Big Little Lies meets Alice Hoffman in a gripping debut of dark domestic suspense following four women, a town secret—and an investigation that shakes their Connecticut town to the core.Sanctuary is the perfect town…to hide a secret.When young Daniel Whitman is killed at a high-school party, the community is ripped apart. The death of Sanctuary’s star quarterback seems to be a tragic accident, … accident, but everyone knows his ex-girlfriend Harper Fenn is the daughter of a witch—and she was there when he died.VV James weaves a spellbinding tale of a town cracking into pieces and the devastating power of a mother’s love. Was Daniel’s death an accident, revenge—or something even more sinister?As accusations fly, paranoia grips the town, culminating in a witch-hunt…and the town becomes no sanctuary at all.Twisty and compelling with a dash of Practical Magic, Sanctuary is an instant Sunday Times Bestseller of murder, witchcraft, and the dark side of small towns and the secrets kept within them.
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Hard one to put down!
I received a complimentary copy. I voluntarily reviewed this book. All opinions expressed are my own.
Sanctuary
By: V. V. James
REVIEW
If you need sanctuary, don’t go to Sanctuary. I couldn’t resist! I was surprised by how hooked I was from the start. The small town happy facade has always disgusted me, and I live in this kind of town fyi. The only difference are the witches, real and regulated and helping townspeople in need.
A tragic accident and subsequent death of the town’s golden boy quarterback causes the hate and bitterness simmering just under the small town fakeout blows through the surface like hot lava from a volcano. Who killed the boy? The witch, Sarah, obviously, or her daughter, Harper (who has no powers), but is the dead boy’s ex. Don’t ask questions. Just go stone them to death, right?
This story has several narrators, and I like seeing bits and pieces and motives from unconsidered angles. Subtly and profoundly, the town shows the dark nature of its collective conscious, and it’s not pretty. How quickly these people turn on the witch who helped them. How quickly the dark buried secrets find daylight. The complexities and layers of small town life are astounding and ridiculous. People believe what they want to, such as the golden boy, dead but always golden. What if evidence to the contrary were presented? Secrets and lies tarnish the reputation of this boy, but in this case, it is possibly necessary to speak ill of the dead.
Sanctuary is an excellent example of the lies we live with. Of the lengths a mother will go to protect her child. Of the depravity we are capable of. And, how easily the masses are manipulated by rumors and long held prejudices. Honestly, just read this amazing book today!
Think Big Little Lies with a witchy twist, that’s Sanctuary!! I loved it!!
Sanctuary is about a town in Connecticut shocked by the tragic death of their most popular high school football player. How did he die? How did he break his neck? Some say he was killed by witchcraft….could that be possible? Detective Maggie Knight must solve this mystery.
The book has a lot of suspense and includes enough twist and turns to keep you turning the page. The character building is what makes this book so wonderful. You become very involved with each character and due to the description writing of V. V. James, you feel like you know and understand what the characters are thinking.
I don’t usually read stories about witches and magic because I don’t really understand reading something that can’t be real. I guess I am not much of a fantasy/paranormal kind of gal, but this book is written in a way that makes it feel believable and I believe every type of reader would enjoy the story.
I was glad I gave this book a chance and would recommend it to anyone that likes mysteries with some witchiness thrown in!!
First of all, I often read the ending of a book to see whodunnit. So after reading a few chapters to assess the situation, I scrolled to the end of Sanctuary and read the last few pages. Tucking that information into the back of my mind, I read the rest of the book in order.
Without giving spoilers, it’s hard to share much about the book. But James blew me away.
If you like playing detective, you’ll have fun trying to figure out the mystery. I am amazed at how cleverly the author plants the clues in plain sight. If I hadn’t known the ending, I would never have guessed it.
At various times, characters stumble across good but inaccurate explanations for what’s happening, or right explanations with the wrong people, or variations of these. There are lots of these moments in this book. But which one is the right one? It’s not until the end of the story that everything comes together. James spins us deeper and deeper into the story until we’re like the folks of Sanctuary, unable to escape the book, even if we wanted to.
As the story goes on, the tension grows. Relationships change. Friendships are destroyed, or were these friendships at all? Or merely mutually beneficial relationships? Or even parasitic relationships, where one feeds off the other person’s secrets and fears?
There are dozens of possibilities, and as the book progresses, the author raises the stakes over and over, developing the conflicts, and people reveal their truest selves. Stripped of their veneer of politeness, they are all capable of anything.
Whenever it seems things can’t get worse, they do. And sometimes these twists and turns come from unexpected people and in unexpected–but not unrealistic–ways. There’s a lot of truth here about human nature and what we are capable of doing, especially in the name of love. Throughout the novel, the centuries-old specter of the hanging deaths of witches looms in the background. It’s painfully easy to see how a frenzied crowd might make this horror a reality once more.
Connecticut has one exception to its ban on the death penalty: Homicide by Unnatural Means. Witchcraft. If Harper is found guilty, she will be executed; the colonial-era law does not allow for a stay of execution or a repeal of the law. Yet everyone knows that Harper, the daughter of a witch, has no magical gifts. That doesn’t stop the accusations from flying . . .
At one point, a character defines magic as the “art of doing things the crooked way, not the straight.” If so, then James works magic with her book. Nothing is straight-forward, and she takes us on a very crooked path indeed.
Recommended for anyone who loves a well-written mystery!