My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

 

Since her husband’s death, Lily has found that the absences of ordinary, predictable sounds— Daniel shaving in the washroom, Daniel humming, Daniel sitting on the edge of their bed to pull on his boots and then clunking his feet on the floor— are more noticeable than the sounds themselves ever were.

 

She’d also blushed then, redness rising up her chest and creeping over the top of her high-necked dress collar, as she realized for the first time in years… she was regarding a man and feeling surprisingly delicious tingles dance over her skin.

 

Marvena’s hand shakes as she points to something on the floor. A hooded cape, sewn from rough white cotton. The pointed hood has buttonholes to attach a face covering, with slits cut for eyes. Lily recoils, more startled by this than by the snake from moments ago.

 

Lily’s gaze hardens as she looks up at Abe, the tallest man she’s ever met, and so slender it’s hard to imagine he takes any joy in eating… his exaggerated Adam’s apple as still as a stone lodged in his throat, his chin and jawline shaved so smoothly as to suggest that even stubble is too scared to brush his face.

 

You’re sad, Lily. It’s been more’n a year, the length of time people give for mourning, but there’s no clock running on sorrow.

 

My Review:

 

I was quickly pulled into this quagmire of a tale by the mesmerizing storytelling quality, insightful observations, and perceptiveness of the writing. It was highly descriptive, swirling with atmosphere, and taut with raw emotions that were close to the surface as well as deeply buried – primarily frustration and grief. I was so deeply engaged I found myself holding tension in my body and clenching my teeth as I read. The main characters were deeply flawed women who were attempting to solve an intriguing murder in a small village that was, “inaccessible by automobile. Folks can get in and out only by train, mule, or foot,” all while struggling with their own personal issues and societal limitations of the 1920s. They were constantly on edge, physically and emotionally exhausted, hungry, anxious, frustrated and thwarted at every turn, yet striving to do their best and taking great personal risks. I cringed for them as I sucked down copious amounts of wine while they labored to untangle several complicated subplots to ultimately merge their diverse storylines.   This intensely complex book was ingeniously and cunningly contrived and well worth the effort.

 

I will admit my ignorance, I had no idea there was such a group as the WKKK— the Women of the Ku Klux Klan. I should not have been surprised, but I was, and profoundly so.   These not so secret groups were found all across the nation in the 1920s and were not just wives and daughters attending events with their families, but “an auxiliary women’s group, born of the KKK,” which had spun off from the suffrage movement and incorporated the tenets of prohibition and all the arrogance, antagonistic warfare, and bigotry of the KKK toward any person or group that was not white or Protestant.   Yikes. Those women sound like the worst type of insufferable battleaxes. Gasp – I hope none of them would fall out of my own family tree, which in retrospect would not seem all that unlikely as there appears to be an overabundance of diseased branches. 😉