Find it online: Amazon | Barnes and Noble

The Hidden People is a new, refreshing, but also highly invigorating trespass into the world of the Fair Folk. A topic that has been rarely grazed upon in contemporary lit got a new fire stoked in this fine tale and comes highly recommended.

Albert's cousin Lizzie is murdered by her husband, a man apparently delusional enough to believe his kind hearted, demure wife to be a changeling send by the fairies to hide her own disappearance. Albert is deeply hurt at this revelation, as he had had a very peculiarly charming one meeting with cousin and was taken aback by her, so he decides that he will handle the funeral preparations. The village is not anything like the modern London he knows intimately and finds that our very quickly.

Although the language can be extremely dense at times- which unfortunately made me slow to start on it- it is a lovely, plot powered tale that will no doubt engage readers of all kinds. Albert's infatuation with his cousin (after one meeting) is also fairly suspect and cringey, but it was historically apt, so I'll let it go.

Plunged into a very folklore entrenched environment and aghast by these villagers' mindless superstitions, Albert finds himself treading a fine line between reality and myth, and it's not a simple line to understand. Things end up really taking a turn. This tale is one of fancy, fear, and family. And maybe even fairies.