Weekly Read: Swallowed by Meg Smitherman

This past week I devoured Swallowed, a sci-fi horromance novella by Meg Smitherman. Don’t know what Horromance is? Check out my interview with Meg on Smart Bitches Trashy Books, where she goes into detail about the genre.

Smitherman’s previous horromance, Thrum, was one of my favourite reads of 2024, so I went into this novella with high expectations. Although I didn’t end up enjoying Swallowed quite as much as Thrum, Swallowed was still a super fun and deliciously creepy read. This novella delivers the smut and goosebumps promised, plus an unexpected HEA of sorts. Meg Smitherman continues to produce top quality indie content with her own quirky twist.

The novella follows a team of three scientists and a soldier as they land on a planet that they hope will provide a new start for humanity.

Jill, our POV character, also hopes to discover the truth about what happened to her mother’s crew when they explored the planet a generation ago. Everyone but Jill’s mother disappeared, and many suspect Jill’s mother of murder.

What Jill most definitely won’t do is pursue her crush on Ben, the soldier assigned to guard their team.

At first, the crew is entranced by the planet’s beauty. After spending their lives on a post apocalyptic Earth that can barely support life, it seems like paradise.

The elation even emboldens Jill enough to make a move on Ben after all. It turns out Ben’s been hiding a long-time crush on Jill, too.

But soon it’s clear that the team’s awe and elation are more than their own emotions, and Jill and Ben’s frantic sexcapades stem from more than the thrill of a new relationship. Something is taking over everyone’s minds, and the almost-sentient way the planet seems to be interacting with them is starting to get creepy.

As the mental games become deadly, Jill will have to fight the madness and follow the clues left by her mother in order to save the man she loves before she loses the only person who’s ever seen her for herself and not as the daughter of a murderer.

The premise of this story is such fun–a planet that wants to f*ck you and also murder you? Such a perfect concept for a horromance! And Smitherman carries it our really well through Jill’s POV, making her thoughts swing back and forth from logical to messed-up-in-the-most-deliciously-creepy-ways as she fights the madness.

For me, the only element that would make this novella even better would be a scene where the scientists seem like serious scientists. They start out bantering and then go directly into drinking themselves silly when they reach camp. If the team had started out serious and science-focused for the first scene or two, I think it would have served to highlight the change in the group’s dynamic as they descend into madness.

That being said, I loved the banter. Loved how Jill’s backstory unfolded. Loved the unexpected sweetness of the romance with Ben. By the time the madness hit, I had forgotten about the lack of science and was totally sucked in by the spice and the suspense. I couldn’t put my kindle down because I needed to know what would happen next!

It takes skill for an author to be able to accomplish all that and bring the story to a satisfying ending in the short space of a novella-length story. I’m super impressed with Smitherman’s work and I’m definitely going to keep reading and recommending her books.

Speaking of which, the author has just announced that she’ll be releasing another horromance soon–this one involving ethereal male “sex bots in historical garb” and “morally black FMC’s.”

Yes. I am most definitely preordering!