THE SECOND BELL by Gabriela Houston – Blog Tour Review

I’m very excited to be part of the blog tour for The Second Bell, which releases today from Angry Robot! You can read my review below, but first here’s what the book is about:

In a world which believes her to be a monster, a young striga fights to harness the power of her second heart, while her mother sacrifices everything to stop her…

In an isolated mountain community, sometimes a child is born with two hearts. This child is called a striga and is considered a demon who must be abandoned on the edge of the forest. The child’s mother must then decide to leave with her infant, or stay and try to forget.

Nineteen year-old striga, Salka, and her mother, Miriat, made the choice to leave and live a life of deprivation and squalor in an isolated village. The striga tribe share the human belief that to follow the impulses of their other hearts is dangerous, inviting unspoken horrors and bringing ruin onto them all.

Salka, a headstrong and independent young woman, finds herself in a life threatening situation that forces her to explore the depths of her true nature and test the bonds between mother and child.

File Under: Fantasy [ Breaking Taboos | Hidden Shadows | Hungry Like the Wolf | Slavic Story ]

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The nitty-gritty: An atmospheric debut that tackles some heavy topics, The Second Bell explores hardship, prejudice and resilience, using folklore as a jumping off point.

Debut author Gabriela Houston tackles all sorts of themes in The Second Bell, a fantasy based on Slavic folklore. This is a lushly told tale of staying true to yourself in the face of extreme prejudice, and best of all, the cast of characters is mostly female. The Second Bell isn’t always easy to read—most of the themes are on the serious side—but readers who love stories about overcoming adversity will probably enjoy this book.

The story is set in a harsh land during winter and begins in a village called Heyne Town. Miriat has just given birth to a baby girl when the story opens, but unfortunately, her daughter Salka has two hearts, which means she’s a striga. Striga are feared because of the latent power that resides within their second heart, a power that can rise up in the form of a shadow and wreak havoc on the town and its residents. For this reason, any child born with a second heart is either taken to the edge of the forest and left for dead, or banished with its mother to a small encampment in the mountains where other striga have bonded together for survival. Miriat refuses to let her daughter die, and so she willingly leaves the only home she’s ever known to venture out into the wild.

We then jump forward nineteen years. Salka is now grown, and she and her mother have been able to eke out an existence and make a place for themselves with the other striga, even though life is hard, food and other resources are scarce, and the winters are brutal. Salka has been taught her whole life to resist the pull of her second heart and its shadow, especially since the encampment has struck a deal with the people of Heyne Town—in exchange for being allowed to live their lives, they agree to never allow any striga to use her powers, no matter what. The punishments are terrible, which keeps most of them in check.

But Salka falters one day when she uses her powers to bring a dead lamb back to life, and unfortunately, someone sees her and reports her to the Dola, the head of the village. As punishment, she’s banished to Windry Pass for three months, a remote location in the mountains where survival is uncertain, especially during the freezing cold winter. Salka is forced to unleash her second heart and its shadow to stay alive, but what will that mean for her and Miriat when she finally returns?

Houston does a great job immersing the reader in a harsh, cold landscape full of ice and snow and dangerous creatures like bears and wolves. I could feel the cold in my bones as I was reading, and I felt for the characters as they tried to hunt and grow enough food to stay alive. These living conditions may not be pleasant, but for the sake of the story I appreciated the fact that the characters are stronger because of it. And while these characters are mostly focused on survival, I appreciated the glimpses of happiness the author included, like the fact that they love their goats so much that they allow them to sleep inside their homes for warmth and protection.

The story mostly focuses on Salka, but Houston brings in plenty of side characters who not only motivate Salka on her path to independence, but have their own personalities and agency as well. One of my favorite things about this book was the way the author explores mother-daughter relationships. Miriat is fiercely devoted to Salka, and she proves over and over how determined she is to protect her. They are separated at times, but their bond never falters, and Miriat’s love is the one constant that keeps Salka going.

The folkloric elements were fascinating, although I don’t know much about Slavic folklore so I can’t speak to how well it was done, but I loved the idea of people born with an extra heart and how that makes them special and powerful—and feared. The title refers to the beating of the second heart, the “second bell,” and not only did I love the title, but I loved the ominous way the word “bell” is used as a warning: the beating of that heart and the horrors it triggers are something to be avoided at all cost. 

I did have a couple of reservations about the book. There is an air of bleakness that hangs over the characters with very few happy moments, so if you are a reader who is triggered by extreme hardships and sadness, this might not be the right story for you. I personally didn’t mind this, and without giving any spoilers, I will say that the story ends on an upbeat note. I did like the way that most of the characters used these hardships to build up their reserves of strength, because they are asked time and again to use that strength to survive.

I was also a little confused about why the second heart is so feared by the people of Heyne Town. Yes, it can overpower the striga and do terrible things—although these “terrible things” seem to be merely rumor—but the examples I saw in the story mostly involved the striga using that power for good, to heal and protect. I guess I wanted the stakes to be higher for the characters, but often the punishments used didn’t seem to fit the crime.

But overall, I thought The Second Bell was a well written debut that tackled some very big themes and mostly succeeded. I am very curious to see what Gabriela Houston will do next.

Big thanks to the publisher for providing a review copy.

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About the author:

GABRIELA HOUSTON was born and raised in Poland, brought up on a diet of mythologies and fairy tales. She spent her summers exploring the woods, foraging and animal tracking with her family. At 19, Gabriela moved to London to study English Literature and obtained an MA in Literature and Modernity. She has worked as an assistant editor and as a freelance writer. Gabriela’s short stories have been selected for the Editor’s Choice Review by Bewildering Stories and have been featured on the Ladies of Horror Fiction podcast. She lives in London with her husband and two children.

Find Gabriela: Website | Twitter | Instagram

And if you’d love to purchase your very own copy, and get a special signed bookplate designed by Gabriela, you can purchase your book from The Broken Binding, an independent UK bookstore. And yes, they have international shipping available!