Her Wicked Roots
-
- $20.99
Publisher Description
In this queer retelling of Nathaniel Hawthorne classic gothic story, Rappaccini’s Daughter, a young woman is lured to a lush estate owned by a botanist who might be hiding dark secrets.
Cordelia Beecher is on the run. In search of her missing brother Edward, she has fled the oppressive charity school she was raised in, desperate to find the only family she knows. Using clues from his past letters, she sets off for the sleepy town of Farrow but everyone there claims to have never heard of Edward—not even the man he was supposedly working for as an apprentice.
With nowhere to go, Cordi turns to Lady Evangeline, a local botanist who owns the magnificent Edenfield estate. The benevolent lady of the manor has made it her mission to take young, often traumatized, women into her employ and protect them from man’s world of wicked desires and deceits. Hired as a maid and companion to her enigmatic daughters, Prim and Briar, Cordi quickly settles into Edenfield. Even as her relationship with Briar blossoms, Cordi can’t help but suspect that there are secrets in the estate…and when she stumbles across evidence that Edward was once there, she’s determined to find answers.
Atmospheric, eerie, and thoroughly original, Her Wicked Roots will establish Tanya Pell as a “wickedly creepy” (Josh Winning, author of Heads Will Roll) and vital voice in horror.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Pell's eerie full-length debut (after the novella Cicadas) adapts the Nathaniel Hawthorne short story "Rappaccini's Daughter" into a gothic tale that blends themes of familial devotion and skewed feminism with sapphic longing and elements of horror. Cordelia "Cordi" Beecher runs away from the abusive charity school in which she was raised to search for her brother Edward, whose letters to her have mysteriously ceased. Her search takes her from London to small-town Farrow, Edward's last known location. Despite vague warnings from the locals, she follows his letters to Edenfield Manor, home of Lady Evangeline, a skilled botanist, where Cordi takes a job as a maid. There's something ominous about the manor, and it's only compounded by Evangeline's bizarre house rules, including that all employees must cover their nose, mouth, and hands to "tend to the flowers when called upon," leaving Cordi even more anxious about what grim fate may have befallen Edward. Still, she persists in her attempts to befriend the all-female staff and snoop in the hidden parts of Edenfield—where she discovers some shocking surprises. Even readers unfamiliar with the original will find the plot somewhat predictable, as Pell has a heavy hand with foreshadowing. Still, it's easy to sink into the spooky atmosphere, and an impressive final twist will catch even the most genre-savvy unaware. For readers seeking fun queer gothic horror, this delivers.
