Lute

Author: Jennifer Marie Thorne

Narrator (From Anyplay): Victoria Blunt

Playtime: 9hrs 27m

Publisher: MacMillan Audio

Genre: Horror, Mystery/Thriller

Publication date: October 4, 2022

Book description: On the idyllic island of Lute, every seventh summer, seven people die. No more, no less.

Lute and its inhabitants are blessed, year after year, with good weather, good health, and good fortune. They live a happy, superior life, untouched by the war that rages all around them. So it’s only fair that every seven years, on the day of the tithe, the island’s gift is honored.

Nina Treadway is new to The Day. A Florida girl by birth, she became a Lady through her marriage to Lord Treadway, whose family has long protected the island. Nina’s heard about The Day, of course. Heard about the horrific tragedies, the lives lost, but she doesn’t believe in it. It's all superstitious nonsense. Stories told to keep newcomers at bay and youngsters in line.

Then The Day begins. And it's a day of nightmares, of grief, of reckoning. But it is also a day of community. Of survival and strength. Of love, at its most pure and untamed. When The Day ends, Nina―and Lute―will never be the same.

Review:

This is an atmospheric read. This has the feeling of an unsettling folk horror story to explain duty, fear, and granting of wishes.

It features a small island that has been blessed with sparing it from deaths in the constant wars English people are forced to participate, yet there is a curse that befalls its inhabitants as well. The people experience a very comfortable life, filled with good health and free of tragedy. The other shoe drops every seventh year on the summer solstice- the sacrifice- the island takes seven lives. This cycle of seven years of peace and prosperity followed by a single day of sacrifice has occurred for centuries. As the aristocratic caretakers of the island, the Treadway family bears an especially large responsibility for maintaining this balance. The reason why they are the family in charge is not overly clear, but it was given.

It starts with Nina, an American woman who has married into the Treadway family and has been living on the island since she got married. How do you explain this curse to a newcomer? The husband being s nice cowardy bastard doe snot even try it. The people in the town all know about the solstice sacrifice. Nina, in her interactions, comes across as thoughtless and flitty as she takes the upcoming date as a festivity and the people dislike that phrasing.

Nina had a hard time assimilating to life on the island. She feels unsure in all her interactions the first reason is that people keep treating her with reverence and calling her my Lady as her husband's title requires. The second reason is that she feels judged based on her nationality. It's especially difficult due to the global political situation, where the United States has allied with Russia on the wrong side of a new world war. The author includes a very realistic feeling of the oblivious American experiencing culture clashes in aristocratic Europe.

The Solstice day is coming and everyone is getting tense as the day gets closer. Lord Thorne, quickly became an unlikeable character, he is painted in a very wrong light throughout the story getting worse as Nina discovers more about him and his and his family's history on the island. If you enjoy morally gray characters, he presents a very good example. He grapples with his personal role on this brutal day of sacrifice and he clearly chooses the most selfish option available.

One of my favorite parts of this story is seeing how the community reacts to the unavoidable tragedy. We see characters experiencing all stages of grief, culminating with the acceptance of their fate as they understand the necessity of honoring their bargain with the island. In its own perverse way, this tragic day of sacrifice both tears apart and brings together this ancient community. We see people who have lived all their lives in here born and raised to this belief and how people who marry into this culture end up accepting it as part of their reality without going mad or simply running away and never turning back.

My only negative point was the forced couple- it would have been such a hit if only it had not just shown the cliche "he treats you like an ass because he loves you". The force romance thrown here was annoying for me, it definitely brought down the enjoyment of the whole.

This is the type of book I would like to reread.

This was one of those times I pick a book at random for no reason simply because I ran out of options on my TBR. It was a nice surprise.