Oliver Gooch is given a tooth from an old man and with the tooth comes a handwritten note from 1888 that says that the tooth is from the boy Edgar Allan Poe. Oliver displays the tooth in his new bookshop and names the bookshop Poe's Tooth Books. The bookshop is located in an old converted church where Oliver lives with his wife Rosie and daughter Cloe. Cloe hasn't been herself since she was hit by a car 9 month's earlier and it's thanks to the insurance money that they could buy the old church. Cloe hasn't said a word since the day she was hit by the car and Rosie hopes that she will snap out of it, but Oliver, who's neglect of Cloe feels guilty about the accident, likes the new Cloe who is so much easier to handle.

Then one cold night he and Cloe finds a crow, and the crow refuses to leave the old church and slowly its presence in the old church starts to affect the family...



How can you not be drawn into a book that starts with: “Cloe had her tongue stuck on Robin Hood's thigh”. I mean WTF? This book managed to draw me into the story from the first page. This was not a, oh perhaps I will get into the story after a while, and I was immensely grateful for that since the last two fiction books I read was pretty hard to get through.

Stephen Gregory writes fantastically great. You wonder, is the tooth cursed, or is everything that happens just coincidence? Is Oliver drinking too much (well yes) and hallucinating? What the hell is wrong with the crow? Is the tooth really Poe's and is it connected to the crow? Is the crow Poe? Will Cloe get better? What the hell is going on? Perhaps Oliver is going mad...

Towards the end the story lost a bit of speed, I really felt that this is Oliver drinking himself mad and everything is in his head, and I had no idea how the hell Gregory would be able to finish this off well. But he did it, he manages to write an ending that made me question everything I thought during Oliver's drunken nights.

It's a great book and I'm looking forward to reading more from Stephen Gregory!

Disclaimer: The quote I used from the book may not end up in the finished version of the book!

Thank you Netgalley for providing me with a free copy for an honest review! ( )

Many thanks to Solaris Books for the ARC via NetGalley.

The premise and the setting of this novel are ideal and bursting with potential. The writing, while occasionally bordering on the pretentious (for indeed such is our narrator) shows a keen sense of space and atmosphere, with descriptions that assail the senses and transport the reader directly in the midst of the action by sheer visceral force.
There are many nods and parallels to Poe - a real field day for fans - but in my humble opinion the author made a rather forced effort to point them out. A good direction the book could have taken for better effect would have been a series of subtle references to one or more of Poe's tales, deliberately expecting and assuming the reader's prior knowledge. This would not only increase the sense of impending doom, but also make the book more complex and layered and strengthen the unreliability of the narrator.
A deeply unsettling read on many levels - the mounting tension is admirably paced, and produces an unassailable dread combined with the constant feeling that something is "off" with Oliver.
There are several scenes that could benefit from a rewrite to ensure maximum terror and minimum confusion. While letting the reader wonder if what they witnessed was real or just a dream, a hallucination, an illusion is a good strategy in works of this nature, it is not meant to be overused and actually clarifying certain points and tying up some loose ends could do no harm. (Example: What became of the white worms nestled in Rosie's festering wound? Even if they turned out not to be real, it would have been nice to mention them again later by way of closure. You know, Chekhov's gun and all that - why mention something unless you plan to use it to its fullest potential?)
By all means, however, a rewarding read, as it certainly delivers thrills and chills one way or another. ( )

Stephen Gregory is a genius! Let me tell you why.

First, here is the set up for this story:

"Oliver took the money from his small daughter Chloe's accident insurance and bought a converted church to live in with his altered child and wife. Rosie hopes Chloe will came back to herself but Oliver is secretly relieved to have this new easy-to-manage child, and holds at bay the guilt that the accident was a result of his negligence. On a freezing night he and Chloe come across the crow, a raggedy skeletal wretch of a bird, and it refuses to leave. It infiltrates their lives, it alters Oliver's relationship with Rosie, it changes Chloe. It's a dangerous presence in the firelit, shadowy old vestry, in Poe's Tooth Books.
Inexorably the family, the tooth, the crow, the church and their story will draw to a terrifying climax."

This tale is a lot more complicated than the synopsis makes it out to be. There is a sense of creeping, building dread that, at times, becomes intense. You know something is coming but you can't get a handle on what it will be.

There are several-I'll just call them "uncomfortable moments" sprinkled throughout this book. The reader ends up off balance, questioning, confused. Wait, is that normal? What's he doing? Is that a European thing? I would love to say more about this, but I can't without spoilers. Suffice it to say this book has a lot of WTF moments, and my opinion is that the author masterfully placed them there just to mess with us.( So yeah,genius ! )

This story also seems to be an homage to Edgar Allan Poe himself, so much so that...well I can't say. It all becomes mixed up: Poe, the tooth, the crow, heavy drinking and guilt. What's real? What's not? You're going to have to read it to find out.

I am now a full fledged Stephen Gregory fan. The Cormorant blew me away and this novel is right up there on that same level. Mr. Gregory produces beautifully written, literary, atmospheric stories that resonate with the reader. I will be thinking about Poe's Tooth Bookshop and that crow for a long, long time.

Highly recommended for not only fans of horror, but also for fans of literary fiction and psychological tales. This book is not easily categorized, but it's worth reading, if only to watch a genius at work.

I received this eARC from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review and this is it.




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