Title: Daughters Unto Devils
Author: Amy Lukavics
Genre: Young Adult, Horror, Historical Fiction
Age Group: Young Adult
Rating: 5 stars
Purchase: Amazon
Review copy purchased by yours truly.
When sixteen-year-old Amanda Verner’s family decides to move from their small mountain cabin to the vast prairie, she hopes it is her chance for a fresh start. She can leave behind the memory of the past winter; of her sickly ma giving birth to a baby sister who cries endlessly; of the terrifying visions she saw as her sanity began to slip, the victim of cabin fever; and most of all, the memories of the boy she has been secretly meeting with as a distraction from her pain. The boy whose baby she now carries.
When the Verners arrive at their new home, a large cabin abandoned by its previous owners, they discover the inside covered in blood. And as the days pass, it is obvious to Amanda that something isn’t right on the prairie. She’s heard stories of lands being tainted by evil, of men losing their minds and killing their families, and there is something strange about the doctor and his son who live in the woods on the edge of the prairie. But with the guilt and shame of her sins weighing on her, Amanda can’t be sure if the true evil lies in the land, or deep within her soul.
It seems, based on the Goodreads reviews, that people either love or hate Daughters Unto Devils. I LOVE it. So yes, I’m firmly on the side of love. I didn’t expect some of the chlling, disturbing scenes that would show up during this book.
Amanda is sixteen years old, and just survived cabin fever, seeing the devil, and getting stuck in a cabin for several months while a snowstorm raged outside. She doesn’t like herself very much, especially since she often wants her kid sister, Hannah, a baby who cries all the time and was born blinde, to die. So Amanda is complicated, and flawed. Her parents decide, with another harsh winter in front of them, to move to the pairie, especially since there are apparently abandoned cabins there they can just move into.
Except, when they move into the cabin, it’s covered in blood, and they hear tales of an ancient evil haunting the prairie, an evil that might be similar to one Amanda already faced once.
This book gave me the creeps, but in such a good way. The characters were haunting, the writing was spot-on without dissapearing into endless descriptions, and the author just manages to magically throw a reader into the creepiest scenes imaginable and just make it work. The pacing was fast yet I got the sense I knew every single character, from Ma and Pa to Emily to Amanda. The conclusion put me on the edge of my seat, and it ended in a way I hadn’t imagined at all yet makes perfect sense. With the slow build up, the creepiness rising on every page, and then that climax of an ending, I can only describe this book as amazing.
If you love horror books, please, please, please, for the love of God, go read this one.
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