The Initial Insult

Two girls recall the major events that forced them apart in an intricate, duology-opening story of mystery and revenge by McGinnis (Be Not Far from Here). Seven years ago in Amontillado, Ohio, Tress Montor’s parents disappeared and her former best friend, Felicity Turnado, was found shivering by the river. Tress has lived with her grandfather in a trailer at his dodgy animal attraction ever since, and Felicity, the last to see Tress’s folks, claims to remember nothing from that night and has distanced herself from Tress—except to buy drugs. With significant nods to Edgar Allan Poe’s macabre work, everything comes to a head on Halloween night at the last party at the old Usher estate, which the town council plans to tear down. Alternating between the perspectives of Tress, Felicity, and a panther that escaped from the attraction, McGinnis succeeds in crafting an engaging tale, but the reasoning behind the girls’ taking things to extremes feels underestablished, and poetic interludes from the panther fail to cohere with the overall narrative. Ages 14–up. [em]Agent: Adriann Ranta Zurhellen, Foundry Literary. (Feb.) [/em]