This author has published poetry and has a podcast about the very subject of this book:  cryptids.  This is his debut book and it’s a doozy.

Green is just an ordinary guy; a cog in the world of business. A faceless person in a city.  Until he dies, that is. He fell in front of a bus and saw the wheels heading to his head.  And then they weren’t and he was back on the sidewalk.  Confronted by a huge corvid that no one else seemed to see; he was disconcerted to find an acorn in his pocket – presumedly placed there by the bird since there was not an oak tree to be found. And that’s when his thoughts starting changing.

He quit his job, sold his stuff and filled his car with camping gear.  Then headed to the Catskills. The acorn bothered him. It pushed him towards something. It was like an itch. He had no real destination until he was actually in the mountains with dusk coming on.  He found a pink gas station and the two odd teens running it directed him to a camp.  By the time he found the tiny graveled road, full dark was coming. But he found the camp alright although the proprietor was more than a little odd. He found his little camping area but the prospect of trying to set up a tent in the overwhelming dark was too much for him. As he debated with himself, in his car, over whether to sleep in the car or head back to lights and civilization, something happened that changed him forever. 

He saw a beautiful apparition, what appeared to be a glowing deer. And while marveling over the sight he was then terrorized by the appearance of a huge skeletal wolf with a horn on its head.  It leapt on his car hood and pushed in the windshield to attack him.  And then he heard it in his head.  It seemed a bit confused over just what Green was; a not-man was its conclusion. It was also more concerned over its glowing prey getting away and left Green a bleeding, gibbering mess.

The campground host, Dancer, found him the next morning. After hearing his story, the only thing she could do was direct him to another camper who lived there, Valentina Blackwood.  A woman who was certainly as strange as Green’s story; a woman who was probably better able to explain the weird creatures.

Valentina was the quintessential hermit; concerned only with her studies and with absolutely no patience for an inept clueless man intruding on her domain. But the fact that he clearly saw the giant dead moth stretched across her table was interesting. Plus the fact that he clearly saw the Glass Fawn; a cryptid only seen a handful of times, ever. The giant skeletal wolf was new, though. This was Valentina’s expertise: studying cryptids that lived on the mountain. And only a Cryptonaturalist was even able to see the creatures that lived amongst the humans.  It appeared that Green was a talented natural Cryptonaturalist who desperately needed training if he was to keep his sanity. Fortunately for him, Valentina was more than willing to take him on as an apprentice and that’s when the weirdness really took over his life.  But it was welcome.  For the first time he felt directed and in a place that meant something.

Life with Valentina was, in turns, boring and fascinating.  Some of her rules made no sense at all but she was showing him life that took his breath away.  He and Valentina would have been content with a slow passage to the knowledge he needed but the number of deaths on the mountain started to take precedence.

As Green became more familiar with all the cryptid life around him, he was haunted by the terrible memory of the horned wolf that almost killed him. He became obsessed with finding it and destroying it before it took another life. But, as with most of the natural mysteries he was discovering, nothing was as it first seemed.

Valentina became a beloved teacher, Dancer, an amusing friend, and the two teens at the gas station, Alf and Jerome, part of the color of his new life.  They all became important to him in ways no one had ever been before; and he was damned if he’d let a murdering cryptid take them away.

These are the important parts of the book; Green’s studies, the mysteries of who and what is Valentina, and the search for the mysterious cryptid are just the background color.  I was as fascinated as Green when he learned something new. And I was just as perplexed as Green at the hints of Valentina’s age and where she learned her craft.  And I was as astonished and outraged as Green when he learned of the trade the giant corvid forced him into without his knowledge.

For a mere 306 pages, this story was packed to the brim. I developed a fondness for all the characters almost immediately. I adore stories with little mysteries that are alluded to in tiny bits.  And this book had more than its fair share.  In fact, so many mysteries once mentioned are never explained. There had better be another story!  I simply must know more about why Dancer is Dancer, and how Alf and Jerome know so much and yet so little. The ending was phenomenal and we simply must know more about how Green survived the unsurvivable.  Yes, the ending was actually sufficient and this story can stand alone; but…there is so much more that could be explored.

Interestingly, Green never has a first name.  I’m not sure why. Green has no backstory that I can discern; his life really starts when he comes to the Catskills.  Perhaps it will become part of his mystique; all good cryptonaturalist hermits need a little mystique.  ~~  Catherine Book