Book Review: Sawtooth by Steph Nelson

“If love was give and take, as they say, then marriage was a process of defining those terms. What was give and what was take? . . . Who got to define the parameters of give and take?”

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Sawtooth is a suspenseful, atmospheric, dread-infused creature feature/survival horror novella set in Idaho’s isolated Sawtooth Mountain region. The storyline opens as protagonist Taryn approaches the wilderness with the goal of scattering her wife’s ashes. After waiting nearly a year, she’s determined to finally carry out Gemma’s last wish at the alpine lake she loved most — a place where they’d made happy memories together — even if it means throwing caution to the wind.

What’s meant to be a quick out-and-back trek quickly turns brutal, bloody, dark, and deadly when Taryn makes a terrifying discovery, becomes injured, and hears something strange and ominous stalking her in the woods. Could Gemma’s campfire stories of the mountain’s legendary, predatory cryptid namesake be true? And if so, what chance does a lone woman stand against this supernatural monster?

Intertwining Taryn’s present-day fight for survival with her fraught recollections of life and marriage, Sawtooth gifts the reader with flawed, believable, lifelike characters and a pulse-pounding, page-turning, high-stakes plot line rooted in love, regret, fear, sorrow, and trauma. Unease steadily builds in the reader’s heart and mind as the plot unfolds and progresses, and though history is conveyed from a single point of view, it is an honest and unbiased vantage point that unflinchingly presents both sides of the story, darkness and all. This story is a resonant, heartbreaking, relatable, devastating, gruesome, and utterly original tale of mortality and human folly interlaced with an exquisite sense of tension and foreboding that led this reader to devour the entire thing in an evening.

Once I began reading, I was completely immersed and invested and couldn’t stop despite feeling wracked with tension and riddled with anxiety. Taryn’s fear, pain, and suffering are visceral, almost tangible, as is the agony of grief, resentment, guilt, frustration, anger, and regret continually washing over her. These feelings are layered and nuanced, and I’m still awestruck at the author’s ability to craft and convey so much depth and meaning in such a brief span, and with only one character actually on the page for the majority of the narrative. It’s a truly haunting and masterful tale that will easily occupy my all-time favorites shelf.

A huge thank you to Steph Nelson for allowing me to read and review a digital ARC of this phenomenal forthcoming release. Sawtooth is a powerful, unforgettable novella that deserves to be read, discussed, and celebrated far and wide.

❤Amanda