Direct Descendant by Tanya Huff
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: hardcover, ebook, audiobook
Genres: cozy fantasy, cozy horror, Dark Fantasy, fantasy, fantasy romance, horror
Pages: 336
Published by DAW on April 1, 2025
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

This cozy horror novel set in modern-day Toronto includes phenomenal characters, fantastic writing, and a queer romance—the perfect balance of dark and delightful
This stand-alone novel from the bestselling author of the Peacekeeper novels mixes the creepy with the charming for plenty of snarky, queer fun—for fans of T. Kingfisher, Grady Hendrix, and Darcy Coates
Generations ago, the founders of the idyllic town of Lake Argen made a deal with a dark force. In exchange for their service, the town will stay prosperous and successful, and keep outsiders out. And for generations, it’s worked out great. Until a visitor goes missing, and his wealthy family sends a private investigator to find him, and everything abruptly goes sideways.
Now, Cassidy Prewitt, town baker and part-time servant of the dark force (it’s a family business) has to contend with a rising army of darkness, a very frustrated town, and a very cute PI who she might just be falling for…and who might just be falling for her. And if they can survive their own home-grown apocalypse, they might even just find happiness together.
Queer, cozy, and with a touch of eldritch horror mixed in just for fun, this is a charming love story about a small-town baker, a quick-witted PI, and, yes, an ancient evil.

My Review:

Lake Argen is NOT Toronto – in spite of what the blurb says. In fact, that’s kind of the point of the place, that it is DEFINITELY NOT Toronto. Because what happens there, and how it happens, and why it happens, wouldn’t be remotely possible in a big city like Toronto.

So that’s precisely where Lake Argen is – remote from Toronto – or pretty much anywhere else. It’s a five and a half hour drive north of Toronto – not accounting for Toronto or Sudbury traffic along the way. Lake Argen is tiny and remote and near enough to Timmins, Ontario that it’s easy to guess where it would be on any map.

But of course, real maps, and real mapping, and pretty much anything of the outside world tend to ignore Lake Argen. Because that’s exactly the way that the people and the creatures in and around Lake Argen, the lake and the town and the silver mine that keeps them both going, want it to be and make sure it stays.

There’s something there that makes certain that anyone who DOES manage to find Lake Argen forgets the place and anything that happened there the moment they leave. Which is where the story begins, as a pretentious little rich boy has managed to overcome all of the town’s protections to sacrifice himself at one of the town’s sacred spots at dawn on the Summer Solstice. The body – or at least the locals presume it’s a body – has been whisked away by the sacrifice, into The Dark. Which is a real thing and not just a euphemism for disappearing a body. Travis Brayden has been sucked into elsewhere – and only Cassidy Prewitt is as worried about that as everyone should have been about exactly what that might mean.

In the near term it’s going to bring out the Ontario Provincial Police, because pretentious rich dudes have equally pretentious rich families who are going to demand to know what happened to their spoiled scions. The police can be persuaded – read that as magically induced – to believe that the idiot got eaten by a bear.

It happens. It really does. Maybe not quite as often as people think it does, but it does. It’s plausible enough to close the case file for the cops. It’s even happened before near Lake Argen, so it works all the better for being an established possibility.

But families down in Toronto can’t be charmed the way that the OPP visiting Lake Argen can. Brayden’s grandmother wants answers. So she hires, not a PI as the blurb says, but a currently unemployed teacher who needs the money badly enough to not question the dubious job she’s been given.

To go to Lake Argen, poke around for a week, and come back with what she’s learned so she can give the poor, dear, boy’s old granny some closure.

And if you believe that I have a Bigfoot to sell you. Not literally, not even in Lake Argen. But there’s certainly something behind the town’s fascinating history, near-complete isolation and surprising prosperity. Something that the town is determined to keep from any potential incomers until they’ve earned the town’s trust.

Which Melanie Solvich really shouldn’t, but somehow does anyway in spite of the shadiness of her mission. Or at least the trust of Cassidy Prewitt, to her confusion, delight and heartbreak.

