“The roses say to say your prayers”
When Sam returns to her childhood home in North Carolina, she’s ready to make her way through some boxed wine and English crime shows with her mother. She’s not expecting the changes her mother has made to their once colourful home.
The walls are now white and an icky racist painting that hasn’t seen the light of day since Gran Mae died eighteen years ago has returned to its previous place over the fireplace. It’s almost as if the house has gone back in time.
Sam is about to learn that your childhood home is not always a welcoming place for adult you. The past is there. And sometimes there are vultures!
“Vultures are extremely sensitive to the dead. Particularly when the dead are doing things they shouldn’t be.”
This was a quick read and I enjoyed trying to figure out what Sam’s mother was so afraid of. While the gist of what was going on seemed obvious fairly early on, Sam, with her scientific background, kept looking for logical explanations so it took her a while to catch up.
My most recent T. Kingfisher read prior to this one was Nettle & Bone, which I absolutely adored. I fell in love with Bonedog and he, if nothing else, gave me unrealistic expectations for this book. After all, Bonedog can’t show up in every T. Kingfisher book just because I miss him, can he? I must say that the vultures definitely gave Bonedog a run for his money, though.
If you enjoy books where returning to your childhood home comes with a tad more horror than you were hoping for, you may also enjoy Sarah Gailey’s Just Like Home.
Favourite no context quote:
“I feel like crap and I seem to be wearing a ham.”
Thank you so much to NetGalley and Titan Books for the opportunity to read this book.
Once Upon a Blurb
In this ordinary North Carolina suburb, family secrets are always in bloom.
Samantha Montgomery pulls into the driveway of her family home to find a massive black vulture perched on the mailbox, staring at the house.
Inside, everything has changed. Gone is the eclectic warmth Sam expects; instead the walls are a sterile white. Now, it’s very important to say grace before dinner, and her mother won’t hear a word against Sam’s long-dead and little-missed grandmother, who was the first to put down roots in this small southern town.
The longer Sam stays, the stranger things get. And every day, more vultures circle overhead…
Schizanthus Nerd 