The Fabled Earth by Kimberly Brock

You know that feeling when you bite into what looks like a juicy peach, only to find it’s all mushy inside? That’s kind of how I felt reading Kimberly Brock’s latest novel, “The Fabled Earth.” Don’t get me wrong—the premise is as tempting as that peach. A mysterious island off the Georgia coast, Gilded Age glamour colliding with Southern folklore, three women separated by decades but bound by secrets? Sign me up! But like many ambitious Southern Gothic tales, this one gets a bit lost in its own kudzu.

A Tidal Wave of Timelines

Okay, let’s break this down. We’ve got two main timelines going on in The Fabled Earth:

1932: Picture it—Cumberland Island, Georgia. Fancy Carnegie mansions, a bunch of rich kids partying it up, and our girl Cleo Woodbine trying to make it as an artist. Oh, and there’s some drama involving a debutante named Joanna Burton. Things go south real quick at a bonfire, leaving two guys dead and Cleo exiled to a tiny island called Kingdom Come.

1959: Fast forward a couple decades. We’ve got:

• Cleo, still painting away on her little island
• Frances Flood, Joanna’s daughter, digging into her mama’s mysterious past
• Audrey Howell, a young widow running an inn and accidentally raising ghosts with her camera

Sounds great, right? But here’s the thing: Brock tries to juggle so many balls that some of them end up dropping. The constant back-and-forth between timelines can feel like you’re caught in a riptide, struggling to keep your head above water.

Characters: A Mixed Bag of Saltwater Taffy

Let’s chat about our leading ladies:

Cleo Woodbine

Cleo’s supposed to be our main gal, but she often feels more like a cardboard cutout than a flesh-and-blood woman. We’re told she’s this talented artist, but we don’t really feel her passion. Her big secret—dosing folks with “glory” (some sort of hallucinogenic morning glory concoction)—comes off as more of a plot device than a believable character flaw.

Frances Flood

Now Frances, she’s got potential. A folklorist trying to unravel her mama’s secrets? That’s some good stuff. But Brock doesn’t dig deep enough into Frances’s emotional journey. We get surface-level angst, but not the real gut-punch of a woman questioning everything she thought she knew about her family.

Audrey Howell

Poor Audrey feels like she wandered in from a completely different novel. Her storyline with the ghost photos is intriguing, but it never quite meshes with the rest of the plot. Plus, her pregnancy reveal comes out of nowhere and then… kinda goes nowhere?

Setting: A Love Letter to the Georgia Coast

I’ll give credit where it’s due—Brock can paint a picture with words. Her descriptions of Cumberland Island in The Fabled Earth are vivid enough to make you taste the salt air and feel the Spanish moss tickling your skin. Check this out:

“The air was heavy and florid. A storm on the horizon threw heat lightning down to earth. A flood tide was rising and the river was running high.”

Nice, right? But sometimes it feels like Brock is so in love with the setting that she forgets about moving the plot forward. We get pages of lush description when what we really need is character development or, you know, actual stuff happening.

Themes: Stirring the Pot (But Not Quite Bringing it to a Boil)

Brock touches on some heavy themes here:

• The power of storytelling and family lore
• Racial tensions in the 1950s South
• The weight of secrets across generations

But here’s the rub—she never dives deep enough into any of them. The racial storyline, in particular, feels superficial. Characters like Will Tremmons and the Buie family are more plot devices than fully realized people grappling with the realities of segregation.

Plot: More Tangles Than a Fishing Net

Hoo boy, where do I even start? There’s:

• A maybe-supernatural river monster
• Mysterious drownings
• Ghost photography
• Secret tunnels
• A burning mansion
• Circus trains

And that’s just scratching the surface! It’s like Brock threw every Southern Gothic trope into a blender and hit “puree.” The result is a story that’s often more confusing than compelling.

The pacing is all over the place. We’ll get bogged down in long stretches of introspection, then suddenly hit a flood of action that’s over before we can catch our breath. The big “reveals” often land with a whimper instead of a bang because we’re too tangled up in all the subplots to really feel their impact.

Writing Style: Poetic, but Prone to Navel-Gazing

Brock’s got a way with words, no doubt about it. Her prose can be downright lyrical at times. But it’s also prone to getting lost in its own navel-gazing. Characters spend pages ruminating on the nature of stories or the passage of time, when what we really need is for them to, you know, do something.

Here’s a taste:

“Cleo believed a lot of things again, the way she had when she was a child. Like the fact that people never outgrew their stories, a living repository of the soul of humankind, all our beauty and sorrow, without end, right inside each of us.”

Pretty, sure. But after the umpteenth musing on the nature of storytelling, you start to feel like you’re trapped in a freshman philosophy seminar.

The Good, The Bad, and The Swampy

What Works:

• Atmospheric setting that really brings coastal Georgia to life
• Intriguing premise with lots of potential
• Some genuinely lovely prose

What Doesn’t:

• Overcomplicated plot that tries to do too much
• Underdeveloped characters, especially in the 1959 timeline
• Pacing issues that kill momentum
• Surface-level treatment of serious themes

The Verdict: A Promising Seed That Doesn’t Quite Bloom

“The Fabled Earth” feels like a novel that got away from its author. There’s a kernel of a great story here, but it’s buried under too many competing plotlines and heavy-handed metaphors. Brock’s clearly passionate about the setting and the power of folklore, but that passion doesn’t always translate into a cohesive narrative.

If you’re a die-hard fan of Southern Gothic or have a particular fascination with Georgia coastal history, you might find enough here to keep you engaged. But for most readers, I’d say this one’s more of a “borrow from the library” than a “must-buy.”

Comparable Reads

If you’re looking for Southern Gothic done right, I’d recommend:

• “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil” by John Berendt (for that coastal Georgia flavor)
• “The Little Friend” by Donna Tartt (for a more nuanced look at Southern childhood)
• “Sing, Unburied, Sing” by Jesmyn Ward (for a powerful exploration of family legacy and race in the South)

Final Thoughts

Look, I wanted to love “The Fabled Earth.” Brock’s previous novel, “The Lost Book of Eleanor Dare,” showed promise. But this one just didn’t come together for me. It’s like a big ol’ pot of Brunswick stew where somebody forgot to add the meat—lots of ingredients, but missing that satisfying center.

That said, Brock’s got talent. With a tighter focus and more ruthless editing, I could see her really hitting her stride in future books. Here’s hoping her next novel finds firmer ground to stand on.