Burn Our Bodies Down
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3.5 • 2 Ratings
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
"Hits like a lightning strike." —Melissa Albert, New York Times bestselling author of The Hazel Wood
From the author of the New York Times bestseller Wilder Girls comes a feverishly twisty thriller about a girl whose past has always been a mystery—until she decides to return to her mother's hometown . . . where history has a tendency to repeat itself.
It's always just been Margot and her mother, struggling to get along. But Margot wants more. She wants family. She wants a past. And she may have just found a clue: an old photograph of her mother's, pointing Margot to a town called Phalene.
Yet when Margot gets there, she feels it in her gut—there's something not right about Phalene. The towering fields of dying corn, odd looks from the locals . . . Then a mysterious girl who could be Margot's twin is pulled from a fire, and Margot realizes that her mother left this town for a reason. But was it to hide her past? Or to protect Margot from what's still here?
The only thing Margot knows for sure is there's poison in her family tree, and its roots are dug so deeply into Phalene that now that she's here, she might never escape.
Praise for Burn Our Bodies Down:
3 STARRED REVIEWS!
“Gritty and strange, this sophomore novel is utterly compelling.” —Booklist, starred review
“Creates a vivid world with a gothic horror–like setting. . . . A riveting, often frightening read.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review
“Strong, suspenseful writing and pitch-perfect touches of horror.” —Shelf Awareness, starred review
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
For Margot Nielsen, 17, it's always just been her and her mother, Jo. Nearly identical down to the gray streaks in their hair, the two share a cramped one-bedroom apartment. Margot's mother insists that she follow very specific rules: keeping a candle lit, and never asking about her father or her mother's family. After a fight with Jo, Margot heads to the pawn shop to repurchase one of her mother's trinkets as a means to apologize; there, she finds her mother's childhood Bible and, tucked inside, a photo of a woman who looks remarkably similar to both her and her mother, with a phone number scrawled on the back. Armed with this information, Margot runs away to find her grandmother, Vera, at a farm called Fairhaven. Once there, Margot begins to uncover deep family secrets and realizes that Jo may have had good reason for her strange behavior. Power (Wilder Girls) creates a vivid world with a gothic horror like setting, where mutant corn stalks produce double helix cobs with pink flesh and where grandmothers are not exactly what they seem. Through Margot, Jo, and Vera, Powers examines the sometimes claustrophobic relationships of mothers and daughters with a genre twist that makes for a riveting, often frightening read. Ages 14 up.
