Synopsis
The Menu meets Ready of Not in this dark tale of opulent luxury and shocking violence from the New York Times bestselling author of Bloom.
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 lake retreat, 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 mansion on an island in the center of a Georgia lake, 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, shit gets real. 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…
Dez and Patrick are on the run, but the more Ruskins she sees die and the more servants who tell their stories, the more Dez realizes that she wants nothing to do with Marie and her magazine.
In fact, by the end, Dez might be the one strangling Marie to death with her trademark chunky pearls…
Review
A huge thank you to Titan Books for sending an ARC my way!
Drenched in blood and wicked revenge, Delilah S. Dawson’s Guillotine explores the depths of classicism through undeniably violent means. Patrick Ruskin is the son of renowned fashion designer, Marie Ruskin, otherwise known as college student Dez Lane’s idol. And while Dez would rather do almost anything than spend time with Patrick, she isn’t afraid to suck up some personal qualms to get a chance at meeting Maire. And if you think this will pan out to be the perfect enemies-to-lovers, asshole-to-sweetheart-pipeline novel, I’m here to, very happily, tell you this is not that book. It’s something much better in which the truths of Ruskin family secrets make themselves known, and the price for their sins is a steep one to pay.
Guillotine is a very bold, very unflinching novel in which no holds are barred, no punches held. Dawson does an impeccable job of writing Dez as a relatable character, a sensible person who works hard for the spot she’s earned in life as a senior enrolled at the Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia. What is equally impressive is the stark contrast in which Patrick is depicted, the intense amounts of revulsion that characters like him emit. Every ounce of abhorrence Dez experiences with Patrick, and subsequently his family, is felt intensely. It’s the perfect construction for the events that unfold in this remarkably satisfying novel.
In many ways, this is a story that examines the depravity of elitism in a sadistic, cut-throat nature. As stated in the synopsis, the Ruskin family’s posh lifestyle on a remote island is made possible through their use of servants. Dez’s arrival to this island is nothing short of bone-chilling given the clinical, cold nature the Ruskin members treat one another in addition to their audacious behavior towards these servants. It’s a horrific scene for anyone with a shred of human decency in their body which is really saying something given the turn this novel takes.
And turn it does. In a case of wrong place, wrong time, Dez is sitting front and center to an upheaval at the hands of the servants, one that is executed with vicious force. This is where ideas of retribution, culpability, and malfeasance are aired with no demented secret of the Ruskin’s remaining untold. The violent means by which they have achieved their status come with their own bloody end, something I would argue is incredibly satisfying to read (although, what that says about me, I haven’t yet decided). It’s gory, it’s audacious, it’s sublime.
Don’t let the elegance of the rose on this book’s cover fool you. Much like the entire image of the Ruskin family, something rots at the core of their functioning, something that will no longer remain silent and demands the price for their sins to be paid. Delilah S. Dawson has crafted a compulsively readable story marked with extreme ferocity and compelling questions of morality by the novel’s end. It feels a little wrong to call such a novel fun, but what a time I had reading Dez’s plight for survival in a place she never thought she’d find herself. Guillotine is a novel that indulges in many things from ruthlessness to revenge, a story that is sinister in its sweetness.
Guillotine by Delilah S. Dawson releases on September 10th from Titan Books.
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