Burn Our Bodies Down

Relationships are at the heart of Rory Power's creepy thriller about three generations of women who bear an uncanny resemblance to each other.

Margot Nielsen's mother, Jo, is quick to fight, quick to flinch from affection and so deeply involved with her secrets that Margot mostly fends for herself. Mother and daughter look so much alike--down to the same streaks of gray at their temples--that Margot wonders where her mother came from, but Jo won't open up. " 'Nobody but you and me,' " her mother often repeats, "like a curse [they] can't shake." When Margot discovers an old Bible with a photo tucked inside and a phone number on the back, she immediately calls. Vera, her grandmother, picks up. Margot sneaks out that very night and hitches a ride to Phalene, a town three hours away. Hearing a report that "somebody lit the Nielsen farm on fire again," Margot races to the house. But before she arrives, Margot spots something in the cornfield along the road. She goes in to explore and pulls out a dead girl--a dead girl wearing Margot's face.

In her sophomore novel, Power (Wilder Girls) drives the dark investigation into one family's twisted roots with strong, suspenseful writing and pitch-perfect touches of horror. Margot, emotionally battered yet determined to find out where she came from, is compellingly tough when it counts, while Gram, who both embraces Margot and keeps her at arm's length, makes a worthy foil. The growing sense that something is dreadfully wrong will keep readers plowing through the pages of this eerie and unnerving tale of empowerment. --Lynn Becker, blogger and host of Book Talk, a monthly online discussion of children's books for SCBWI

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