I enjoyed this but found myself wishing it had a little more meat on the bones. It's undeniably well written; the landscape comes alive on the page, and the juxtaposition of Rita's paintings as described by the gallery exhibiting them and the events surrounding their creation works brilliantly.

I'm a big fan of introspective horror, and Rita's time spent in solitude as she grapples with grief and strained relationships - with her dead father, with her dying romantic partnership, with the loss of her mother tongue, with her heritage, with the land itself - are great, and contain some really powerful writing. But the final act takes a hard turn into creature feature territory, and I wish that theme had been a little more prominent throughout.

The real horror here is in the afterword, as the author talks about the issues of climate grief and climate catastrophe that sparked the novella in the first place. Eco-horror is scary not because of what's on the page but because it reflects a reality we're living in, and no swamp-dwelling lichen monster can get close to that.