Devilishly absorbing, Rachel Harrison’s Black Sheep is a outlandishly playful horror novel that tells a classic tale of conflict between family blood ties and the need to escape and forge one’s own way and identity.
23-year-old Vesper left her deeply religious family at the age of 18 and hasn’t looked back since. She had a dreadful relationship with her cold-hearted mom Constance, a former scream queen who starred in Hollywood horror movies, but wonders where her father has got to — she hasn’t seen him for 14 years. Then, out of the blue, she receives an invitation to attend the wedding of her cousin and best friend to her first and only love.
With an unexpected reunion and audacious revelations at the reception, Black Sheep stokes up an apocalyptic conclusion with emotional resonance.
A cynical twenty something must confront her unconventional family’s dark secrets in this fiery, irreverent horror novel from the acclaimed author of Cackle and Such Sharp Teeth.
Nobody has a “normal” family; but Vesper Wright’s is truly... something else. Vesper left home at eighteen and never looked back?mostly because she was told that leaving the staunchly religious community she grew up in meant she couldn’t return. But then an envelope arrives on her doorstep.
Inside is an invitation to the wedding of Vesper’s beloved cousin Rosie. It’s to be hosted at the family farm. Have they made an exception to the rule? It wouldn’t be the first time Vesper’s been given special treatment. Is the invite a sweet gesture? An olive branch? A trap? Doesn’t matter. Something inside her insists she go to the wedding. Even if it means returning to the toxic environment she escaped. Even if it means reuniting with her mother; Constance; a former horror film star and forever ice queen.
When Vesper’s homecoming exhumes a terrifying secret; she’s forced to reckon with her family’s beliefs and her own crisis of faith in this deliciously sinister novel that explores the way family ties can bind us as we struggle to find our place in the world.
