Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Alering mixes mountain magic and teenage angst in her potent if murky debut set in 1980s Appalachia. Sisters Sheila, 17, and Angie, 12, live on a mountain with their mother and their great-aunt Thena, who took the family in after a hazily described traumatic event involving their father. Sheila, who has a rope tied around her neck that only she can see, works as a dishwasher at a state asylum for the criminally insane when she is not at school, while Angie spends her free time drawing tarot-like cards whose characters talk to her, including one she names the Worm King. After two women are found bludgeoned to death on a hiking trail near Thena's house, the girls put their minds and their magic toward finding the killer. Many strange things happen--a boy who inexplicably lives at the asylum tells Sheila he can see her rope, drawings of Angie's characters appear in a patient's cell, and the sisters eventually turn up useful clues thanks to input from the Worm King. Some readers will be left scratching their heads, but Alering pulls off an evocative portrait of the creepy rural setting. It's a passable Appalachian gothic. Agents: Martha Perotto-Wills and James Mustelier, Bent Agency. (July)
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Review by Library Journal Review
Sheila and Angie are sisters growing up together in 1980s Appalachia. Despite their shared blood, they could not be more different. At 17, Sheila is the responsible one, caring for the home she shares with her sister and mother, who works long days at the nearby state asylum. Twelve-year-old Angie is always out in nature, fighting off imaginary supernatural beings and creating tarot-like cards she uses for divination. When two women hikers are found beaten to death on the nearby Appalachian Trail, the sisters are drawn into the mystery, eventually realizing that something far more threatening than a murderer looms before them. Though they have often inhabited their own orbits, now their only hope of surviving is to draw strength from each other. Alering's evocative debut incorporates Appalachian folklore into a complex story about sisterhood and sinister truths. Narrator Susan Bennett gives a stunning performance, perfectly capturing the regional accents and conveying the lyricism of Alering's lush prose. Bennett's impeccable pacing ensures listeners will feel the world closing in as the story gains momentum. VERDICT Suspenseful and increasingly claustrophobic, this unique Appalachian gothic is sure to hook horror-minded listeners.--Elyssa Everling
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
A murder on the Appalachian Trail draws two sisters deeper into the mystery of their mountain home. Sheila and Angie are growing up in a ramshackle house at the top of a "long, rutted lane," where their extreme poverty singles them out even in the generally impoverished environs of 1980s Appalachia. Along with their mother, Bonnie, and an elderly relative, Thena, the girls scrape by, making due with meat from the rabbits they raise in the yard, vegetables from their garden, and the wild bounty of the mountain to whose side they cling. As if the realities of their lives weren't difficult enough, both girls are also afflicted with elements of mountain magic that make them seem even stranger. Twelve-year-old Angie--a fierce girl whose daydreams all feature guerrilla warfare against invading Dolph Lundgren--lookalike Russians--always carries a pack of index cards on which she's drawn arcane characters like the Dustman, The Twins With Too Many Teeth, and Tangle of Rabbits. She uses the cards for divination and protection, but sometimes the cards seem to use her, choosing for themselves where they will be dealt. Seventeen-year-old Sheila, who's far more traumatized by their isolation, holds herself apart from the rest of the family, intent on guarding her twin secrets: her love for her classmate Juanita and the invisible rope that has been thickening around her neck since childhood. When two women hiking the Appalachian Trail are beaten to death in their tent only two ridges from the girls' home, the whole mountain community--and indeed the mountain itself--is galvanized by the rabid brutality. Each in her own way, Sheila and Angie set out to resolve the wrongness that has entered their world in the murderer's wake. A dense, atmospheric novel whose setting operates as fully as any of its characters, Alering's debut is one part fairy tale, one part thriller, and one part ethnography of an area that endures in our mythopoetic memories even as it vanishes from the face of the land. A compelling debut that glimmers with the lights of the forest as it unwinds its tale. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
