Disclaimer: This novella has been read as part of the SFINCS. This review/rating only represents my personal opinion and it might differ with what the team decides.

Phengaris is a queer ecohorror novella written by Anna Orridge, published by Nefarious Bat Press. A proposal that takes an interesting look at grief and fractured relationships, with some weird elements that definitely makes it feel unique; a novella that has interesting ideas but which falls a bit short in the execution.

Mark Warner is passing through a really tough time: his dad disappeared years ago, leaving him with his abusive mother, who is dying of a painful cancer. He's also dealing with her own struggles as a closeted gay man, and to ease his stress, he's taking some of the drugs that he got for his mother, resulting in what he hopes to be hallucinations. A novella following Mark's metaphorical journey through grief while introducing certain ecohorror elements in the mix.

Certainly, we have a really strong beginning, which also touches how it seems that the wrongdoings of dying people are erased; Mark is a complicated character that is dealing with too much, leading him to those drugs that put him in the path of investigating what's happening around Thurstop Wood and why it is calling him. 

The imagery is one of the highlights of the novella, successfully mixing together nature and scrap; however, while there are many interesting ideas, the ending is too abrupt, feeling too rushed. I rarely say this about novellas, but this one would have benefited from a few more pages.

Said that, Phengaris is an interesting novella that might just not worked for me as I would have hoped; the exploration of grief shines, so if you are looking for queer ecohorror, this might be a good choice for you.