Ashley Winstead is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors. I loved In My Dreams I Hold a Knife and The Last Housewife. She is not afraid to go really dark. This was described to me as Twilight meets Where the Crawdads Sing and that description is not wrong (just make it more of a thriller). It is set in Bottom Springs, small Louisiana town where a fire & brimstone preacher rules the roost (it felt like it could have taken place so long ago, except the main character loved Twilight so you know it’s set in present day). Ruth Cornier has always been an outcast. A preacher’s daughter, bookish and small. Her closest friend is Everett, also an outcast/the boy from the wrong side of the tracks thanks to his violent, alcoholic father. When a skull turns up in the swamp, next to mysterious carved symbols, the town panics and is immediately thrown into uproar. Everyone thinks it must be The Low Man, a shadowy vampiric figure said to steal into sinners bedrooms and kill them in the night. Ruth and Everett must comb the town’s dark history to solve the mystery of what has happened… before the town turns on them!
Author: Ashley Winstead
