive, it’s tiring and kind of giving me the impression that Pearson is desperate to convince the reader that these five girls are really gungho about each other. Moreover, I find the main POV, Jo, and the girls underdeveloped and interchangeable because it took a lot of willpower to distinguish who’s who. The only interesting person in this story was Professor Kolesnik but right, he’s too interesting that he died. Le sigh.
The promise of horror did not even compensate for the frustration that I have with the characters because no horror happened. It’s all in the head. The story is more about the psychological well being of our cast of characters as they slowly spiralled into madness. The premise promised horror but it’s a different kind of horror that I neither expected nor enjoyed. Similar to how the girls tell the readers of how they love and are crazy for each other, the horror experienced by our main POV, Jo, was also repetitive and instead of getting that nail-biting-so-scared experience, all I got was frustration.
So why did I give this book a 3 star rating? Well, Pearson certainly is talented with words. I like her prose. Whimsy and has that magical quality that made me picture the whole story set in a fairy taleish world. Other than that, I also love how she describes the paintings of the girls. The author certainly know how to describe the paintings with depth and realism. I am not into painting but Pearson has allowed me to enjoy the works of our characters like I’m actually looking at them for real. I definitely learned some things about painting and that is much appreciated.
Just like our characters, Voice Like A Hyacinth has a lot of potential to go solo but in the end, it made choices that didn’t jive with my expectations. Nonetheless, if you are into psychological stories or illustrative arts, then, give this one a go.