Mini Review: Perfectly Preventable Deaths by Deirdre Sullivan

Sisters

Sacrifice

Witchcraft

This was a book I was very much looking forward to reading. I attended some panels at Octocon that Deirdre was on and it really made me want to check out her work. Tangleweed and Brine is on my to buy list. When I heard about Perfectly Preventable Deaths that had Sisters, sacrifice and witchcraft I was like yes I need this in my life! Walking into the bookshop and seeing it next to Other Words For Smoke by Sarah Maria Griffin, I knew this was a book for me.

“Everyone in Ballyfran has a secret, and that is what binds them together…

Fifteen-year-old twins Madeline and Catlin move to a new life in Ballyfran, a strange isolated town, a place where, for the last sixty years, teenage girls have gone missing in the surrounding mountains.

As distance grows between the twins – as Catlin falls in love, and Madeline begins to understand her own nascent witchcraft – Madeline discovers that Ballyfrann is a place full of predators. Not only foxes, owls and crows, but also supernatural beings who for many generations have congregated here to escape persecution. When Catlin falls into the gravest danger of all, Madeline must ask herself who she really is, and who she wants to be – or rather, who she might have to become to save her sister.”

I love the way Deirdre writes it’s almost poetic and she calls up all of the teenage angst that we still feel buried within us.

“I want to be wanted, and I want to be left alone.”

Not knowing how to deal with your feelings and express yourself confidently without worrying how it will affect others (I still haven’t quiet nailed this)..

“We lie to people that we want to like is, so they think that we are more like them.”

Pretending to be someone you’re not just so you can fit in that bit easier, but it’s never easy in the long run. Pretty soon you get tired of wearing a mask and even more confused about who you really are and what you feel.

I of course loved the supernatural element, I mean it really is the year of the witches and I am loving it! I would almost love a follow up book, set a few years later just to see where they are now and how they coped with the after effects of the events that happened. I basically just want more because it was so good and I was sad to finish it.

A fantastically witchy tale I adored it!

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