Such Pretty Flowers
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
RECOMMENDED BY GILLIAN FLYNN ON THE TODAY SHOW • “A lush, seductive Southern Gothic that’s deliciously queer . . . K. L. Cerra’s gift for gorgeous, gruesome atmosphere had me spellbound.”—Layne Fargo, author of They Never Learn
A woman investigating her brother’s apparent suicide finds herself falling for her prime suspect—his darkly mysterious girlfriend—in this “creepy, compelling, and utterly original” (Karen Dionne) thriller.
“Get it out of me.”
It was the last message Holly received from her brother, Dane, before he was found cleaved open in the lavish Savannah townhouse of his girlfriend, Maura. Police ruled his death a suicide sparked by psychosis, but Holly can’t shake the idea that something else must have happened—something involving another message he sent earlier that night about a “game” Maura wanted to play.
Determined to discover the truth, Holly begins to stalk Maura, a magnetic, black-eyed florist with a penchant for carnivorous plants. But what begins as an investigation quickly veers into a fixation that lures Holly into the depths of Maura’s world: Savannah high society, eerie black roses, and a whisper of something more sinister. Soon Holly is feeling a dark attraction to the one woman she shouldn’t trust. As Holly falls deeper for Maura and her secrets, she’s left with only one choice: find out what happened to Dane or meet the same fate.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
With the death of 22-year-old artist Dane ruled a suicide (unsurprising in view of his dramatic psychotic breakdown during the preceding months), it falls to Dane's distraught sister Holly—who can't forgive herself for ignoring his disturbing final text—to dig for answers, in Cerra's beguiling if flawed debut. Holly focuses on Dane's girlfriend, seductive young society florist Maura. Initially disarmed by the elfin beauty's seeming vulnerability, librarian Holly, who has been apartment hunting, accepts Maura's offer to temporarily move into her gargoyle-guarded Savannah, Ga., townhouse. But even as she finds herself surprisingly attracted to her new housemate, Holly can't ignore the sinister discoveries she's starting to make, especially concerning the florist's apparently formidable prowess as an herbal apothecary. Cerra brews up an atmospheric fever dream of a tale, as dark as Maura's signature midnight-hued roses—until increasingly implausible twists and a protagonist who proves hollow at the core snap the spell. Still, hardcore fans of Southern gothic will want to have a look.
