Escape is only one spell away.
Courtney and her friends dream of escaping Shady Acres Trailer Park, a place of broken dreams and rusted out cars. Their wishes seem to come true when Courtney meets an older woman who promises to give them their heart's desires, but as the girls wind up in over their heads, Courtney begins to doubt the older coven's intentions while she and the girl she loves drift further apart.
But there is a force at work behind the scenes, darker and more dangerous than any of them could have imagined; the Wolf is owed four rabbits, and he’s come to collect.
Escape is only one spell away.
Courtney and her friends dream of escaping Shady Acres Trailer Park, a place of broken dreams and rusted out cars. Their wishes seem to come true when Courtney meets an older woman who promises to give them their heart's desires, but as the girls wind up in over their heads, Courtney begins to doubt the older coven's intentions while she and the girl she loves drift further apart.
But there is a force at work behind the scenes, darker and more dangerous than any of them could have imagined; the Wolf is owed four rabbits, and he’s come to collect.
When they ran Belladonna Mason out, it was literal.
They chased her into the woods wearing nothing but the shift her lover had bought her, so she could better play the part of the adulteress.
And when his cuckolded wife caught them in the act—sinning against her and God in equal measure—he shed his loyalty to her just as easily.
Because “bewitched” sounded so much finer to his ears than “weak”.
Though they’d cast her out and her home was gone and her name was ruined, she pushed on. Living was an awful difficult habit to break.
The woods had no love for her either. Stones cut her feet and every tree limb whipped her arms and back and thighs bloody and raw, like the preacher had when he found out. She was angry before, but the cold of the night and the lengthening shadows stole the heat from her. Even rage couldn’t warm her.
And, when she fell in the mud, the last drop of strength trickled from her. They had bled her dry—this world and all the people in it. She had no more tears to cry.
In the depths of the forest, beyond the limits of hope, was a fire crackling and the smell of meat cooking to put the edge on her hunger until it sliced across her belly. Slowly, she stood and walked and wanted. The human died there in the mud. The animal took over.
Funny how things worked out. She’d fled the fire, and fire was all that awaited her. She’d fled a man and there, upon a fallen tree, a man sat.
“Take a seat,” he said. Not a request.
Belladonna’s eyes didn’t leave the meat—looked like rabbit—spitted over the flames. Not until she was sat, and the pain of her wounds and the warmth brought her back alive, did she finally see the man.
Handsome? Enough, though she’d tired of handsome men somewhere in the woods back there. Lean and muscled, furred with coarse, black hair. Eyes in shadow, reflecting the flickering firelight, or maybe just matching it. Stripped to the waist, dressed only in sack cloth. Staring.
Now, the cold had already made Belladonna quite aware of how thin her shift was, and this man was taking pains to remind her that the dangers of the woods weren’t limited to things that howled and hissed.
“Hungry?” he asked.
She nodded. Words had betrayed her already, so many times.
He didn’t ask her to speak, just lifted a spit from the fire and pressed it into her hands. She tore flesh from bone and sobbed around every mouthful.
Still staring.
“You’re not going to eat?” she asked, because betrayal hadn’t ever taught her a lesson before.
He smiled. “Not yet.”
Belladonna had never been under the presumption that living in the woods was easy, but that smile had an ease to it that it shouldn’t. And it was sharp, not just around the eye-teeth.
“You’re awful far from home.”
“I don’t have a home.”
She thought she heard a growl from the tree line. Something hungering for what she held in her hands. God told them not to covet but his creatures coveted plenty.
Then she realized it was him. Chuckling.
“You knew he was married,” he said. “You knew she was spiteful. No one to blame but yourself.”
Her turn to stare. He welcomed her gaze like a valley in spring. Oh, she could look around all full of wonder if she liked. When winter came, she’d never be able to leave.
“H-how do you know that?”
“I know a lot of things.”
“Why are you talking in riddles?”
“Because you’re not paying attention.” He leaned across the fire and pulled the spit from her unresisting hands. The rabbit was bones now. He replaced it with another. Her hunger demanded another sacrifice.
“Who are you?”
“Not who.”
“What are you?”
“A better question.”
Of course. Because a man would need furs in this cold wilderness. A man would need a sword or a dagger. A gun. He would need a bedroll, a shelter. All this creature had was fire and meat.
Belladonna tossed aside the second stick, heard the bones rattle among the leaves like dice, and took a third. “Are you… human?”
“Not as such.”
“Then why take a man’s shape?”
She was of the opinion that there were more flattering shapes to take, but the recently burned were most afraid of flames.
Frankly, she’d rather have been anything else in that moment. A bird could fly away. A wolf could run without fear of cutting its pads to bloody shreds. A fish could swim wherever the river carried it.
Maybe not a rabbit though.
