PSYCHOPOMP & CIRCUMSTANCE by Eden Royce (Out Oct. 2025)
★ ★ ★ ★ .25 - This book needed to be longer! I loved everything that was already there I just not only wanted a lot more but I think the story needed a lot more.
‘In some circles, folk would have called Auntie a witch, but there is a different kind of magic that comes over a person when they are content in themselves. They are a silent presence, an impenetrable force that radiates so strongly it calls others.’
title: Psychopomp & Circumstance
author: Eden Royce
published: Out October 2025—thank you to Eden Royce & Tordotcom for the ARC!
publisher: Tordotcom
genre/subgenre: historical fantasy novella
setting: alternate fantasy Reconstruction-era South Carolina
main themes/subjects: family dynamics & relationships, scandal & secrets, systemic sociocultural patriarchy, funeral rites & traditions, slavery, witchy, finding your own path, wealthy Black family & society in Reconstruction-era american south, women’s agency in a privileged family
representation: Black MCs, Gullah Geechee author
tropes: psychopomp, sentient house, dark family secrets, ghosts
‘Instead of fighting to get back into the family's good graces, her aunt had created a place for herself and welcomed others in.’
my thoughts:
This book needed to be longer! I loved everything about it except for we didn't get nearly enough time for character development, plot tension, proper emotional investment, or deeper world building. I really wonder why Royce made it so short? Do we think it was a publisher choice since Tordotcom is all about the adult novellas?
I really thought the choice for such a short length along with the pacing & writing style did not seem to be in service to the story overall. While I was reading it I kept thinking that for such a short book it was taking a lot of time getting to the action but then the action never really came? It sort of just ended. There was also a lot of exposition & internal processing done by the MC to the point where it started to fall into that kind of repetitive feeling so often found in YA fantasy, particularly when it’s a 400-page book that could/should have been 250, but for a book that wasn’t even 200 pages that felt even more odd to me.
Also for some reason I had it in my head that this was going to be like a southern gothic horror novel, not an historical fantasy novel. & I think this tripped me up a bit because there were definitely quite a few moments in the story when I very much felt like “ok now it’s going to get dark” but then… it never really did. All of the fantasy world-building elements were very whimsical & the darkest parts were also the realest parts which like in theory seems like it would work but for some reason I felt it didn’t for this story. I actually thought Royce’s last YA novel, The Creepening of Dogwood House was darker & scarier. It almost felt like Royce was holding herself back in this book as though she had changed her mind at some point about which genre she was writing for.
One other issue I had with the story was that the MC was a wealthy heiress & I always tend to struggle with those kinds of characters—especially in fantasy & historical fiction. Perhaps if we’d had more time to spend with her character & experience her arc with her on a deeper, emotional level I would have felt differently by the end.
i would recommend this book to readers who like historical fantasy particularly featuring Black characters & cultural legacies with an american south antebellum setting & themes of death, ceremony, family, & community, & witchy vibes. this book is best read to the barrier island sounds of crickets, frogs, & night herons.
‘The start of a magic that transformed and lingered, not in any elaborate way, but in the small, daily ways that made a life outstanding. Magic had not impressed her in New Charleston, but here in Horizon, it changed people, infusing them with subtle strength, enough to allow them to carry on.’
final note: Would love to read a proper adult horror novel from Royce. I know she’s got one.
CW // slavery, death
season: October - November
music pairing:
further reading:
ROOT MAGIC by Eden Royce (2021) ★ ★ ★ ★ .75
CONJURE ISLAND by Eden Royce (2023) ★ ★ ★ ★ .5
THE CREEPENING OF DOGWOOD HOUSE by Eden Royce (2024) ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
SPOOK LIGHTS: Southern Gothic Horror (2015) & SPOOK LIGHTS II (2017) by Eden Royce
WHO LOST, I FOUND: Stories by Eden Royce (2023)
WHEN WE WERE BIRDS by Ayanna Lloyd Banwo (2022) ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
ROOTWORK by Tracy Cross (2022) ★ ★ ★ ★ .75
The Haunted Mansion (2023)
The Gilded Age (2022) — Royce has said that this series was a huge inspiration for her worldbuilding & dialogue…
Click on the star ratings beside the titles I’ve read to read my reviews/thoughts about the book.
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‘Wasn’t that what death was supposed to do? Bring people together?’
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