It’s been said that the mistakes of intelligent people do a lot more damage than the mistakes of stupid people because they’re so unexpected. That has certainly got to be the case here.
Jude Wolf is a rich girl who’s been cast aside by her upperclass family because of an idiotic mistake she made by dabbling in the occult. Having made a colossal error, she decided to double down and repeat her error. So she wound up literally stinking, creating rot and decay wherever she passes and having a leg that’s so necrotic it’s a wonder it doesn’t drop off with every step she takes.
Zara Jones isn’t upperclass but she’s got an incisive intelligence, a fierce will and a desperate love for her deceased sister that rises almost to mania. Stuck in the second stage of grief—anger—she’s determined to bring her sister back from the grave in spite of strident warnings that this would be a HUGE mistake. She’s brilliant. She’s studied. She knows better than the so-called experts. If she wants a thing, she goes after it full throttle and damn the consequences.
Emer Byrne is a superior witch, gifted in spellcraft and curses, who always warns her victims of the horrific consequences of trading their lives and souls away for a transitory and illusory power. The power of her female coven drew the wrath of murderous men and she’s been on the run ever since the decimation of her family.
What binds them is that they are female. They are women trapped in a patriarchal society, one that drips with unseen misogyny, simmering contempt for female power and the casual lack of fear that men display around women. Women will never be a threat to these men and, if they are, they will stamp them out ruthlessly, secure in their utter right to do so.
It’s not a foreign country, future dystopia or an imaginary world. This world, in which women must remain hyperaware of where they are at all times, when a serial killer means the women must obey a curfew (not that men should amend their behaviors) and where it’s perfectly acceptable for men to attack a woman is this world, the one we know, the one we inhabit. It’s a grim reminder that political correctness is no match for deep-rooted sexist behavior.
You understand why these women resort to drastic and terrifying means to protect themselves. Haven’t they been taught all their lives that they must maintain a cautious distance from the males around them? Haven’t they learned that there is safety in (female) numbers, that keys should be turned into makeshift weapons and that strange men can’t be trusted?
The novel paints a dire but truthful picture of what happens when these basic rules are forgotten, when innocent girls wander down a dark path, when the man who claims to love them is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
Death, grisly, bloody and terrible, is the result.
Although that makes their camaraderie and female solidarity acceptable, you still grit your teeth when these girls make ONE STUPID MISTAKE AFTER ANOTHER. That’s all this trio seems to do! It’s like a running gag: one woman states that she has a really bad idea and the other two decide to go along with it! I don’t care how frantic you are to talk to your dead relative one last time. You go to a darned psychic; you don’t raise a corpse from the dead.
It’s that blatant idiocy that keeps me from giving this book a high review. While the magic craft that is typed on the page is new and interesting enough for me to find it fascinating, the ridiculous behavior of the central distaff trio makes me want to rip my hair out by the roots. When a corpse-raising turns into a final girls scenario, my patience was officially at an end.
Girl power, my foot.
Jude Wolf is a rich girl who’s been cast aside by her upperclass family because of an idiotic mistake she made by dabbling in the occult. Having made a colossal error, she decided to double down and repeat her error. So she wound up literally stinking, creating rot and decay wherever she passes and having a leg that’s so necrotic it’s a wonder it doesn’t drop off with every step she takes.
Zara Jones isn’t upperclass but she’s got an incisive intelligence, a fierce will and a desperate love for her deceased sister that rises almost to mania. Stuck in the second stage of grief—anger—she’s determined to bring her sister back from the grave in spite of strident warnings that this would be a HUGE mistake. She’s brilliant. She’s studied. She knows better than the so-called experts. If she wants a thing, she goes after it full throttle and damn the consequences.
Emer Byrne is a superior witch, gifted in spellcraft and curses, who always warns her victims of the horrific consequences of trading their lives and souls away for a transitory and illusory power. The power of her female coven drew the wrath of murderous men and she’s been on the run ever since the decimation of her family.
What binds them is that they are female. They are women trapped in a patriarchal society, one that drips with unseen misogyny, simmering contempt for female power and the casual lack of fear that men display around women. Women will never be a threat to these men and, if they are, they will stamp them out ruthlessly, secure in their utter right to do so.
It’s not a foreign country, future dystopia or an imaginary world. This world, in which women must remain hyperaware of where they are at all times, when a serial killer means the women must obey a curfew (not that men should amend their behaviors) and where it’s perfectly acceptable for men to attack a woman is this world, the one we know, the one we inhabit. It’s a grim reminder that political correctness is no match for deep-rooted sexist behavior.
You understand why these women resort to drastic and terrifying means to protect themselves. Haven’t they been taught all their lives that they must maintain a cautious distance from the males around them? Haven’t they learned that there is safety in (female) numbers, that keys should be turned into makeshift weapons and that strange men can’t be trusted?
The novel paints a dire but truthful picture of what happens when these basic rules are forgotten, when innocent girls wander down a dark path, when the man who claims to love them is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
Death, grisly, bloody and terrible, is the result.
Although that makes their camaraderie and female solidarity acceptable, you still grit your teeth when these girls make ONE STUPID MISTAKE AFTER ANOTHER. That’s all this trio seems to do! It’s like a running gag: one woman states that she has a really bad idea and the other two decide to go along with it! I don’t care how frantic you are to talk to your dead relative one last time. You go to a darned psychic; you don’t raise a corpse from the dead.
It’s that blatant idiocy that keeps me from giving this book a high review. While the magic craft that is typed on the page is new and interesting enough for me to find it fascinating, the ridiculous behavior of the central distaff trio makes me want to rip my hair out by the roots. When a corpse-raising turns into a final girls scenario, my patience was officially at an end.
Girl power, my foot.