Review by Booklist Review
Pelayo (Forgotten Sisters, 2024) is back with another supernatural thriller steeped in its setting, Chicago, and framed by a fairy tale, "Sleeping Beauty." Briar "Bri" Rose is consumed by grief after the passing of her beloved mother, who understood the "thin places" where the dead could overlap with the living and shared that knowledge with her daughter. Now Bri is having vivid nightmares of dead women, while the house she shared with her mother starts reaching out to her, encouraging Bri to fulfill her destiny as a daughter, stop the murders of young women, and help the victims' ghosts find peace. But first she must find the key to defeat that which has cursed her family for generations. An elegiac, profound, and lyrical study in grief, this novel is an atmospheric and original ghost story that hooks readers with its compelling mystery but reels them in with Bri's voice. For fans of Erik Larsen's The Devil in the White City (2003), Christa Carmen's The Daughters of Block Island (2023), and the works of Jennifer McMahon.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Library Journal Review
Briar's childhood home is empty and seems to ache with sadness since her mother's death. She has nightmares of a beautiful woman desperate to get home and hears music from empty rooms. Briar has fallen into a world of grief, transported away from friends and the orderly life she created after she left home. She begins to question if her pain is distorting reality or if her dreams are a warning, as a serial killer who has killed 51 women is terrorizing Chicago. Briar is drawn into the story of the killer and begins to research the murders, and the killer has also focused on Briar in turn. Pelayo (Forgotten Sisters) writes another haunting novel about Chicago that presents a thoughtful, victim-centered view of violent crime. VERDICT Pelayo transports readers, blending fairy tales, history, and urban legends with a true sense of fear. This novel will appeal to fans of horror where questions about the nature of a house haunting loom large, such as A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay, and horror novels in which grief and loss feature heavily, such as White Is for Witching by Helen Oyeyemi.--Lila Denning
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