Direct Descendant

Tanya Huff
Completed 10/11/2025, Reviewed 10/13/2025
4 stars

A cozy horror.  Eldritch, to be specific.  Not sure if that’s quite possible, but Tanya Huff did it in this novel.  My experience with Huff’s works average about three and a half stars.  A few above average, a few others terrific.  I lean a little towards terrific with this book, mostly because I’ve come to enjoy eldritch horror and always have a fondness for romance, especially in the LGBTQ+ rainbow.  My net feeling is that this book is basically fluff, but very enjoyable fluff.  I cheered for the protagonists and was a little surprised by the revelation of the evil-doer.  The writing didn’t feel up to par with Huff’s other works, but I still was glad to have read it and felt satisfied with the ending.

The narration follows two main characters in alternating chapters; both told in first person.  Cassidy lives in the small town of Lake Argen, Ontario, several hours north of Toronto.  She and several others are Guardians, the eyes, ears, and mouth of the dark forces with which the town has an agreement: service the dark forces in exchange for its prosperity and isolation.  One day, Cassidy witnesses a visitor seemingly sacrificing himself to the dark forces.  And hell literally begins breaking loose.  Then Melanie appears in town, sent by the visitor’s grandmother, to put closure on her missing grandson.  Cassidy and Melanie are attracted to each other and have a date or two.  Cassidy and the town try to hide the dark trouble from Melanie while the town cheers for the two women’s burgeoning relationship.  However, the lies of omission soon come to a head as the demons and monsters become evident to Melanie, and the darkness threatens to destroy the town.

The things I liked the most about this book were the Canadian details.  There are many references to Tim Hortons, people are generally friendly, and the summer days are very long.  I also liked the LGBTQ+ support by the general population.  I’m also a sucker for a good romance and I really enjoyed this silly love at first site relationship.  There’s even an awesome U-Haul reference to the old stereotype about how quickly lesbians form long term relationships.  Besides the romance, it was a good way to explain the backstory of the town which, until the big reveal, only comes in small doses.  

My biggest complaint was that I had a hard time following Cassidy’s narration.  There was something disjointed and non-intuitive about it.  While Melanie’s narration made sense, Cassidy’s was all over the place.  I think it had to do with the rate at which we were fed the nature of the dark forces and their interaction with the town, and particularly Cassidy’s role.  Character-wise, Aunt Jean was particularly annoying.  I felt like she mucked up the flow of the dialogue with her hardcore stance on keeping outsiders ignorant of the dark forces.  

Back to positives, though, I really liked that there were some eldritch creatures which coexisted in the town or its environs.  The mysterious Alice was some tentacled creature in the lake to whom the dead were sacrificed.  Oh yeah, and they said “s-word” instead of “sacrifice.”  There’s the strange young demon messenger that’s more like a cuddly sloth than a demon.  I was sad for the boy who was transforming into a blueberry eating, tentacled, big foot-like creature.  Add some militaristic crows and a couple of hell hounds to round out the Cthulu cast.

Overall, I felt very positive about the book.  I usually don’t give fractional ratings, but this one is clearly a toss up between three and four stars.  So I’m rounding up to four stars because of the cozy fluffy nature which was so entertaining.  This won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but it was definitely mine.