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Book Review: They Drown Our Daughters by Katrina Monroe

Cover art for They Drown Our Daughters by Katrina Monroe

They Drown Our Daughters by Katrina Monroe

Poisoned Pen Press, 2022

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1728248202

Available: Paperback, audiobook, audio CD, Kindle edition

Buy:  Bookshop.org  | Amazon.com

 

 

The women of Cape Disappointment, descended from Regina Holm, all meet a singular fate: drowning. In 1881, Regina, hoping to prevent her husband from leaving, was placing a charm when she was interrupted by her 14 year old niece Liza, who realized it was witchcraft and threatened to tell Regina’s husband. In the resulting conflict, Liza was killed, and Regina rolled her up in a rug and dumped her in the nearby ocean. Regina’s daughter Marina witnessed it, and followed Liza into the water, where she drowned. Mothers and daughters in every generation since have been affected by this trauma, tempted into the water where they are drowned by a malevolent ghost girl.

 

Meredith has been long absent, but is now returning with her 7 year old daughter Alice to live with her  estranged mother, Judith, as Meredith finalizes a separation with her wife. Meredith left Cape Disappointment not just because of her difficult relationship with her mother, but to escape the way she was drawn to the water. Now that she’s returned, she feels the pull again, and Alice does, too. Judith and Meredith must decide how far they are willing to go to protect Alice and end the curse. The novel is thoughtful about motherhood, and the way it depicts mothers’ choices and sacrifices.

 

This atmospheric, haunting tale brims with historical detail and vividly depicts the waters and environment of Cape Disappointment, and the fear the women experience, especially the fear of drowning. Highly recommended.

 

 

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski

 

 

Posted on August 8, 2024 by , Reply

Book Review: Serwa Boateng’s Guide to Vampire Hunting (Serwa Boateng #1) by Roseanne A. Brown

Cover art for Serwa Boateng's Guide to Vampire Hunting by Roseanne A. Brown

Serwa Boateng’s Guide to Vampire Hunting (Serwa Boatang #1) by Roseanne A. Brown

Rick Riordan Presents, 2022

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1368066365

Buy: Bookshop.org | Amazon.com

 

 

This is a wild ride of a book. Serwa Boateng is a Ghanaian-American (born in Ghana) 12 year old, the daughter of Slayers of vampires called adze, who look like fireflies and can possess people, and obaifyo, witches who use black magic. She has always been homeschooled, but after a supernatural attack on her home, her parents are sent on a mission she can’t be a part of and she is sent to live with her Aunt Latricia and cousin Roxy in Rocky Gorge, Maryland, a supernatural dead zone, where she will have to attend middle school and deal with microaggressions, hostility, racism, and an adze who has crossed into the dead zone, without help from her parents or the council that directs their missions.

 

When Serwa accidentally starts a food fight in home ec, she and four other students end up with detention, picking up trash in and around the school. While picking trash in the woods, they are attacked by an adze, and when Serwa explains what’s happening, they want to help. Eujun used to be friends with Roxy but when forced to pick between friends picked popular mean girl Ashley. Gavin is Black and a jokester. Mateo is Guatemalan and a model student, who stutters. Roxy’s father has been deported to Ghana. Their teacher, Mrs. Dean, has it out for Serwa, who she calls Sarah Boating, and Serwa thinks she is the adze.

 

The kids are terrible fighters and have no magic. Serwa calls on the earth goddess with a request to bless them with divine wisdom. They are sent to the underworld to retrieve her sword, which never stops fighting. Their mission is successful, and also incredibly funny. The goddess gives the kids divine wisdom and an elemental blessing that will let them draw on the power of their element.

 

The art teacher, Mr. Riley. reveals that the origin of the dead zone is unique because his ancestor, who had divine wisdom, and Roxy’s, who had black magic, combined them to protect enslaved people during a rebellion.

 

Ghanaian mythology is not something I was familiar with, so this was a fresh approach to the “chosen one” storyline. Serwa has a distinct voice and point of view that make her stand out from the current crop. While the story is sometimes predictable, I was wowed by the energy and rage at the end. Never underestimate a teenager in an emotional storm. Highly recommended.

 

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski

Posted on July 28, 2024 by , Reply

Book Review: Hares in the Hedgerow (The Gardening Guidebooks Trilogy #2) by Jessica McHugh

Hares in the Hedgerow (The Gardening Guidebooks Trilogy #2) by Jessica McHugh

Ghoulish Books, 2022

ISBN: 9781943720767

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition

Buy:  Bookshop.org

 

Little did readers of Rabbits in the Garden, the first book to introduce Avery and her crazy mother Faye in The Gardening Guidebooks Trilogy, realize the full extent of the horror to come. As Avery tries to face her demons in the next book, Rabbits in the Hedgerow, by beating them out of her willing counselor while raising her sister’s daughter (Sophie), she slowly learns her mother Faye’s backstory as leader of a demented cult devoted to St. Agnes.

 

The central character in the new narrative, Sophie, is in terrible danger because she has been the victim of her boyfriend Liam’s machinations to bring her into the cult as its central figure. Sophie is blinded by her love for Liam as well as what she believes are her mother’s past crimes. Luckily, however, Sophie is smart enough to sort fact from fiction in time to make important decisions before Faye, her grandmother, leads everyone to their doom. 

 

In Hares in the Hedgerow, McHugh drives us full force into the psychological twists and turns of a cult’s sickness and the damaged minds of its victims. There is no shortage of physical violence in this book. We see the devastation of human lives up close, and it is unrelenting. The plot is a carefully layered history of three generations of women who have been their own worst enemies as well as destroyers of the people around them. Anything can happen, but none of it is going to be good.

 

Just as in the first book in the trilogy, the second is fast-paced with past and present events illuminating our understanding of the characters and leading to yet another explosive ending. But, just as compelling as the momentum is the way McHugh makes us believe we are looking into the minds of real people, the type that would have followed someone like Charles Manson. There is the fear we feel for the characters but also the fear we feel for ourselves knowing that fanaticism and a skewed perception can, in fact, exist side by side in the real world and that everyday people sometimes create horror and then willingly enter into it in senselessly appalling ways. 

 

Reviewed by Nova Hadley

Posted on October 18, 2023 by , Reply
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