In this "electrifying" debut (Kathryn Harlan), a former child medium is called home to help protect her niece from possession, forcing a reckoning with the traumas of her past and the magic she left behind.
When thirty-four-year-old Alice Haserot learns she's pregnant, she isn't sure if she wants to keep the baby. Long estranged from her family, Alice is haunted by memories of her own abusive mother. Not only that, but her lineage is burdened by a curse, one that she's almost managed to convince herself she no longer believes in: Girls for the gifts, boys for the grave.
Alice's gift--channeling ghosts--has often felt like its own curse. Is she willing to risk passing on a similar fate to a daughter, or one even worse to a son? Amidst this internal reckoning Alice's sister Bronwyn tracks her down. One of Bronwyn's daughters is possessing the other and she delivers an ultimatum to Alice: come home to free them, or I'll tell our mother where you are.
When Alice agrees, she finds herself once again caught up in the life she tried to escape sixteen years before and the night she's tried her hardest to forget. And as the haunting escalates to dangerous proportions, Alice must decide whom to trust, how far she will go to end the curse, and if she's willing to risk motherhood given all her family legacy entails. For lovers ofMexican GothicandWeywardcomes a darkly captivating debut about family, female autonomy, and the bonds that endure across lifetimes.