Wild and Wicked Things
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
"Haunting, immersive, and seething with dark magic."―Alexis Henderson
Oprah Daily Top 25 Fantasy Book of 2022!
In the 1920s, a lush, decadent gothic tale unfolds as a young woman slips into a glamorous world filled with illicit magic, tantalizing romance, and murder.
On Crow Island, people whisper that real magic lurks just below the surface.
But magic doesn’t interest Annie Mason. Not after it stole her future. She’s on the island only to settle her late father’s estate and, hopefully, reconnect with her long-absent best friend, Beatrice, who fled their dreary lives for a more glamorous one.
Yet Crow Island is brimming with temptation, and the most mesmerizing may be her enigmatic new neighbor.
Mysterious and alluring, Emmeline Delacroix is a figure shadowed by rumors of witchcraft. Soon, Annie is drawn into a glittering, haunted world. A world where the boundaries of wickedness are tested, and the cost of illicit magic might be death.
To those who are bright and young; to those who are wild and wicked; welcome to Crow Island.
Praise for Wild and Wicked Things:
“A deep, sensuous exploration of the bonds between three very different, complex women that readers won't soon forget." —Gwenda Bond, New York Times bestselling author
"Brimming with romance and gilded with danger, Wild and Wicked Things is a heady, lyrical gem of a book."—Hannah Whitten, New York Times bestselling author
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
May (The Final Child, written as Fran Dorricott) delivers a beautiful but somewhat ponderous tale of queer love in a post-WWI England where the existence of magic is acknowledged but not accepted. After the war, Crow Island teems with tourists, among them Annie Mason, brought to the island by the death of a father she never knew. While settling his affairs, she lives in a small cottage next to the grand, infamous Cross House, inhabited by a mysterious trio rumored to serve forbidden magic at their Gatsby-esque soirees. Also on the isle is Annie's best friend, Bea, who ran away with barely a goodbye a year earlier—and who is now subtly different in chilling ways. Complicating matters is the inexplicable pull Annie feels toward Emmeline, the butch owner of Cross House. She doesn't understand their kinship, nor does she yet realize that she, Emmeline, and Bea are all inextricably connected. May's atmospheric prose conjures the world down to its last detail but is less successful at driving the plot forward. It doesn't help matters that Emmeline and her Cross House roommates are far more captivating than Annie and Bea. Still, fans of historical fantasy will appreciate the lush scene-setting and be drawn in by the women's complex dynamics. Agent: Diana Beaumont, Marjacq.