I’ll say this right off the hop: Eve’s Rib is my pick for creepy Hallowee’en reading this fall. If you’re looking for a book to get you in the mood for all the darkness and shadows, consider this one.
After losing her young son in a tragic accident, Eve struggles to protect the one child she has left, a teenage daughter who just might be pure evil.
The dark side of magic is where the Ragman dwells. Nobody knows that better than Eve. Desperate for a child, she called on that cunning conjurer eighteen years ago. Her daughter, Abbey, was the result.
After Abbey’s younger brother dies in a fall, Eve fears the worst about her daughter. Five years later, she still battles her guilt and grief over what happened the day she lost her son. Her husband, Richard, doesn’t understand. He doesn’t know the truth about Abbey; and besides, he has secrets of his own to keep.
But when terrible things begin to happen to those who get in Abbey’s way, Eve must overcome her own pain and loss and find the strength to deal with what she fears most — a teenage daughter she can no longer control and a past that could come back to haunt her in the most monstrous of ways.
The one thing that the synopsis never told me and that I would have loved to have known was that Eve and her bestie were witches. I was delighted to discover that early on. I am seriously into witch characters, but I’ve struggled to connect with witch books. I have longed for a witch story that I could really sink my teeth into and this was it.
The story is told in multiple points of view, varying from chapter to chapter. There is so much going on throughout this book – the witches, the grief, the complications of Eve and Richard’s marriage, a teenage daughter who is really rather terrifying, friendship, infertility, insufferable neighbours – that, amid all of it, I felt almost as overwhelmed and at wit’s end as Eve. One thing I found quite unique about the storytelling is that none of the characters emerged as heroes or villains, they were all just kind of getting by in their own personal circumstances.
I would describe this book as one of highly developed relationships and well crafted, building suspense. Once I started reading it, I didn’t want to put it down.
I was happy to find out that this is not the first book by authour C.S. O’Cinneide. (It’s pronounced oh-ki-nay-da.) Her first book Petra’s Ghost looks quite interesting and she has since released the first two books in her Candace Starr series about a former hitwoman. She also has a pretty great blog over at She Kills Lit.
Thank you to the team at Dundurn Press for putting this book in my hands. As the days turn decidedly fall-like, it was the perfect October read!
