The Serpent Dance by Sofia Slater Review

Crime mixed with folk horror?

Yes please.

I actually picked up The Serpent Dance by Sofia Slater while visiting a bookshop in Vienna. The cover caught my eye straight away. Sometimes that’s all the encouragement you need.

Thankfully, this one didn’t disappoint.

The story begins with a couple heading down to Cornwall to celebrate their anniversary. It’s meant to be a quiet getaway, the sort of trip where nothing particularly dramatic happens.

Of course, that’s not what they get.

Very quickly they find themselves caught up in the aftermath of what appears to be a suicide, and before long things start to feel even stranger as an ancient pagan festival begins to loom in the background.

That setting does a lot of the work here.

Cornwall already carries a certain atmosphere, and Slater leans into that sense of isolation and old traditions. As the story unfolds, there’s a constant feeling that something slightly darker might be hiding beneath the surface of what first appears to be a fairly straightforward mystery.

What I enjoyed most about the book is how it shifts between genres.

At times it reads like cosy crime — the kind of mystery where you’re trying to piece together what really happened.

At other moments, it leans much more into folk horror, with the pagan traditions and local history giving the whole story a more unsettling edge.

And then, every now and again, it moves into full thriller territory as the tension ramps up.

That mix of styles keeps the book moving quickly, and it makes the whole thing feel like a very easy read. It’s the sort of novel you can get through in a couple of sittings without really noticing the time passing.

All in all, it’s a really enjoyable and quick crime novel with just enough strange atmosphere to make it stand out.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