Title: Power
Author: C.S. Alleyne
Publisher: Crystal Lake Publishing
Publication Date: December 7, 2019
Genres: Horror
Shelves: Female-author, female-fronted
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Revenge is a dish best served cold. Where there is a will there is a way. There are plenty of adages that you could apply to Power, but none of them adequately capture what C.S. Alleyne has captured here.
Maude Caulkin is a poor woman, of poor circumstances, trapped in poor relationship. She is the subject of abuse from her step-father, the pornographer she works for, and his monstrous client, but at no point in this story can you call her a victim. She is a woman of vision and purpose, suffering temporary indignities while she seizes an opportunity and create something bigger, something better for herself.
Make no mistake, she has a darkness within her, a fascination with the morbid curiosities of broken human beings, and that darkness is what gives her the Power to end the cycle of abuse and turn it back on her abusers. She does horrible, violent things in the name of justice . . . but she does so with love in her heart, under the veneer of medical education and scientific discovery.
Without giving away the how and the why, the way Alleyne brings together all of the story’s themes in the bloody twist is both grossly brilliant and darkly inspiring.
Rating: ♀ ♀ ♀ ♀
My sincere thanks to the author for sending me an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Beauty in Ruins 