If you’ve ever worked in the service industry, been abused or have a burning desire to rail against the unfairness of the world, this is the book for you. It’s like The Menu without the restaurant. It’s Saw when John Kramer wasn’t actively involved in the implementation phase of the traps. It’s the stupid money you saw in Ready or Not. It’s Miss Inch from the original The Parent Trap declaring ‘Let the punishment fit the crime.’
Dez knows how hard it is to get a foot in the door in the fashion industry. Unlike many in its ranks, Dez wasn’t born with a silver spoon in her mouth. Luckily, the school of hard knocks builds resilience and resourcefulness.
If she can’t get a job in high fashion in the traditional way, she has to move sideways. That’s what you do when you grew up poor: You think outside the box.
After a chance meeting with “Patrick Ruskin Yucky Yucky Ick Ick Ick”, son of the editor-in-chief of one of the most prestigious fashion magazines, Dez finds her in. Willing to suffer through some short term compromises to make the connection of a lifetime, she’s tickled pink when she secures an invitation to the Ruskin family island. Oh, sorry, Island.
You participate in Island life at your own risk.
Her timing isn’t as fortuitous as she had hoped, though, because she’s not the only one looking to make a connection this Easter. The army of pink, AKA the servants, are individually and collectively hoping to connect the Ruskins with what they deserve. Like a scalpel to expose their squishy underbelly and other creative dispatches. Roses will never smell the same.
I adored this murder book. It’s revenge fantasy in all its glory. It’s levelling the playing field between the haves and the have-nots. It’s the victimised resisting those who have oppressed and abused them in spectacular form.
I only wish this book had been longer and that there were more Ruskins who needed to learn the error of their ways. If this is ever made into a movie, I will be buying a copy so I can watch it repeatedly. I definitely need to read more books by this author.
Thank you so much to NetGalley and Titan Books for the opportunity to read this novella.
Once Upon a Blurb
Thrift fashionista Dez Lane doesn’t want to date Patrick Ruskin; she just wants to meet his mother, the editor-in-chief of Nouveau magazine. When he invites her to his family’s big Easter reunion at their ancestral home, she’s certain she can put up with his arrogance and fend off his advances long enough to ask Marie Caulfield-Ruskin for an internship someone with her pedigree could never nab through the regular submission route.
When they arrive at the enormous island mansion, Dez is floored — she’s never witnessed how the 1% lives before in all their ridiculous, unnecessary luxury. But once all the family members are on the island and the ferry has departed, things take a dark turn. For decades, the Ruskins have made their servants sign contracts that are basically indentured servitude, and with nothing to lose, the servants have decided their only route to freedom is to get rid of the Ruskins for good…
Schizanthus Nerd 