To the Bone

Bruzas (Ever Since) interweaves real-life U.S. history with brutal horror elements to craft a grotesque reimagining of the founding of America set in 1609 James Fort. Teenage Ellis thought that becoming an indentured servant to the wealthy Collinses would be her ticket to freedom. Instead, she witnesses the collapse of both her employer’s family and the fledgling society they live in. Conditions within James Fort have worsened as the colonizers wage war on the Indigenous population, Master Collins is physically abusive toward Ellis and his pregnant wife, and the protections promised to Ellis by Collins seem much more tenuous than she had anticipated. When she meets Jane, the daughter of the nearby Eddowes family, she falls hopelessly in love and dreams of a future in which she owns land and can be with Jane freely. But as winter approaches and a haze of desperation and hunger descends upon James Fort, things take a turn for the worse. Meandering descriptions of Ellis’s everyday life are occasionally repetitive. Nevertheless, via first-rate prose, Bruzas seeds pockets of tenderness, warmth, and romance throughout, lending emotional weight to the unfolding horrors. An author’s note concludes. Characters are white. Ages 14–up. (Sept.)