Lone Women

Exactly what I wanted. Bursting with relatable themes despite the historical setting. If I were to pick what stood out to me it would be female rage, the nature of family and forgiveness vs the danger of power/influence and the need to be accepted/approved of. A sly kind of quiet in tone, but not slow. I highly recommend the audio book, because it's the type of story you can picture being told over a few nights around a campfire.

Love the queer rep, the trans rep, what appeared to be neurodivergent rep. The author so skillfully brought this bunch of women together, so it became the single mother of a neurodivergent, trans child, a woman of colour with a  ‘monstrous' dragon!!!! (Bonus points for awesome) sister, and a pair of queer women of colour, othered by existing and by association with each other VS the ‘respectable' white women/community, something with hypocrisy, denial and violence and hate. Further demonstrating how the ability to exercise disproportionate power to help as you choose can turn into the far reaching capability to control/manipulate and a sense of entitlement to do so. While the idea that a certain final act of violence could solve things after so much had already gone down might seem to undermine the moments of redemption, there's an intersectional feminist feel to it: agency, taking back power from those that were ready to destroy them rather than allow them to live their lives as they chose, after a lifetime of having to fight for any choice at all. The type of horror happy ending where the protagonists make it out, even if the rest is a bloodbath, is my very favourite type of horror. ☺️
⚠️racism, ableism