Which is when the town of Lake Argen reveals its true colors, and things get really, really interesting – and very, very dark indeed.

Escape Rating A+: Direct Descendant was everything I hoped for from this author, which is what got me here in the first place.

It didn’t matter that this is being marketed as horror. I didn’t even notice when I picked it up. All I cared about was the author. I’ve loved so many of the stories she’s written, including but absolutely not limited to the Vicki Nelson/Blood Price/Tony Foster series and especially the Confederation/Valor/Peacekeeper  series.

I was expecting this to be more Blood Price, at least in the sense that I was expecting urban fantasy – and that’s actually close to what I got. (Confederation/Valor/Peacekeeper is SF and the cover of this book was enough to tell me we weren’t going to go there. Not that I’d mind, you understand, not at all, if the author did go back there because that series was AWESOME.)

Direct Descendant turned out to be awesome as well, just not in the same way. Which is even better.

This is one of those stories that is best described through the book blender – and it’s going to take a big blender to fit everything in order for this to be what comes out. The blurb is right about T. Kingfisher, Grady Hendrix, and Darcy Coates being part of the mix, but I’d personally also throw in Jennifer Thorne’s Lute, Alix E. Harrow’s Starling House, Anne Bishop’s World of the Others – because The Dark is certainly Other with a capital O – along with Hazel Beck’s Witchlore and even a touch of Annelise Ryan’s Monster Hunter Mysteries. (If you’re looking for readalikes, those are ALL hints.)

The story sits right at the crossroads where horror and dark fantasy meet and nod warily at each other, while urban fantasy leans against a fencepost and gives both of them a bit of side-eye.

How horrifying the horror is depends on how one sees The Dark – and yes, that’s capitalized. The Dark is certainly not good, but it’s not really EVIL, either. It’s OTHER, and its motivations and morals are its own based on its own world which is not ours.

That doesn’t mean that humans haven’t and won’t do TERRIBLE and EVIL things to bargain with it, serve it, or attempt to conquer it. The history of Lake Argen as well as its current, totally anomalous, health and prosperity, are all direct results of a group of humans doing something really evil to get The Dark’s attention. An attention that their descendants still benefit from.

A more benign method of getting The Dark’s attention might have worked equally as well, but that’s not the kind of people the Founders were, so that’s not what they tried. And not that they, personally, didn’t get exactly what their methods deserved while their descendants reap the benefits.

What tips the scale, at least for this reader, over into urban fantasy or even, believe it or not, cozy fantasy, is the way that everyone in town is determined to do their duty, serve the town and make a real and really supportive community. It’s a truly lovely place – if you can stand the weather and the isolation and the generally creepy vibe. But most of the time, the weather is the town’s biggest problem by a considerable margin.

The romance between Cassidy and Melanie, while it is inevitable, is also utterly adorable. And it’s the perfect vehicle for explaining just how things work in Lake Argen AND finally getting to the bottom of what’s threatening the town. That the eldritch horror who brings the warning is also the cutest little thing ever described in the pages of a “horror” story puts an exclamation point on just how cozy this horror/fantasy really is – especially when it’s his nagging that finally saves the day. Or night. Or just Lake Argen’s symbiotic relationship with The Dark.

~~~~~~ GIVEAWAY ~~~~~~

As you can see from the above review, I LOVED Direct Descendant – and it’s far, far, far from the first time that I have fallen hard for this author’s work. Which makes the works of Tanya Huff a perfect candidate for one of this year’s Blogo-Birthday Celebration Week giveaways.

Therefore, on this the FOURTH day of this year’s celebration, today’s giveaway is the winner’s choice of ANY book by Tanya Huff in any format, up to $30 (US) which should be enough to get Direct Descendant if you’re looking for either a terrific introduction OR you’re a fan like me and you’ve already got everything else!

Good luck with today’s giveaway and remember that there’s more to come!

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