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Book Review: Within These Wicked Walls by Lauren Blackwood

 

cover art for Within These Wicked Walls by Lauren Blackwood

Within These Wicked Walls by Lauren Blackwood

Wednesday Books, 2021

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1250787101

Available: Hardcover, Kindle edition, audiobook ( Bookshop.org | Amazon.com )

 

 

Within These Wicked Walls takes its inspiration from the classic gothic romance Jane Eyre. Set in England, Jane is an orphan who arrives to work as a governess in Thornfield Hall, home to the wealthy Edward Rochester, and the two fall in love. Author Lauren Blackwood moves the story to contemporary Ethiopia, replacing Jane with Andi, an impoverished Black debtera, who is hired to exorcise the malevolent spirits haunting the opulent Thorne House and its owner, nineteen-year-old Magnus Thorne. The book is focused in on Andi and Magnus and their attempts to eliminate the curse of the Evil Eye that dooms anyone who looks into Magnus’ eyes and causes the deeply disturbing hauntings in the house. Blackwood turns the horror and the supernatural up and intensifies the romance, creating an emotional whirlwind that will blow the reader away. Blackwood does not shy away from addressing race, women’s independence, and colonialism, all of which impact the story in a much different manner than in the original book.

 

Recommended for readers, especially teens, in the mood for a gothic romance, an African-inspired fantasy, a terrifying haunted house, or any combination.

 

Contains: body horror, gore, violence, death, physical and emotional abuse, references to suicide.

 

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski

 

Posted on February 8, 2022 by , Reply

Book Review: The Book of Living Secrets by Madeline Roux


The Book of Living Secrets by Madeline Roux

Quill Tree Press, 2022

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0062941428

Available:  Preorder (available March 8) hardcover, Kindle edition, audiobook ( Bookshop.org | Amazon.com )

 

So many readers wish they could enter the worlds of their favorite books. The Book of Living Secrets will make them think twice.

 

Adelle and Connie have been best friends for years, and they are both obsessed with an obscure romance novel set in the Victorian era titled Moira, which tells the story of  a wealthy Boston socialite who shares a forbidden love with Severin, an impoverished artist. Moira, already engaged to Kincaid, who is also of her social class, involves her loyal friend Orla in her intrigues to meet Severin. One night, Adelle convinces Connie to visit an occult shop and participate in a spell that will send them into Moira. Separated into different parts of the book, the two girls discover that the romantic world they immersed themselves in is only a small part of a much larger, nightmarish world, and that the characters in the book they read are much different in person. The secondary and background characters have interior lives, feelings, and motivations that are never examined in the book, but take center stage as Adelle and Connie attempt to repair the interdimensional rifts creating a doorway for elder gods to pass through that they created by traveling into the book, and restore the characters’ world, before returing to their own.

 

The Book of Living Secrets creatively critiques tropes of portal fantasy, romance fiction, and fandom, while exploring identity and relationships. Madeline Roux has written a gripping, imaginative, if sometimes predictable, tale that teenagers will enjoy. Recommended.

 

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski

Posted on February 3, 2022 by , Reply

Book Review: All These Bodies by Kendare Blake

All These Bodies by [Kendare Blake]

All These Bodies by Kendare Blake

Quill Tree Books, 2021

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0062977168

Available: Hardcover, Kindle edition, audiobook ( Bookshop.org | Amazon.com )

 

In All These Bodies, Kendare Blake imagines a murder spree throughout the Midwest in the summer of 1958, known as the “Bloodless Murders” or “Dracula Murders” because the victims have all been drained of blood. On September 19, the Carlson family is found murdered in their Minnesota farmhouse, with a fifteen-year-old girl, Marie Catherine Hale, drenched in blood, still alive. Is she a victim, accomplice, or killer?

 

Michael Jensen, the seventeen-year-old son of the sheriff with hopes of becoming a journalist, is the only person Marie Catherine will talk to, and revealing the killer is her one chance to avoid being extradited to Nebraska and tried for the death penalty. Getting the truth out of Marie Catherine is trickier than just asking her questions once and expecting straightforward answers, though; it becomes a long, drawn out process that creates a sympathetic connection between the two teens. Michael is also facing other dangers: his peers are turning against him as he continues to spend time with Marie Catherine, and he’s almost certain he’s being watched, and perhaps even hunted, in a way that feels almost supernatural.

 

Inspired by the fictionalized murders in Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood and a murder spree that occurred in the Midwest in 1958, Blake has created a gripping, grisly, fictional “true crime” story that clarifies what it means to be human, a monster, or both.  Recommended.

 

Contains: murder, graphic descriptions of gore, blood drinking, mentions of pedophilia

 

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski

 

 

 

Posted on October 14, 2021 by , Reply
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