Review by Booklist Review
Lucy and Jake met at 20, and followed a typical trajectory of dating and breeding. In her mid-thirties, Lucy spends her days caring for their sons and household, and with Jake, stokes a satisfying and unbreakable bond. When Jake cheats on Lucy with a coworker, she is absolutely devastated. She never imagined Jake could hurt her so profoundly. The infidelity opens up in Lucy a new capacity for pain, and also for inflicting harm. She remembers her childhood obsession with the harpy; a mythical monster with a woman's head and a bird's body, known for personifying a rapacious storm. Lucy decides to become the harpy of her own life and chooses three radical punishments for Jake to endure. They vary in physical, emotional, and social harm, and get sequentially harsher, sure to keep readers blazing through to the ferocious end. Hunter's (The End We Start From, 2017) second novel is a gripping journey inside the mind of a woman betrayed that will leave readers wondering just how far they would go for revenge or forgiveness.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
An unquenchable thirst for revenge drives Lucy, a wife and mother, to the brink of madness in Hunter's sleek, supernatural thriller (after The End We Start From). Things begin as Lucy makes a consensual razor cut on husband Jake's thigh. The story then flashes back to a phone call from Lucy's acquaintance David Holmes, who says Jake is having an affair with his wife, Vanessa, who works with Jake. Short italicized sections charting Lucy's obsession with, and evolution into, the mythical half-bird harpy creature alternate with a tightly controlled chronological narrative. Jake tearfully declares he will end the affair, but he doesn't, while Lucy grows passive, observing how their relationship has become "a series of non-communications" and fights. A détente is reached by Lucy and Jake in a mutual desire to protect their sons, and eventually Jake reignites the couple's sexual relationship. When David asks Lucy to persuade Jake to seek another job, she cuts David off abruptly, unable to share that she's designed her own course of punishment for Jake. Shortly after, Lucy catches Jake in a lie, which propels the novel to its dark conclusion. Lucy's narration is irresistible, though the harpy sections, which suggest Lucy is physically transforming, are underdeveloped by comparison. Hunter maintains suspense until the final act of her satisfactory tale. Agent: Emma Paterson, Aitken Alexander Assoc. (Nov.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
For Lucy, a freelance copywriter, and husband Jake, a university biologist, life with two young sons hums along predictably until Lucy receives a phone call informing her of Jake's affair with the caller's wife, an older colleague of Jake's. What comes next is also predictable--the outrage, the apology, the tears, and the eventual remorse. But predictability flies out the window when a contrite Jake offers Lucy three opportunities for payback. To exact revenge, Lucy revisits her childhood obsession with and later academic interest in the harpy, a mythological creature that punishes men for their sins. The tension ratchets up as Lucy spirals downward. Short, spare chapters, interspersed with harpy folklore and memories of an abusive childhood, heighten the sense of dread that pervades Hunter's intriguing take on revenge, which follows her debut, The End We Start From. VERDICT This is a taut horror story wrapped inside a domestic drama of two people at war with each other. A scarily satisfying read. [See Prepub Alert, 2/4/20.]--Barbara Love, formerly with Kingston Frontenac P.L., Ont.
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
When a young British mother discovers her husband's infidelity, she is transformed by rage. "They were colleagues, then friends, and at first I suspected nothing. There were long emails, glimpses appearing on his phone, apparitions. The virgin blue of his notification light in the darkness." Hunter's second novel after a successful debut with similar mythical and maternal preoccupations (The End We Start From, 2017) is narrated by Lucy Stevenson, who receives a voicemail from the husband of a woman her husband, Jake, works with in academia informing her that the spouses are sleeping together. The other couple is about a decade older, which drives the knife even deeper. With no further ado or psychological development, Lucy goes right off her rocker, spurred by a lifelong obsession with the mythological figure of the harpy, a vengeful bird with a woman's face, developed in brief, portentous interludes. "I asked my mother what a harpy was, and she told me: they punish men for the things they do." This aspect of the book recalls the work of Angela Carter but lacks her black humor and stringency. Rather quickly, Lucy and Jake settle on a plan to even the score--she will hurt him three times. So she does. Then something happens at the end, but it's not quite clear what. Hunter's taut, intentional prose is strong on physical descriptions--"toddlers scooting fatly past me on balance bikes," droopy daffodils resembling "grumpy children dressed by their mothers"--but she studs her narrative with philosophical assertions that are perplexing at best: "Marriage and motherhood are like death in this way, and others too: no one comes back unchanged." "A children's party, like a death, is never real until it is happening." A shimmery prose style cannot save this slim, simplistic, and pretentious tale. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
