I absolutely adored the premise of LEECH - it's gritty, spooky and Gothic. I loved the blending of science fiction and horror, and the world Hiron Ennes built was mesmerising. The writing was beautiful as well and I spent the first half of the book completely immersed in the story. Unfortunately though, something went wrong around the halfway mark. The world building and writing had felt so crisp and compelling in the beginning, but suddenly I found myself struggling to follow what was happening and eventually I lost hold of the thread that had been pulling me through the story. The world of LEECH is so different from anything I've read before, which is great, but I sometimes find with unique worlds that the author can take off and leave the reader floundering behind. I finished LEECH feeling a little lost and confused. I might try picking this one up again down the line to see if I understand it better the second time, but for now I have mixed feelings. Regardless though, Hiron Ennes clearly has some great ideas and writes beautifully, so I'll be on the lookout for their second novel when the time comes.

I’ve seen quite a few 5 star reviews for Leech, so my viewpoint might be in the minority but I was so tempted at multiple points to DNF this book, it was only down to the fact that I’m quite ahead on my TBR deadlines that I stuck it out. The premise of Leech is an interesting one – the book is told through the perspective of an un-named Parasite infecting a Doctor’s body. The parasite is part of The Institute – an organisation which infects young minds and shapes them to be Doctors with enhanced knowledge of healing. When one of their bodies dies in a remote castle, our protagonist is sent to investigate. Although the idea of a parasite as the lead character is an interesting one, it actually made for a confusing read. At the beginning they can see into other minds and other bodies in other places which makes the narrative a little hard to follow in places. When it then becomes just the main character you then don’t feel much empathy for them as they don’t have much of a personality. The ending then takes another turn as you see flashbacks from other characters who the parasite has infected. I think this perhaps needed chapter headings as it jumped from flashback to present day. The whole book can be summed up by the word ‘confusing’. The local dialect that is used is very hard to understand and even in the standard prose the author uses unusual and difficult to understand words (or even words that are made up, in places) which makes for a very tedious read. Although it’s relatively short, it definitely drags. All of the characters are awful with no redeeming qualities which, without a strong or interesting main character, means you have no-one to route for throughout. Although initially I thought it was a horror set in the past, there is actually a lot of fantasy elements woven into the story which just make it harder to work out what’s going on. One of the characters has a tail, which is never explained, there’s a pair a child twins whose hair gets tangled together at various points. I couldn’t really understand if they were supposed to be conjoined twins or not and then at one point they walk through walls and it’s implied they might be dead? I have no idea… The village is mining for Wheatrock which I understood until they started eating it. All of the scenes set in the dining room in the castle just read like a fever dream. Overall Leech is an interesting premise but it’s a real mess, full of unlikeable characters, hard to understand words and a difficult to discern plot. Thank you to NetGalley & Pan Macmillan – Tor for the chance to read the ARC in exchange for an honest review.