Since I enjoyed Daughters Unto Devils so much, I was excited to read another book by Amy Lukavics. This one is is not set in a historical time period, but it still involves some of the same elements as the first book. A house which contains some sort of evil presence that's not really understood, and women who lose their minds.
In fact, this book includes one of my favorite ideas in literature/literary criticism: the mad woman in the attic.
No, not that one.
The mad woman in the attic is something I've written about before; sometimes it's metaphorical and sometimes it's literal. In The Women in the Walls, Lucy's sister Margaret begins spending alot of time in the attic, insisting that she can hear her mother (who is missing, presumed dead) up there. Eventually, Lucy also begins hearing voices and starts wondering if she's going mad.
I admit that this story didn't hold my attention as consistently as Daughters; there would be some lulls in the action where I started to get annoyed at the bratty cousins. But, then something would happen that's really disturbing or grotesque, and my attention would be piqued again. Lukavics has a wonderfully twisted imagination, and she concocts some truly horrifying images in her stories.
SPOILER: There's something truly disturbing about finding a jar of old teeth.
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