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Title details for In the Garden of Spite by Camilla Bruce - Available

In the Garden of Spite

A Novel of the Black Widow of La Porte

by Camilla Bruce
ebook
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“Riveting! Camilla, high-five! Amazing work!”—Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark, #1 New York Times bestselling authors of Stay Sexy & Don't Get Murdered
An audacious novel of feminine rage about one of the most prolific female serial killers in American history—and the men who drove her to it.
They whisper about her in Chicago. Men come to her with their hopes, their dreams—their fortunes. But no one sees them leave. No one sees them at all after they come to call on the Widow of La Porte.
The good people of Indiana may have their suspicions, but if those fools knew what she'd given up, what was taken from her, how she'd suffered, surely they'd understand. Belle Gunness learned a long time ago that a woman has to make her own way in this world. That's all it is. A bloody means to an end. A glorious enterprise meant to raise her from the bleak, colorless drudgery of her childhood to the life she deserves. After all, vermin always survive.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    January 19, 2021

  • Formats

    • Kindle Book

    • OverDrive Read

      • ISBN: 9780593102589

    • EPUB ebook

      • ISBN: 9780593102589
      • File size: 3340 KB

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from November 2, 2020
      Bruce (You Let Me In) takes a mesmerizing look at the murderous career of the real-life 19th-century serial killer Belle Gunness. In 1877, the 17-year-old Gunness is impregnated by a neighbor, Anders, in Selbu, Norway. After she demands marriage, Anders attacks her, causing a miscarriage. Months later, Gunness gets her revenge, fatally poisoning him. She continues to indulge her violent streak after she moves to Chicago in 1881. Her unhappy marriage to Mads Sorensen ends when she poisons him with a cyanide-laced slice of cake. The widow uses the insurance money she collects to buy a farm in Indiana’s LaPorte County, where she adds to her body count, including her second spouse, Peter Gunness. Bruce plausibly reconstructs Gunness’s mental state, including her chilling assessment: “There is nothing unnatural about me.... I am as natural as they come. There are just not many of my kind.” Fans of fictionalized treatments of notorious murderers will be fascinated. Agent: Brianne Johnson, Writers House.

    • Booklist

      January 1, 2021
      Following her stunning debut, You Let Me In (2020), Bruce uses a framework of fact to create fiction that horrifies. Here her subject is serial killer Belle Gunness, n�e Brynhild Strseth, who grew up in the same part of Norway as the author and in 1881 immigrated to the U.S., where she embarked on a killing spree, continuing a string of earlier murders in her native land. Bruce explores Belle's motivation to murder, focusing on an incident in which a teenage girl, pregnant by the heir to the farm at which she was in service, is badly beaten by him and miscarries. Belle's anger spurs her to revenge, producing feelings of joy that she later tries to re-create. The story jumps from 1877 to 1908, alternately narrated by Belle and her older sister, Nellie, who becomes increasingly concerned at the "accidents" that widow her sister twice and by the disappearance of men who visit Belle's Indiana farm. Despite her prowess with a meat cleaver, Belle has a soft spot for children, and this complexity in her character adds to the interest of this grisly historical thriller.

      COPYRIGHT(2021) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Formats

  • Kindle Book
  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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