A character in Laura Venita Green’s debut novel tells her daughter, “You’ve got to keep the wilderness at bay somehow.” Sister Creatures follows four women from the same small town, Pinecreek, in Louisiana, as they. Green blends both realistic fiction, horror, and supernatural elements as the women try to escape past trauma and toxic relationships by creating lives far from their hometown. Yet as far as they get from home, the core of these characters is defined by their upbringing in a rural, isolated place.
The first section of the novel serves as an introduction to all the women, each with their own stories laid out in separate chapters. We see the ways in which they are trapped by their narrow lives in Louisiana. Tess, disconnected from family and friends, is stalled out in life and binge drinking while babysitting two kids. Olivia’s first relationship, with a much older co-worker, quickly becomes toxic and she tries to decide whether to stay or leave Pinecreek and pursue school. Lainey gets the opportunity of her dreams at a nonprofit outside of Louisiana but worries what will happen to her sister, who is suffering from mental illness, if she leaves.
The reason Green’s characters are so compelling is that they face very real challenges. But their urges and bad habits emerge from dark places, sometimes hard for them to understand and reconcile. This makes the horror elements so captivating especially paired with the women’s more realistic stories. The otherworldly aspects capture that feeling of having no control over your own life.
Tess’ story bookends the novel, and it is through her that the supernatural creature, called Thea, first appears and then threads through the entire novel. Thea is introduced through a doll and Gail, who lives nearby the kids Tess is babysitting. Gail appears in their yard and invites herself inside the house. Ultimately leaving with a doll, called Thea, who Gail says has magical powers. The whole event is deeply unsettling, and it’s clear Gail’s family does not treat her well. Thea then emerges as a shapeshifting creature throughout the novel:
She sensed that she had dwelt in other forms, lower forms, sub awareness, since the beginning. She sensed her power, owned, innate, born into every being willing to use it. The power to create a supreme ideal. To become what she wanted. More. But not without loss, sacrifice. Not without cruelty. The eyes of the woman opened, snap, and she sank her fangs into the neck, on a fat vein locked her jaws. She held through struggle and thrashing. She felt life drain from the woman’s body and into her own.
Green keeps her story ambiguous and open to interpretation. It is up to us whether this is simply a bit of Pinecreek folklore that develops from Gail’s story or truly a manifestation of a spirit in the world.
As Thea shifts forms, these women respond to the challenges and unhappiness in their own lives by adopting different personas and places to live, trying to turn their lives into what they want. Yet the enduring theme across the stories is that you can only manage this for so long; the cracks are always there, sometimes under control, sometimes getting bigger:
Tess looked more like the mom Summer knew now that she was close up. Spilled coffee on the front of her dress, a light dusting of dandruff, a faint line of eczema in the corners of her nose. Fat, dark whisker peeking out from the otherwise cute mole on her left cheek. Tess had always presented as put together and even beautiful—unless you knew where to find the seams.
Readers coming to this book expecting a traditional novel will need to reset their expectations. Sister Creatures is a novel; these stories are all connected by recurring characters, overlapping experiences, place, and themes. The chapters are linked, standalone stories alternating between the women and the supernatural creature, in what feel like standalone stories, jumping to different points in their lives.
Every character in Sister Creatures teaches a clear lesson—Tess, Olivia, Lainey, and Gail may have escaped home, and while they might never want to or be able to return, the place and its people will haunt them forever. The demons they have mostly shut out for themselves will continue to linger in future generations in ways they could not have expected. Green’s Sister Creatures is a dynamic debut, experimenting with the shape of a novel, blending genres, and presenting fascinating characters.
Sister Creatures, by Laura Venita Green. Los Angeles, California: Unnamed Press, October 2025. 236 pages. $28.00, hardcover.
Emily Webber has published fiction, essays, and reviews in the Ploughshares Blog, The Writer, Five Points, Necessary Fiction, Hippocampus, and elsewhere. Read more at emilyannwebber.com.
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