My Throat an Open Grave
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Labyrinth meets folk horror in this darkly romantic tale of a girl who wishes her baby brother away to the Lord of the Wood
Growing up in the small town of Winston, Pennsylvania feels like drowning. Leah goes to church every Sunday, works when she isn’t at school, and takes care of her baby brother, Owen. Like every girl in Winston, she tries to be right and good and holy. If she isn’t the Lord of the Wood will take her, and she’ll disappear like so many other girls before her.
But living up to the rigorous standards of the town takes its toll. One night, when Owen won’t stop screaming, Leah wishes him away, and the Lord listens. The screaming stops, and all that’s left in the crib is a small bundle of sticks tied with a ribbon.
Filled with shame and the weight of the town’s judgment, Leah is forced to cross the river into the Lord of the Wood’s domain to bring Owen back. But the devilish figure who has haunted Winston for generations isn’t what she expects. He tells her she can have her brother back—for the price of a song. A song that Leah will have one month to write.
It’s a bargain that will uncover secrets her hometown has tried to keep buried for decades. And what she unearths will have her questioning everything she’s been taught to fear.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Leah Jones has always known that her life was never going to extend beyond the borders of the small religious town of Winston, Pa., where she lives with her cruel mother and cares for her younger brother, Owen. Winston is ruled by the Lord of the Wood, a mysterious being who steals babies away into the surrounding forest, never to be seen again. When Owen is taken while Leah is supposed to be watching him, she's forced into completing the only ritual that has a chance to get him back: going after and bargaining with the Lord. The fact that this ritual has never worked and has always resulted in the deaths of both child and bargainer is of no consequence to the townspeople. Left with no choice, Leah enters the Lord of the Wood's domain. Beyond the trees, she discovers that the world she grew up hearing stories about looks far different than the horrors she had expected and learns that the myth of the Lord is something else entirely. In this darkly atmospheric tale of folk horror, Bovalino (Not Good for Maidens) employs sophisticated prose to perceptively examine the town's unspecified oppressive religious institutions and how its tenets keep the young women of Winston from achieving their full potential or pursuing happiness. Characters are described as having varying skin tones. Ages 14–up. Agents: Uwe Stender and Amelia Appel, Triada US.
