That’s what the tour guide promises Dr. Linda Farmer and her family when they move to Plymouth Valley. Sure, the locals are privileged hot house flowers who observe a weird religion Hollow, but the schools are blue ribbon, the air’s clean, the food’s fantastic, and Linda’s out of options. With the outside world in shambles, this move is her family’s last chance.
Linda, her husband, and their teen twins work hard to fit in, accommodating their square peg personalities into rounded holes. It works at first—the family rise up, gaining acceptance from the powerful elite. Then Linda encounters Gal Parker, a hot mess of a woman, whose wife has abandoned her and whose kids are sick. One terrible night, Gal commits an unthinkable act.
All of Plymouth Valley turns on Gal, refusing to speak her name. But Linda can’t stop wondering: what would drive a woman to do something so awful? The more she learns, the more frightened she becomes. A clock is ticking, too—before the Plymouth Valley Winter Festival, Linda’s got to figure out: should she and her family be fighting to stay, or fighting their way out? (Pub Date: Apr 09 2024)
I'm not sure if this book was more of a thriller or a horror show.
Linda is in a pinch when her husband loses his job and agrees to move with him and their twins to a closed town built by his new employer. Their future seems bright as long as they do well in their annual reviews, and despite the cold reception from the locals, Linda gets to join an exclusive clique that gives all her family perks. It would all have gone superb if she hadn't met Gal Parker the night she set her family on fire after being expelled from town. This incident makes Linda realize what she'd already been feeling—something is wrong and it could potentially put her family in danger.
I went for three stars because I really didn't know what to give this book. It's not exactly bad. It's not really good either. A lot of the positives in it feel familiar, some I could even point out where I have seen them already. For example, the concept of a town that alienates their people like it's a cult and keeps them in control under the threat that leaving it could be worse than death, that sounded a lot like Fallout's shelters. And like a lot of other strange small towns in fiction.
I don't mind cliches and tropes; I even welcome a lot of them. However, the world-building bothered me. It took me so long to confirm this was some dystopia, for example. And the way it's shown to us made me relate less and less to the characters, even though world becoming chaotic isn't so far from our reality. To be honest, I didn't understand why the author felt the need to place it in some doomed future if we rarely see outside.
And yeah, the characters... I started liking each of them and ended unsure if I still liked any.
The book still had great points. Although the idea of a weird town as the villain of a novel wasn't new, there were great things about it. Especially the weird birds. Every time those cursed caladrius got mentioned, it gave me the feeling of sharing an inside joke with the writer. The festivals, the bizarre traditions, there's gold in this book.
And for that reason, I didn't know how many stars to give it. If you want to give it a try, I do encourage you.
Honest review based on an ARC provided by Edelweiss. Many thanks to the publisher for this opportunity.
Rating: 3 out of 5.
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