Author: Diana Rodriguez Wallach
Genre: horror
Similar books: It Will End Like This by Kyra Leigh
The Violent Season by Sara Walters
Rating:
.JPG)
Summary (provided by publisher): When Mariella Morse accuses her boyfriend, Vik Gomez, of murdering her wealthy parents with an axe, the town is quick to believe her. It doesn’t help that Vik is caught standing over her parents’ bodies with blood on his hands, unable to remember anything about the night in question.
But Vik’s sister, Tessa, knows that Vik would never be capable of such a gruesome crime. Haunted by the mistakes she made that led her family to move to Fall River, MA in the first place, she sets out to prove her brother’s innocence.
Tessa’s search for answers will lead her into a sprawling, notoriously cursed forest, where she and Mariella must face a darkness that has lurked within their town since before the days of Lizzie Borden—the original axe murderess of Fall River.
My opinion: The Lizzie Borden case has been subject of plenty of speculation, so it's ripe for a re-imagining. Rodriguez certainly takes an interesting tactic, exploring motivations and influences, asking us to consider guilt and responsibility. The book makes overtures towards questions of racism and classism but these concepts are not explored in any true depth. Vik, as we meet him, is too sympathetic. Mariella is too manipulative. There's no nuance to the plot that has us wondering.
Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley
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