Description
About the Book
Orchid Lovell is a young Romany woman haunted by a fear of being found out. Her family has been chased out of town before. After settling in a seemingly idyllic northern mining town that she soon understands as rife with unseen cruelty, Orchid finds solace in a lush orchid fen where she doesn’t fear the town’s judgement. Amid the green beauty of the fen, Orchid meets her beloved Jack, and marries him in a secret blackfly-infested ceremony.
But the town’s waters don’t only harbor life. In the nearby creek, dead girls take revenge on the men who murdered them, luring them into murky waters. Despite the unyielding nature of the water spirits, one man evades their violence. After a devastating attack linked to the expansion of the mine, Orchid’s fate is entwined with the panni raklies’ ruthless justice.
Written in over 100 dreamy mini-chapters, this novella explores the tenuous reality of the Romany diaspora living in troubled times on troubled lands.
About the Author
Lynn Hutchinson Lee was first place winner of the 2022 Joy Kogawa Award for Fiction. Her writing is published in Room, Weird Horror, Fusion Fragment, Northern Nights (Undertow Publications), Prairie Fire’s 50 Over 50, Guernica’s This Will Only Take a Minute (winning the Editor’s Choice Award), and elsewhere. She is co-editor of Through the Portal: Tales From a Hopeful Dystopia (Exile Editions). Following Origins of Desire in Orchid Fens, her novel Nightshade, shortlisted for the 2023 Guernica Prize, will be released by Assembly Press in 2026. She lives in Toronto with her partner. Visit her at www.lynnhutchinsonlee.ca.
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