New to audiobook, Laura Morrison’s Come Back to the Swamp is the spooky, swampy, supernatural solution to your June novella-audiobook needs!
Half space-opera, half ecological manifesto, Morrison weaves fantasy, science fiction, and a chilling atmosphere into a punch-packing novella that keeps you on the edge of your seat. The story follows ecology-grad student Bernice as she discovers a strange old woman orbiting the swamps of Cleary Swamp, a local research site where Bernice is studying invasive species. Convinced the woman is a former civil rights activist named Rebecca who disappeared in the swamp decades earlier, Bernice believes the woman is as in need of salvation as the swamp itself, which has become riddled with things like Asiatic ivy that don’t belong. Bernice takes it upon herself to relocate the woman into safer territory. What she doesn’t realise, however, is that Asiatic ivy isn’t the only invasive species in Cleary Swamp—and the Swamp has had enough.
Suffice it to say, Bernice’s extraction of Rebecca…doesn’t go as planned. After a stint into a spore and pollen drug-induced state during which she enjoys a warp speed odyssey on the set of her favourite operatic sci-fi tv show, Space Mantis, Bernice awakens with a new clarity and understanding of the swamp’s needs. Though certainly jarring for Bernice, it’s hard not to miss Morrison’s deeper message, a fitting allegory to the sort-of “awakening” many environmentally-conscience folks might have: sometimes—despite our best intentions to the contrary—we are the invasive species. When it comes to preserving the order of the natural world, sometimes it’s humans that simply don’t belong.
Swamps and spooks aside, what makes Come Back to the Swamp such an engaging and resonant story is Morrison’s interpretation of main protagonist. A bit of an idealist, Bernice is snarky, headstrong, and courageous, and her inner monologue is so on point it’s hard not to feel instantly connected. Although we only get a few pages of Bernice, she’s an easy character to champion, empathise with, and—eventually—commiserate for. Likewise, narrator Chelsea Stephens is the perfect voice to bring Morrison’s words to life. She is just as able to capture Bernice’s snark and the Swamp’s ominous warnings as she is to convincingly voice the inner musings of the bobcats Bernice worries might roam the swamplands. Together, this audiobook is three hours of pure listening pleasure, and a story readers will want to return to time and time again.
Gripping, evocative, and as ripe with messaging on the consequences of ecological devastation as it is loaded with sci-fi references, subtle calls to environmental activism, and enough chilly moments to have you looking over your shoulder on your next hike out into the woods, Come Back to the Swamp will have readers (and listeners!) looking over their shoulders the next time they go walking alone out into the wild.
Come Back to the Swamp is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers.
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Synopsis | Goodreads
Working on completing her ecology graduate degree, Bernice is doing invasive species research in Cleary Swamp when she is confronted by a mysterious hag who says she is the swamp’s caretaker. When Bernice discovers that the hag is actually a woman named Rebecca Hallett who disappeared in the swamp decades before she attempts to remove the strange old woman from Cleary Swamp, but little does Bernice know that Rebecca has a mystical bond to the area – one that possesses a human host and bonds them to it.
One magical hallucinogenic powder cocktail and a space opera spirit journey later, Bernice’s life has changed forever. The swamp wants her for its new caretaker, and it won’t take no for an answer.
