Reviews

I liked the writing of this book and found the story as a whole to be interesting but it was way to long for my liking. At times the book became repetitive. How many times can we read about another sisters death without getting any real details? After reading over 400 pages I still didn't have any closure at the end.

misslisa11's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

The book is a gothic fairytale about a family curse that plagues women. But it is also an exploration into women’s oppression, particularly in a 1950s patriarchal society that expected nothing more of women than to get married, have babies, and keep house. The symbolism of the six sisters’ names, all coming from different flowers, perfectly played in to this, as they were (all except for Iris) portrayed as fragile and delicate beings on display for the fleeting enjoyment of the opposite sex. And I found it interesting that, although this narrative takes place over seventy years ago, some of its themes and more poignant plot points are still relatable for many women today. The book was super thought-provoking, and also very well paced. I kept turning the pages because I wanted to know what was going to happen. Some questions were unanswered at the end, but overall this was a very deep and dark book that I thoroughly enjoyed.

Synopsis:

Life in their palatial Victorian house seems splendid from the outside, but the six daughters of the Chapel family firearms dynasty live in the shadow of a curse that touches all of their family’s women. Marriage seems to be the only thing that can save the Chapel girls from the fate of languishing in their suffocating wedding cake home; and the irony is that it will also cause their deaths. When their haunted mother has premonitions that her eldest daughter’s wedding will result in something terrible, second youngest Iris can’t ignore her mother’s warnings; she, too, begins to be visited by spirits in the night, and she slowly comes to learn that her mother may be right. After her eldest sister dies the day after her wedding—a series of events that will repeat—Iris tries to understand the curse that befalls her family while grieving for her sisters and planning an escape—but can she outrun the Chapel curse?