“There were no shapes for me to take in nature. I’m not the grass, trampled beneath your feet. I’m not the trees that shelter you. I watch all that passes, but I’m no raven. I hunger, but I’m no wolf. But a man? A man has needs he can’t explain. A man needs to be worshipped. A man needs to stretch himself to fill all that surrounds him. A man needs to be a master. So, when your people breathed my air and stirred my soil and slaked their thirst from my rivers, I sat in their lungs and their hearts and their bellies and realized…I am a man also.”
She had started and finished her fourth rabbit when he rose from his log and walked to her. His feet trampled embers. His eyes still glowed. The spit fell between her feet. Bones in the soil.
“And a man needs a woman.” He reached for her cheek.
She shirked back, covering herself with her arms. “Not me.”
Hadn’t she suffered enough at the hands of men? Didn’t her arms and legs and back bear their brutality? She had bled for their sins. She didn’t want to bleed for his too.
“If not you, then who? Don’t you believe in fate? Don’t you have quaint little notions of destiny and predetermination? And here you are, walking through my woods, sitting by my fire, eating up my rabbits. You’re content to take but you won’t give. That’s not right, is it? Not right at all.”
“M-maybe I’m here for a different reason.”
The greatest portion of Belladonna’s hate had always been reserved for Belladonna. The woman with no prospects who would go to the New World. The woman without a husband, even where the men were plentiful and the women already betrothed. The woman who’d allowed herself to believe it meant something, even when he’d looked away in church. The woman who couldn’t look the Devil in the eye without cowering.
He tilted his head, curious. Like another man, she had a hook in him. She could only hope it was deeper this time around.
“Maybe I can give you something else. Something more valuable.”
“Like what?”
“What if I… What if I bring them to you? Others?”
He didn’t answer. His attention was the held breath before a snare tightened. The moment a neck could break. The heartbeat as a flame caught or guttered out.
Life. Or death.
Her words spilled into the empty space and sloshed and gurgled until it overflowed. “You said you needed to be worshipped. You said you needed to fill this space. You said you needed to be a master. Let me help. I can help.”
“How?”
“I know what to do. I’ve always known what to do, I was just…” Weak. Always weak. “I just never had the power. I could borrow some of yours and I could…”
Words dried up before they could nourish the unnamable sin. Her lips trembled and her eyes fell away, but he caught her chin, because she needed to see, and she needed to understand exactly what she was agreeing to.
“You owe me four rabbits,” he told her.
And, because words had betrayed her, she nodded and said nothing.
They Are Cursed Like You by Holley Cornetto and S.O. Green is a witchy dual-POV horror centering a middle-aged coven whose magic has just run out, and a group of teenage girls living in a trailer park who are about to discover the possibilities of magic for the first time. The book switches between the POVs of Loretta, a member of the older coven who ends up particularly down on her luck at the beginning of the novel, and Courtney, who has just discovered a strange book of spells at one of the houses she cleans.Â
From the first page, the writing exudes wittiness and snappiness that makes reading along incredibly captivating. I highlighted many lines while reading that stood out as incredibly astute descriptions of the unfolding events, and the writing generally seemed to demonstrate a very thorough grasp of these fleshed out characters. Cornetto and Green did not shy away from emphasizing the flaws of their characters while still managing to make them people that we wanted to root for. Reading the authors’ descriptions of these characters felt like eating ice cream; I couldn’t get enough. With lines like, “Triss smiles. It’s the least happy I’ve ever seen her,” and, “Teeny has always stormed in and out of our lives like a hurricane,” I felt like I was getting such a nuanced take on these characters.Â
Additionally, Loretta's and Courtney's voices are very distinguishable and the switch between POVs flows with the plot. Specifically, the way the events in this story flow from one POV to the next feels very logical. There are a few moments in the novel that I particularly enjoy where an event occurs in one character’s POV, and we see the effects of this event play out in the next character’s POV.Â
I also really appreciated the themes of queerness and sisterhood in this novel. Loretta and Courtney are both queer female characters, which is already something we don’t see often enough in the horror publishing industry, but the fierceness and unapologetic nature of these characters when it comes to the women that they love feels particularly memorable. In this world where magic can help but magic can definitely also hurt, these characters both have to reconcile with what love means to them and what they are willing to do for the women that they love. The authors also explore the importance of sisterhood in a really poignant way in this novel, especially concerning what is true sisterhood and what isn’t.
Above all, this book captivated and delighted me with its quick-witted, snappy, and sarcastic characters, but also made me cry with its handling of grief, second chances, and familial love. That this book is only the first in a series is incredibly exciting to me, and I am ecstatic to hopefully have the opportunity to continue journeying with these characters upon the sequel’s release. This was the first work I’ve read by either of these authors, and suffice it to say that I will be seeking out more of their stories. Readers should be aware of trigger warnings in this book for cancer, graphic violence, domestic/child abuse, drug and alcohol abuse and addiction, homophobia, murder of animals, strong language, gore, and character death. I would recommend this book to anyone with a heart, but if I have to be specific, I would recommend it to anyone looking for more queer women in their horror and that enjoys witty, fierce writing with a complex and well-developed plot.