In this extraordinary debut novel reminiscent of The Lovely Bonesand Little Bee, a mother watches from the afterlife as her teenage daughter recovers amidst the startling dysfunction of her extended family.
Compulsively readable and stylistically stunning, Black Dog Summerbegins with a murder, a farmstead massacre, in the South African bush. Thirty-eight-year-old Sally is but one of the victims. Her life brutally cut short, she narrates from her vantage point in the afterlife and watches as her sister, Adele, her brother-in-law and unrequited love Liam, her niece Bryony, and her teenage daughter, Gigi, begin to make sense of the tragedy.
A suspenseful drama focusing on marriage and fidelity, sisterhood, and the fractious bond between mothers and daughters, Black Dog Summerasks: In the wake of tragedy, where does all that dark energy linger? The youngest characters, Bryony and Gigi, cousins who are now brought together after Sally's murder, are forced into sharing a bedroom. Bryony becomes confused and frightened by the violent energy stirred up and awakened by the massacre, while Gigi is unable to see beyond her deep grief and guilt. But they are not the only ones aware of the lurking darkness. Next door lives Lesedi, a reluctant witchdoctor who hides her mystical connection with the dead behind the façade of their affluent Johannesburg suburb.
As Gigi finally begins to emerge from her grief, the fragile healing process is derailed when she receives some shattering news, and in a mistaken effort to protect her cousin, puts Bryony's life in imminent danger. Now Sally must find a way to prevent her daughter from making a mistake that could destroy the lives of all who are left behind.
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“Narrator Jilly Bond immediately draws the listener into this story, which is told by the ghost of a woman named Sally. Her tone is conversational, warm, and rambling as she attempts to make sense of her death—and why she’s trapped on earth, not heading towards the white light. Bond’s narration is breathy and intriguing. Sally says she has no choice but to pursue the story of why she remains among the living. Neither does the listener, under the spell of Jilly Bond’s expert style. Bond juggles cadence, pitch, and pace to build the suspense at the heart of this story. She’s an excellent choice to voice the questions that drive the plot forward: Who killed Sally? And is her daughter safe? This is an excellent example of how audio can make for riveting fiction. Winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award.”
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