Don't Breathe a Word

Don't Breathe a Word by Jennifer McMahon
ARC provided by Harper Paperbacks in exchange for an honest review
Description from Goodreads:
On a soft summer night in Vermont, twelve-year-old Lisa went into the woods behind her house and never came out again. Before she disappeared, she told her little brother, Sam, about a door that led to a magical place where she would meet the King of the Fairies and become his queen.


Fifteen years later, Phoebe is in love with Sam, a practical, sensible man who doesn’t fear the dark and doesn’t have bad dreams—who, in fact, helps Phoebe ignore her own. But suddenly the couple is faced with a series of eerie, unexplained occurrences that challenge Sam’s hardheaded, realistic view of the world. As they question their reality, a terrible promise Sam made years ago is revealed—a promise that could destroy them all.

My Take:
This was an extremely fast read for me.  I started it as soon as it arrived in the mail and then finished it the next night.  There are so many things I really loved about this book.  To begin with, the author kept me guessing right up to the end of the book on exactly what kind of story this was going to be: is this a fairy story, is this a straight-up mystery, or is it something else? And then there is the creepy factor.  I was rather surprised at just how much this book creeped me out.  I stayed up long after everyone else in the house had gone to bed and was rewarded by being truly creeped out after finishing the book and then having to wander through the old, dark house. Shadows and noises everywhere --- not good after reading Don't Breathe a Word - trust me.

The book tells the stories of Lisa, Phoebe and Sam. Lisa was a little girl who wandered into the woods and disappeared.  This part is told in flashbacks to the past. The story of  Phoebe and her boyfriend Sam, who happens to be Lisa's now grown brother, is told in the present.  The book tells the story of Lisa and Phoebe in a slow and complicated manner that draws the reader into the tale.  There is more than one mystery in the book and many people and events are not as they first appear.  There is a lot of fairy talk -- but not sparkly, beautiful, friendly fairies - these are dark and menacing. The story is full of  family story telling, mysteries, lies, deception, half-truths - none of which are immediately event. Since the copy I read was an uncorrected proof, I don't want to get too specific about anything, but there is much to discuss in this book - particularly the ideas of and symbol of shadows, family relationships, mental illness, and of course, fairy tales. I would recommend this book to mystery lovers and fantasy and fairy tale fans who don't mind the darker side of these tales.

Sisters Red

Sisters Red by Jackson Pearce
borrowed from library
Summary from Goodreads:
Scarlett March lives to hunt the Fenris-- the werewolves that took her eye when she was defending her sister Rosie from a brutal attack. Armed with a razor-sharp hatchet and blood-red cloak, Scarlett is an expert at luring and slaying the wolves. She's determined to protect other young girls from a grisly death, and her raging heart will not rest until every single wolf is dead.

Rosie March once felt her bond with her sister was unbreakable. Owing Scarlett her life, Rosie hunts fiercely alongside her. Now Rosie dreams of a life beyond the wolves and finds herself drawn to Silas, a young woodsman who is deadly with an ax-- but loving him means betraying her sister and has the potential to destroy all they've worked for.

Twenty-five-year-old Jackson Pearce delivers a dark, taut fairy tale with heart-pounding action, fierce sisterly love, and a romance that will leave readers breathless.

My take:
Scarlett and Rosie March are attacked by a Fenris – a werewolf- when they are young girls. Scarlett is severely scarred and lost an eye while protecting her younger sister Rosie. They grow up with the huntsman’s family and learn how to lure and hunt the Fenris. Scarlett feels that hunting down and killing every last Fenris while also protecting her sister is her duty in life. Rosie is the younger, more sheltered sister and she isn’t physically or emotionally scarred like Scarlett. Because she knows that she owes her life to her sister, she joins Scarlett in her mission to kill Fenris even though she wants to live a more normal life.


This sets up an interesting take on the Little Red Riding Hood tale. Jackson Pearce takes the old familiar tale and turns it around a bit. It appears that she has gone back to some earlier versions of the tale where Little Red isn’t quite the innocent little girl she is in the later Perrault or Grimm versions. The red cloak is an important aspect to the luring of the Fenris. It seems that the color red is irresistible to the Fenris, so the girls always wear one when hunting or baiting. In Annotated Classic Fairy Tales, Maria Tatar says:

Psychoanalytic critics have made much of the color red, equating it with sin, passion, blood, and thereby suggesting a certain complicity on the part of Red Riding Hood in her seduction.p. 17

I don't think complicity applies here, but knowledge of what will lure the Fenris and understanding why certainly does apply. So, Scarlett and Rosie bait the Fenris by wearing red, playing up their vulnerability as young girls and walking alone in isolated areas. They pretend to be helpless and then outwit and out fight the Fenris. In this way, the story is much more similar to older versions of this tale, where Red actually does a striptease for the wolf, stringing him along, and then excuses herself for a minute to relieve herself and then escapes. She outwits the wolf herself and has no need to be rescued by a male. I like it that in Sisters Red, Scarlett and Rosie are able to defend themselves and don’t need to be rescued either.

Rating: 4 of 5