Publication Date: October 7, 2025
In the muggy, insect-ridden town of Pinecreek, Louisiana, college dropout Tess Lavigne is watching two bickering siblings while their parents are away. Her listless day drinking is interrupted when someone emerges from the woods behind the house. Filthy and feral, the daughter of religious fundamentalists, the girl known in town as Sister Gail convinces Tess to take her in for the night. The strange events of that evening will set the course for Tess’s future, and Sister Gail’s ultimate fate.
Meanwhile, other residents of Pinecreek try to cobble together a future from what little they have, their lives intersecting in small and not-so-small ways. Sisters fight to define independence for themselves (and from each other), while two young women on a bicycling trip wonder what their relationship promises, or threatens. Throughout, a deeply unsettling presence connects the characters to the buried secrets of Pinecreek: the ominous Thea, a malevolent shape-shifting entity whose rage and despair stems from a tragic history of misogyny, maternal loss, and stolen ambitions.
As time marches forward, so does Tess, creating a new path for herself while accepting what can never be entirely left behind. At times atmospheric and eerie, and at others all too real, Sister Creatures is about manufacturing resilience from nothing but the bonds that tie us together.
Four women serve as the primary characters in a debut story by author Laura Venita Green.
It’s a bit challenging to describe precisely what Sister Creatures is about. All of the characters are dealing with hardships of some kind, but their experiences are delivered in chunks featuring each character.
On the surface, I would say it is a deep dive into relationships, but the shape-shifting entity doesn’t quite fit with that theory. I felt drawn to Lainey because of her struggles to find success while worrying about her younger sister, who suffers from some undiagnosed mental illness.
Because there doesn’t appear to be a consistent theme connecting the characters, it was difficult to stay invested. The writer knows the mechanical elements of the craft, but this particular story didn’t resonate with me.
Sister Creatures delivers a story that highlights the challenges faced by four women.
Laura Venita Green is a writer and translator with an MFA from Columbia University, where she was an undergraduate teaching fellow. Her fiction won the Story Foundation Prize, received two Pushcart Prize Special Mentions, was a finalist for the Missouri Review Jeffrey E. Smith Editors’ Prize and the Tennessee Williams & New Orleans Literary Festival Fiction Contest, and appears in Story, Joyland, The Missouri Review, and Fatal Flaw.
