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  • The Suffering Tree by Elle Cosimano
  • Kate Quealy-Gainer
Cosimano, Elle The Suffering Tree. Hyperion, 2017 [368p]
Trade ed. ISBN 978-1-4847-2659-4 $17.99
E-book ed. ISBN 978-1-368-00245-5 $10.99
Reviewed from galleys         R Gr. 8-12

If her family's sudden inheritance of a house and its land isn't odd enough, things get really strange when Tori sees a young man claw his way out of one of the graves on the grounds' cemetery. He introduces himself as Nathaniel Bishop, an indentured servant from 1706 to the Slaughter family. It was a Slaughter who bequeathed Tori's family their new residence, and it's also the Slaughters who were supposedly cursed years ago by the Chaptico witch, known to Nathaniel as Emmeline, a fellow servant and the girl he loved. Now, a Slaughter boy has gone missing, a blight is ravaging their land, fires are mysteriously being set, and Nathaniel and Tori have to figure out if it has anything to do with the curse and/or the potential connection between Tori and the Slaughters' past. Cosimano weaves an intricate and taut mystery, with Tori's story unfolding next to Nathaniel's accounts of his time under the cruel and vicious Slaughters; this setup is at times advantageous to readers and disorienting at others, making the revelation of secrets deliciously unpredictable. Tori and Nathaniel are both tragic and self-punishing figures, with Tori cutting herself in the wake of her dad's death and Nathaniel constantly berating himself over Emmeline's fate; Emmeline, too, is an intriguing character, powerful and reckless, and her romance with a female slave gives Nathaniel's story a surprising element. Similar in theme to Henry's A Million Junes (BCCB 4/17) but much darker, this is a compelling exploration of how roots twisted in cruelty affect a family tree for generations to come. [End Page 406]

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