victor lavalle – Pleasant Nights

Title: Lone Women

Author: Victor LaValle

Genre: historical horror

Thank you, NetGalley, for this book.

I read The Devil in Silver by Victor LaValle a while ago and admit that I didn’t find it all that great. The book couldn’t decide what genre it wanted to be. However, this book is solidly horror. Not graphic or anything, but horror with a touch of fantasy. Oh, and it takes place in 1915, so it’s historical as well. That said, the horror plotline is consistent throughout.

From Goodreads:

Adelaide Henry carries an enormous steamer trunk with her wherever she goes. It’s locked at all times. Because when the trunk opens, people around Adelaide start to disappear.

The year is 1915, and Adelaide is in trouble. Her secret sin killed her parents, forcing her to flee California in a hellfire rush and make her way to Montana as a homesteader. Dragging the trunk with her at every stop, she will become one of the “lone women” taking advantage of the government’s offer of free land for those who can tame it—except that Adelaide isn’t alone. And the secret she’s tried so desperately to lock away might be the only thing that will help her survive the harsh territory.

Crafted by a modern master of magical suspense, Lone Women blends shimmering prose, an unforgettable cast of adventurers who find horror and sisterhood in a brutal landscape, and a portrait of early-twentieth-century America like you’ve never seen. And at its heart is the gripping story of a woman desperate to bury her past—or redeem it.

This book comes out in March, so if you are a horror fan, mark your calendars. Coming in at just 240 pages, I got through this one in a couple of days. I loved Adelaide and was cheering for her the entire time. The “burden” she carries is immense, but how she reckons with it is admirable. She is a great dynamic character whose shifts make sense. And LaValle does an excellent job of keeping the reader guessing. The book starts off with a bang, and you are immediately drawn in. This is one I’ll definitely be recommending.

The Devil in Silver

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For the PopSugar Reading Challenge, I had to read a book with “gold,” “silver,” or “bronze” in the title. Thankfully, I have all my books either on Kindle or logged into the Bookpedia database. I searched through both of these things and didn’t find a single book with those words in the title. I then went to my Amazon wish list and found this one. Head to the library website, and I downloaded the ebook. Whew.

Given the world today, and the fact that my kids are home and needing to be homeschooled, I haven’t had much time to read, so this one took a while. That said, I think I would have made it more of a priority if I had enjoyed it more. This book was very reminiscent of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, taking place in a mental hospital, but this one has a supernatural element to it.

I felt like this one wandered more than it should have. There’s this mystery about “the Devil” that is presented early on, but it’s semi-abandoned halfway through for a bit of a love story, which seemed un-authentic. The book didn’t really know what kind of book it should be, I guess. Is it a horror book? A dramatic book? A realistic book? It just seemed to wander between all of them. I appreciate when books can pull off more than one genre, but those genres should be present from beginning to end. Not just one here, one there, back to the first. I think with some heavy edits, this book would be a lot better.