Sing Her Down
A Novel
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3.7 • 9 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
“Urgent, haunting, and fearless.” —Megan Abbott, author of Beware the Woman
A Barnes & Noble Mystery & Thriller Pick | An Elle Best Book of the Summer | An Apple Best Book of May | A Most Anticipated Book from BookPage, SPY, Lit Hub, and Paste Magazine
Cormac McCarthy meets Killing Eve in this gritty, razor-sharp thriller following two indelible women on a path to certain destruction
Florence “Florida” Baum is not the hapless innocent she claims to be when she arrives at the Arizona women’s prison—or so her ex-cellmate Diosmary Sandoval keeps insinuating.
Dios knows the truth about Florida’s crimes, understands what Florence hides even from herself: that she was never a victim of circumstance, an unlucky bystander misled by a bad man. Dios knows that darkness lives in women too, despite the world’s refusal to see it. And she is determined to open Florida’s eyes and unleash her true self.
When an unexpected reprieve gives both women their freedom, Dios’s fixation on Florida turns into a dangerous obsession, and a deadly cat-and-mouse chase ensues from Arizona to the desolate streets of Los Angeles.
With blistering, incisive prose, the award-winning author Ivy Pochoda delivers a fast-paced L.A. crime novel for the ages. Gripping and immersive, Sing Her Down is a spellbinding thriller that, at its core, shows just what an angry woman is capable of.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
We’re obsessed with Ivy Pochoda, whose previous books Wonder Valley and Visitation Street crackled with menace and energy. In this rip-roaring neo-noir mystery, two very different outlaws, Dios and Florida, end up on the run after being released from prison. The bad blood between these two women pushes them into a series of wild escapades—and it’s not long before all this chaos and mayhem attracts the attention of a cop named Lobos who has troubles of her own, like the mentally ill husband who’s stalking her. Pochoda’s writing is both poetic and violent, just like the story itself, and her searing, detailed descriptions make postapocalyptic L.A. feel like a character of its own. We loved this dark, page-turning read.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This devastating thriller from Pochoda (These Women) examines the brutal politics inside an Arizona women's penitentiary and the bleak mid-Covid landscape outside it. The first section focuses on three inmates: Kace, who is haunted by voices of the dead; Florida, a wealthy young white woman who was an accessory to murder, driving the getaway car while high; and Dios, Florida's former cellmate, who's determined to make Florida admit she's no better than anyone else in their situation. Due to the strain of the pandemic, Florida and Dios are released from their sentences early and flee parole on a bus to Los Angeles. On the way, the pair makes one bad decision after another, garnering the attention of Lobos, a detective who wrestles with her own guilt and rage after surviving domestic violence; their explosive interplay takes up the back half of the action. In muscular prose, Pochoda plumbs the psychological depths of her fascinating characters and extracts high drama from their shifting allegiances. This searing, accomplished page-turner deserves a wide audience.
