Book Review — Mazywood by Tananarive Due

https://www.tananarivedue.com/bio-contact

Genre: Horror, Historical Fiction
Published by: S&S/Saga Press
Publish date: September 22, 2026
Number of pages: 512 pages
Author’s website: https://www.tananarivedue.com/
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All the Sinners Bleed meets Erasure in this literary thriller from the award-winning author of The Reformatory following the grandson of a famous Black actress who returns to his grandmother’s cabin retreat in the California mountains only to encounter the legacy of her rage born in Old Hollywood.

When Johnny—a filmmaker and grandson of the famous Black actress Mazelle Washington—brings his family to Mazywood, the secluded California mountain lodge left behind by his grandmother, he expects a quiet retreat. Instead, he uncovers a legacy of rage, secrets, and terror that has haunted his family for generations.

Set primarily in the present day, with haunting flashbacks to Hollywood’s Golden Age, Mazywood explores three generations while following Johnny as he pieces together the true story of his grandmother. As a young Black actress whose career spanned from the 1920s to the 1940s, Mazelle brushed shoulders with giants like Lena Horne, Clark Gable, and Hattie McDaniel. But beneath her public appearance, she carried a secret she had kept and nurtured since she was a child, when a dark wish came true and changed the course of her life forever.

Now, fifty years after Mazelle’s death, Johnny finds himself confronting the truth she buried—and the consequences she left behind. For a monster lurks outside Mazywood, hidden for generations, and Johnny brought his family to its hunting grounds.

Rating: 4.5/5

Well, I loved this! The suspense that the author creates with unpredictable moments and the chill she invokes with the setting is impressive! I was hooked.

We have essentially two main timelines to explore a family over multiple generations and the rage that can be passed down: In one timeline, we follow Mazelle Washington’s spectacular rise to childhood stardom with her best friend and dog, Scout, in the 1920s, to her struggle to break free from playing a stereotypical caricature of black maid, and finally to the end of her life as Johnny Washington’s grandma.

The second timeline takes place in the present; we follow Johnny, now 60 years old, with two teenage daughters and a wife expecting their third child. Johnny is also in the film industry as a writer of horror movies. But Johnny is holding a secret— he was traumatized by the few times he spent with his grandmother at her lodge, Bear Creek aka Mazywood, when he was a child. Not only was his aunt violent, but there seemed to be some creature out in the wilderness that he doesn’t trust his memory of, but maybe that’s just the lore of Mount Shasta getting to him. When he and his wife decide to spend the weekend with their family at Mazywood, they find that the rage his grandmother harbored for centuries wasn’t the only thing she tried to keep at bay.

What ensues is a high-octane scramble for survival in the snow-covered mountains where multiple truths are forced out in the open. The story jumps from the viewpoint of the different family members, leading to great character development and inisght to each individual’s emotions. I particularly loved the nods to Black Hollywood greats such as Hattie McDaniel, Lena Horne, and Dorothy Dandridge. Tananarive Due does not shy away from the negative side of the industry— Black actors and actresses bound by harsh contracts, few opportunities for roles that aren’t perpetuating stereotypes, and being barred from segregated areas despite being a professional in that space.

Not gonna lie, I was thrown off by the comps— All Sinner’s Bleed by SA Cosby and Erasure by Percival Everett. All Sinner’s Bleed is a crime thriller (serial killer in the South and the sheriff trying to bring justice to his small town), and Erasure is satirical literary fiction (writer exploiting his identity for success). All three books do have a Black man as a main character, but in Mazywood Johnny is a father whereas the other two are not. His being a father is such an important part of this story that I don’t get in the two comps. I can kind of see the comparison with how Erasure explores race and what “sells,” but don’t go into this book thinking you’re going to get the same kind of story. While reading this, I got similar vibes to The Shining (here’s Johnny!), Cujo, and Misery by Stephen King. But please please please think of Mazywood as a story that will stand out on its own, paving the way for something unique that is hard to compare— a blend of historical fiction showcasing the negative side of fame in Hollywood for Black artists with supernatural, monster horror.

Have you read this book? What are your thoughts? I’d love to know!