Horror novels aren’t always in your face—nor should they be. They don’t always feature zombies crawling from graves or ghosts haunting old houses or boogeymen sneaking into your room in the middle of the night. They aren’t always thrumming with jumpscares and murderers running around with chainsaws and a dwindling cast of characters who get picked off one by one. In fact, some of the most powerful scary stories are of the more subtle variety, the kind that sneak up on you with the frighteningly accurate way they reflect the realities of our world.
It’s this kind of horror Sarah Gailey brings forth in their new novel, Make Me Better.
Celia lives a shadow of a life. With a long history of profound loss, broken relationships, and failed attempts working various pyramid schemes, she doesn’t have much to lose. So, she decides to take a chance and visit enigmatic Kindred Cove—a place many have heard of but few have ever seen.
Kindred Cove is a small island on tranquil Lake Vetiver surrounded by a great coral reef. Once each year, the community there allows a small number of visitors to participate in their annual Salt Festival. Rumours suggest this mysterious locale offers an opportunity like no other for a truly transformational, life-changing experience. Although visitors are not allowed to stay, Celia hopes to be the exception and start fresh with a group of people who know nothing about her. She hopes that, finally, this will be the way to break free from her hardened shell of a life and become the person she always wanted to be.
As the days unfold, Celia is invited to see Kindred Cove as its residents do: A place where people can heal, where no one needs to be sad or in pain. A place where no one is ever lost. A place that shuns the world’s propensity for selfishness, valuing community over all else and caring for its own in a way the outside world fails to understand. But we are talking horror here, so of course everything on this beautiful island isn’t quite what it seems to be on the surface.
A remote island populated by a group of people who work hard to keep themselves separate from the outside world? A group that claims to have all the answers to peace and happiness in life, if only you trust in them and follow their ways? In the real world, if it sounds too good to be true, it often is. In the world of Sarah’s Gailey’s darkly clever mind, if it sounds too good to be true, it just might be a cult. No one likes spoilers in a book review, though, so you’ll have to read to find out how Celia navigates this newfound community.
Make Me Better falls firmly in the slow burn category and this works really effectively to build tension throughout the novel. Although readers may sense where the story is going, it’s a deep dread of the inevitable that will keep your eyes glued to the page chapter after chapter.
The structure also really helps drive the narrative along, stringing the reader out. The novel is divided into six parts, jumping back and forth in time between present day Kindred Cove, Celia’s past, and the history of the island residents. With this, an incredible range of primary and secondary characters draws the reader into the story. Each one is intriguing in their own way—and you’ll find yourself alternating between loathing many of them and sympathising with them at various points throughout the book.
This is arguably Sarah Gailey’s best writing to date and Kindred Cove is perhaps the most full and complete world they’ve built on the page. So, if you’re looking for a quiet horror, a story with some speculative elements that is also insidious and realistic to our own world and experiences, you won’t want to miss Make Me Better.
*Trigger warning: If you decide to venture into the world of Make Me Better, please keep in mind pregnancy loss is part of this story, including some graphic and difficult to read scenes.
Make Me Better is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore, as of May 12th 2026.
Will you be picking up Make Me Better? Tell us in the comments below!
Synopsis | Macmillan
Sarah Gailey’s MAKE ME BETTER is an eerily seductive look at the desire for community connection and self-improvement—and the darkest places inside us all. Urgent and yet timeless, this read is perfect for fans of Shirley Jackson, Ari Aster, and Patricia Highsmith.
An exclusive invitation.
A remote island infamous for its miraculous ecology.
A once-in-a-lifetime chance to fix everything that’s broken.
But sometimes growth requires sacrifice….
WELCOME TO KINDRED COVE.
Celia is so tired of being alone. All she wants is to have a family—to belong to someone. That’s why she’s going to Kindred Cove for the annual Salt Festival held by the secluded community that lives there. They promise that healing is possible. They promise that transformation is inevitable. There is no grief at Kindred Cove, because there is no suffering. Nothing is ever lost.
Celia knows that, at that mysterious island surrounded by that impossible, ever-growing reef — she will find herself.
She’s ready to be healed. She’s ready to be transformed.
She’s ready to believe.
