Morsel

Lou did what the children of badly paid, physically punishing jobs are told to do: she went to college and took an office job. Her coworkers talk nonstop about a multilevel marketing scheme dressed up as self-improvement, and she is barely keeping up with rent.

Her last chance to hold onto the job is a property appraisal in the rural hills of Ohio. She drives out with her dog. Soon her truck turns out to have been sabotaged, and she is stranded far from anywhere in old Appalachian woods, with someone or something stalking her between the trees.

This is folk horror, and it is Carter Keane's first novel. The threat in the woods runs alongside a second one: an economy that seems set on consuming her. The title points to a story about learning to bite back.

It sits between The Blair Witch Project, The Ritual and The Menu, with lost-in-the-woods dread mixed with sharp class satire. The setting is isolated and the stakes are simple: Lou has to get out of the woods in time, or lose more than her job.