Sarah O'Connor

I received this book from River Street Writing in exchange for an honest review.

“Why did it scare her so? She was a fighter, an independent woman with a successful profession, not house bound like her mother had been, and all the female generations before. And yet, the Stong family lineage held her captive,” (Grundy 163).

Right before Kate Stong Smythe’s mother dies, she calls out five women’s names. Shaken, Kate discovers that the five names belong to her own ancestors of the Stong family, in particular the women and reminds her of an incident from her childhood when these women haunted her dreams and the pictures she drew. Eager to know more, Kate travels from Montreal to Toronto where she finds an abandoned farmhouse from her family and begins learning more about her family’s past that has been unknowingly repressing her.

I really struggled while reading Black Creek because I just didn’t understand the point of it. What begins with an interesting premise of a daughter looking into her family lineage after her mother’s last words are calling out to ancestors of the past just ended up being disappointing. I didn’t care for Kate as a protagonist. While I admired her independence she wasn’t all that interesting. She didn’t seem to care all that much for her dead mother and even when learning about her ancestors only seemed interested in the one who became the most changed by the times she lived through.

I also didn’t care for the snippets of chapters from the Stong women lineage. It seemed like an attempt to discuss generational trauma but failed to make it’s mark. While I understand the point Gundry was trying to make, the Stong women of the past lived their lives as predominately repressed homemakers because there were no other options for them at the time. There is no doubt that generational trauma can stem from that, but at the beginning of the novel we already see Kate breaking away from this image as a successful, single, architect, so it was difficult to discern what trauma Kate was supposed to be breaking away from. Lightening up a little? Opening her heart? It just wasn’t all that clear.

The book is well-researched and it’s clear that Grundy was passionate writing this book, revealing herself to be a seventh generation Stong woman like her protagonist Kate, but I think that’s where the problem lies. Grundy has clearly done a lot of research on her own family history and Black Creek, but I wonder if having her protagonist be a seventh generation Stong woman like herself was a mistake, if instead Grundy should have written a memoir or non-fiction book about her ancestors and Black Creek instead of writing a fictional character who happens to share her ancestry.

I think readers who enjoy family sagas and learning a bit more of Canadian history they might not have known will enjoy this book, unfortunately Black Creek was not for me but I hope Grundy continues her passion for the stories she writes. 

Publication: October 28 2025
Publisher: Inanna Publications
Pages: 228 pages (Paperback)
Source: Library
Genre: Fiction, Literary, Canadian
My Rating: ⛤⛤
Summary:

When Kate’s mother dies, she calls out five mysterious names from her deathbed, propelling Kate on a journey to unravel the mysterious dreams she’s had since childhood. She’s met with a shock when she finds the five names in her own family genealogy books, tied to faces she knows from her strange flashbacks. Who are these women, and why have they haunted her dreams since she was a little girl?
Kate’s unsettling visions take her from her home in Montreal to an abandoned farmhouse in the northern suburbs of Toronto, increasingly consumed by her ties to the past and the ancestral hardness that is holding her hostage.