Happy Monday, bibliophiles, and happy December as well!
Goodreads Monday is a weekly meme created by Lauren’s Page Turners. All you have to do to participate is pick a book from your Goodreads TBR, and explain why you want to read it.
Another addition to Goodreads’ merciless onslaught of recommendations, Perfectly Preventable Deaths seemed like an intriguing, witchy read; not very fitting for the oncoming holiday season, but who’s paying attention to that?
So, without further ado, here’s this week’s Goodreads Monday!
GOODREADS MONDAY (12/2/19)–PERFECTLY PREVENTABLE DEATHS by Deidre Sullivan
Everyone in Ballyfran has a secret, and that is what binds them together…
Fifteen-year-old twins Madeline and Catlin move to a new life in Ballyfran, a strange isolated town, a place where, for the last sixty years, teenage girls have gone missing in the surrounding mountains.
As distance grows between the twins – as Catlin falls in love, and Madeline begins to understand her own nascent witchcraft – Madeline discovers that Ballyfrann is a place full of predators. Not only foxes, owls and crows, but also supernatural beings who for many generations have congregated here to escape persecution. When Catlin falls into the gravest danger of all, Madeline must ask herself who she really is, and who she wants to be – or rather, who she might have to become to save her sister.
Dark and otherworldly, this is an enthralling story about the bond between sisters and the sacrifices we make for those we care about the most. For fans of Frances Hardinge and Laure Eve.
So why do I want to read this?
First and foremost…this is rather petty, but it’s always kind of fun to find a character that shares a name with you (that, in my case, isn’t a certain children’s book character). 😜
Secondly, the description is vague enough that I’ll either a) I won’t see the plot twist coming (👍) or b) there’ll be no sense of story (👎). The concept of these “supernatural beings” flocking to the island to escape persecution does sound fascinating, and I’m interested to see how they come into play. All in all, I’ll hoping that it’ll at least be a decent tale of sisterhood, witchcraft, and the supernatural. Though…oh man, the “for fans of Frances Hardinge” worries me a bit. I’ve often found her literature to have incredible concepts, but executed in a drawn-out and boring manner. Fingers crossed that Perfectly Preventable Deaths won’t be the same.
Have a lovely rest of your day, and stay tuned for more content later in the week!
The Bookish Mutant 
I want to read this too!! I read Sullivan’s Tanglewood and Brine collection of short stories (5 stars) and I’ve read Hardinge’s A Skinful of Shadows (2 stars) and don’t really see the similarities prose wise. I think Sullivan’s is more spartan and restrained than Hardinge’s. And I too found Hardinge’s writing to be a little dull.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yay, hopefully we’ll both enjoy it! I’m glad the only one who isn’t a fan of Hardinge’s writing–I haven’t read the one you mentioned, but I read The Lost Conspiracy (one star…) and, more recently, The Lie Tree (two stars), and I found the concepts to be inventive, but the writing very lacking.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I just find her writing to be quite cold. It’s a strange one, because I can certainly see the appeal of her plots. But I just don’t feel tempted to read any more by her
LikeLiked by 1 person