Synopsis
In this queer retelling of Nathaniel Hawthorne classic gothic story, Rappaccini’s Daughter, a young woman is lured to a lush estate owned by a botanist who might be hiding dark secrets.
Cordelia Beecher is on the run. In search of her missing brother Edward, she has fled the oppressive charity school she was raised in, desperate to find the only family she knows. Using clues from his past letters, she sets off for the sleepy town of Farrow but everyone there claims to have never heard of Edward—not even the man he was supposedly working for as an apprentice.
With nowhere to go, Cordi turns to Lady Evangeline, a local botanist who owns the magnificent Edenfield estate. The benevolent lady of the manor has made it her mission to take young, often traumatized, women into her employ and protect them from man’s world of wicked desires and deceits. Hired as a maid and companion to her enigmatic daughters, Prim and Briar, Cordi quickly settles into Edenfield. Even as her relationship with Briar blossoms, Cordi can’t help but suspect that there are secrets in the estate…and when she stumbles across evidence that Edward was once there, she’s determined to find answers.
Atmospheric, eerie, and thoroughly original, Her Wicked Roots will establish Tanya Pell as a “wickedly creepy” (Josh Winning, author of Heads Will Roll) and vital voice in horror.
Review
Huge thanks to Gallery Books for the physical arc! What a gorgeous cover.
Beautiful. Eloquent. And masterfully written. A tale weaved so sweetly that by the time you realize its vines are poisonous, it’ll be far too late.
Cordelia Beecher—Cordi, is on the hunt for her missing brother. They grew up together in an orphanage, and even though he was turned out the moment he hit adulthood, he continued to write her, swearing to come back for her. But when the letters stop, she knows something must have happened. He wouldn’t just stop answering right—wouldn’t change his mind? No, of course not, and Cordi is steadfast in that belief. As is her determination in finding him. This quest for answers delivers her to the doorstep of Edenfield estate. The home of a local botanist, and if the rumors are anything to go by, local witch. Will the estate hold the answers she’s after, or will it take even more from her?
I have to say, the author’s release with Shortwave Media, Cicada, which I happened to enjoy quite a lot, was so drastically different from this. This novel is gothic, and grandiose, and has such a direct voice to it. It’s impressively different in tone. It reads like a different writer, and that’s immensely challenging to achieve. It felt like stumbling upon an entirely new author.
After the opening of the novel, this does a really great job of creating atmosphere in a single location. Edenfield is both romantically huge, explorable and exciting with its locked wings and lush gardens, as well as dark, dusty, and filled with possible dangers in unexpected places. While Cordi functions as the help, she is also doing her best to search for answers—both while alone as well as gaining trust and asking pointed questions. The botanist’s daughters, Prim and Briar, add mystery and intrigue, allowing the author to sprinkle in desire, hope, and deception, while also offering hints at the truth through the way they interact with Cordi.
Cordi functions as an intriguing and multilayered lead. The charity they grew up in featured abuses unimaginable—the wear of starvation and the thick cords of scar tissue barely scraping the surface of the damage left behind beneath. Raised through trauma, she had little else to cling to but the hope of one day escaping with her brother. The vestiges of this hope the driving factor for all of her movements. She’s strong, even if she doesn’t know it, and she persevered throughout.
I thought this book tackled sexuality in a really open way, especially for the time period and how easily it’s accepted. The botanist does not trust men and therefore they are banned from the grounds and from seeing her daughters. So when it is mentioned that some of the female staff may find comfort with each other it’s just kind of like… “well yeah, duh.” And with that being said, this book is fairly open with its somewhat desperate, explorative, and yearning horniness. The budding desires between Cordi and Briar weave a tensely plotted layer to the novel surrounding how far Cordi is willing to bend for what she wants and what she needs. And which, need or want, is finding her brother anymore?
A twisting and turning climax made this an immediate 5/5 for me. I had a tickling in my mind that one of the things was going to happen, but overall, this one kept me guessing until the very end. I particularly loved the juxtaposition between Cordi’s whiplashed nature and Prim and Briar’s suffocating, tyrannical nurturing. That both harshness and softness can be imprisoning. Abuse and love can come with shackles. Just wow.
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