Cherie Priest’s The Borden Dispatches Kick Off with the Lovecraftian Maplecroft
Heading our way September 2nd is Maplecroft, the first book in the new “The Borden Dispatches” series from award-winning author Cherie Priest. It offers an inventive and daring take on the story of Lizzie Borden.
Maplecroft casts the infamous axe swinger not as a murderer, but as a hero struggling to save the world from an evil that lives in the ocean depths off the shores of Massachusetts. Think Lizzie Borden with elements from H.P. Lovecraft… how can you go wrong?
Priest made a name for herself in 2009 with Boneshaker, an ingenious mix of alternate history and zombie fiction that heralded the rebirth of steampunk. Hammer acquired the rights back in November 2014, but there hasn’t been an update since the initial announcement. We’ll keep our eyes open for more on that as well as future “Dispatches.”
Synopsis:
“Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her mother forty whacks; and when she saw what she had done, she gave her father forty-one…”
The people of Fall River, Massachusetts, fear me. Perhaps rightfully so. I remain a suspect in the brutal deaths of my father and his second wife despite the verdict of innocence at my trial. With our inheritance, my sister, Emma, and I have taken up residence in Maplecroft, a mansion near the sea and far from gossip and scrutiny. But it is not far enough from the affliction that possessed my parents. Their characters, their very souls, were consumed from within by something that left malevolent entities in their place. It originates from the ocean’s depths, plaguing the populace with tides of nightmares and madness.
This evil cannot hide from me. No matter what guise it assumes, I will be waiting for it. With an axe.
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