Booklist
"The narrative is steeped in unsettling mystery and surreal mysticism as truth bleeds into a fever dream indecipherable from reality. This is a fascinating, well-written examination of family bonds and religious fervor stretched just to the point of snapping."
School Library Journal
"Cajoleas’s novel creates a realistically haunting environment and generates eerie philosophical questions and remarkably complex main characters."
Kirkus Reviews
"Cajoleas' atmospheric, often bloody, tale, steeped in mysticism and the occult, raises questions of fate, belonging, acceptance, and spirituality, and Lee's narrative will resonate with anyone who has ever felt left out . . . Harrowing and hypnotic."
Booklist
"The narrative is steeped in unsettling mystery and surreal mysticism as truth bleeds into a fever dream indecipherable from reality. This is a fascinating, well-written examination of family bonds and religious fervor stretched just to the point of snapping."
Kirkus Reviews
2019-06-18
After his mother's death in a car accident, a lonely and introspective teen's unusual gift leads him down a winding road of startling revelation.
Poet Lee Sanford, no stranger to visions, had a vision of his mother's death before it happened, and he and his snarky younger sister, Murphy, suspect their tyrannical stepfather, Horace (aka the county sheriff), might be responsible. In a panic, they knock him down, steal his Trans Am, and head to the Farm, their estranged grandmother's remote homestead and former commune in blighted Benign, Louisiana. Grandma welcomes them and encourages Lee to explore his visions and commune with the Spirit that exists in the natural world. Murphy thinks Grandma is hiding something (the barn is locked up tight), but Lee is filled with new purpose. Questions arise from Lee's visions of his deceased uncle, the blond, blue-eyed Jeremiah, who was a revered evangelist, and Lee is captivated by Jeremiah's tape-recorded sermons, which he finds hidden. He also develops feelings for his Grandma's tenant, Cass. Soon, however, events take an ominous turn, a rift grows between Lee and Murphy, and he faces shattering choices. Cajoleas' (The Good Demon, 2018, etc.) atmospheric, often bloody, tale, steeped in mysticism and the occult, raises questions of fate, belonging, acceptance, and spirituality, and Lee's narrative will resonate with anyone who has ever felt left out. All characters are assumed white.
Harrowing and hypnotic. (Horror. 13-adult)
