I appreciate the publisher allowing me to read this book. I really enjoyed this one the plot kept me interested until the end which is not easy, and the characters were engaging and believable. I highly recommend this book.

If you enjoy Southern Gothic, you will enjoy this prime example of it: if you don’t, then not so much perhaps. Set in Edwardian times in a small unnamed town in the Florida swamplands, a community thrives on hunting birds for their feathers for hats. But hunted almost to extinction, the birds are gone and there is no other way to earn a living. Gradually the inhabitants leave and only a ghost town remains. Left behind are Rose and her daughter Joy. When her minister husband dies a grisly death from tuberculosis, Rose loses her mind and refuses to move away, leaving Joy, just a child, to somehow find a way for them to survive. Then one day arrives the supremely villainous, almost cartoonish in their villainy, Johnson family, and Joy’s life starts to change. In poetic, overwrought prose, with sometimes over-the-top imagery, this is an atmospheric and vivid evocation of the murky swampland, which, although only 30 miles from Tampa seems like somewhere left over from the dawn of time. Naturally the supernatural is here too – after all this is Southern Gothic at its most extreme - and the boundary between the real and the unreal is porous. Myth and fairy tale with no happy ending guaranteed. I found the book a mesmerising and compelling read, visceral with its descriptions of decay and creeping damp and illness, and although overwritten at times, I have to admit, I sank down and thoroughly enjoyed it.

I enjoyed this story, not something I would normally read. I liked the way the writer played different degrees of self preservation. With the inhabitants of the story. Portrayed how cut throat life, was in previous years, especially for women. They were never respected, just a tool to be used and in a lot of cases abused.
A story about some of America's past to be noted.

I received this from Netgalley.com.

"In the swamplands of Tampa, Florida illness sweeps the area and the local minister dies, his widow, his beloved Rose, succumbs to madness. His daughter Joy must struggle to keep them both alive."

Just an okay read. Although I mostly liked the setting and expressive language, it felt almost too flowery at times littered with grandiloquent (speaking or expressed in a lofty style, often to the point of being pompous or bombastic) vocabulary.

2☆

This was just okay. I felt like the author was trying to impress me with her vocabulary the whole time. While she did a great job in setting the scene (I could almost feel the dampness and smell the decay), the pacing of the story was off for me. It dragged on, teasing, giving you glimpses of resolution and then pulling them away and retreating back to more descriptions and wordy paragraphs. The magic aspect of the story is almost brought in as an after-thought. It's not explained well and it doesn't really integrate with the main story. It's almost like it was written in as a way to resolve the conflict. I did like the ending, though, which is why this got a 3 star from me rather than the 2 I had been set to give. Maybe this is just not my type of novel?

Thanks to Netgalley, the author, and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest opinion.

Florida wasn’t always home to crazy headlines and right wing politicians. Pope takes us back to early 20th century Florida, a land as wild and untamed as any place on earth. A place rife with nature and those doing their best to subjugate it. This story is as unique and unusual as the state of Florida,this is a must read for those of us who love this much maligned state

This is a hard one to review. The author created a great sense of atmosphere...I could almost feel the pervasive damp and smell the fetid air. The language, overall, was lovely...only occasionally slipping into overwrought ostentatiousness. The supernatural aspect seemed almost an afterthought...something not quite coalescing with the rest of the storyline, but thrown in as a desperate measure to solve the dilemma and wrap up the story. I would have enjoyed a believable resolution much more.