Predatory Natures
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
A teen girl's dream job aboard a luxury train derails when she discovers the strange cargo being transported—a mysterious and beautiful greenhouse—but its flowering façade may hide deadly thorns beneath, in this atmospheric and lush novel from the author of Those We Drown.
When Lara Williams gets a summer job aboard the luxury train the Banebury, she thinks she’s landed a five-star escape from her past. Even after she learns that her ex-friend Rhys, who she definitely did not have feelings for before their relationship imploded, is one of her coworkers, she’s determined to make things work.
But on the first day of their journey, the trip takes a strange turn. Two mysterious carriages filled with an array of beautiful and rare plants are attached to the Banebury in the middle of the night.
And with them comes a pair of siblings. Wealthy, mysterious, and charismatic, Gwen and Gwydion claim the plants they’re transporting are for research, but Lara can’t shake the feeling that there’s something . . . otherworldly about the strange blooms. Something that will stop at nothing to ensure the Banebury never reaches its destination.
Soon Lara will learn: You can’t outrun your troubles. You have to grab them by their roots. And if she can’t unearth the secrets of the Banebury, they might drag her down for good. . . .
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
After failing her exams, London-raised Lara Williams spends her unexpected gap year working on the Banebury, an Estonia-bound luxury train. Thrilled to leave behind her alcohol-dependent father and her manipulative ex-boyfriend in Wales, Lara hopes to reinvent herself and "be born anew." But when estranged bestie (and unrequited crush) Rhys joins the Banebury staff, Lara's past proves impossible to outrun—and the train, laden with mysterious cargo and equally eerie passengers, totes its own sinister secrets. Sibling passengers Gwen and Gwydion claim to be researching accelerated plant growth, but Lara's suspicions about the strange flowers they've brought aboard are soon confirmed in a turn of events that, unsettlingly, hints at the plants' connection to Lara. Can a teen determined to flee her own past uproot the truth about the sentient flora in time to save her future and confess her feelings to Rhys? As Lara discovers parallels between the Banebury's monstrous freight and her real-life adversaries, Goldsmith (Our Wicked Histories) deftly braids folklore, supernatural horror, and romantic suspense into a layered novel that confronts emotional abuse. Lara is white-cued; supporting characters are intersectionally diverse. Ages 14–up.
