Invasive Species by Ellery Adams

Hanover Square Press, 2026

ISBN: 978-0369774903

Available: Hardcover, ebook edition

Buy: Bookshop.org

There aren’t many neighbors like Mrs. Smith, someone who stands out for all of the wrong, strange reasons. In the beautiful seaside town of Cold Harbor, where the moms are in competition and have a lot of socializing to do, no one really knows Mrs. Smith because she rarely leaves her home. What the annoying moms do know is that she doesn’t care at all about their high standards for landscaping. While their yards are ready for the cover of a magazine, hers is a dark and brooding tangle of creeping vines, large trees, and scary, dark shadows.

We quickly learn that Mrs. Smith is an actual monster, an ancient sea monster, who has been biding her time while planning to carry out a centuries old way of making herself young and more monstrous again. Mrs. Smith has a distinctive aquatic form and a fairly human body when on land. To the particular men she’s interested in cultivating, she seems to be a gorgeous, desirable woman. But, to a few people who are knowledgeable in the areas of myth, legend, and folklore and think she is suspicious, she could be the greatest danger their little community has ever seen.

A special part of Mrs. Smith’s renewal strategy involves the children of the town. When an ambitious mother sends two of her kids to do some outdoor chores for Mrs. Smith, the timeline is already nearing its end, and some people will have to die to keep Mrs. Smith on schedule. Worst of all, some people have already been selected for an especially terrifying death.

Ellery Adams tells this horror story in a rather upbeat, casual, and non-threatening way that helps to enhance the ominous nature of Mrs. Smith’s presence in the neighborhood. The local women are usually oblivious to what is happening around them because they are so focused on their status and how they can prevent Mrs. Smith’s property from reflecting badly on their own rather than on protecting those they love. Instead of the invasive vines they hate so much, Mrs. Smith is the real invasive species they should be trying to eradicate, and Ellery Adams makes her just as intriguing as demonically evil.

Reviewed by Nova Hadley