I received a complimentary copy of this book through Netgalley for review purposes. I was not compensated for this review, and all opinions expressed are my own.
Seeds Between Her Teeth by M. Boudreaux Published by M. Boudreaux on Oct 20, 2026
Genres: Fiction, Psychological Horror, Thriller
Source: Netgalley
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Four years ago, Claire Donnelly left Adam Vick after a night neither of them remembers the same way.
She remembers her purse out of reach. Adam in the doorway. A knife that was in the drying rack until somehow it wasn't. She remembers blood, a scar, and the certainty that something happened in that kitchen she has never been able to prove. Then Tessa Lang messages her.
Did you date Adam Vick?
Adam has been telling someone else about Claire. About the knife. About the woman he says he was afraid of. Claire wants one usable version of what happened. Instead, she finds Nell Bell, a woman outside Savannah with a hedge of impossible blackberries and an offer Claire should walk away from.
Eat one berry. Become someone else. As Juliet "Ju" Dunn, Claire can get close to Adam without being recognized. She can hear what he says when he doesn't know his ex is listening. She can test the man she remembers against the man standing in front of her now.
But Ju's body is not neutral.
Every return leaves something behind. Every answer leads Claire toward another woman, another history, another piece of evidence that proves everything except the one thing she needs to know. And the closer Claire gets to certainty, the harder it becomes to tell whether she is uncovering what Adam did to her or building a version of him she can finally punish.
Because an open door is still an exit.
And eventually, Claire will have to decide whether knowing the truth matters more than what she is willing to do with it.
Seeds Between Her Teeth by M. Boudreaux is a chilling tale of betrayal and manipulation. What I found most horrifying was that, at times, I couldn’t tell whether Claire was the instigator or if she had simply been pushed to a breaking point and become the very thing she’d been accused of being.
One berry transforms Claire into someone else, someone her ex would desire, giving her a way to get close to him and uncover what really happened that night in the kitchen. Was she drunk? Did she grab the knife, or did he? Did he stop her from leaving because she had been drinking, or was he using it as another way to control her? Was she the one at fault, or was there something more sinister going on?
As someone who has survived narcissistic abuse and continues to struggle with PTSD, I find that books like this often stir up complicated feelings. Even years later, there are moments when I replay events in my mind and wonder if I could have handled things differently—if I might have come out in a better light, or if there was truly no right choice at all. That kind of self-doubt lingers, making it hard to fully trust my own perspective. The uncertainty and second-guessing never really go away, and this book captures that sense of ambiguity so well. Reading Claire’s story reminded me of the ways trauma can cloud your sense of reality and make even your own actions feel suspect.
Claire is one of those morally grey characters who evokes a mix of empathy and frustration. At times I wanted to love her, at other moments I wanted to hate her—or maybe just shake her and urge her to wake up and move on. But I also recognize that people probably felt that way about me, too. That’s one of the most confusing aspects of abusive relationships: when you’re caught in the middle, it becomes incredibly difficult to untangle the abuse from your own reactions to it. From the outside, the person who started it all can sometimes look like the victim, while the person pushed to their breaking point looks like the aggressor.
That uncertainty is what makes stories like this so unsettling. Sometimes, the hardest part isn’t knowing what happened. It’s trying to make sense of it afterward.
This book has so many fascinating elements, from body horror and magic to psychological horror, and they all showcase what a compelling storyteller M. Boudreaux is. As with Play Dead, there were some dialogue-heavy sections where I lost track of who was speaking. These are the kinds of issues that could be cleaned up with some editing, though.
For me, the bones of a story matter most. The heart of it, the plot, the ideas that pull you in and keep you thinking long after you’ve finished reading. If those things are missing, even the best editing in the world can’t save a book. But when the storytelling is strong, a few rough edges aren’t necessarily dealbreakers. A compelling story can overcome a few editing issues, and that’s what determined my rating.
Ultimately, Seeds Between Her Teeth is the kind of book that lingers after the final page—messy, haunting, and honest in its portrayal of trauma and survival. It won’t be for everyone, but if you’re drawn to stories that blur moral lines and leave you questioning what you’d do in the same situation, it’s well worth the read.
CW / TW:
This piece contains references to:
Emotional Abuse, Domestic Abuse, Death/Murder, Manipulation & Strong language
Recommended Age: 16+
About M. Boudreaux
M. Boudreaux is a Louisiana horror author, a mom, and somebody who has discovered that apparently the healthiest place to put certain thoughts is inside fictional people and then make their lives considerably worse. A lot of her stories grow out of trauma, grief, real life, and the things that stick around long after they should have left. Writing is a strange kind of therapy for her: take the thing, twist it into a story, put it on the page, and let somebody else lose sleep over it for a while.
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