A review by inquisitrix
Lure by Tim McGregor

dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I’ve never been much into mermaids. As fantastical creatures go, fishy ladies just don’t speak to me. I like to keep an open mind, though, and I like it when someone proves my generalized disinterest wrong by catching and holding my imagination with a fresh take that has something to say to me after all. Lure may not have changed my feelings about mermaid stories on the whole, but it certainly kept me on its hook right up to the end. 

I have a weakness for a good folk horror story which doesn’t necessarily hold much sentimentality or even sympathy for its own protagonist (Rookfield, I’m looking at you...). Lure’s main character, Kaspar, makes a perfect mirror of his society and surroundings in a way that serves the story exceptionally well. McGregor makes a tidy job of showing both Kaspar’s inward-looking perspective and the world as it really is just past his gaze. The young man’s self-centred version of his village’s stories leaves enough room for the mysteries of the unspoken to let the tension build, while his conversations with his frustrated older sister, Bryndis, reveal just enough of what Kaspar doesn’t notice to show readers where much of the horror really lies. 

In Lure, McGregor strikes a nicely calibrated balance between themes, plot, and atmosphere. The story bubbles and eddies around the snags created by its characters’ longings and hungers and feelings of loss and entitlement, hope and hopelessness, selfishness and fear-driven community spirit. The things no one says out loud but everyone knows blend into the bleak setting to create a deliciously gothic sensibility. The story lives equally in details as it does in emotions: The dusty bones of the sea monster hung in the church, the names disastrously carved into a rough plank, the disturbing stench of sea life gone to rot. Though the ending isn’t fully predictable from the beginning, by the time it arrives it feels like the only possible conclusion. 

Lure is another strong entry in Tenebrous Press’s growing catalogue of truly unsettling books. I would recommend this novella to readers who like mermaids, readers who don’t like mermaids, and readers who can’t help wondering what really goes on in those fishing towns that look so appealing in the tourism brochures.