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Book Review: Extasia by Claire Legrand

Extasia by Claire Legrand

Extasia by Claire Legrand

Katherine Tegen Books, 2022

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0062696632

Available: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition, audiobook

( Bookshop.org |  Amazon.com )

 

Extasia is a fiercely feminist dark novel of a post-apocalyptic community drenched in patriarchy and cult-like violent misogyny straight from The Crucible and Year of the Witching. The dogma is that women were responsible for the destruction of the world and thus four young girls are honored with the “sacred duty” of becoming saints, scapegoats who once a month face brutal mob violence from the community in order to expiate their sins. A serial killer has been murdering men, and the upcoming sainthood of Amity Barrow is expected to bless the community and end the killing. When the murders continue, Amity and her sister saints realize they must find a way to either solve the murders or escape. Just as things seem desperate, she is transported with her sister saints to a secret world, Avazel, and invited to join a coven and learn to wield the magical, dark power of extasia to end the killings and realize her own strength… but there’s more going on under the surface than she knows.

 

Extasia is visceral, violent, and disturbing in its intensity, but Amity is not completely isolated. She develops imperfect but strong relationships with girls and women from her community and the coven that survive even significant disagreements. While it’s somewhat heavy-handed, Legrand has outdone herself in creating a dark, powerful, horror story made even more terrible by the foundation of lies, grisly violence, and hate on which human survival after the apocalypse has been built..Recommended for ages 16+

 

Contains: violence to and killing of animals, attempted rape, torture, gore, murder, body horror, violence, gaslighting, religious trauma.

 

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski

Posted on March 7, 2022 by , Reply

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
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