A review by happlepider
Nightshade by E.S. Thomson

mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

0.0

 Spoilers ahead - this book's big reveal is a lesbian murder cult, because they hate men just that much, and you should feel sorry for them, but not too much, and is filled with both lesbophobic stereotypes and a borderline racist misuse of Hindu mythology. The book's mythology is a nonsensical jumble of witches and flying ointment, maenads, and the hindu goddess Kali, which is justified in book by the murderer herself being 'mentally deranged' and confused by her own existence as mixed race and between the two worlds of white british aristocracy and the suppressed population of the Indian raj, and also a victim of incest from her father and brother, and possibly a product of incest between her father and mother as half-brother and -sister, as if mixed race people, incest victims, and lesbians don't regularly exist in real life without being 'mentally deranged' by their own life circumstances. It's fairly obvious she wanted to go for an unexpected perpetrator and a big surprise, but she really overreached herself in the attempt. Given her wholehearted jump into multiple lesbophobic stereotypes - Batsheba is predatory from the off and repeatedly drugs other women, Jem's first experience is with a woman (the other murderer) who is only pretending to be a lesbian as a ruse - it seems bizarre in hindsight that she ever chose to write a wlw main character in the first place. I was invested in the other books in the series I'd read so far, but she's definitely lost a follower through this one.